CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

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THE QUEEN OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS
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THE QUEEN OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

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132 AC, Dragonstone

Too soon...

It was too soon...

By Dora's calculations Valyria wasn't due to give birth in another moon. Yet she found herself walking around her bedchambers, two midwives holding onto each of her arms, preventing the princess from dropping to the floor as she let out another pained scream. The pain of childbirth mixed with the array of emotions she felt after hearing about Viserys's passing threw the new queen into a distressed haze.

"This should not be happening," Valyria cried, tears streaming down her face as she was overwhelmed by the feeling of fear and grief. Fear for her own life and that of her child. Devastated by the news of Viserys's passing as she thought about the man who'd helped raise her while simultaneously holding onto that bitterness his name now caused when she thought about what he'd taken from her. "Not now. Why now?"

"Princess, you need to calm yourself," Dora told her, hiding her own growing concern extremely well. The Essosi healer had never seen the princess in such a state before. Not so early in her labours. During Jaeron and Viserys's birth Valyria had her moments of panic but usually they came after hours of labours.

"Keep your head about you, princess," one of the midwives told her reassuringly.

"You've done this five times before," the other one added. "Keep your spirit and the sixth will pass without any difference."

"My spirit is not the issue," Valyria snapped between gritted teeth. How could she keep her spirit when a man who'd raised her like his own daughter was dead. When she had no idea where her second eldest daughter and a boy she loved like a son were at the moment. When the realm soon was about to be plunged into a war.

Across the castle, inside the room of the Painted Table, Prince Daemon stood, face set in a grim scowl as he looked between the members of the household he'd summoned, "I want patrols along the island's perimeter, looking for any small ships that might set ashore," he ordered his men. "If the Greens attack now, it will be by stealth-" he paused for a moment when another pained sob echoed across the stone walls through the keep, "-not directly," he finished, trying to appear unaffected by the sounds of his wife in pain. Not like every single cry felt like a stab through his heart. "We don't have enough men to surround the island but we can make ourselves appear stronger than they are."

Yet another one of Valyria's screams caught the attention of all the men in the room. Noticing how he was losing their focus, Daemon continued, "Conscript the Dragonkeepers. They're capable fighters. Waste no time."

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