Sweeter Than Evil ||| Cregan Stark

ten

Rhaenyra's presence that late was shocking to Daenys as it was. But to see her look so distraught, cheeks tear-stricken, eyes red and puffy, was sobering for a very tired Daenys. It was even worse that beneath the obvious grief within Rhaenyra Daenys could see a dull numbness and shock. There was confusion and worry swirling together inside Daenys. What could possibly have her mother looking so broken and why was she going to Daenys instead of her husband? What terrible event pertained to her?

"Mother—?" Daenys said, a worried line appearing between her brows as she regarded the woman who had entered her chambers in a hurry. Rhaenyra was also careful to keep her emotions in check in front of her kids, her grief was saved for the privacy of her rooms to set a strong example for them to follow. But what Daenys saw was the first time she had ever experienced seeing her mother in such a state.

"Daenys..." Rhaenyra said slowly, carefully, as if her daughter might shatter. She approached the bed in the same way, wringing her hands in front of her. The words she said were chosen with great care when she was close enough to sit on Daenys' bed with her. "There has been an... accident."

The inflection of her words and the way she was speaking was a very clear indicator of the severity of the situation. Daenys already felt like she knew what was coming but she refused to give any validity to that notion. Her throat went dry and Daenys was silent as she waited for her mother to continue speaking, desperately hoping for the first time in her life that what she saw in her dreams wasn't to be believed.

"Ser Harwin and his father were killed at Harrenhal." Daenys was just about sure she did shatter. There was sick and bile rising in her throat, she was choking, she couldn't breathe. Daenys' eyes widened and her mouth dropped open on its own accord. "They were killed in a fire, Daenys." Rhaenyra was looking at Daenys in a way she never had before. Horror, perhaps. Because they both knew the implications of that beyond the heart-wrenching grief.

"No." The word was the only one that could dislodge itself from Daenys' throat. Her voice was broken on the word and she pulled away from her mother, feeling dizzy. She had seen it yet no one ever believed her. The one time it mattered, the one time it counted and she tried to warn Ser Harwin of his fate, she was too late. "It's my fault," Daenys whispered, shaking her head. She wanted out of her own head. To pull her brain out of her and scrub it clean of everything she had ever seen.

There was so much happening within her mind. Sick vindication that she wasn't crazy. Daenys wasn't mad, she wasn't insane or crazy. The things she saw in her dream were real and no one believed her. But that only meant every horror she witnessed and knew to be true was waiting in the future. A future the Gods cursed Daenys to see but didn't do her the courtesy of telling her when.

She had seen Ser Harwin's death. But her refusal to speak about it, her insistence that she could save him without being seen as mad, killed him. Daenys had the warning from the beginning but said nothing and it killed him. She killed him. See Harwin had always protected Daenys, had kept Rhaenyra's secrets, and taught her everything she knew on how to defend herself. Yet Daenys could not afford him the same courtesy and instead was slow to act, which meant he burned in Harrenhal just as she foresaw in her dreams.

It meant that everything else she saw and knew was real, those things would happen too. The deaths of her brothers, the dragon Aemond was yet to claim, the visions she couldn't yet decipher. Daenys wanted to wipe her hands clean of the responsibility of the lives of her family. She didn't want to see her brothers dying in her dreams anymore, did not want to have the weight of their lives forever on her shoulders. If what she saw came to fruition, it would be her fault. Daenys didn't want the very fate of her brothers to come down to her, that was a stress she didn't feel capable of handling.