The Red Snow Crown

Chapter 2

A child does things to your body, your marriage, and your heart. I had always enjoyed seeing my body change even delighted in the wrinkles from lack of sleep.

Then one child changed all that. One child made me feel ugly and old. I counted the lines of my face. I worried over the skin that seemed to never go back to the way it was. It changed not only who I was to myself but also to others. I wasn't good enough, beautiful enough, or young enough.

Here was a beautiful baby boy with dark hair and expressive eyes and all I could feel for him was hate. I hated what he represented, how he turned my life inside out so quickly.

My husband knew what he had done, expressed remorse when he should but it had damaged a piece of me I would never find again.

We visited King's landing for the unveiling of Robert's third child, a daughter so fair and a smattering of light curls that framed her cherub face. Cersei stared at me with her condescending glare as if Robert didn't have bastards all over the city. It made me sick. I felt stupid beneath her gaze which was the worst thing Ned could have ever done.

Then a man entertained me while Robert and Ned went hunting. He wasn't as handsome as my husband but he made me forget my failings. I remembered the fire in me and my wit. My skin firmed beneath his hands. I healed myself with his shallow words and empty touches. I remembered what it was like to be young and make mistakes. That lust is not always love and that sometimes two wrongs can make some things feel right.

I am not simple or noble. I am a woman of many faults and moods. My eldest daughter is mine and mine only. She wasn't born of love but of healing from a woman who had to crawl her way back to her family. She will have my resilience and strength. She will have a woman's intuition of knowing when things must end and when to go on. She will sense things for what they are only after she's been hurt. We all must have the naïveté stripped from us.

I fight a battle every day against the son of my husband not because of who he is but because of what he is. I see in him someone who will surpass some of my children. I see in him everything good of Ned and I can't help but feel that he stole it from me. I can often remind myself of my own mistake until it's clear that Ned loved that boys mother and that scars me deeper than any wrinkle ever could.