Peace, at long last, had come to Westeros. That was what they were saying now. The Dance of the Dragons had finally ended, and a new house had ascended the throne with the majority support of the kingdoms. Lords and nobles were now returning home, back to their castles and halls. Swords were sheathed, banners were placed back in place, and armor was exchanged for light clothing for the spring weather. Rhaekar was one of those nobles, returning to Duskendale after a few years of absence.
Annara knew what had happened to House Targaryen, as did most people under the Iron Throne by now. She knew especially what had happened to Daemon Targaryen… and it made her smile every time she thought about it. She had not forgotten the jab Daemon had made at her expense, long before the First Siege of Kings Landing. Before all present, he had made a comment on her weight, and earned laughter. Well, who was laughing now? Daemon was struggling in the seven hells, his corpse eaten in full by the ravens. Annara? Annara was safe and sound, alive and well. Alive and well. Oh, the more she thought those words, the more it filled her with glee. She had hoped and prayed that she would see Daemon suffer, and though she had not actually seen it herself, to hear of it, and know of its certainty, filled her with just as much joy.
It didn’t make her feel any happier, however, knowing she would have to see Daemon’s daughter day after day. That upstart little tart, who believed she still had the nobility of her house. That stupid little silver-haired hussy, whom Hugh Hammer had somehow completely missed in his murder of House Targaryen. The fact that brat existed returned to her mind the day Lord Rhaekar and his wife returned from Kings Landing. They had all been gone for the Great Council and Daeron’s coronation, though Rhaekar himself had been gone for quite some time. What had begun as a campaign to end the Dance of the Dragons quickly soon turned into a much longer campaign, first against those rising up against Rhaenyra’s rule, and then against Hugh Hammer. Annara may have had one or two name days pass by before Rhaekar once again set foot in Duskendale again. (She was twenty name days along now.) He would have quite some catching up to do.
The council had shifted a bit since he’d left, and was still shifting. Nettles, the former lover of Hugh Hammer, had come with Lord Rhaekar from Kings Landing, after being offered a position as master-at-arms – much to the chagrin of Lord Monford Byrch, who had already been serving as master-at-arms, and for quite some time. Once she assumed command, Nettles took to getting Rhaekar’s commanders in shape, and in this duty she turned out to be cruder than any of them, and harsher. Officers who did not perform as she demanded received a strike to the back of the head, while others who came up short of her expectations received a blow to the back. Annara hated her, in any case. She had a strange beauty to her, despite her harsh life on the battlefield, and her presence reminded the spymaster every day of that humiliating moment in the tent, when Hugh Hammer and Daemon Targaryen mocked her for her weight before all the commanders of the army. Nettles hadn’t said a word, nor had she laughed, and yet she had been there, in the tent, right behind the enormous Hugh Hammer. She was all that remained of the various personalities who had become heavily involved in the Dance of Dragons. Annara hoped she was removed from the council sooner rather than later.
Annara had her own concerns. There was growing discontent among the nobles in Duskendale, and indeed from her own House Darklyn. While Rhaekar had been gone, there had been some discussions about the legitimacy of Rhaekar’s rule, and his decision to take a Targaryen for a wife. It was the Targaryens who had removed the Darklyns from their power in Duskendale and placed Rhaekar in power – but now the Targaryens were gone, removed from the Iron Throne for perhaps eternity. Rhaena was the only surviving Targaryen, and through her this deposed house maintained influence over the entire region of Duskendale. Why, some of the nobles asked, should we be ruled by a purely Valyrian family, and one which had been handed the desmense on a silver platter? Were there not other families just as legitimate?
Annara was well aware of the plots devised against Rhaekar. In truth, she had little sympathy for her lord. She kept information on who was plotting what, but her activity against the scheming was purposefully slowed. In some cases, she took nearly no action at all. She would not take part in the plots, but, in her own special way, she assisted in their eventual execution… by doing absolutely nothing about them.
It wasn’t the only activity within Duskendale that Annara was following. She was aware that Rhaena was busy herself, contacting various Crownland lords, as well as those outside the Crownlands. Many still desired to see a Targaryen sit on the Iron Throne, and were forming bands to see this happen. Lord Serrett of the Westerlands may have been deposed without sympathy, but Rhaena found other major lords to back her cause. There was a hope that if enough power was reached, then eventually Daeron would be forced to abdicate in favor of Rhaena, the only rightful heir to Rhaenyra and her line. Annara had a feeling the whole affair was a mummer’s farce: far too few lords in Westeros desired to see the Targaryens in power, and even if a sizable host could be gathered, would Daeron really abdicate to such a threat freely? Besides, from what little Annara could gather, the support for Rhaena was as shifting as the sands of Dorne: one lord would support her, then another, only for one to drop from the plot altogether; major lords like Jeyne the Maid of the Vale, or Grover Tully of the Riverlands, would offer their support, only to drop out later on for one reason or another. Unlike her adoptive mother, Rhaena hardly had a group of loyal dedicated supporters. Therefore, Annara did not concern herself with this matter either. Let the white-haired, one-handed little tart plot and scheme and plan; Rhaena would never see herself on the Iron Throne –
ever.
