Dragonstone was hardly the first great castle Lyanna had ever seen, but it was unmatched in character. Winterfell had a sprawling grandfatherly comfort. Riverrun was distinct with polished stone and running water. Harrenhal was an overgrown ruin. Dragonstone was something else. It looked grown rather than built, all black walls and jagged towers, as if the mountain beneath had decided to wear battlements.
The Velaryon galley escorted them into the small harbor beneath the curtain walls at dawn. Winter hated the disembarkation and showed it with pinned ears and a sharp, offended toss of the head. Balerion rode in Rhaenys's arms like a prince too proud to admit he was frightened. Elia said little as they made their way through the lower yard, only pressing a little harder on her cane each time her pain flared.
Monford Velaryon led them up through halls of dark stone where dragon faces snarled from pillars and water dripped somewhere unseen. At two and ten, the boy should have looked absurd giving orders to men thrice his age. Somehow Monford did not. The old sailors around him lent their gravity to him without mockery. It made Lyanna think of all the children forced into duties before their time by the recent war.
They were brought into a chamber warmed by braziers and brightened by narrow windows that let in strips of grey morning. At the far end, beneath carved dragons whose wings shadowed the wall, stood the queen.
Rhaella Targaryen wore black for mourning, though she still carried herself with stoic grace. Her face was pale and tired, the beauty there sharpened by grief rather than softened by it. One hand rested on the shoulder of a boy with silver-gold hair and watchful lilac eyes. Viserys, Lyanna guessed at once. He could not have been more than seven. He stood straight because someone had clearly told him a prince must, but he still looked like a child who had been woken too early and told the world had changed while he slept.
Below the mourning silk, Rhaella's belly was unmistakable. The sight struck Lyanna harder than the dragons on the walls or the black stone underfoot. The queen was heavy with child, seven moons gone at least, perhaps eight. Her hand did not merely rest at her side, but sometimes drifted there without thought, protective and weary both.
For one sharp, sick instant, Lyanna saw herself instead. Not standing straight and lean in borrowed freedom, but swollen and trapped by stone walls, carrying Rhaegar's promised prince. She imagined herself breathless, sore-backed, her worth narrowed to the life inside her. She imagined dying for it. Dying alone in childbed while a baby was lifted from a pool of her blood and given some grand destiny they had never asked for.
Lyanna knelt when Monford did. Elia sank down beside her more slowly, breath tight with pain. Rhaenys copied her mother, cat still tucked under one arm.
"My queen," Monford said, voice carrying better in halls than it had over open water. "King's Landing is fallen. The princesses Elia escaped the sack with her daughter and Lady Lyanna Stark. His Grace Aerys is most likely dead by now. We could not confirm the fate of my father, Lord Lucerys, though he was last seen defending Maegor's Holdfast."
Rhaella's face did not change at the news of her son's death. That frightened Lyanna more than tears would have. The wife of the mad king must have learned how to control her expressions.
"I have heard of too many deaths in too few days," Rhaella said at last. Her voice was low, refined, and so tired that each word seemed to come with effort. She looked to Monford. "You have done your house honor, Monford. I will consult with my advisors regarding Lord Lucerys and make a plan within days."
Monford bowed his head. Relief and frustration warred briefly in his boyish face. He accepted her answer anyway. Rhaella's gaze shifted to Elia then, and for the first time something softer entered her expression.
"Princess," she said. "You have suffered greatly."
Elia inclined her head with all the dignity she had left. "We all have, Your Grace."
Lyanna leaned toward her and lowered her voice until only Elia could hear. "Ask for a private audience. We need to speak while there's still time."
Elia's lashes flicked once in acknowledgment. Then she looked back to the queen. "Your Grace," she said aloud, "if it pleases you, I would ask a private audience. With you and the Lady Lyanna."
That earned a few glances from the men by the door. Monford looked briefly surprised. Viserys looked offended on principle. Rhaella merely regarded them all for a long breath.
"Very well," the queen said. "Viserys, go with Monford and make sure the ships are ready for departure if needed."
The room emptied with the soft scrape of boots and bows. Monford withdrew, Viserys close behind. The two seemed eager friends. The old Velaryon sailors followed last.
When the door shut, silence settled differently. Less ceremonial. Queen Rhaella descended from the dais and came to stand before them, close enough that Lyanna could see the faint lines at the corners of her eyes.
