Song for this chapter: Maria Mena - Just Hold Me
"Rhaenys, go! Please, darling, you have to go!"
"Mommy, no! I don't want to leave!"
The little princess could hear the sounds of combat getting closer and closer.
"Listen to me Rhaenys." Her mother put her hands on her shoulders. "The bad people will come. I can't leave, but you can. Go, before they get you."
Rhaenys didn't understand. They had done nothing wrong, why did the bad people want to hurt them?
Uncle Jon had come and taken little Aegon a few minutes ago. They'd left another baby in his place. He did look a bit like her brother, all babes looked like each other, after all, but Rhanys knew it wasn't him.
Their mother didn't want to let Aegon go, just like she didn't want to let Rhaenys go, but it was the only was to keep them alive. The little princess knew that, even if she didn't want to believe it was the only way.
Princess Elia went to her daughter's bed chamber. Rhaenys didn't follow her, she watched the little "Aegon". He was blond, his hair almost white, with blue eyes. Aegon's eyes were purple though, like Rhaenys's and their father's. Purple eyes means blood of the dragon. That's what daddy used to say. She'd have to remember that.
Her mother came back and sat beside her. The door to the princess's door was closed. Her mother had brought her warm clothes and boots.
"What about Miranda?" asked the little princess.
Miranda was her friend, they often played together. She was shy and scared of everything, and maybe a bit spoiled, so Rhaenys didn't like her very much, but she was her friend nonetheless. Sometimes they would share a bed.
"She'll be alright." her mother assured her. And Rhaenys believed her.
She put on the clothes her mother had brought her. Warm underclothes, wool breeches and tunic and a fur cloak, all in shades of grey and brown. Elia put the princess's long hair in a braid that she tucked inside a woolen hat.
Finally, she slung a heavy brown sack across her back. Rhaenys knew what it contained; some food, a flagon of water, one more cloak -one of her father's, black with a red three-headed dragon-, a dagger and two swords. She didn't understand why she had to take the swords, but her mother had said they were important. Another thing she'd have to remember.
When she was ready, her mother pulled her in for a long embrace. Tears tickled down Rhaenys's cheeks. Her mother was crying too.
"I love you, okay? No matter what, I will always love you." her mother told her when she let go, looking straight into her daughter's eyes.
"I love you, mommy."
With a final glance to her mother, she headed to the window. She'd climbed down that wall dozens of times. Smoke has started coming out of her bed chamber's window, which made it hard to see, she realized, though, she had no problem breathing. As she reached the bottom of the wall, she heard voices coming from the room her mother was; a man's voice and Princess Elia's. Then screams, then silence. She made herself run away from there. Tears were blurring her vision and she didn't know where she was going, yet she kept running. After a while, she reached a wall with a door. Breathless from running, she pushed the door.
When it opened, she saw a man on the other side. She almost ran, but she saw the man's face.
"Uncle Jon!" She threw herself in his arms. Her father's best friend lifted her up and kissed her head.
"It's alright, little princess. You're safe now."
They made their way through Maegor's Holdfast unnoticed. Rhaenys could hear shouts and the sound of steal on steel. Occasionally, she even heard screams. They saw men, but nobody saw them. Uncle Jon took her out of Maegor's, to a small inn somewhere in the city. Three armed men were waiting for them there, with an ox cart and a horse.
Without any words, the men got on the ox cart when the lord and the princess came; two at the front and one at the back with Rhaenys and Aegon. Lord Connigton got on the horse. The little princess was relieved to be with her brother. There were many people leaving the city through the Old Gate, so they didn't make a difference. They looked like three common men and a hedge knight leaving the city with a little girl and a babe. Not three of Prince Rhaegar's knights leaving the city with the exiled former Lord Hand, the royal princess and the heir to the Iron Throne.
They drove in the kingsroad throughout the night and half the next day. At midday, men and animals were too tired to go forward, so they made camp in the woods and slept. They continued when nightfall came and so it went on, every day. Sometimes they ate from the provisions they had, sometimes one of the knights would go hunting and return with a rabbit or a squirrel. They thought little Aegon would pose a problem, but he had teeth enough to eat whatever they gave him and he almost never cried. Passing the Trident and the Neck would have been a great problem too, if not for all the people leaving King's Landing and the crownlands.
North of the Neck the travelers were much fewer, but they were there, and Jon Connigton was grateful for that. He wished they could take the little princess with them across the Narrow Sea, but he knew it would be too dangerous. He had to trust Rhaegar's words, it was the least he could do for his dear friend. "She's not just blood of the dragon, Jon." his prince had told him "She is the dragon."
