Three Months Later
Smoker's hooves made a soft, steady music through the meadow grass. Dew still clung to the green blades, and each of his steps released the clean scent of morning into the air.
I let the reins loosen in my hands, trusting Smoker to keep the path. He knew it as well as I did by now. He flicked an ear back toward me, as if checking that I was still there, and I gave him a nice pat on the head.
This ride had become a habit, almost a ritual. I had promised him we would ride first thing after returning from Dorne. At first it had been a thing I forced myself to do, especially that first day arriving home from the longest, most eventful trip of my life. Now, weeks later, I found myself waking before dawn, already thinking of the meadow and the smell of grass and the sound of hooves on soft earth.
I suspected I liked it more than Smoker did.
The land crested gently ahead. Smoker led us up the rise, and I leaned forward slightly in the saddle. When we reached the top, I reined him in and turned. Evenfall Hall rose behind us, proud and pale against the dark green of the island's forests, its towers catching the first true light of the sun.
From here, House Tarth's castle looked almost luminous. Its two curtain walls crested the rocky hill they sat upon, fifty and sixty feet of limestone with a deep moat running between them. It looked humble after staring up at Casterly Rock and the Hightower, but short of the great houses, only few in Westeros could boast of such a fortress.
I let Smoker start moving us back home while I reached into my saddlebag and drew out the letters. There were two of them, one bearing the sigil of the Hightowers while the other showed the sword and star of Dayne.
Ser Baelor Hightower had asked to write to me before we left Oldtown, but I would confess to having mostly forgotten about that with all that happened. From those days in the Reach, Malora's strange behavior and the present she left with me occupied a much larger space in my mind than Baelor's request.
I went through the letter quickly. His words were measured, almost shy. He told me about a short trip he took to the Arbor and of a small tourney he'd be attending at Honeyholt for a wedding soon. Then he asked me all about the events at the Stepstones and Sunspear.
Apparently, they'd gotten word of the pirate attack and poisoning a few weeks after it happened. Ser Gerion Lannister's life was valuable enough it made front-page news in the highborn gossip circles of Oldtown. Either that or Olenna Tyrell just let them know it had happened some five minutes after the fact.
He didn't mention his sister in the letter, nor did I think to ask about her in my response. I had a strong suspicion he had no idea about the glass candle and what it meant that she had given it to me, and I also did not want to give him the false notion I was trying to court the mad girl.
Storing it for later back in my bag, I opened up the next one. Ashara's handwriting still took me by surprise despite it being her second letter already.
Before I left Dorne, Prince Doran had asked to speak with me privately. Seeing as Lord Yronwood had unleashed the pirate that attacked us, he offered me restitution in the name of Dorne, particularly for the Stormlanders found chained in the galley's hidden hold.
I denied restitution for myself, then added my own small contribution to the enslaved families when the time came. The money would not be much, as neither Ormond nor Anders had ever admitted to actually sending the pirates, and I figured a generous reputation was worth more than whatever coin Doran might have given me.
Of the families freed, all but one chose to come to Tarth. They had settled well at Dawnrest, using the coin they received to buy or build their houses in the growing town. Some of my own lads had gotten a share of that money serving as hired muscle for the builders.
I did ask Doran for something, though, and now Dawnrest bought wine directly from Dornish vineyards instead of going to Weeping Town or King's Landing, along with olives and blood oranges and plums and Summer Island goods. Both Dornish and our own merchants left our shores with grain and woolen clothes and cloaks that found eager buyers in the desert, where the nights grew surprisingly cold.
One such Dornish captain who ran the route brought letters every few weeks. Princess Elia had written to me once, a curt but polite letter, and Prince Oberyn's message came within, promising a rematch of our spar one day, along with his usual lewd implication. At this point, I knew he was just trying to mess with me.
But those weren't the letters I expected the most.
I winced as I looked down at Ashara's words. She wrote well and cleverly, but her chicken scratch was an abominable sight.
To this day I could not tell if she was just messing with me by writing this way. It was hard to figure her out, and she seemed to love pranking people.
In the letter, she told me how she recently wrote to her brother to explain about what had happened with Gerion and Lord Yronwood, only to tell him she had purposefully cut herself in front of the entire court with the pirate's poisoned blade.
She told him she had pressured Anders Yronwood to make his father allow Prince Oberyn to return to Sunspear posthaste, otherwise she would succumb to the same poison as Gerion. In her made-up story, and likely in real life as well, Anders wanted to marry her, and so she forced his hand. Anders had agreed and the poison had been cured, then a duel for her hand ensued, a four-way fight between Anders, the pirate captain, myself, and Oberyn.
Apparently, Ser Arthur Dayne had written back to her outraged, writing as well to Prince Doran and to Elia demanding explanations. She told me she had been well-scolded for that, and that she would tell her brother it had been my idea all along and he should take satisfaction at the next tournament we met.
Again, I could not tell at all if she was serious or not, but it did make for an amusing read. I found myself chuckling throughout.
Smoker snorted beneath me, tossing his head as if annoyed I was ruining our special alone moment by including someone else.
"Oh, don't be a big baby," I told him. "You don't even spare me a glance when I come by the stables and you're sniffing after that chestnut mare."
He neighed, indignant, but soon I took him for a run that left us both breathless and laughing in the wind.
