Embers in the Sand || Book I

iv.venomous tongue

————————————"Such eyes... such darkness... Why had the gods done this?" Elia was caught off guard by the bluntness, her practiced courtly smile dimming into a slight frown.

Elia could see it now; it wouldn't matter if she played the fool. She knew. She knew, and she did not understand why.

"How I wished for their blood to soak my sword, for my bloodied hands to wipe your tears." Fury gripped Elia's panicked thoughts, her vision blurring with frustrated tears. "But then what? It would not convince the gods to give my children back. It would not breathe life into them once more. Even if I slept with the rotting skulls of those who wronged me, it would not appease the grief within my heart."

"I—"

"Enough! You Targaryens have done enough. After all, we are only ants at your feet."

"Your children were Targaryen too, Aegon and Rhae—"

"Do not utter their names!" Elia's voice trembled with a fierce command. "You have no right to speak of them. They may share your namesake, but before they were the blood of the dragon... they were mine. And now, they are gone."

Elia had dreamed of her children again.

She was cast back to those painful memories each night in the world of dreams—her sweet Rhaenys, full of laughter, and Aegon swaddled in her arms. Every time it felt eternal, her heart breaking anew as their ghosts slipped through her fingers like sand. Stepping foot into this gods-forsaken capital stirred only bitter memories, haunting reminders of the life she had lost.

She had never been given the luxury of grief. There was no time to tear herself apart as she had so desperately wanted, to lock herself away from the world. That had always been beyond her, even before the fall. Duty to her house, duty to her kin. And now, to the past.

The cold of the capital seeped into more than just the air. It was in the eyes of the other handmaidens. Those who served in Rhaenys's retinue did not bother to hide their discomfort around her, their delicate smiles never reaching their eyes. They whispered when she passed, their gazes averted, as if her presence insulted their Valyrian blood. Her Dornish heritage stained her here just as it had centuries later when she had married into the Targaryen line. Only now, the slights were subtler, cutting deeper in their quiet cruelty. She was not one of them, and they made sure she knew it.

Rhaenys, too, had her ways of reminding her. Never overtly cruel, her words still held a sharpness that wounded far worse than a blade. *"Elia,"* she would say, her voice saccharine and soft, *"mayhaps this is not a task for you. Our customs might be... unfamiliar."* A smile always followed, so practiced, so cold. And Elia, ever silent, would bow her head, bite her tongue, and endure.

How easy it would be to poison them all—one by one, slowly, methodically. Let Westeros burn, she thought. It had done nothing but take from her, hurt her in ways that could never heal. She could walk away from the ashes, but she wouldn't. She couldn't.

Elia was too kind. That was her curse, her weakness. She had paid dearly for it, perhaps too much. There had been chances—temptations. The chance to swap her Aegon for another child, to steal Rhaenys away from the madness. And yet, she had done nothing.

Perhaps that made her a coward. Or perhaps it revealed her worst fear—that she had never truly been a mother at all. What kind of mother let her babes be slaughtered while she lived on? They had pulled her back from death's door twice, and she had done nothing. It was Rhaegar she should have hated, but in truth, it was herself.

Her heart had grown cold, her mind trapped in an endless cycle of failure and regret. She had failed her children, and now their blood was on her hands. A lioness would have fought to the end. A trout would have leaped into the depths with her child. But a viper—she had waited. She had believed fate might be kind.