The Wizard of Fury Chapter 58 (Patreon)

Manipulating water felt all too easy these days.

Although utilising a wand was the natural way in which Harry performed magic, it wasn’t exactly so for Arianne. Feeling her hands swish through the air, creating a weaving pattern, felt so much more appropriate. She felt like the essence of everything around built up in her hands and begged to be released.

Harry’s wand provided precision. That was one caveat she was willing to admit. Her aim was a tad less precise, but it fell no less potent. But what she lost in precision, she gained in speed and agility. A wand naturally added a bit of weight and forced precision whereas using her hands allowed her a more general yet quick response.

Even now as she stood inside of her familiar practice cavern with a tub of water before her, Arianne's hands flicked back and forth.

Water danced in every direction she moved, forming gorgeous archways as a small stream flew from one end of the tub to the other. She liked to lift up her legs and use them for practice as she made the water form intricate, overlapping rings around them. It was terribly amusing.

Yet, her only regret was that she could share her abilities with those around her. Harry and Oberyn were always keen to witness what she’d been learning, but they were often busy with their own tasks. Harry was often sent back to the capital or occupied with the necessary overseeing of his island while Oberyn spent much of his days near the shores speaking to the new merchants visiting the island. Watching over her seemed a boring task for him despite her burgeoning magical abilities.

That only left Margaery.

It was difficult for Arianne to say if they were friends now or not.

While they spent every day eating together and spending much of their free time beside one another, neither of them had forgotten the fact that Arianne had fallen in love with Harry.

Every other wife in the Seven Kingdoms would’ve sent Arianne away by now. Even if Harry had insisted that Arianne remain, Margaery would be well within her rights to see her gone, and Harry wasn’t the type to refuse his wife anything she sternly believed in.

It felt a little strange then that Arianne remained here to this day. She’d grown closer to Margaery, especially after that day that Harry had left Dragonstone a couple of months ago and they’d met atop the Stone Drum in the Chamber of the Painted Table. A bond had been formed, one that Margaery insisted upon.

There were days that Arianne wished to tear Margaery to shreds and take everything that she held dear. Of course, Harry would never have Arianne if she did such a thing. Other days, she wished that she could forget the man she’d fallen in love with and simply be friends with the beautiful woman who did so much to make Dragonstone her home as much as it was hers.

The only way to clear the thoughts from her mind were to spend hours deep in the caverns below Dragonstone practising her magic. Much like exercising a muscle, magic needed to be practised in order to become stronger in it.

Arianne spent nearly a full day down there practising after Harry left for the capital once again. His father’s initially-harsh rulings were being tempered thanks to Harry’s wisdom. Calm was finally being restored to the Seven Kingdoms nearly half a year past the desolation laid to the Crownlands by those damned bandits and outlaws who’d killed the last king.

In that familiar chamber, Arianne called upon water to do marvellous things.

The thin streams and jets of water she’d been limited to before were slowly turning into waves nearly as tall as a grown man. She could control enough water to create a spout that lasted for half a minute before her stamina finally gave out. And most importantly, she learned to turn the tides.

It’d begun as a little experiment on her part. There were plenty of small fishing boats on Dragonstone that were eager to get out and find some supper for the smallfolks. Though she did not reveal herself, Arianne lingered atop a narrow causeway by the shore and turned the tides in favour of these fishing boats even when the waters just a ways down the shore remained against them. Word had begun to spread about the strange tides, which made Arianne cautious about how often she utilised her powers.

Still, it made her immensely proud to be able to accomplish something that she never would’ve dreamt of being able to do a year ago. It was as though her ancestral people, the Rhoynar, had come back to life and their water witches had taught her how to control water again.

What a boon it would be if she were to ever return to Dorne. She could make dry riverbeds flow with water again, bringing life back to the most desolate parts of the desert. Many of her ancestors had tried such a feat by using metal pipes or simple digging to allow water to flow in new places, yet none had ever lasted more than a year or two before failing.

Returning to Dorne and aiding her people was a goal that Arianne set for herself, regardless of whether or not her father was still in charge. She would utilise Harry’s influence as a prince to ensure that her work be done without delay if he was, and if her brother was the new Prince of Dorne, then she could trust that his familial love for her would allow her safe passage to do what she wished.

