Chapter Twenty-Two (Patreon)

Aerea had never hated a building as much as she hated the Hightower. It was a gorgeous, glorious building. The Hightower was seven steps layered atop each other, each growing taller and narrower. At the base was a fortress of an unknown black stone, not fused like that of Dragonstone nor slick like the infamous oily black stone of Asshai. Large enough to rival the Red Keep, the Black Stone Fortress covered the whole of Battle Island save for its docks, its walls standing sixty feet tall. Above that bottom layer was the first layer of pale stone. It was clearly built of a different era, the unadorned walls of the Black Stone Fortress to primitive fluting and scrollwork for the next eighty feet. The next layer displayed a greater control of its artistic style. The scrollwork was more ornate, the fluting more precise, and the first bas-reliefs began to appear on its hundred-foot walls. Four more layers rose, each taller than the last, before finally revealing the great flame of the Hightower. In times of peace, the orange fire guided ships safely to port. In times of war, copper was added to the fires and great green flames called the banners to war. Every vassal of House Hightower was ordered to have a man watching the flame at all times, should their support be needed.

Naturally, Aerea wished to see the flame, and the view. She’d seen little of Oldtown as they rode through the city. Only merchants, artisans, and the other well-off, well-shod, and well-fed classes had been allowed along the main road as the Royal Party moved from the Gate of Kings to the High Tower. Aerea had seen beggars forced back by the green-clad City Watch, men in dusty clothes and women with gaunt faces pushed to the side. It seemed not all were welcome in the embrace of the Seven.

Aerea knew she would not be allowed to wander the city. Her mother was like that. Her mother was always like that. Any chance at freedom, however temporary, vanished the moment the King denied Aenar a place in the royal party. Her mother trusted Aenar, and Aenar knew better than to try and limit Aerea. Seven Hells, he came up with worse ideas than she did! Whoever had heard of trying to wrestle a growing dragon?

But the King had decided that Aenar was a bastard, and bastards had no place in the Hightower. The memory made Aerea grit her teeth. If there was one thing she and her mother agreed upon, it was that Aenar was family. To see it rejected so plainly, to be given such lies as to the reasoning (really, could her uncle not think of a more realistic threat to his power than the Westerlings and their allies?) hurt as much as her imprisonment within the Royal Party.

At least she could view the city from the top. Assuming she ever got past her chief obstacle, and her main reason for hating the benighted Hightower.

Aerea panted as she stepped onto the sixty-fourth floor. Her legs were ablaze with pain, her chest struggling to gasp its breath. Yet there were six more stories she needed to climb before she could reach the top. Six more lengthy flights of stairs. And then I’ll need to climb down. Aerea shuddered at the thought.

“Princess?” a woman’s voice asked. One of Lord Hightower’s daughters, the snide fools.

Aerea bit back a groan. She sat upright, her chest still breathing heavily. Her face was undeniably flushed. “Yes, Lady Anna?”

“Lady Anys,” the Hightower corrected. “An understandable mistake, considering your activity.”

Great, Aerea grumbled to herself. Another lecture on how women aren’t supposed to run around.

“. . . usually take the elevator,” Lady Anys said. “Of course, if you want to climb–”

“The el-e-va-tor?” Aerea asked. “What is an elevator?”

Lady Anys brightened considerably. “It’s a very clever device, used for bringing people from a location at a low height to the same location at a greater one using a system of pulleys and winches.”

Aerea stared. “You mean,” she asked slowly, “I didn’t have to climb all those stairs?”

“No. We usually use the elevator for anything over ten flights.”

Aerea felt like crying. In relief or misery, she wasn’t sure. “Is there a reason this wasn’t mentioned to us?”

Lady Anys tilted her head slightly. “Was it not? I’m sure my Lord Grandfather made at least a brief mention of it during his introductions. He is ever so proud of the device.”

*

Rhaella Targaryen did not consider herself prone to fury. That had always been Aerea’s realm. When they had lived together Rhaella was the calmer one. The sturdy one. Even at their last meeting, when Uncle Jaehaerys was crowned, Aerea had raged for the both of them at Rhaella’s seven-sided imprisonment.

Years had changed that. Years had changed many things. When Rhaella, her skin sickly pale from lack of sun and hair shorn close to her scalp by the Abbess, saw Aerea with glowing porcelain skin and a wide smile, there was little she could feel but rage. Why, why did her sister get to have this, when she was stuck in the sept? Why was her sister able to talk of friends when Rhaella was alone, surrounded by those who considered her an abomination for the circumstances of her birth? Yet despite it all, Rhaella could not bring herself to feel rage or hatred towards her sister. Not Aerea, who had as little choice in her happy life as Rhaella did in her misery. Not even their mother, who went along with the king’s decisions that kept Rhaella trapped. But Aenar, this stranger who claimed Rhaella’s rightful place by Aerea’s side? This scaled monstrosity who held more friendships, life, and freedom than Rhaella would ever claim? Hatred swelled in her heart for the boy. She began to pray in earnest, not for success or freedom, but for Aenar’s fall.

Rhaella could not escape. She knew who she was, what she was. A peace offering to the Faith by Maegor and Jaehaerys alike, one of the threads binding together the wound caused by Maeger, the Warriors’ Sons, and Valyrian Tradition. If she left, that thread would vanish. Perhaps the wound was healed enough to take it. But it may not be, and Rhaella could not put the lives of her family above her happiness.

So she envied them instead, and hated those who grew close. She could not reach out and touch Aenar Fyre, but perhaps the Seven would listen to an earnest prayer. After all, the Stranger received precious few.