ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴀʀᴋ ꜱɪꜱᴛᴇʀ - House of the Dragon

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The endless halls were suffocating me.

I had to sprint to my bedchambers, doing a poor job in trying to calm my fast breathing and paranoidly looking over my shoulder every so often.

There was a ring in my ears, a loud noise that overshadowed even the beating of my heart, that was forcing me to chew on my nails until I bled in order to remain as calm as I could. But it wasn't enough. Not when I felt as if everyone had their eyes on me, as if they were judging me, mocking me.

The memories of those times when uncle Aegon made fun of my hair flashed before my eyes. Many others were fast to follow. Ser Criston abusing me and my brothers. The knights whispering, the maids gossiping, the word bastard running around the halls as it was brought by the wild wind.

Above it all, two deep blue orbes stared at me in every corner.

Ser Harwin clicked his tongue, shook his head, sighed, moved his lips as if he was to speak. Whore, he seemed to say, enraged eyes beneath the sadness in them. Whore, as he saw two of his children bedding and loving each other behind everyone's back. Whore, whore.

The coldness of the ground welcoming my knees and hands was the only thing keeping me sane the moment I arrived at my quarters, hands pressed against it, nails scratching it, teeth chewing fiercely on my bottom lip. I knew I was to cry. The back of my eyes stung with the bothering feeling of the tears picking them, my lip quivered without my consent, and I had to violently breath in for the oxygen to enter my lungs. But I could not. I could not cry. I could not give her the satisfaction.

"Do not let them see it." Laenor had said once. "Do not let them see your tears, your weakness."

"Warriors don't cry." Daemon had said.

"I am here and I am not going anywhere." Jacaerys had said.

A loud sound bounced off the walls, a gut-wrenching noise that was born somewhere in the back of my throat and freed itself without my knowledge. I screamed and screamed and screamed a bit more until I felt my throat hurt and it closed itself, forbidding any sound to come out of it even if I tried. Somewhen in between yells, my hand had turned into fist in almost a desperate motion, and had found comfort in the stone floor beneath my knees, repeatedly going back and forth in the air until there was a crimson stain in the ground and Ser Erryk on the door was alerted.

As the knight knocked and knocked on the wood of the door, I found the strength to locked them, ignoring the concerned tone on his voice as he said my name, my title, my mother's name, Daemon's, even the King's.

I didn't care if Ser Erryk was worried. Perhaps he was scared, truly concerned for my safety. But I didn't care. I could only concentrate in the pounding of my knuckles, in the weight of my small knife in my thigh, in the voice of the back of my head begging for release.

You should stop playing with what is not yours.

My hands found the little table before the fireplace, clenched jaw and shaky, bloody fingers, and sooner than later what was atop it, laid on the floor with the wooden table turned over meters away.

My mind flew back in time, to the moment Baela said it. Not specifically to what she said or when she said it. But the look in my mother's face as she heard it, as she processed it. Her eyes had watered, her mouth had opened with surprise, her hand had flown to her stomach as if it hurt her.

She seemed disappointed, sad and even betrayed .

My heart skipped a beat, and then another. And suddenly the air got heavier and harder to breath, and I could only pray to whoever may had been listening to let me live a little longer. Just enough time to apology to my mother, to pray for her forgiveness, to see her sitting the throne.