Strings of Silk / Aemond Targaryen

The Lost Hour

Aemond spoke of the war for Dorne, how Aegon, Rhaenys, and Visenya had attempted to give battle, but the Dornish evaded them.

They were met with empty towns and hollow keeps and could not secure a victory. Finally, Aegon's sister-wife Rhaenys flew to Sunspear on her dragon Meraxes. She met the princess, Meria Martell, the Yellow Toad, who defied her.

"We will come again, Princess, and the next time we shall come with fire and blood, "said Queen Rhaenys.

And Meria recited her house words: 'Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken'. "You will not bend us, break us, or make us bow," she said. "This is Dorne. You are not wanted here. Return at your peril.

The war raged on for nine years. The lords and the people gave fight though their keeps and towns were leveled with dragonfire.

"She would have burned every one of them," I whispered.

"What?" Aemond turned from the book and his gaze sharpened.

"She flew to a land that was not her own, and offered them death, dragonfire."

He smiled indolently, his face glowing with sunlight or perhaps pleasure. "Yes, that is rather our way."

I looked up at him. He knew so much more than me, and it baffled me that he could not see it. "You think she should have submitted?"

"If she had any sense. Her land was burned from the Torrentine mountains to Sunspear, her people decimated. It was foolish pride."

I nodded, slowly, troubled. "But would that all stop, once they gave Aegon what he wanted?" I thought of our own lands, how we shuddered under the threat of dragons, all because the Targaryens would war with each other. The Dornish could watch our troubles from their sunny vista, or join if offerings were choice enough.

He hummed, and bit into a slice of pear. "So do you take the part of your mother's homeland, or are you preparing for your betrothed?"

"Neither," I said, turning. I found myself growing needlessly fierce. "It's not right, I think. To threaten to destroy something if it isn't given to you, like a spoiled child. They had a right to their home."

"Even in death? Even if innocents burned?"

Such talk of innocents irritated me. "The Martells kept up the war, it is true. But it was the people who struck from the shadows," I insisted.

"Like cowards." His mouth grew firm.

I was going too far. I knew it and yet I laughed. "What else could they do, against dragons? They had every reason to seek their freedom, even in the fire."

He peered at me curiously, and turned his head. I had spoken too boldly. I had angered him.

"I had not-" he said. He shook his head, breaking into a wry smile. "It may surprise you that the books my ancestors commissioned and the scholars I pay are not wont to speak against the Targaryens."

I gasped. "Your Highness, I never meant-"

"I know," he said, looking away. His lips curved as he sucked juice from his finger. "It's... new." A songbird trilled across the yard and he craned his head toward the keep. I watched him carefully.

He closed the volume and placed it in my lap. It was so heavy that I lurched forward. "I wish you to read this...when you can. But it's a rare volume." His voice grew mockingly stern. "You must promise not to blot out all the words in your fury."

I looked down, blushing.

"Another Nymeria," he said, arching his brow. He lifted a second book, thin and simple. "Now, I have played my part. You must read something for me."