Much as I wanted to, I couldn't spend all my time with my mother and baby sister.
Mother needed rest, and the baby needed her mother far more than she needed me. And there was still a tourney happening down at Dawnrest that Father and I had abandoned in our rush back to Evenfall Hall.
With labor taking as long as it did, we didn't return for the second day. But the final event drew us both, transformed now into something more than just an archery tournament. The bells had rung the day before to announce Brienne's safe arrival, and the news had spread through the island faster than wildfire through summer grass. The final day became a kind of double celebration, the closing of the tourney and the welcoming of House Tarth's newest member.
Our family was beloved on Tarth. Father had been a good lord all his years, and Mother charitable beyond what most ladies bothered to be. The smallfolk took genuine pride in their lord's family. A new daughter meant House Tarth was growing. In numbers, in strength, in continuity. It meant security for the people who depended on us.
The meadow outside Dawnrest where the tourney was held looked like a festival. Banners and stalls and people everywhere. Music drifting from multiple sources at once. The smell of roasting meat and spiced wine and trampled grass.
The winner of the archery competition surprised everyone, myself included.
He was a weather-worn, greying man from a village so remote I'd never heard of it. Hands like old leather, a face creased by decades of sun and weather. He hit the bullseye three times in a row at a hundred paces, a feat that drew genuine gasps from the watching crowd. The other finalists were professional men-at-arms or seasoned hunters, while this man looked like he'd walked out of the deepest forest in the realm.
When I offered him the grand prize in silver, he refused. He had one request instead. That we take his two teenage sons into our household and train them as men-at-arms.
His wife had died years ago, he explained. The boys had grown up with him in the wild, hunting and trapping and trading occasionally at their local village. He wanted better for them than the life he'd given them. A path that didn't end in a hut in the woods.
Father and I talked it over quickly while the man waited. Then we agreed—but with a condition. The man would stay too. Not as a guard or servant, but as a teacher. He'd train his sons, all our men, and my Companions in archery. The skill he'd demonstrated wasn't something you could teach in a month, but whatever portion of it he could pass on was worth gold.
He hesitated. There was nothing for him to return to in his old life, but old habits were hard to break. In the end, he agreed, and the celebrations for the tourney's end lasted long into the night.
The whole meadow turned into what could only be described as a medieval block party. Smallfolk danced around bonfires. The musicians played until their fingers blistered, then rotated out for fresh ones. Ale flowed freely. Couples disappeared into the surrounding fields and emerged hours later looking happily disheveled.
Father returned to the castle early to be with Mother. He'd done his duty appearing publicly, but his heart was already gone to her bedside.
I stayed and oversaw the festivities. Which, conveniently, included a great deal of dancing with a certain black-haired beauty whose violet eyes caught the firelight in ways that kept distracting me.
xxx
The next two weeks followed a similar pattern.
When I wasn't with Mother fussing over little Brienne—and gods, that baby grew faster than I could believe, her tiny fingers already trying to grasp things, her eyes starting to track movement—I was either working on matters too delicate to delegate or playing host to our esteemed foreign guests.
I took them riding to my favorite spots around the island, through the lush green forests of the south, along the gentle streams that crisscrossed the valleys. We rode to a waterfall I'd discovered as a boy, where the water fell forty feet into a clear pool. We climbed to the high meadows where wildflowers bloomed in carpets of color. We followed the coastal trails where you could see the best sunset in the Seven Kingdoms.
Sometimes, when Elia and Gerion were lost in their own conversation and Oberyn had inevitably wandered off to flirt with whoever caught his eye, I'd seize the reins of Ashara's horse and pull her down a hidden trail I'd known since childhood. We'd ride out laughing like fools until we found some quiet spot. A glade, a hidden stream, the shadow of an old tree. Then we'd kiss until a worried Elia came calling for us.
When the weather cooperated, I took them diving from the cliffs outside the castle, showing off Tarth's most famous feature aside from our marble. The water there was as sapphire as the island's reputation promised, deep and clear and warm enough to swim in for hours.
Gerion revealed a fact he'd successfully hidden from most of his acquaintances for years: he had a deathly fear of heights. He stood at the cliff edge for nearly an hour, increasingly elaborate excuses pouring out of him while the rest of us swam in the water below.
Elia eventually climbed back up and dragged him to the edge. He clung to her like a koala baby to its mother, his eye squeezed shut.
"I cannot believe," Oberyn called up from the water, "that the great Lannister knight is afraid of a little jump."
"This is not a little jump!" Gerion shouted back. "This is suicide!"
Elia finally got him to leap by promising she'd hold his hand the whole way down. They fell together, Gerion screaming the entire fifteen feet, and surfaced spluttering and laughing while the rest of us tried not to drown from our own laughter.
He refused to jump again. But he'd done it once, and that was something.
And at night, when most of the castle slept and the moon hung silver above the cliffs, Ashara and I would meet in the gardens. Sometimes just to talk. Sometimes to walk through the wild flowers under the stars. But more often, I'd take her down to the crystal pool below the castle again.
There, we'd swim in the silver-touched water. Float on our backs and watch the crystals glitter overhead. Kiss until our lips were swollen. Talk for hours about nothing in particular and everything that mattered.
Like two young fools crushing hard on one another. Which, I supposed, was exactly what we were.
But such times could not last forever.
Lord Steffon's letter arrived two weeks after Brienne's birth, and the message was simple. We'd be heading off to Essos in a fortnight. His fleet was already gathering at King's Landing. Ships, supplies, the entourage that would accompany him on his royal mission.