Then there was the little mongrel that had sprung from the matrimony of unicorn and dragon. The abomination was growing steadily by the day, and had already grown little strands of silver hair across her revolting scalp since her time in Kings Landing.
Leana… such a disgusting name for such a disgusting creature. Somehow the beast had learned how to hold her up, and would gaze at things with a curiosity that betrayed just how stupid the child was. For some strange reason, Rhaekar had been extra kind and attentive to the child since they returned. He had her brought to all court sessions, and on brighter days would bring her up to the balconies of the Dun Fort to show her the extensiveness of his domain.
“Do you see this, dear Laena?” he would say to her. “This is Duskendale. This is your home. This is your land of your father. This is the land of House Valzyren – the house that you have been born under.”
Such thoughts made Annara want to scream. The land of House Valzyren? Only for the past ten years or so! It had been House Darklyn land before that. Before that incestuous bastard Aegon had come with all his armies and all his dragons, House Darklyn had ruled the territory of Duskendale and even far beyond. The Shadow Kings, some had called them. The Darklands, the realm had been called. Once, House Darklyn had been as mighty as the Starks had been up in the North. They had been a force to be reckoned with and feared. That had all changed with the Valyrians, first with the Targaryens, and now with Valzyrens. This honor and glory had been taken from them, and now they lived as courtiers rather than lords and kings. Hearing such words leave Rhaekar’s mouth… Annara wanted to scream. It took every will inside of her to keep herself from pushing both her lord and his barely one-name-day child over that balcony. Oh, but how a great a sight it would see, to view Rhaekar’s mangled corpse beside the splattered head of his infant daughter…
Unable to stand the stench of the dragon or the unicorn, Annara began to conduct more business in her quarters, receiving messages from across Duskendale on what her spies had uncovered. It was on one such day, as she sat in a chair, enjoying a dinner the cook had prepared, that she received a knock on the door. When she gave permission to enter, a young girl in a hooded dress stepped in. Annara recognized her as one of the serving girls who assisted the spymaster with knowing what was being gossiped in the dimly lit sculleries of the Dun Fort. Annara did not know her name; she only knew that the woman was much more attractive than she, and for that Annara hated her.
“Pardons for botherin’ ye, miss,” the girl began.
“What?” came Annara’s terse reply.
The girl hesitated a moment. “I have some news I think ye may be wantin’ t’ know.”
“What news? Come on, woman, spit it out or I shall have you flogged!”
“It is… the Nettles woman, miss.”
Annara leaned forward now. “Yes? What of her?”
“She sufferin’ ‘n accident, miss. She was fightin’ t’ lords, ‘n one punched her ‘n t’ eye. They took her t’ see the maester fellow.”
Annara smiled. “Has she died?”
The girl blinked. “No, miss. She still be livin’, ‘n-”
Annara rose to her feet. The girl took a step back. The smile on the spymaster’s face had completely evaporated. “You stupid tart!
Get out of my room! Come back and bother me again when the dragonslut is dead!”
Maester Albar did all he could, but his report a few days later was that an infection had formed, and spread to other parts of her head. Not long afterward, another report came: Nettles had died, the wounds inflicted by her own method of training now her own undoing. Her famous dragon, Sheepstealer, had already been bound and was being sent to reside at Windwyrm Tower at Dragonstone. Lord Rhaekar was especially saddened by the news, praising to others on the respect he had for Nettles, and the bravery she had shown during the Dance. The spymaster’s agents had done their best to see if Rhaekar had ever tumbled with Nettles under the sheets, but for all intents and purposes, it seemed like the lord kept the relationship with her as far as he did any of his male council members. Though the lord and Lady Rhaena sometimes kept a distance from each other, there was no evidence of infidelity from either spouse.
When the news of Nettles’ death reached Annara, she excused herself to her quarters again. Once she had closed the door and secured it shut, a laughter rose from her throat. “You barely lasted a year,” came a murmur. “You barely lasted a year.” The laughter rose much louder as she stepped deeper into her room. It echoed off the walls with greater exuberance, the louder it grew. “You barely lasted a year!” Annara repeated. “Oh, you stupid, filthy wench! You were never meant to survive the Dance! Now, rot in the seven hells with your husband and the Targaryens!”
A dull day had suddenly become much more enjoyable for the spymaster. It was ruined, however, when she remembered that Rhaekar, Rhaena, and Laena still lived and breathed. House Darklyn still rested in a humble position. Rhaekar and Rhaena were still remnants of the Dance, and Laena, as their hellborn, was an extension of it. But not for long…
...not for long…
