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CRISIS OF MY FAITH / CHAPTER SIX.
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If the Targaryens were closer to gods than mortals, Meliana had been an unwelcome witness to their humanity more times than she could count.
The day King Viserys Targaryen announced his engagement to the teenage Alicent Hightower, the princess returned to her chambers stomping like an angered child who had just been slapped across the face. At first, Meliana simply stood and stared with a bit of horror as the princess said nothing and, without even acknowledging her presence, raised a vase above her head before throwing it on the ground and breaking it into pieces. The moment the handmaiden saw the flowers on the ground—a gift from Otto Hightower himself, or at least that was what the maid that brought them earlier that morning said—she knew exactly what had happened. And yet, she remained silent, as the princess continued on her pursuit to wreck as many breakable objects as possible. The loud noises attracted the guards, but once they saw that the princess was not in danger and that Meliana was motioning for them to leave, they didn't intervene either.
By the time Rhaenyra was done, Meliana couldn't hold back her smart mouth anymore. "That mirror sure got what was coming for it," she said. She immediately wanted to kick herself for saying something like that to the clearly very upset person she was working for, but didn't take it back either. Comments like these are going to get you killed one day, she thought to herself.
The blonde girl turned to look at her and only then did Meliana realise that the princess was crying as she was doing all that damage. Her dark eyes widened slightly and she took a step closer. "Princess...?"
She was aware that the announcement of King Viserys' new marriage would be hard on his only daughter, especially considering it would be with a close friend of hers. By all accounts, she should have expected such a reaction from the temperamental princess, but as much as she was ready to witness the anger, the complete betrayal in her eyes caught her off guard. For a moment, she felt like a snake—being aware of such an enormous secret that would change not only Rhaenyra's life but the fate of the entire Realm and still, not giving her a warning. For a moment, she felt a pang in her chest that she recognised as genuine regret.
But then the moment passed, and Meliana did exactly what she was supposed to do—she kept quiet and comforted Rhaenyra; fake words, empty gestures and all. She agreed with the princess' words when she vented over how her own friend betrayed her like that, how she lied to her face for so long and went behind her back with such sick and twisted intentions. Meliana nodded, wiping her tears away and providing some stability for the princess, even though her own thoughts were so conflicting. She could not tell whether Alicent was a mere victim of her father's ambitions or if she was on board with the whole plan of getting the king to marry her so she could become the queen. Her last conversation with the Hightower girl had blurred the lines, instead of clearing things up for her and she could only make assumptions of the young girl's motives.
