The Dragon's Legacy

Chapter Seventy-Three

Aerea took a deep breath as she hid away from her her mother as she slowly got outside of her chamber and walked away as she gently caressed her large belly.

As her mother's footsteps faded away, Aerea snuck into the chamber of her mother and her stepfather's chamber... Into her agonies's chamber, and closed the door of the chamber behind her back.

Aerea first looked around

Her mother and stepfather's chamber was a large one, perhaps the largest in the whole of Dragonstone. That bedroom belonged to every lord of Dragonstone. From the time of Aenar the Exile to our ancestor, Aegon the Conqueror. Rhaella had said in one of her boring studies.

A large bed with two cradles ahead of the bed made it obvious that they were ready for her new siblings to come. Another set of twins... It was filled with furniture, in the shapes of Dragons, Wyverns, demons, minotaurs, and other creatures.

Aerea calmly walked to the joined cradles and looked at its gold-made structure. A cradle with no dragon egg in it is no suited cradle for a Targaryen she thought to herself arrogantly Perhaps I will show them the courtesy of finding dragon eggs for them...

But then she shook her head.

This is not why she came here...

And with that, Aerea's deep violet eyes began to search the walls of the chamber.

There were drawings and portraits of Dragons and humans procreating, a few small statues that hung from the wall...

...And there was the portrait that had bothered her since her last exchange with Lana. Hanging over the wall that face the large bed, over a large desk where her mother would sit, and on it a... journal.

The mystery woman.

Her portrait was not large and by the small stains on the corners of it made it obvious that the portrait was old but very cared for.

As if it was the most prized possession in the whole of the chamber.

The mysterious woman in the portrait was beautiful and graceful. She bore deep bottle green eyes, high cheekbones, and a sharp chin. The woman was certainly strikingly beautiful. Despite not bearing Valyrian blood, her beauty matched, if not suppressed, her mother's and grandmother's beauty. Her long black raven hair fell behind her exposed collar bones onto her elegant green dress as she wore emerald earrings and a painfully familiar emerald necklace...

She knew she had seen that necklace elsewhere... But another thing bothered her beyond measure. It was her face that bothered her... She looked like, nay, she mirrored... Rhaella.

The woman mirrored her.

Why? How? How could it be? Questions that were nails that were being piled into her head... and yet no answers.

Aerea once again looked at the necklace around the woman's neck. She knew that necklace. Her mother wore that necklace every day no matter she was at a feast, celebration or simply attending to her duty. She wore it.

Why was the mystery woman wearing her mother's necklace? Who was she to her to entrust such a treasure to her?

Aerea's hand went to the portrait, and she slowly picked the portrait off of the wall, hoping her shaky arms would not drop the portrait. Aerea softly turned the portrait around and looked at the small description written at the bottom of the portrait.

Ceryse Hightower, Aegonfort

Ceryse Hightower. Lady wife to Uncle Maegor... Mother to her stepfather.