The room was empty but for the slight figure of a young woman and the hulking figure clad in white. Her body visibly quivered and shook, her arms wrapped tightly around herself, fingernails dug into her skin leaving harsh half-cresent marks. 

She was alone except the protector who had done little to protect her from anything. He had failed her, failed her brother, and father, failed the realm. He had been taken to task for his failure and offered nothing in his defense. He had failed, no matter the reasons, death had surrounded the princess. It had pursued her relentlessly and still seemed unfinished. Now they stood in silence. Ser Darklyn, stony-faced but eyes reddened, and Princess Rhaena attempting to compose herself. 

The other ladies had been denied entry to her chambers, and though they fretted, nothing had changed their princess's mind. Her decision to separate herself from them had been an impetuous, subconscious desire to spare them from her curse. Melony Piper had been found dead but Rhaena's horror at the matter was all too quickly washed away by dark words on dark wings. 

Her father dead and her uncle proclaimed king. It has been madness when the news was read. The princess had stayed unmoved for so long that when the initial chaos subsided all eyes had turned to their royal guest. The girl in mourning. The girl who had burned their Septon. The girl, who many quickly surmised, could be their queen. The silence had turned to whispers, overlapping and shifting in turmoil as the men in the room began to plan. 

It should have felt like a greater moment. But she whispered it at first. [I]No.[/I] She did not want this. She had barely wanted to be Aegon's queen even when that had felt decades away. She wanted to fly, she wanted to be splendid room, in a bed piled high with soft pillows and gentle friends, with her dear brother alive and well and Melys to tell her new gossip. It's what she had wanted. 

Then she had wanted the men to stop. The same rage built within her, like when she had held the torch to the old man. The whispered no turned to an angry wail. "Let my uncle have the crown. I want blood." She had left, turned her women away, had tried to turn away Ser Darklyn, and closed herself away. 

She needed her dragon, but even in her rage she knew that little Dreamfyre was not enough to take on the whole of the Faith. She needed me , she needed ships. She needed Lord Loreon and she hated it. Rhaena could feel the men looking for ways to use her, her status, her blood. They were fools. The Faith had to be dealt with and Viserys was of fire and blood but a child with no dragon. She feared her uncle, but so would the traitorous septons. If they were fools, they would learn to with their dying, tortured last breath. At night she dreamed of fields of burning men, clad in their rainbow cloaks or dirty gray robes. 

Self-imposed seclusion did little but to deepen her anger and she lashed out at the only one there to bear it. Until even that was interrupted. Rhaena tried to turn them away, the incessant knocking at her chamber doors. They did not leave no matter what Ser Darklyn demanded. He opened the door and exchanged terse words that Rhaena could not hear. The door shut and she could hear him approach. 

"Lord Tytos is dead. Lady Lorelai is dead." 

Rhaena, twisted and released herself from her grasp, a fresh wave of horror across her face. It had not been so long ago since their odd encounter in the abandoned mining town. Now she too was gone? And Loreon's uncle? Surely it was the Faith's doing. Pity and sadness she pushed to the side, if they wished to use her, she would use them. 

"I'll see Lord Loreon, now."