°. *₊ ° . ☆ ☾ CHAPTER TWO  ☽ °: . *₊ ° .
DREAMS

  DREAMS HAD OFTEN BEEN THE PURE IMAGINATION for Rhaenerys Targaryen, of wonders that could not have been possible. She dreamt of sitting atop a dragon with scarlet scales and copper horns, a writhing babe in her arm while her other held the reigns that controlled the dragon. The babe was small, a tiny thing that let out a laugh the higher the dragon climbed. 

   She dreamt of lands of fire. Broken and bent towers of stone protruded from the ground like fingers. Pieces of the stones became illuminated like fire running through their insides, like veins of blood inside a body. Remnants of giant beasts loitered the grounds like pieces of jewellery on her mother's vanity table. A reminder that something great had once ruled that land and it had disappeared with something so easily handled like fire.

   She dreamt of lands of snow as far as the eye could see, blues and whites that made it almost impossible to see. Mountains taller than the Dragonmont in Dragonstone, their peaks almost touching the skies. Trees sprung from the ground like giant flowers, their trunks a fresh and healthy brown and thin leaves a wild green. Creatures that appeared to be made of the very ice they stood upon roamed the lands, teetering as they moved toward the mountains. Those lands were more impossible than the lands of fire.

   She dreamt of the dark cavern where she claimed the Cannibal, the very mounds of bones and burnt flesh she had seen becoming bigger and changing with each dream. The scent of something rotten was always there, underneath the burnt wood and wet ground. 

   Those nights, when the dreams decided to wrap themselves around her, she would leave her room and sneak toward the Tower of the Hand where her grandfather made his rooms. He replaced Ser Ryam Redwyne as the Hand of the King at the beginning of the year, a few weeks before their travel to Dragonstone and before she claimed the Cannibal as hers. It was difficult for her to sneak in the middle of the night without the guards notifying her parents, but she made it.

   The room was dimly illuminated from the fireplace. The stone sconces against the walls were turned off, candles had been blown before he went to sleep. A grand bed was against the wall, a body asleep on top of it. 

   She ambled toward the sofa in front of the fireplace and grabbed the blanket folded at the corner. It was soft and warm as she wrapped it around herself and lay down. In her grandsire's room, it was easy for her to succumb to a sleep where she dreamt of dragons soaring through the skies and fire running through her veins. A red dragon with copper horns, a babe in one hand while she held the reigns in the other—laughter bubbled from both of their mouths. 

   A hand fell on her shoulder and shook her until she opened her eyes. Rhaenyra stood in front of her, green eyes staring down while her hand still lay on her shoulder. "Mother said you need to wake up," she said. "If you don't, you won't get breakfast."

   "Rhaenyra!" Lady Aemma Arryn appeared at her side and shook her head. She knelt in front of her eldest daughter and smiled as she leaned forward to lay a kiss on her forehead. "Rhaenerys, why are you in your grandsire's room?"

   Rhaenerys often told her mother about the dreams that plagued her, but Aemma Arryn took them as any other outlandish thing children often dreamt of. Silly little things that would be forgotten when the time came; silly, outlandish things that she would outgrow the older she got.

   "She had one of those dreams," Rhaenyra taunted with a toothy grin.

   Aemma glanced at her and sighed before returning her sight to her eldest child. "Did you have a bad dream, Rhaenerys?" 

   At that moment, Rhaenerys Targaryen swallowed the dreams that taunted her at night and shook her head as she sat up. "No," she answered her mother, "I didn't have a dream."

   "Then—" Aemma stood and grabbed Rhaenyra's hand, pushed her other hand toward her eldest daughter and waited for her to grab it. "—let's break fast together. Your father and Daemon are waiting for us."

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   Even for someone as young as she, her duties were simple but tiring. After breaking fast with her parents and uncle, she was sent to do her studies with Septa Morelle and Maester Cornay. While the septa taught her the womanly arts her late great-grandmother and mother coveted, Maester Cornay was a godly man who revered the Faith to the point he should have become a septon instead of a maester. He taught her about the gods, the prayers and songs of the Seven who were revered across Westeros. 

   She had no thoughts about religion. At the age of seven, all she wanted was to leave her studies and climb on her dragon or play with one of the cats that roamed the gardens while eating little cream and honey cakes. 

   She preferred to have honey-stained fingers than ink-stained ones.

   Maester Cornay smacked his hand on the table in front of her. "Princess Rhaenerys, are you paying attention to my lessons?"

   Rhaenerys inhaled through her nose and pursed her lips. "Yes, Maester," she muttered as she glanced down at her papers. The words she had written at the beginning of her lessons had receded into doodles, a cartoonish sight of a dragon that appeared more like a blob than anything else. 

   The maester cleared his throat and hummed, nodding. "Then, I suggest you continue to listen to my words if you expect to learn anything."

   Ever since Maester Cornay had begun his lessons, she had learned nothing. The words to the songs of the Seven became fleeting, the prayers a word here and there. He droned on like a fly to horse dung. 

   "Is that any way to talk to a princess?" Daemon Targaryen entered the room with a hand so carefully placed on the hilt of his sword as if it were a part of him. The other hid behind his back. "If my brother heard you talking to his daughter that way, he'd tell me to take your tongue."

