"STRIKING A ROYAL IS A PUNISHABLE OFFENSE"
"YET HERE I AM READY TO LOSE MY HAND FOR IT"
A ROYAL PRINCE
FINDS HIMSELF
INTRIGUED BY
THE EVERYDAY RUSTICS.
{AEGON II X OC}
HOTD S1-???
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CHAPTER THREE
A CROWN FOR A KING
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UNEASE HUNG IN THE AIR as the coronation bells rang out.
The morning of a King's coronation was typically a cause of celebration, but this was no ordinary coronation.
Instead three girls were sitting in the shop of a seamstress waiting for a blow they weren't sure would come.
Dark circles stained the undereyes of Reyna, Lacey, and Ivy, each burdened from a lack of sleep.
Most of the night had been spent waiting with bated breath for the Gold Cloaks or Kingsguard to knock on their door and take their heads.
Ser Criston seemed to have kept his word. For the most part.
The manse beside the shop was still smoldering.
"They burned us out," Lacey had spat as she'd crawled through the window, soot and ash decorating her porcelain skin. "Lady Misery was nowhere to be found."
And she wouldn't be, Reyna mused, taking another gulp of ale.
If the White Worm knew what was good for her, she would have fled the city long before they smoked her and her spiders out.
And now Lacey was under the thumb of a new Madame.
A woman from the Westerlands named Malina, and while she was Westerosi, it didn't make her any less miserable.
As for Ivy, she was half-asleep on three new dresses she'd made overnight. A nobleman had promised her more than a week's wages of gold dragons if she managed to deliver three new garments for his wife and two daughters for the coronation.
In dire need for money, she'd agreed.
Promised to a blacksmith, Ivy needed to save as much as she could if she wished to be married before winter. So she'd slaved the night away, Reyna and Lacey stepping into help whenever they could.
All of them knew how to work with a needle on some level, but their stitches weren't as neat as Ivy's. Several kirtles had to be sewn together before the bells of the church chimed, all delivered to the noble house before the wheelhouse left the Red Keep.
It wouldn't do to look like a commoner the day the King was crowned.
Reyna narrowed her eyes at the brocade and chiffon they were stitching together, knowing the noble family would wear it once and then it would rot in a chest never to be worn again. She wondered what it would take for her to finally be able to wear such finery without dirt or blood or sewage staining it.