With her head full of grand ideas and her body tired from a long day’s work, Arianne trudged back up to the castle and made her way towards the bathhouse. It required her climbing back up through the dungeons to the ground level of the castle and returning to the Stone Drum before descending below ground again deep beneath the earth to reach the vast bathhouse that was heated due to the volcanic activity on the island. It was one of Arianne’s most favourite places to visit; the heat of the chamber reminded her of sitting beneath the warm sun in the Water Gardens in Dorne.

Yet, as she neared the chamber, she found several guards on watch. None of them stopped her passing, of course, but it did point out to her that she wouldn’t be alone.

Arianne stripped down in the antechamber before she took a towel and stepped into the bathhouse. It was a domed room with vents overhead for the steam that filled much of the chamber. Several shallow cool baths encircled the deeper one that was warm to the touch. It had a concave base at the centre, but there was a shallow ring around it that allowed men and women to rest against the warm stone without needing to expend their energy to stay afloat. Arianne adored swimming to the very base of it when she was alone, touching the deepest point where water flowed in, and then swimming back to the surface.

But today, there was another in the baths with her.

In the cavernous chamber, steam perpetually danced in the air as gentle bubbles formed on the surface of the large bath. Margaery was floating on her back in the midst of it, her breasts peeking out over the water that gently lapped at her skin.

Arianne set her towel down on the heated stone floor and slipped into the large tub, the movement disturbing the water enough that Margaery finally noticed her.

“Long day?” Arianne asked as Margaery gently swam over to meet her at the edge of the pool.

“Something like that,” Margaery murmured. “Lady Melisandre asked for a meeting with me this afternoon. She wanted to inform me that she’d seen in the flames that Harry would return safely to Dragonstone on the morrow. Then, she wanted to show me more.”

Arianne nodded in understanding. She’d become Melisandre’s favourite person to bother with talks about visions. Between her, Margaery, and Harry, she had the easiest time seeing visions in the flames.

“Did you see anything this time?” Arianne asked.

“I did,” Margaery said with a contemplative furrow of her brow. “I was standing at the prow of a ship with a swollen belly.”

“That’s wonderful, isn’t it?” Arianne exclaimed, hating the fact that a pang of envy ran through her. She should be pleased that Margaery would get pregnant, but she couldn’t help but wish that it was herself instead.

“We were somewhere strange,” Margaery continued, ignoring Arianne’s question.

“We?”

“Myself, Harry, and you. We were all standing there together, staring off at something in the distance,” Margaery said, squinting her eyes as though she was trying to bring the vision back to life. “Melisandre said it was our next step together to begin the war for the dawn against the Great Other, among other things.”

The way she said that last bit made Arianne realise that whatever Melisandre had said was what was bothering her.

“She’s been terribly vague about this supposed war,” Arianne said. “This Great Other… a God of Terror, the enemy of her god, R’hllor. Harry is supposed to be the reborn Azor Ahai, the hero who slayed the darkness and freed us all from its doom.”

“Well, we know that he was brought here from another world. In a way, he was reborn,” Margaery pointed out quietly. “And Melisandre told me that Harry would wield a blade called Lightbringer to slay the darkness and free us all once more. I hate that I think it could be real.”

“Why is that?” Arianne cocked her head to the side.

“Because it means that her visions must be real,” Margaery explained. “I’ll…”

She trailed off and sank lower into the tub until her head disappeared beneath the water. A spray shot out across Arianne’s face as Margaery suddenly shot back up. She wiped at her face, rubbing beneath her eyes.

“Sorry,” Margaery apologised as Arianne wiped her own face clean. “I needed to clear my head.”

“Of what?”

“The confusing thoughts,” Margaery said with a weak smile.

Arianne took in a deep breath. As complicated as her feelings were towards Margaery, she truly did wish the woman well. She’d invited Arianne into her home and to spend extensive time with her husband when any other woman would’ve turned her away. She was putting forward an effort to be kind, and she deserved kindness in return.

“If there is anything I can do to help,” Arianne began tentatively. “I’ve spent more time with Melisandre than anyone here, and I’ve come to understand her a bit better the more I see how she operates through her visions in the flames. If she’s upset you, I could try to make sense of what she’s done.”

“It’s not that I’m confused by what she’s told me. I just don’t know how I feel about it,” Margaery explained. “You have many cousins and ladies, yes?”

