[Chapter Size: 4000 Words.]
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Third Person POV
Sunspear, 298 AC.
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The letter opened slowly as Doran Martell read it calmly in his solar, reading its contents in silence, though with one eyebrow raised.
He lowered the letter as his eyes turned to the window, able to see the city surrounding Sunspear. His eyes reflected several thoughts, as if he were analyzing a new political game. Though surprised by the letter, he quickly tried to determine whether he should trust it or not.
Doran then made a decision.
He knew he would have to speak with the members of his family about it. He left his solar, opening the door as his guards stepped aside or greeted him with the proper respect due to their sovereign.
"I want you to summon my brother and my two children, Trystane and Arianne. Have them come to my audience chamber," he said as he walked through the halls of Sunspear alongside his personal guard. Quentyn was away at the moment, which was why he did not call for him.
When he entered the audience chamber, there were only a few servants cleaning the place.
"I want everyone to leave," Doran demanded.
The servants quickly nodded, gathering everything they were using for cleaning and dusting the room, and began leaving one by one. Then he turned to his guard.
"I want you to stay outside. Only let my family through. This will be a private conversation with them."
With that, the guard began to leave, waiting outside the door, while Doran sat in his seat, still limping to it.
His damned legs had always been a problem because of the cursed gout, and with age, things had only gotten worse. But there was nothing to be done — at least that was what the maesters said. His thoughts drifted northward as he looked at his legs.
He thought about Jon Arctic. They said he had the gift of healing, capable of performing miracles — at least that was what the rumors from Essos claimed. Doran wondered if he could be cured. Perhaps yes. The boy had proven capable of performing miracles time and again. Yet not for him. If things had been different, if he had acted better with the Arcticans, perhaps he might have earned the privilege of being healed.
Perhaps he would not be in a situation where Jon Arctic saw him as an enemy, where the only daughter of his sister Elia had slipped from his grasp and was no longer a crucial piece in his political game against Arctic.
Doran had tried to use Jon Arctic's own son to turn him against the king... At the time, though he had been surprised that Rhaenys appeared pregnant after giving her virginity to him when the Arcticans had visited Dorne many years ago, he was not angry as he would have been if Rhaenys had appeared pregnant by any other man, because he knew how important her virginity would have been in trying to place her on the Iron Throne in the future.
But having a child of the King of Arctic, after all he had proven capable of doing, Doran saw great benefits in having the king's child from beyond the Wall under his influence.
But that decision turned against him, for Rhaenys begged to inform the father of her child, to marry him, saying she did not mind being a third queen alongside the others... That she saw her child as more important than the damned Iron Throne. And not only did he lose Rhaenys within his own home — she simply cut ties with Dorne to become queen elsewhere and flee from Doran's decisions with pain and resentment.
It frustrated him, thinking that she no longer even cared about her own mother's death, while his brother Oberyn seemed more willing to accept Rhaenys's wishes.
It had been years since that had happened, but even so, the loss for Dorne had been far too great to be forgotten, if that were ever possible... He had to act as the manipulative politician he had always been, yet now he had lost too much.
All because Rhaenys had fallen hopelessly in love with Jon Arctic — not that he was surprised, since even Arianne had cut ties with Rhaenys out of jealousy when she discovered that she was pregnant. However, Rhaenys had placed Jon Arctic and their child above her own Martell family, above the Iron Throne itself, and above her own vengeance after her mother's brutal murder... It was infuriating to Doran that Rhaenys had thrown everything away for another man, but Doran had also mishandled the situation, and he knew it, for he could have crafted a much better scenario, even after all the trouble his brother Oberyn had caused against the Arcticans during negotiations here.
Either way, the game was beginning to be played once again. New scenarios were being set since he had heard about the events in the North — Lord Stark's refusal, the attempted assassination of Arya Stark, the attack on the queen, and Jaime Lannister's duel.
The position of the North, after all that, was now being analyzed by Doran Martell. The king should be leaving Winterfell at this very moment, without a Hand of the King. Contrary to what was expected — Robert Baratheon was leaving Winterfell without a betrothal between the royal family and the Starks — quite the opposite, it seemed the king had left there with a new enemy.
The North was certainly in a position of advantage. A kingdom on the opposite end of the continent, much like Dorne, holding one of the edges. Their only enemies could be watched from a single direction, and both could defend their realms against attacks from other kingdoms far more easily than those in the center of the continent, for they would always be surrounded.
Dorne had resisted and, in the end, yielded, but it had never been conquered, and Doran — like all the Martells before him — had the privilege of saying they had always defended themselves against every attack from the dragons of the Westerosi crown. He also recognized that the North had only been conquered thanks to the power of the dragons, since they had never managed to slay one — as Dorne had done.
