Fire & Blood (A Targaryen History #1) - George R.R. Martin Page 0,106

any child could wish for, the Mother Above, and you are to thank for her.”

Departing Oldtown, Dreamfyre took the queen northward, first to Highgarden, then to Crakehall and Casterly Rock, whose lords had welcomed her in days gone by. Nowhere had a dragon been seen, save for her own; not even a whisper of Princess Aerea had been heard. Thence Rhaena returned to Fair Isle, to face Lord Franklyn Farman once again. The years had not made his lordship any fonder of the queen, nor any wiser in how he chose to speak to her. “I had hoped my lady sister might come home to do her duty once she fled from you,” Lord Franklyn said, “but we have had no word of her, nor of your daughter. I cannot claim to know the princess, but I would say she is well rid of you, as was Fair Isle. If she turns up here we shall see her off, just as we did her mother.”

“You do not know Aerea, that much is true,” Her Grace responded. “If she does indeed find her way to these shores, my lord, you may find she is not as forbearing as her mother. Oh, and I wish you luck if you should try to ‘see off’ the Black Dread. Balerion quite enjoyed your brother, by now he may desire another course.”

After Fair Isle, history loses track of Rhaena Targaryen. She would not return to King’s Landing or Dragonstone for the rest of the year, nor present herself at the seat of any lord in the Seven Kingdoms. We have fragmentary reports of Dreamfyre being seen as far north as the barrowlands and the banks of the Fever River, and as far south as the Red Mountains of Dorne and the canyons of the Torrentine. Shunning castles and cities, Rhaena and her dragon were glimpsed flying over the Fingers and the Mountains of the Moon, the misty green forests of Cape Wrath, the Shield Islands, and the Arbor…but nowhere did she seek out human company. Instead she sought the wild, lonely places, windswept moors and grassy plains and dismal swamps, cliffs and crags and mountain glens. Was she still hunting for some sign of her daughter, or was it simply solitude she desired? We shall never know.

Her long absence from King’s Landing was for the good, however, for the king and his council were growing ever more vexed with her. The accounts of Rhaena’s confrontation with Lord Farman on Fair Isle had appalled the king and his lords alike. “Is she mad, to speak so to a lord in his own hall?” Lord Smallwood said. “Had it been me, I would have had her tongue out.” To which the king replied, “I hope you would not truly be so foolish, my lord. Whatever else she may be, Rhaena remains the blood of the dragon, and my sister, whom I love.” His Grace did not take issue with Lord Smallwood’s point, it should be noted, only with his words.

Septon Barth said it best. “The power of the Targaryens derives from their dragons, those fearsome beasts who once laid waste to Harrenhal and destroyed two kings upon the Field of Fire. King Jaehaerys knows this, just as his grandsire Aegon did; the power is always there, and with it the threat. His Grace also grasps a truth that Queen Rhaena does not, however; the threat is most effective when left unspoken. The lords of the realm are proud men all, and little is gained by shaming them. A wise king will always let them keep their dignity. Show them a dragon, aye. They will remember. Speak openly of burning down their halls, boast of how you fed their own kin to your dragons, and you will only inflame them and set their hearts against you.”

Queen Alysanne prayed daily for her niece Aerea and blamed herself for the child’s flight…but she blamed her sister more. Jaehaerys, who had taken little note of Aerea even during the years she had been his heir, chided himself now for that neglect, but it was Balerion who most concerned him, for well he understood the dangers of a beast so powerful in the hands of an angry thirteen-year-old girl. Neither Rhaena Targaryen’s fruitless wanderings nor the storm of ravens Grand Maester Benifer sent forth had turned up any word of the princess or the dragon, beyond the usual lies, mistakes, and delusions. As the days went by and the moon