   Maester Cornay bowed his head. "Prince Daemon," he greeted. "I merely intended to teach the princess about the Faith as King Jaehaerys commanded—"

   Daemon made a face as he pulled out a chair and took a seat by her side. His feet made a thud as he pulled them onto the table, next to her books. Mud, or something like it, fell at the edges of the pages. "The Faith," he groaned, rolling his head until his sight landed on the septon. "What is it about it that you revere so much? If you want to teach Rhaenerys something, why not teach her about the true gods?"

   "The. . ." Maester Cornay furrowed his brows. "The true gods?"

   "The gods of Old Valyria, Maester." A wicked smile formed on the prince's mouth. "The gods that ruled over the Valyrian Freehold and the dragons that ruled alongside them."

   Rhaenerys watched as the maester's pale face became a bright and powerful red, similar to the colour of the dragon in her dreams. He reminded her of a tomato, fresh and plump at the centre of her hand. When she closed her fist around it and squeezed, the tomato would burst and juice would fall down her hand like blood. "Though you may seem to worship those gods, Prince Daemon, here in Westeros we worship the Faith of the Seven. It has been so since before Aegon the Conqueror, and it will be so after King Jaehaerys. The King, if you'd wish to be reminded, is also a follower of the Seven."

   Daemon moved his hand as if it were talking alongside the maester's words, a puppet. "Let us be honest, maester, Aegon only accepted the Faith so that your people would feel powerful."

   Rhaenerys leaned into her uncle's words. "He did?"

   "Of course!" Daemon smiled over at her. "Aegon was a conqueror who revered the gods of Valyria. Those gods gave him power, made him strong enough to unite the kingdom under our name. Do you think he would forget them to honour the Seven?"

   Maester Cornay cleared his throat. He swallowed loud enough for it to be heard around the library. "Prince Daemon, I would suggest that you please stop interrupting my lessons with Princess Rhaenerys with these tirades of yours."

   Daemon's mouth stopped in whatever word he was going to say next, the shape of it pushing to form a barely-there smile. "What did you say to me, maester?"

   The red colour that once made Maester Cornay appear like a plump tomato disappeared. He became pale, the entirety of colour drained from his face except the brown of his eyes. "I. . ." He cleared his throat and looked down at the floor. "I apologise, Prince Daemon. I wasn't—"

   "—Thinking?" Daemon finished for him, the corner of his lips rising. "Yes, you must not do that much. I fear you are trying to lead the princess into something, I don't know, dangerous."

   "Dangerous?" Rhaenerys questioned, tilting her head to the side. "What's dangerous about this lesson, Uncle Daemon? Maester Cornay only spoke of the different prayers to the gods of the Faith."

   Daemon hummed and nodded. "Well, Rhaenerys, you must know that Maester Cornay is not supposed to teach you about prayer." His eyes narrowed as he stared at the maester, the smile disappearing from his mouth. He pulled his feet from the table and stood, pulling the sword from his side and pointing it toward that shaking maester. "Maester Cornay is not supposed to teach you about anything.."

   "He's not?" Rhaenerys looked over at the maester. Every hint of colour was devoid of his being, leaving behind skin that reminded her of the white bones she had seen in the Cannibal's cave.

   "No," Daemon answered with a breath. "Maester Cornay is supposed to be under Gran Maester Runciter, helping him search for treatment for my father."

   Baelon Targaryen had been sick for three days. A terrible stomach ache, her mother had told her. He had not left his room since he arrived from hunting, and Rhaenerys wanted nothing more than to be by his side and hope that whatever it was that bugged him would disappear. She wanted to read to him, to tell him the tales of her days and how she managed to make one of the dragonkeepers almost cry because of dragon gave him a fight. 

   Gran Maester Runciter had called for aid from the Citadel the moment he could not find something to help the heir. 

   Rhaenerys had not felt him stir during the night she spent on the sofa by the fireplace. Perhaps, it had been that she was too exhausted from her dreams. 

   "He's supposed to be helping Grandfather?" She stood from her seat and glared at the shaking maester. "How dare you? You need to be helping Grandfather! What does the Seven mean if you. . .you rat, will not help him?"

   A laugh echoed Daemon. "Princess Rhaenerys is correct," he said with a chuckle, nodding. "This rat seems to hold the Seven in higher esteem rather than the life of his future king." He pushed the sword onto the maester's shoulder, deeper until something dark began to protrude from the edges of the steel. "Perhaps, this maester cannot do a thing and thought it would be best for you to become a Septa under the Faith just like Greataunt Maegelle." He took a step closer to the maester, and pushed the sword deeper, and a wicked smirk formed around his lips at the sound of pain. "I cannot allow you to give such illusions to Rhaenerys, Maester Cornay. She's bound for something more that your gods cannot give."

   The maester took a step back, but Daemon followed. A predator to a wounded pray; a dragon prepared to take the final bite at the poor falcon that had wandered into its lair.

   "Uncle Daemon?" Rhaenerys stared at the blood. It stained Maester Cornay's robes a darker colour, a splotch of something sticky and metallic that would be difficult to remove. 

   Daemon glanced back at her and motioned to the entrance of the library with his chin. "Your lessons are done," he announced. "Return to your mother and sister."

   "But—"

   "Now, Rhaenerys!"

   She humphed and stumped her foot, then she turned and marched out of the library with annoyance. It was the first time her lesson with Maester Cornay had become exciting; she wanted to see whatever happened between her uncle and the maester. She needed to listen to him, though. 

   If he did not want her in the room, she should not be there.