green lies, black hearts

XXVII

a/n - thank you all for reading! thank you all for your patience and for being such lovely readers :) here's the team black chapter version of XXVI

- mint

TW: pls note there is a stillbirth in this chapter. I didn't go heavily into detail but read with caution, and note there is traumatic birth. take care of yourselves :)

~+~

The Black Queen

"There you are!"

Luke ripped his hand away from the carved table, fingers itching to return to the place that filled him with so much uncertainty-Driftmark. His. It would be his-all of High Tide and the carved driftwood throne that his grandfather once sat on. A throne that would be his one day, as dictated by his grandfather for all to know and hear. But Luke didn't feel like he could sit that throne. He didn't think he should.

His mother approached, hands folded over her swollen stomach, and she levied him a warm smile. One he couldn't return even if he tried.

"The Sea Snake is going to die," he asked, "isn't he?"

Rhaenyra's smile fell, pity shining in her purple eyes, and she sighed, "Luke-"

"I can't be Lord of the Tides!" How freeing it was to say that. To finally admit something he held onto ever since he knew that he would become the heir to Driftmark. For even as a child, he had pushed back against the idea. But he kept his tongue and minded it well. He couldn't any longer-death loomed over him. "Grandfather was the greatest sailor who ever lived! I get...I get greensick before the ship even leaves the harbor!" He picked at the hem of his vest. "I'll just ruin everything!"

He would. Of course he would.

(Rhaenyra felt her heart break just a little. A crack erupting through it, and not quite caving in, but aching all the same.)

"I don't want Driftmark." He told himself he meant it. "Jace will one day be king. Shaera, a" -he swept his hand in the air, nodding towards Dorne- "Princess of Dorne." He didn't want her to be. He knew she didn't either, but no missive had flown back. No uncle of theirs had come to heal her. In Luke's mind, that was as good an answer as any, and it made bitterness crawl onto his tongue. "Give Driftmark wholly to Rhaena. Or Joffrey even! Just...just not me, mother. Anyone but me."

"We don't choose our destiny, Luke," his mother said firmly, "it chooses us."

"Grandfather let you choose whether you'd be his heir. You told us so."

Rhaenyra trailed her fingers across the table, rounding the easternmost point of Dorne but keeping her eyes solely on her second son. "And do you want to know the truth of it?"

(She would; give him the truth. How long had it been since she actually gave someone one of those other than Daemon?)

"I was frightened." Her voice was softer. Gentler. Just like her eyes with Luke wished he shared. "I was just a child, same as you are now," she said with a teasing lilt. "I wasn't ready to be Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. But...it was my duty. And, in time, I came to learn that I had to earn my inheritance."

Luke pursed his lips and looked down again at Driftmark. The driftwood throne was hardly the same as one built from the swords of Aegon's enemies. And Luke wasn't Rhaenyra. He wasn't the same person. He couldn't do all that she did, all that she told them about.

"I'm not like you," he whispered.

Rhaenyra wore a small smile. "In what way, my sweet boy?"

"I'm not so" -he glanced around the room, searching for something and nothing, searching for a word to describe how exactly he saw his mother- "perfect."