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CHAPTER FOUR. ━━━━━━━━━ If suddenly you do not exist, if suddenly you are not living, I shall go on living. I do not dare to write it, if you die, I shall go on living.
PABLO NERUDA, THE DEAD WOMAN ━━━━━━━━━
MOTHERS ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO have favourites but Mariah was always hers. When the Lady Loreza had died, Mariah had been merely nearing her fifteenth nameday. A child-woman, nothing more and nothing less.
It is when the ruler of Dorne becomes sick that Mariah knows it can be a secret no longer. She knows that now is the moment she must be brave though this one time it doesn't come naturally to her at all. She rushes to her ladymother, desperate, to beg, please, pleaseyou cannot leave me now!
The tiny bump is still unnoticeable under the soft fabric of her gowns, but the life is growing inside her.
Lady Loreza strikes her across the face, when Mariah whispers of a lost maidenhood.
Mariah holds her cheek and stares, and she isn't sure if she or her mother is more surprised; the Lady of Sunspear has never hit her before—and she cannot even cry, she will not cry, she is a Martell, and she will be strong even though she wants to run and hide.
Her mother's jaw trembles, and she does not know whether from rage or regret. "Oh, sweetling," She says, and her voice is raw as she rubs her face wearily. "Do you know what you've done?"
Mariah Martell understands her duty. She cannot shame her family with a baseborn child. The Dornish may be free with their bodies, yet a Princess of Sunspear is not. So she drinks the moontea the measter prepares with long gulps.
Gods save me, she would think years later in her prayers, forgive me.
Her belly cramps as she bleeds out the only thing in the world that had been hers alone, and she pleads sickness and keeps to her chamber for the week. Her sister comes to sit with her, and Elia's hand is gentle on her hair as she brushes it off her fevered brow with a soothing touch.
"Mother said you were unwell," Elia says, her voice so sweet, and Mariah is struck with an almost painful desire to press her face to her sister's skirts and weep herself dry.
"An ache in my belly only," She responds dully. It is not the first secret she keeps from her sister because she knows that Elia would never understand, could never understand. Her blood flows red for the love Mariah bears her siblings but Elia is a stranger to recklessness, her delicate health had forbidden any risks. But she curls her fingers in her sister's skirts regardless, lifting her head to rest it upon Elia's knee, the way she did when she was a mere child and Elia would braid her hair. "Don't leave," She pleads quietly, and she lets Elia's fingers against her forehead lull her to sleep.