"Now," the queen said, "tell me what no man in that room was meant to hear."
Elia glanced at Lyanna and gave the smallest nod.
Lyanna rose, because kneeling made what she had to say feel like confession. "Your Grace, there is much more to this war than you may think."
Rhaella's brows lifted, though little else in her face moved. "That is a grave claim."
"It is a true one," Elia said quietly. "And she has already saved me once."
Lyanna drew breath. "I was never kidnapped at the start of this war. Not by Prince Rhaegar. Not by anyone. I left of my own accord for communion with the Old Gods, and wrote of where I was going." Her mouth tightened. "Somehow, my letter never made it and men made of my absence what they wished."
Rhaella went very still.
"Rhaegar did take me later," Lyanna continued, "or rather had me taken, following the Battle of the Bells. He wanted…" She almost laughed, but there was no humor in it. "He wanted my magic. He believed that because I was a woods witch, I could bear him a magical daughter. A new Visenya. A sister-wife for Aegon. Fire and ice. A third head of his dragon."
Her eyes flicked, against her will, to Rhaella's swollen belly. "He did not look at me and see a person," Lyanna said more quietly. "He looked at me and saw a womb for prophecy."
Rhaella's hand moved to her stomach again. "My husband," she said after a long moment, "always spoke of duty when he wanted obedience. Of destiny when he wanted submission. Of love for the realm when he wanted a woman to endure what he had already chosen for her." Her mouth sharpened. "My son learned too much from him."
Elia looked down at Rhaenys's dark head. "And not enough from his mother."
"The realm was already dry tinder," Lyanna said. "My disappearance was only the spark to light it. Jon Arryn never liked the crown, and raised Robert Baratheon to feel the same. Then your husband broke faith with most of the great houses. He insulted Tywin, stole Jaime into white silk, burned my father and brother, and took Dorne's princess as a captive. By that point, most of the realm wanted Aerys gone, even if some liked Rhaegar."
Queen Rhaella considered that, fingers folding over one another at her waist. "You expect me to believe," she said slowly, "that the war which killed my husband and son began not from lust, but from scheming, grievance, mischance, and… witchcraft?"
Lyanna met her gaze. "That is my perspective at least."
Elia spoke up to support her claim. "She warned the Kingsguard," she said. "And she prophesied the attack on my rooms before it came. If not for her, my daughter and I would be dead."
Rhaella turned toward Lyanna again. "Every maester has told me that magic died with the dragons. If you can really command it, then prove so."
Lyanna hesitated. Her previous trick with Dijkstra wouldn't work with him absent. She felt the Old Gods like a memory behind her eyes and wished, for a heartbeat, she were still beneath Grandmother's boughs where everything had been easier.
Then she reached for what was near. Far below, in the outer yard, hounds dozed in their kennel straw. She found them not with sight but with the thread of living minds—warm, simple, drowsy, annoyed by fleas and morning damp. She slipped into them one after another like stepping stones and gave them a jolt of fear, of warning, of urgent noise.
The kennel erupted. One howl, then three, then all of them together. Deep baying rolled up the stone like thunder through a hollow hill. Men shouted in alarm below. Somewhere a handler cursed.
Rhaella's fingers tightened on her own sleeve in shock and fear. Elia seemed less alarmed by the occult, only watching Lyanna with exhaustion in her eyes.
Lyanna let the hounds go and the sound faded to scattered barking. The queen looked at her differently after that. Not trust yet. But no longer dismissal.
"There is more," Rhaella said quietly. Not quite a question.
Lyanna glanced at Elia. A living example that the future wasn't immutable and that her effort meant something.
"Yes," Lyanna said.
She drew a chair away from the wall and set it for the queen, then another for Elia. "Sit," she told them both. "Please."
Rhaella did, slowly, resting her legs with one hand on her stomach. Elia lowered herself with care, Rhaenys curling at her side with the kitten. Looking at them together, Lyanna could not help but feel proud.
"I have seen many things," she began. "Some near. Some far. One of them is a story from years ahead, across the Narrow Sea. It begins with a frightened girl sold to a savage horse lord. It becomes the tale of a breaker of chains. A mother of dragons."
The room held its breath as Lyanna began to tell the tale of Daenerys Targaryen.