And now there were no more dragons. Even if the North became an enemy of the Seven Kingdoms, it would still hold the advantage. Even if Arctic did not intervene in this war — which Doran believed unlikely, considering the relationship between the Arctics and the Starks — the North would still count on their support. After all, the only people from Westeros who were in Arctic were the Starks themselves, such as Benjen Stark and Arya Stark, along with some men of the Night's Watch who had been captured and later released, according to reports, while there were still men from Westeros who remained prisoners of Arctic.
Doran no longer knew how to classify Arya Stark — whether she still belonged to House Stark or was now an official member of Arctic. Jon Arctic had declared her a princess from the moment he met her, when she had arrived at his gate. And as she was now heading to the kingdom amidst a war, she would be more of an Arctican than a member of House Stark, even after everything that had happened in Winterfell over the past moons.
The conclusion was that the North could withstand an attack from the South. Even if all the other kingdoms were summoned to march against the North, there would still be other problems — beyond the natural defenses the North possessed, after all, the Northerners had resisted the Andal invasions long before the Targaryens.
The crown was also facing serious financial troubles. And, like Doran, there were many other players weaving schemes, calculating scenarios and possibilities, all trying to rise to greater power. In other words, there was something far worse than a kingdom insubordinate to the crown: the political war being waged behind the curtains.
Doran was one of those players, though he had lost his best chances so far. Or, at least, so he thought — he had received a strange scroll that day, one that could change everything. Before it came to him, he believed he had lost everything.
Now, perhaps he could have more than vengeance. The vengeance of his family against the Lannisters and Baratheons — and perhaps even against the Starks, who were also a source of his bitterness and hatred — could finally elevate his family to power once more.
He might have lost the chance to see Rhaenys, the trueborn daughter of Elia and Rhaegar, become queen. But something new had arisen — an opportunity for Arianne, just as he had always foreseen.
Jon Arctic might have Rhaenys, and according to some rumors, even Daenerys Targaryen, for there were whispers of a girl with silver hair among the Arctic fleet, guarded as closely as the princess, the king, and the queen — often seen speaking with Jon Arctic himself on the deck of the flagship.
It had not been easy to obtain that information. It seemed someone had tried to hide it, and Doran believed it could have been the Arcticans themselves. But not even the Crown or the rest of Westeros appeared to know of it, which made him dismiss that possibility. Perhaps it was not Arctic who was behind this, since he had needed to send trusted men to verify the witnesses in the city, but rather an ally — or someone who did not want that information to reach the king for some reason.
Perhaps it was someone important, who believed that such information should be used at another time to gain political power. Given the people of Westeros — especially the manipulators — that was quite plausible. And Doran believed it was none other than Varys, the one responsible for bringing information to the king. He was certainly plotting something.
In any case, it seemed that a third path had been opened, and he now stood before it. Even if Jon Arctic somehow had two Targaryen women, if that silver-haired girl was who he thought she was, the Martells could still claim the crown for themselves.
At that moment, the doors of the audience chamber finally opened. His eldest daughter entered first, followed closely by his brother.
"Oberyn, I'd like to speak only among ourselves," Doran said upon seeing him enter, accompanied by his bastard daughters and his lover.
Oberyn raised an eyebrow and turned his attention to Ellaria. Ellaria huffed when she saw the apologetic look from her lover, then turned and shot Doran a sharp glare before leaving, pushing her daughters out of the room.
"Where is Trystane?" Doran asked.
"Who knows," Arianne replied with a shrug, taking her place as the heiress of Dorne.
Oberyn was still staring at him, as if trying to guess why he had been summoned. He had returned to Dorne two weeks earlier after traveling through the Free Cities of Lys, Tyrosh, and Myr in search of information. He wanted to understand what had happened, since the Arcticans had simply vanished from the seas.
He also wanted to observe the political situation among the men who ruled the Free Cities, especially among the furious merchants, for Arctic had cut off all trade, declaring that they were at war — a war Doran later heard was against the army of the dead and the White Walkers.
If all that did not sound absurd enough, Doran would not know what to say. But there were far more convenient excuses to invent than merely creating an enemy from a children's tale. It made no sense. Arctic ruled the seas, and their excuse for cutting trade was precisely that war. They would lose money and even part of their maritime routes.
But this was likely temporary. After all, if Arctic resumed trading, those who now missed their goods — or profited from them — would quickly embrace them again, forgetting all the anger they felt at this moment.
