Surviving

Chapter 35: The Boy and Girl Who Sat The Throne

"Two years? Two years to 'avenge their queen'?" Twelve year old Naerys scoffed before she sipped on her tea. She shook her head, pursing her lips together as her eyes remained on the dusty brown book before her. "Ridiculous. They burned the majority of Dorne and still Dorne was allowed to remain separate from the realm?"

Lord Lyonel Strong chuckled quietly to himself, trying to fight his smile as he watched the disapproving look on her face. "King Aegon and Queen Visenya were distraught after the loss of Queen Rhaenys, it's understandable they'd respond with such...brutality."

Naerys rolled her eyes before she looked up at Lyonel with a sour look on her face. "It makes no sense. I don't understand how they can be 'so overcome with grief' and take it out on Dorne, but not claim Dorne as their own at that point."

"Oh?" Lyonel raised a curious eyebrow as he propped his elbows on the table, resting his hands underneath his chin. "You sound as if you don't believe that to be the tale."

"Well..." Naerys trailed off, glancing down at the page once more before returning her frustrated gaze towards him. "If my mother was murdered along with Syrax, whoever was responsible would answer for their crimes...but Dorne didn't..."

"Perhaps it is only a crime to those who do not read between the lines of the maesters' words." He shrugged. Her eyes went back to the page with her eyebrow arched. She read the lines over and over, but still didn't understand, which only made him chuckle more. "These tomes have held many of the realm's histories since the conquest, but what most people forget is who wrote them and when."

"What does that have to do with Queen Rhaenys?" She scrunched her face with confusion as she sipped more on her tea.

He flipped the page in front of her, revealing Prince Nymor traveling to King's Landing with Meraxes' skull and a letter he would give to King Aegon. His index finger tapped over the text for her to read while he watched proudly at her fascination.

"...King Aegon had no intention of accepting Prince Nymor's plea for peace, but upon reading the letter, King Aegon destroyed it immediately and fled to Dragonstone. King Aegon returned the next day and agreed immediately to Prince Nymor's terms, which would exclude Dorne from the realm..." Naerys read out loud, but shoved the book away from her with a frustrated huff. "Again, all of that destruction just to give up at the end?"

He shook his head with a laugh. "What do you think the letter contained, princess?"

She smirked. "Unless they had dragons of their own, I don't know."

"Think, princess. What would cause the conqueror, a man who took this very same queen as his second wife for love, to come to such terms with the kingdom responsible for that queen's death?" Lyonel raised his eyebrows, seeing the gears slowly turning in the princess' head.

Her eyebrows scrunched together as she rapidly flipped the pages back, rereading the tale of how Queen Rhaenys and her dragon met their unfortunate fates over and over until she slumped back in her seat slowly.

She pursed her lips together, biting the inside of them as she tried to piece together the puzzle before her. There was only one thing she could think of, but she didn't want to be wrong. It sounded ridiculous, but it was the only thing that could make some sense to her.

"Was Queen Rhaenys..." She started, then took a deep breath and looked up at him hesitantly. "Did she survive?"

He tried to fight off his grin, but nothing could stop his eyebrow from arching, as if to tell her she was on the right track.