"This was always going to happen. She's been dead since the beginning."
- Aeschylus
It is a child's dream to outwit fate, to somehow escape the great ending that awaits us all.
But Orianne Fernwood would burn the world if it meant a moment longer w...
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For three moons, Harrenhal loomed like an ill omen on the horizon of their lives, its melted towers and crumbling facade giving shape to Orianne's deepest terrors and nightmares.
It did not matter how many times she reminded herself that it was just a tourney, and better yet a chance to see her family and friends who she had been separated from for nigh on a year. It should have brought her joy and relief, but that choking sensation of dread still wrapped its barbed tendrils around her stomach and squeezed until Orianne was left heaving and sweating from its power.
She had never before been so entombed by her anxiety and fear, but so much had changed in the year she had been gone; she had changed.
There were the noticeable differences, the ones she could sit in front of a looking glass and categorize with ease and little thought. She had grown older, her hair reached closer to the ground, and Orianne could sense her body begin to take shape in a way it hadn't before. The physical changes were easy; they were expected. She knew they were coming, just as she had known her entire life. Her mother, long before when Orianne was just a little girl too ready to be grown, had explained to her all the ways she would bloom and change once she reached her majority.
But it was the shifts from within her that Orianne was unsure about.
She was steadier, bolder in some ways, and quieter in others. The confidence she had boasted in the North somehow felt steadier, as if she had grown into a cloak that had once been too long. Since her mother died, Orianne had been the woman of the house. She had taken over her mother's duties, done her best to emulate Zephyra Fernwood when sickness and time took her from them. But it always felt off, just like when she used to wear her mother's dresses as a child, little more than a babe dreaming of being something she was not. The skirts were too long, and the sleeves hung low; she would trip and stumble under the weight of the fabric, not yet ready to bear the brunt of adulthood.
Yet that feeling had started to fade; Elia had instilled something stronger within Orianne without even trying. She stood a little taller, head held higher, armed with the knowledge that she was worthy and capable and could face whatever trial life threw her way.
There was a newfound strength, but Orianne was not blind to the fragility of it.
Arthur Dayne stood out like a dark spot in her mind, even if he was the brightest flame in her chest, the smoke of their affection clouded her mind and left her choking on the fumes.
How she hated to think of him so, not when he was kind and loving and tender. Not when the very sight of him filled Orianne with heat and longing, like the sun had risen within her chest and was bursting at the seams of her body, so bright and shining that it rivaled even the most brilliant of stars.
And that feeling, that love --his love, had changed her.
She wondered if her family would notice the difference, what felt like night and day to Orianne but might be invisible to her relations.
