CALAMITY | jacaerys velaryon

PROLOGUE

PRINCESS SAERYNA TARGARYEN had been the most beloved child of Baelon and Alyssa Targaryen, adored by all who met her. Born only a year before her younger brother, Daemon, Saeryna adored her brothers like nothing else, and would go with them everywhere.

She was beautiful, with suitors begging her father for her hand the moment the girl turned fourteen, but Baelon resisted, wanting his daughter to be close to home for as long as he could manage.

Her kindness was known throughout the kingdom, the smallfolk loving to talk about the young princess who snuck into the streets with a satchel full of food almost every night, who sat in the mud and ruined her gorgeous dresses so she could play with the children. One of the most well known stories was of how Saeryna had led her personal guards on a wild goose chase, leading them all throughout the streets of Kings Landing until they eventually found her at daybreak with a sick child, singing him songs and refusing to be brought back to the Red Keep until the boy died in her arms, still smiling from her songs.

She was named "The People's Princess," and they all loved her, or so it seemed.

But tragedy struck three moons before the princess's seventeenth nameday in the year 96 AC, the day after her betrothal was announced and a month after her brother's coronation. Saeryna had been found dead in her rooms, and it was said that the sight of the girl's body caused her favourite handmaiden to throw herself from the princess's window.

A sickness, the kingdom was told. A tragedy.

But all who ran to the source of the screams and saw Princess Saeryna's body knew the truth. Her corpse had withered until she looked like nothing more than a skeleton, and her bones were black.

Saeryna had been murdered, and by witchcraft, no less.

Years went by, and the tragic passing of the People's Princess began to hurt the kingdom less and less, until she was barely spoken of. No one suspected that the royal family had any reason to lie until the tenth anniversary of Princess Saeryna's death, when word of a girl with white hair started to rise through the streets of Kings Landing once again.

A girl who rode the dragon Vermithor.

𓈒⠀𓂃⠀⠀˖⠀𓇬⠀˖⠀⠀𓂃⠀𓈒

Maera's mother once told her that she would change the world as they knew it. At only seven years of age, the girl wasn't sure what she meant. How was she meant to change the world when her mother rarely even let her leave their little house, hidden away on a hill far away from the rest of the world? Or, what someone Maera's age considered to be the entire world. In reality, they could see the Red Keep from the windows of their home. Maera longed to visit the world, to learn what was beyond their garden fence.

Soon, her mother always promised as she brushed Maera's long white-blonde hair at night. Soon, the entire world will know your name, and you will bring the Targaryens to their knees.

Maera had no interest in that, if she was honest. All she wanted was to have friends, to see people and buy a pretty dress, rather than wearing the ones her mother sewed for her. Bringing anyone to their knees seemed like an awful lot of work, and she was just one girl. Why would she even do that, anyway? They had done nothing to her, nothing to warrant any kind of vengeance that her mother wanted her to dole out.

She said this once and was shocked when her mother struck her across the face, seething in a way that Maera had never seen. It scared the girl, so accustomed to her mother's gentle nature.