Pawn to Queen (A House of the Dragon Fanfic)

Prologue

The ticking march of the hostile clock on the wall counted the seconds as Ash came closer to death. 

The rope dug harshly into her already bloodied skin as she waited. The grey walls left nothing to distract her from the pain that resonated across her every nerve, setting her aflame in agony. It was not her first time being tortured, it was however the first time that Ash was so close to death. 

The only sounds filling her ears were the steady drips of her blood falling like rain on the cement ground and the march of that obnoxious god-damned clock. 

Ash could feel it... her death approaching. She saw it coming like a boat approaching over the horizon. This was always how it was going to end. 

She had always been a pon in the dangerous game of politics.

Her mother was a prostitute who sold her off to Mr. Minos when she was two. From there she was trained in how to play the game. 

She knew just what to say to get someone to love her. She knew how to phrase the perfect question to gain information. She knew how to touch a man or woman so well they would do anything she said. 

She committed godless atrocities just like Mr. Minos said, just like the other girls. 

Memories flooded back as she thought about her life. It seemed fitting for a re-cap seeing it was about to end. 

Her first job, she was nine and had to seduce a governor with a taste for pretty little girls. 

That had always been her greatest weapon. Ash was just too pretty. Black onyx hair flowed like shadows down her back. Bright blue eyes that displayed any emotion she wanted them to see. Mr. Minos taught her to use her beauty, navigate a room and give them whatever character they wanted to see. 

Men would always underestimate a pretty woman. 

That's why she always beat them. 

She remembered the first time she killed someone, the daughter of a French diplomat who begged to live. 

She remembered following every order, moving each square as told. 

She was a pretty girl with blood on her hands and skeletons in her closet, but she had one lesson she was still too naive to realize.

Beauty is dangerous but ambition is lethal. 

And ambition is what got her ass sat in this small grey room, bleeding her life away to the beat of that stupid fucking clock.

She was a pon in a game that wasn't hers. At twenty years old Ash would disappear and be replaced as if nothing happened at all. 

She knew the game, she played the game, and now she lost the game. 

The door slammed open as Mr. Minos walked in, his cane echoing off the floor. His sharp, cruel brown eyes looked at the little girl he shaped as he stood in front of her, a pistol loosely gripped in his left hand. 

"Ash... Sorry, it had to end like this, but you know how it is..." His gravelly Colombian accent filled the room, blocking out the quiet for just a moment.

She did, she did know how it was. 

She had killed a yakuza lord's son and now he was willing to pay Mr. Minos for her head. Mr. Minos always loved a deal and right now she was worth more dead than alive. 

Beauty is dangerous but ambition is lethal.

She was beauty and He was ambition, ambition always won. 

He lifted the gun, pointing it directly in between her swollen eyes.

"Saluda al diablo de mi parte" He said as he waited. 

"Mírate en el espejo" She responded. 

With one loud BANG, everything went black. 

"From ash to flame... this time...Try to win the game."

"Push! Your majesty, I see the head you must push!" A male voice barked as the screams of agony shot through the room like a crack of lightning. 

Fear filled the Queen, begging the old gods and the new that this child would survive after so many failures. 

With one final roar, the babe was free from her womb and a war cry erupted from the young babe, startling the maester a bit. 

"A girl, your majesty. A young princess healthy and kicking like a goat." He said cutting the cord and handing the babe to her mother. 

Queen Aemma sobbed with relief as she held the small child. Little wisps of white hair shone like a crown on the princess' head. 

King Viserys barged into the room checking on his wife and smiling at his new daughter. A part of him ached at the failure to produce a son but as he looked down at the gorgeous violet-eyed princess he could not find it in himself to truly be disappointed. 

Rhaenera would finally have a little sibling and they could always try again. 

"Rytsas issa tala" (Hello, my daughter) The king smiled as he held his baby girl in his arms. 

A nine-year-old Rhaenerya crept up to her father as she looked at her little sister. Smiling as the babe wiggled around. 

"What's her name?" The first princess asked grinning like a mad woman. 

"Princess Daenyra Targaryen," Viserys answered as the baby looked up at him seeming to answer to her name. 

The game began anew, but this time she would not be Ash, the pon with no family name. She would play a queen, Daenyra Targaryen.