In any case, Doran, despite finding the idea of an army of the dead and childish tales used to frighten disobedient children absurd, was still inclined to believe it. There were so many things about Arctic that it was easier to believe the impossible when one's attention turned to that place.
Moreover, Doran knew there was more about Arctic that was not publicly known. Some strange mentions of flying creatures said to belong to the king sometimes slipped from the mouths of the kingdom's sailors — especially when a spy happened to overhear their conversations as they joked among themselves. There were whispers Doran could not quite identify, but it was clear that there was something in that kingdom — something immensely powerful.
Either way, he waited with his eldest daughter and his brother until the doors finally opened, and Trystane hurried in to take his place beside Arianne.
"You're late," Arianne said sharply, demanding an explanation.
Trystane glared at her with a hint of irritation. "I was outside training, dear sister. I couldn't simply fly here," he mocked, while Doran sighed at the rivalry between his children — a rivalry that, whether he liked it or not, he had created himself.
"It's all right, Arianne. It's not as though we've been waiting for him that long," Doran said to his daughter, while she merely huffed.
In any case, Doran turned his attention to his brother.
"I called you all here because we need to discuss a few matters," he said, lifting his leg to show them something.
"What is that, Father?" Arianne asked.
"It's something from the East," he replied.
"And what would that be? Don't tell me that after the Arcticans left the Free Cities under the rule of the fire priests, the place collapsed?" Trystane mocked.
The Arcticans had spent entire moons rebuilding the cities they had conquered in Slaver's Bay, changing the government and the way business was conducted there. In fact, that name was already old — now people called the place the 'Bay of the Arcticans.' Great changes had occurred in the three main cities of the region, and everyone heard about it whenever their attention turned eastward.
To begin with, the slave trade had been radically altered. As slavery no longer existed, due to the liberation the Arcticans had brought to each city, the area had become an enormous depot of Arctican goods, created to supply that entire side of the world. They had built several massive warehouses in the port cities, and trade had been completely restructured.
The people who had spent their entire lives buying and selling slaves — or even those who had lived with chains around their necks — had, over the course of a year and a half, learned to live without someone holding a whip over them. Even the Dothraki had stopped launching attacks against the Free Cities of that region — and everyone knew why. They feared a man from Arctic, the one they called the Great Khal, or "the one who will unite the world." He was earning both the respect — and the fear — of all the Dothraki.
All the cities connected to Jon Arctic were kept safe from the attacks of the Dothraki warriors and their khalasars, who now came only to trade fairly.
Trystane had mocked at that moment, believing that no one could change the slave trade and the lives of the freed in just a year and a half. The Arcticans had been working on it since they began sending ships back east, filling those warehouses with supplies built swiftly and entirely by those small men of Arctic — known as the dwarves — using resources from their own kingdom.
The red priests had taken control of the government after the Arcticans had to leave the cities to take part in the war in the North. It was said that the priests themselves were also devoted to Jon Arctic, as if he were the incarnation of the Red God himself.
That deeply unsettled the Martell family. Jon Arctic wielded far too much power in Essos — even though he was farther from the continent than the Seven Kingdoms had ever been.
And it was no wonder. No man in the history of the world had ever simply bought a share of the Iron Bank, created a maritime route linking all the western and southern Free Cities, won the loyalty of the priests of the Red God, conquered Slaver's Bay, and kept it under his banner while living nearly on the other side of the world. It was certain now that the new Arctican Bay belonged entirely to them.
Moreover, he held both commercial and military alliances with Yi Ti and had earned the respect of a wild people such as the Dothraki — something unimaginable — after single-handedly devastating the great khaals of the Dothraki Sea.
Perhaps imagining that Slaver's Bay had collapsed with the absence of the Arcticans was a tempting thought for the Martell family — the hope that Jon Arctic was not as formidable as everyone believed, that even after his achievements, he still had his flaws. After all, they had no power or influence over Arctic. Not even Jon's favor — not after Doran had tried to use Rhaenys as a piece in a political game, along with Jon Arctic's biological son, the one who was meant to unite House Martell and the kingdom of Arctic.
But the plan failed. The boy was taken from them by force — all because of a decision Doran had made. All because his niece had fallen hopelessly in love, placing Jon Arctic above her own family — something that, according to Doran, should never have happened.
Rhaenys should have learned her political value, understood that her son was her joy, but also a tool that could be used. However, the girl was passionate and stubborn. She refused to allow her child to be used in such a way. That was when Doran had to make an extreme decision — and things unfolded as they did.