We trotted back to Evenfall Hall a little later than usual. The castle had awakened properly by now. The stables rang with the sound of grooms already at work, washerwomen strode around carrying baskets of bed linens and clothes, guards saluted me from their stations.
I left Smoker with one of the stableboys and swiftly made my way across the bailey to the Old Keep. Despite its name, the keep had been mostly rebuilt some generations ago when the Targaryens came to halt a Myrish invasion and left behind, along with a dead crown prince, some gold and tax breaks for their hosts.
The Old Keep was flanked by twin towers that rose into the sky like pale spears, the Maiden's Tower and the Warrior's Tower, while the squatter Sea Tower which watched Dawnrest and the Straits of Tarth sat behind it. A covered walkway connected the shorter tower to the keep.
Inside, Evenfall Hall was mostly marble, vein faints of blue ran through the white stone of the walls, leaving the halls cool and bright in the mornings. My family all lived in the Sea Tower, and we tended to break our fast in the smaller hall at its base instead of the great hall that dominated the Old Keep.
They had started without me by the time I arrived.
"You're late," Alysanne said behind a mouthful of boiled eggs.
"And you've forgotten your manners," I told her, stepping around her to my spot to my father's left. "You sound like an Essosi elephant eating that way."
Lady Addison Tarth sighed. "My children are so polite early in the morning," she said. She extended a hand in greeting and I kissed her knuckles. "What a blessing."
"Alysanne, chew with your mouth closed." Sitting at the head of the table, Lord Selwyn did not stop reading the papers splayed around his plate as he spoke. "And Galladon, do not call your sister an elephant."
"I'm not the one with the ears for it," Alysanne snarked, mouth still half-full.
I glared at her. "I most certainly do not have elephant ears." A hand went up to touch one. "They are perfectly proportionate for the size of my head."
"Yes." She nodded. "Your elephant-sized head."
"Children." Lord Selwyn did not have to raise his voice to convey tone.
I let it go, but Alysanne seemed intent on getting a rise out of him. She grinned at me, then turned to our father.
"As you say, my lord," she said, bowing until her forehead nearly hit the table.
I went along. "Yes, lord father," I said, overly deferential. "We would never disobey you, oh great Evenstar."
"Never, sire," she said.
Selwyn shook his head, amused. "You are too old for me to use my lord's voice on you, boy."
"Oh." Lady Addison perked up. "Please use it." She rolled a finger through her hair. "I do so love it when you command, my lord," she drawled.
Her lord husband wagged his eyebrows at her, and she giggled. Across from me, Arianne made a face of disgust while Alysanne cooed at her parents.
I smiled at it all, content in a way that seemed to warm my soul. I had never thought I'd come to love my new family so fiercely after being reborn in this world, but I've found you really don't have a choice in these things.
Being a child with a child's brain does something strange to you. Whatever hormones it hit me with, I considered Selwyn and Addison Tarth as much my parents as my previous ones.
"Why does Galladon get to be late, then?" Arianne suddenly asked. "I wish I could miss my lessons that way."
I turned to my sister, eyebrows raised. Throwing me under the bus, were we? She just smirked at me.
"You are late to your lessons," my mother said, and Arianne's smile vanished. "In fact, Septa Roelle informed me you missed your teachings on the Mother's book twice just this week." One of her long nails tapped against the table, a terrifying sound if you knew Addison Tarth. "I have had other things in mind lately, so my thanks for reminding me, daugher."
Arianne opened her mouth to say something, only to close it. She looked at me then, eyes pleading. It clicked in my head a second later why she was turning to me.
Ever since arriving from Dorne, I had been sitting down with Arianne a few times a week to help her figure out her aura vision. Aside from testing out how long she could keep it up for, writing down the emotions which color represented, and trying to understand the meaning behind someone's base aura color, I had also been doing some basic exercises with her.
Rather quickly in our testing, I had figured out that it was not so hard to fool her vision. I had told her to note down which emotions she saw from me during the course of a conversation, only to baffle her by revealing the reasons behind my emotions were completely irrelevant to the topic we were discussing.
A spike in anger in a person's aura did not mean anger at her or at the present situation. Someone might not even need to purposefully trick her to circumvent the vision. Arianne had to take into account a person's inner world, their insecurities and fears, a stray thought popping up into their heads, a distant memory or trauma coming to haunt them.
A lot of that terminology was finicky for me to pass on to her, so it involved a lot of explaining vague psychology that I myself was not overly familiar with.
It all took quite a bit of time, and I should've known Arianne would be skipping on one lesson or another to meet up with me. So I took pity on her and raised a hand.
"Mother," I started, "Arianne has actually been helping me—"
"With what?" Lady Addison cut me off. Her voice was sweet as honey.
Shuddering, I realized I couldn't say what was truly happening, but neither could I come up with something convincing in its place. I hesitated a heartbeat too long. Arianne shot me a look that promised retribution.
"—with my jousting," I finished lamely.
Father cleared his throat. "Galladon."
"Yes?"
"Do not lie badly at the breakfast table."
I shut up after that, focusing on my food. From the corner of my eyes, I caught Alysanne hiding a smile behind her cup. By the time the meal ended, Arianne was grounded from riding for a week, and I had somehow volunteered to oversee her missed lessons personally. A disastrous outcome all around.
xxx
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