The Dragon's Legacy

Chapter Eighty-Six

The winds howled against the stone walls of Dragonstone, rattling through the ancient fortress with a force that seemed almost unnatural. Rhaena Targaryen stood by the window, her sharp violet eyes scanning the darkened skies. A storm was coming, but it wasn't the weather she feared.

Not today.

She and Daemion had spent nearly two weeks in Oldtown with Rhaella after her wedding to Lyle Hightower, watching their once little girl becoming the Lady of Oldtown, only to return home only for Dreamfyre and Modread's dragon eggs to be stolen.

Now it was over three weeks since Daemion had left for Kingslanding and she wanted him more than ever as she could too feel it in her heart that his beloved longed for her as well.

Her fingers tightened around the edge of her gown, silk embroidered with dragons in silver and black—the colors of her house, the colors of her blood. She had always found solace in the thunder, in the wild power of the storms that tore through the Narrow Sea. But tonight, something was amiss.

With each whisper of death of a new innocent creeping through the halls, she felt the weight of her Daemion's absence, like a blade pressed against her throat, threatening to slit her throat at any given moment.

Rhaena's eyes flicked to the bed where her twins, Vallar and Visenya, lay fast asleep. Earlier Vallar and Visenya were playing in front of the hearth, oblivious to the tension that twisted their mother's gut into knots. Vallar, with his wild silver hair, was trying to teach his sister how to mimic a dragon's roar. Visenya, always more serious, had a look of concentration furrowing on her brow as she attempted to match his growl.

Their faces were peaceful, but she could feel the tension in her own chest, the primal need to keep them close.

They were her world, hers to protect. A mother's love was a cruel thing, possessive, fierce. She would burn the world for them if she had to. She would have burnt Dragontone until the murderer was nothing but Ashe.

"My Princess... I can stay here all night, every night. But you need sleep as well as the young Prince and Princess." Lana, who calmly tucked herself on the chair on the other side of the twin's bed said softly as she looked at Rhaena.

"They are my babes, Lana. I will never leave them be. Not even when they are grown as old as I and Daemion are. I did that with Aerea and I lost her to Black Dread, I will not do the same with my Vallar and Visenya." Rhaena said but she left whatever else that was on her mind unfinished as the door of the chamber cracked open...

... And with it Sly entered. His hulking frame took up more space than seemed possible in the narrow doorway. Dark-skinned, his bald head gleamed in the candlelight, his broad shoulders carrying an air of authority that Rhaena found comforting. She had trusted him from the moment Daemion brought him into their lives. A man of few words, Sly's loyalty was as unshakable as the mountains of Dragonstone itself.

"Mistress..." he rumbled, his deep voice cutting through the silence. "...Two more are dead."

Rhaena's jaw tightened as she looked Sly from Lana. "And still no sign of disease?" Her voice was a whip, sharp and biting, though she did not mean it to be. Her own frustration seeped through her tone, the helplessness that lurked beneath the surface. She hated feeling powerless.

Sly shook his head, his orange mustache twitching. "No fever. No sores. Just... dead. Their lips redder than blood and their face pale..."

"I can smell that you are withholding something from me, Sly. Say it." Rhaena said lowly. "Speak to me as you would speak to Daemion. These are my children, damn you. If harm falls to a single hair of theirs I will– You do not wish to know what I will do."