I told Ashara about it that night, as we lay on the sand by the crystal pool. The moonlight pouring through the cliff opening painted everything silver-white. The crystals on the ceiling caught it and threw it back tenfold, turning the cavern into something out of a dream.
I'd brought her an orchid that night, picked from one of the wilder corners of Mother's gardens. I'd put it behind her ear. The purple of the petals matched her eyes almost exactly.
"Two weeks..." Ashara murmured.
"Two weeks."
She turned to her side, propping herself up on one elbow to look at me. The orchid stayed in place behind her ear.
"It's best if we left before Lord Baratheon arrives," she said. "Before all the noise and ceremony begins. We can be on our way to Sunspear before his fleet ever reaches Tarth's harbor."
I shifted to my side as well, taking her in. The curve of her neck. The line of her shoulder. Those pouty lips that I'd kissed enough times now that I could trace their shape from memory.
I must have been looking at her too long, because she frowned at me.
"What?"
"I take it back," I said. "Your eyes aren't froggish purple. They're orchid purple."
She snorted and pushed me onto my back, then settled herself with her chin resting on my bare chest. Her fingers traced absent patterns on my skin.
"What will we do?" she asked.
I raised an eyebrow. "You're the one who said we cannot marry yet."
"You weren't exactly jumping at the thought of it either." She harrumphed.
I shrugged, careful not to dislodge her. "Any man would be eager to marry you, Ashara. But marriage isn't the kind of thing one should rush into. And I wouldn't want to do so without your father's permission."
She sighed. "I know."
She looked down, seemingly fascinated by the lines of muscle on my chest. Her fingers traced one of them, light as a breath.
"But I will speak to him," she said. "When I return. I'll make him see sense."
"You don't sound so convinced."
"It would help if you were Dornish. Or Essosi, even. Or anything other than a Stormlander."
I laughed. "Even a Reachman?"
Her eyes lifted, almost offended. "I'm speaking about men, ser. Not..." She waved a hand vaguely. "Whatever they are."
I shook my head, chuckling. "People are people everywhere, dornish girl." I poked her gently on the forehead. "Don't let your father's ideas do your thinking for you. Or you wouldn't have ended up on the chest of a dashing Stormlander, no?"
She glared at me, though there was no real heat in it.
"You are quite eager to defend the flowers, aren't you?" She pressed a long nail against my chest. "Is this about that Hightower bint?"
I frowned with theatrical confusion. "Who, Malora? Well, I wouldn't call her a bint. Malora Hightower is actually quite the charming young—ow, ow!"
Her nail dragged lightly down my chest. It honestly felt more like a pleasant scratch than anything painful, but I had to give her the win after mentioning another woman in our private cave. Her glare intensified.
I lifted both hands in surrender. "Fine, fine. I won't mention the unmentionable. But look—we are young still. We don't have to marry yet. As I said, I'm not in any rush."
Ashara looked at me for a long moment. Then she sighed and lowered her head back onto my chest.
"I know. I just don't like the idea that you'll get to go gallivanting off to Essos or Oldtown in search of a new bint to charm."
"Such is the tragic fate of dashing knights, my lady." I let out a put-upon sigh. "We're irresistible to the bints."
I got a sharp bite to my chest for that one. I didn't mind.
We lay there for a while in comfortable silence, the only sound the gentle lap of water against sand.
After she'd told me her father would be unlikely to allow her to marry anytime soon—and especially not to a Stormlander—I had decided to enjoy my time with her without the specter of marriage and family alliances hanging over us. I hadn't lied when I told her we were still young. I knew it was common to marry at our ages in Westeros, me at seventeen and her at sixteen. If we had to do so quickly, it wouldn't bother me much. But I also wasn't against waiting. Letting things develop naturally. Letting us both grow into ourselves a bit more before making lifelong commitments.
I liked Ashara. I could feel that I might come to love her, given time and proximity. But what was between us wasn't quite love yet. It was the beginning of something. The promise of something. Whether that promise would be fulfilled or wither was something only time would tell.
We'd talked about it openly, which I appreciated. Agreed to take any opportunity to see each other when our paths crossed. To use those times to deepen our connection. Love would either come from it naturally, or our feelings would fade like any other young crush.
Either way, we'd know.
xxx
Three days later, Ashara Dayne and Princess Elia Martell boarded a ship and left for Sunspear.
The parting was harder than I'd expected. We said our public goodbyes with proper formality on the docks at Dawnrest. Ashara curtsied and I bowed and we exchanged polite words about how we hoped our paths would cross again soon.
But that morning, before the household was fully awake, she'd slipped into my chambers one last time. We hadn't done anything more than hold each other and exchange a long, lingering kiss. But it had felt more significant than all our nights in the cave combined.
Ashara and Elia left behind many memories when they were finally gone. The riding. The diving. The dances at the feast. The nights by the crystal pool. The way Elia laughed at Gerion's jokes. The way Ashara's hair caught the moonlight.
They also left behind a Prince who'd all but invited himself onto our journey east.
I didn't mind. Oberyn was as pleasant company as Gerion, and now that we were friends, I welcomed his presence on the voyage. Plus, he'd been to the Free Cities before. He had contacts. He knew enough about which magisters were trustworthy and which were snakes wearing perfume.
Having him along would be useful.
But for now, in the days before Lord Steffon arrived with his fleet, I had a baby sister to spend time with. A mother to dote on. A family that had grown stronger and more precious to me than ever.
Whatever else came, those few weeks of warmth and safety, of swimming in moonlit caves and watching Father hold his newborn daughter, were memories I'd carry with me across the Narrow Sea.
xxx
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