"No," Doran replied, wiping the mischievous smile off his son's face. "To tell the truth, according to our spies, Slaver's Bay is quite prosperous. The amount of food, drink, and goods the Arcticans left in the cities not only supplied them for years but also included the use of fertilizers that allowed cultivation in areas previously barren. Something that seems tied to their magic, though I do not fully understand it."
"Furthermore," he continued, "trade between the cities began to flourish. Jon Arctic was clever in dividing the goods, distributing them in such a way that each city depended on the other, encouraging commercial exchange among them. It was a strategic move. Trade among the Free Cities — and even with places beyond them — began to grow. Volantis became an ally, with the Red Temple supporting the Arcticans and ruling in the name of Jon Arctic. Other Free Cities also began seeking Arctican goods from the 'Arctican Bay,' now that no ships come from the North anymore." Doran finished, acknowledging that the scenario the Arcticans had built was indeed remarkable.
"So, what is it, brother?" Doran asked, showing the scroll to Oberyn, who finally read it.
"This... this can't be..." he went pale and stammered.
Doran took the paper from his hand and handed it to his children, while Oberyn remained frozen before growling at his brother.
"No! This isn't true. I was there, Doran! I was in that damned room, with our sister's body and the baby's corpse. I arrived too late," said Oberyn, torn between rage and despair, his eyes nearly dry of tears from the memories — memories of finding his sister lying in a corner of the room when he had broken into King's Landing through the secret passages. He had managed to rescue Rhaenys, but Elia and her son were already dead when he arrived.
He had screamed at the sight, and wept over his sister's body, but then turned to Rhaenys, who was also screaming beside him, seeing her mother's corpse and the scene of death, with parts of her brother scattered across the floor. He couldn't bear to see the girl suffer anymore — she had to be saved, taken away before they were caught. Swallowing his grief, he grabbed the little girl and ran, even striking her on the head to make her faint; otherwise, her cries and screams would have given them away as they fled the castle.
He had deceived Tywin and Robert by finding the body of a girl about Rhaenys's age — the girl was also dead in one of the Red Keep's corridors. Oberyn placed her in Rhaenys's chamber and set the room ablaze — so that only bones would remain.
In the end, they believed that a fire had been caused after Amory Lorch struggled with the girl who was said to have fled from her mother while he tried to kill her.
"Is this true, Father?" Arianne asked, surprised as she too read the letter.
"No, this can't be true!" Oberyn roared, consumed by rage.
"I know it sounds strange and surprising, but we must see this as an opportunity," said Doran, ignoring his brother's fury.
"Opportunity? You want us to believe that her son survived and is now somewhere across the sea, allied with the Golden Company? You really expect me to believe that, brother? I saw the child — he was dead. As dead as our sister!" Oberyn shouted, furious.
"That is why I want you to go and find this Aegon and uncover the truth. He has invited us to meet him. If what he says is real... then we will have a chance for vengeance, and perhaps to claim the throne. Whether or not he truly is Elia's son, if he possesses the weapon he described in this letter, he interests us — so long as he marries Arianne," Doran replied, surprising both Arianne and Trystane, while Oberyn still seethed with bitterness.
"You mean it doesn't matter if he's lying or trying to deceive us!?" Oberyn exclaimed.
"If he has the power to conquer the Seven Kingdoms, as he claims here, it will be a way to place Arianne as queen," Doran said. "For that will be the condition he must meet — to have Arianne at his side if he wants Dorne's support. It is a way to take revenge once and for all, and to place House Martell in power again. Oberyn, I hope you see that. If he truly has what he says he does, not even Arctic will be a problem." Doran spoke with an analytical gaze.
Rhaenys — even though she was married to Jon Arctic — still bore Martell blood. If they could place Arianne beside this Aegon as queen, they would have Martell blood to use against the Arcticans in case of war, while Rhaenys's cousin would sit as queen.
Even if the two had not gotten along in recent times, out of Arianne's jealousy, that alone should be enough to deter Arctic from attacking the Seven Kingdoms so easily. At least, that was how Doran saw it.
They just had to be faster in seizing the Iron Throne than Arctic could finish training for his war beyond the Wall...
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Raccoon Here:
I hope the mention of Rhaenys's motivation didn't sound repetitive, since I thought it was better to keep it in two places in the text.
Anyway, I want to talk about King's Landing and explain why Aegon Blackfyre has dragons. They used Viserys Targaryen's body for that after the battle in front of Vaes Dothrak.
It took me a while to finish this chapter because I wanted to do it last night, but since I was tired and knew it wouldn't be quick to work on this chapter, I left it for this morning instead. That's why I did the Dragonborn chapter — it would be faster.
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