green lies, black hearts

XL

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who's a heretic now?

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a/n - thank you all for your patience! Your comments and votes and general support keeps me going! Ramadan went well, and then April hit me like a truck. I had a lot going on in my life, and I'm still trying to get to a point where I'm happy. Being disabled sucks sometimes I fear!

anyway thank you all for sticking with me as we hit 450k+ words on this fic! this chapter is nearly 18k words, so buckle in. It's a long one, and it took a lot out of me to write for many reasons. Cmon, it's Rook's Rest!

anyway, I hope y'all enjoy! bad decisions are made. divas are down (and up!). Gothic Shaemond commences (I know that's what you sickos are here for... I am too LMAO). Apologies as always for any mistakes :)

- mint <3

ps listen to which witch and girl with one eye for this chapter ;)

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Shaera

Shaera sprinkled a handful of dirt over the burial mound of Sers Erryk and Arryk Cargyll. Waves lapped at the shore, and dragons called out with trills and chirps. She paid them no mind, and neither did Nūmio. Instead, she knelt to the sandy earth, and she lowered her face to the mound. There was no sense to it. She simply did as her heart called for her to, and she pressed her forehead into the dirt with shut eyes.

"May your gods honor you both for your loyalty, sers," she whispered, "and may you be reunited in your rest."

Shaera swallowed thickly and leaned back, resting her weight on her calves and heels, and she wiped the dirt from her face. Her eyes burned. Her eyes burned, and she could feel the tears coming on. Perhaps not for Ser Arryk, though she did not necessarily fault him for simply adhering to the oath he swore as a young man. But she certainly wished to cry for Ser Erryk, for the man who had helped her, who had risked his life to serve her mother and deliver the crown of Jaehaerys to her. Shaera wished to cry for such a kind and just man, because she feared there would be so few left if the fighting continued as it was.

She mourned the good men and women who would die if her mother did not sit the throne.

(How many would die? Not even a dreamer such as Helaena Targaryen could be certain. But she had seen many deaths.

Perhaps even her own.)

"Thank you for your kindness, Ser Erryk," she said through tears. "I shan't forget it, not even in mine own death."

Shaera wasn't sure if the dead could hear such words spoken, whether over a grave, or a pyre, or to statues of a god's seven facets. She wasn't sure if there even were any gods above men. Surely no gods would allow such horror to fester. They couldn't. At least, that was what she told herself as she stood up and wiped down her riding leathers. At least then maybe she could feel a bit better about the men who were likely to die at her grandmother's and dragon's whim. A necessity, but a horror all the same.

No gods could allow that.

(And if there were any, Shaera feared the retribution that would smite them all.)

Nūmio chirped at Shaera, shaking his pearlescent grey body and wings out, and she smiled. He was ready to fly, she knew that well like she knew her own heart-and though she did not trust her body right now with the infection that festered inside of her womb, she trusted Nūmio. She entrusted him always. Even through their deaths, she would cling to him, and she often thought it madness that she had gone her entire life with a hole in her heart and almost accepted it. Now? Now, she could not imagine a life without Nūmio, and she didn't want to.