Marai, a young courtesan from the Street of Silk, learns to her horror she is the bastard daughter of Aegon II. Prince Aemond could help her...or he could be her greatest peril yet.
Contains sexual situations, strong language, and uncle/niece inces...
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The morning was when I came alive.
Nights were long and grueling, filled with mincing, dancing, and wearing a false face for clients. But the first sliver of light on the Street of Silk stripped it of its allure, and lost its danger too. It was when I could rub my face of the clean of the courtesan's cosmetics, and pass among the streets unhindered, mercifully free. There were places I did not go of course, the rougher parts of Flea Bottom where men would pinch you and near anyone would cut your purse if you were foolish enough to blink.
Not that I had much to steal. Mysaria kept most of my earnings for rent, cosmetics, and silks, and my mother, Alla, held the rest for safekeeping.
"You'll be respectable yet," she had said the night before, clasping my hands in hers. "We'll put this away, and with your pennies and mine, we'll build a little hoard. I'll betroth you to a -"
"A 'prentice boy, I know," I would answer. She always brought up the apprentice when she was feeling guilty. My mother didn't want this life for me, and I supposed her mother didn't want it for her either. But I knew most of my money went to my half-brother Garin, who was studying to be a Maester like his father in Oldtown. Not that I wanted her poxy 'prentice boy.
I pushed open the shudders, sticking my head out the window to catch the glitter of sunlight over Blackwater Bay. Throwing a green linen gown over my head, I plunged for the door. But Alla snatched at my sleeve.
"I don't like you gadding about." Her lips pursed. She had only four-and-ten when she had me, and she was striking woman, tall, with the olive skin and thick black hair of Dorne. In the lamplight, when she laughed with half-lidded eyes at our patrons, she was a wonder. But in light of morning, weary sorrow clouded and lined her face. It was a little too keen a mirror of my future for my comfort, but I could never tell her that. "You are a woman grown, Marai, and not stupid, but the streets aren't safe."
"There's a truce, Alla. You know that." It had been five years since the start of the war between Princess Rhaenyra and her brother Aegon, now crowned Aegon II of him name, but for the past two moons the King's Landing had been blessedly free of the shadow of dragons. We all knew conflict had to resume, and soon, but there was a kind of desperate merriment in the streets.
"Yes, the high lords in their castles say so....but," her face went pale. Prince Daemon had landed Caraxes on Visenya's Hill two years hence. The dragon had towered over her and his foot had fallen like a boulder, inches away from crushing her. Her arm had brushed against him, when she finally found the courage to run, and his flesh had been so hot it had seared her. She had been afraid to leave the brothel since. "You're too precious to risk."
She kissed my forehead, and smoothed my hair, tucking a pale curl behind my ear. She was always telling me to take better care of it, and Mysaria, ever blunt, had told me that it was the only reason I was in her establishment at all. Silver hair was not so very rare- my father had been a Lyseni merchant, and Mysaria said that near everyone in Lys had the pale hair and violet eyes of the Valyrians. There were plenty of Lyseni whores in King's Landing, but I spoke the Common Tongue and was young, so my mother's pleading had secured my place on my fifteenth nameday. I had my mother's tawny eyes and golden skin, and on that day I had wished for her hair as well.