Arianne nodded. Most were pains in her side, but she truly missed Tyene. She hoped the sweet woman was doing well back in Sunspear or wherever she was now. Though Oberyn was in Dragonstone with them, he often wrote back home. He regularly sent his daughters off to various parts of Dorne as envoys of his when House Martell’s presence was required.

“One or two must’ve served as your handmaidens and shared your bed at night, right?”

“They did not, but I did have other handmaidens.” They tended to be the daughters of minor lords or distant branches of House Martell.

“And like many highborn ladies, they helped you learn to come into your body as you developed, yes?”

Again, Arianne nodded. Them and her mother had taught her everything she needed to know as her body changed.

“Eventually, curiosity finds its way in. It’s only natural, of course, to be curious. But we must remain chaste for our husbands, so…”

Arianne almost snorted in amusement. It took her this long to ask if Arianne had ever been pleasured by another woman? In Dorne, such things were discussed with much more openness among friends.

“Yes, I have had female lovers,” Arianne answered Margaery’s unspoken question. “What is this about?”

“Could you hold your hand out for me?” Margaery asked, ignoring Arianne again.

Arianne was well and truly confused now, but she did as she was asked. Margaery was close enough to her that Arianne’s hand was practically in her face, but she didn’t seem to mind.

Gingerly, Margaery brought her own hand up and held it out just barely next to Arianne’s and then paused. Their hands wavered there, never touching until the moment that Margaery pressed her palm against Arianne’s.

Something surged within her chest. It felt like she was being jolted awake. Her heart raced and her mind couldn’t process anything other than the fact that Margaery was right there in front of her, caught up in the same type of breathtaking sensation as she was.

Almost simultaneously, they both yanked their hands back and just stared at each other, panting for breath.

There was only one other time that Arianne had felt something like that. It was when Harry had touched her arm in the Great Hall in the Red Keep. It was the day that she’d realised that they shared a special connection.

And now…

Arianne couldn’t understand it. Margaery was a beautiful woman—she’d be a fool to claim she wasn’t—but she wasn’t in love with her the way she was with Harry. Besides, Margaery already had a lover in Harry and seemed to be more than satisfied with him.

So why had things changed? What brought about this newfound connection? What—

“Melisandre told me that she’s seen visions of the three of us travelling east to Asshai. It was the vision she showed me of us on the prow of the ship,” Margaery explained, understanding finally filling her eyes for the first time since they’d started speaking. “But she told me more. She declared that Harry and I would find love more than just our own. I believed her to be referring to the love we’d have for our future children, but her words kept running through my mind. You know how she speaks, dropping little hints and vagaries that seem to hold no connection to what she was just speaking about.”

Arianne felt like her breath had just been sucked back out. “So that touch just now was…?”

“A test,” Margaery admitted. “It had dawned on me that Melisandre seemed quite pleased about our growing bond. She was always keen to ask after our activities and encouraged me to spend more time getting to know you. That time has been pleasant, I’ll admit, but I hadn’t ever imagined being with anyone other than my husband other than in flights of fancy and playful teasing with him in our bedchamber. I’ve known about your connection with Harry and how similar it was to the one I have with him, but I never imagined that we could also form one. Perhaps it is our mutual connection to him that has facilitated it or we’ve never considered it due to our love for Harry overriding all others.”

Arianne’s heart was beating faster and faster now. “Are you suggesting—”

“I’m suggesting nothing,” Margaery interjected pointedly, her expression turning serious. “This means nothing, yet. I needed answers, and you’ve provided them for me. That is all.”

It took a lot for Arianne to swallow the words she so desperately wanted to shout out. She was willing to share Harry with Margaery, to become her lover too, to take whatever scraps she could get. It was one of the exceedingly rare moments in her life where she wasn’t above begging for what she wanted.

But she kept her mouth shut until she felt like she could say anything else.

“I’ll leave Dragonstone if my presence continues to cause trouble,” she said, resigned to being able to offer nothing else.

“You most certainly will not leave unless Harry or I decree you to,” Margaery declared. “What has happened here today is a private matter for my husband and I to discuss.”

Suddenly, Margaery swam to the edge of the pool and climbed out, collecting her towel as she went.

“I expect you to speak to no one about this, not even Melisandre,” Margaery told Arianne. “I have grown fond of your presence here and could almost call you a friend. Today does not change that.”

Margaery’s wet footsteps trailed off back towards the entrance where her clothes were, and Arianne was left sitting in the pool that felt far less warm and comforting than it had at the start.