After the Dragons Danced (A Rhaena Targaryen SI) -- 15. Princess of the Rhoynar

ALIANDRA NYMEROS MARTELL

Tenth Moon, 131 AC | Sunspear

The sky outside the Tower of the Sun was grey; fitting, Aliandra supposed. The sun had been absent since the day her father had died, two turns of the moon ago. Maester Maldon might have claimed that it was only the winter grey hiding the sun, but Aliandra had lived through other winters, and in Dorne, she had never lived a day without seeing the sun or feeling its warmth. Qoren Martell’s shadow loomed so large that the sun itself disappeared on the day he was to be honoured.

Today was his funeral.

The funerals of Dornish princes took the longest out of all seven kingdoms, she was certain. Most of the realm buried their dead either in the ground or in crypts, in the case of Starks. The Targaryens, quite ignobly, burned their dead. In Dorne, different customs held sway. Since Nymeria’s conquests, it was custom to embalm and preserve the bodies of their dead rulers, a ritualistic practice which took forty days, before interning them in their tombs. Even now, nearly a thousand years after the arrival of the Rhoynar, Nymeria’s body still remained, her beauty and fierceness preserved for all time.

Forty days it had taken for the completion of the ritual that preceded her father’s funeral. And today, he would be interred in the catacombs of Sunspear for the rest of time.

A maid-servant helped her bathe and dress, in her mourning blacks, as the occasion called for. She called for a light meal to break fast in her quarters. Later in the day, a feast in her father’s honour was to be held, and she therefore did not wish to eat too much now. As the new Princess of Dorne, she would need to entertain her vassal lords.

“Princess,” Elia Sand, her aunt, informed her just after she had finished breaking fast, “The ceremony of the last rites is about to begin.”

Silence reigned as the two of them walked to the castle sept. Her father being dead two turns of the moon already did not mean that they did not mourn him still. Aliandra joined her brother Qyle and her sister Coryanne on the front row, just as Septon Qyburn, a Martell by birth, began the sermon.

Lesser members of their house filled the rest of the first two rows in the castle sept. Saying that House Martell was a populous house would not be accurate, as most of those occupying those places of honour were bastards or scions of bastards, sired upon paramours of Martell Princes or Princesses over the years. Her father had made sure to use their talents.

A number of such bastards were sent to the Citadel and the Starry Sept of Oldtown, to train at becoming holy and learned men; before they returned to Dorne to use their skills in bringing prosperity to their place of birth. Sylvenna Sand, the bastard sister to her grandmother, had been the seneschal of Sunspear for as long as she had lived. Elia Sand had served as her governess ably since she was but a babe, outliving Aliandra’s mother who had died birthing Qyle, twelve years ago. Their people were greatly reviled by the rest of the Seven Kingdoms, they only had themselves to rely upon.

The rest of the places of honour were filled with her father’s vassals; her vassals now, she corrected herself.

The sarcophagus that held her father’s remains took center stage in the sept. It was an extravagant thing, made of granite, with adornments of different gemstones. Emeralds, rubies, sapphires and amethysts embellished the entire structure. The Rhoynar believed that a man must go into the afterlife with some of the wealth they had earned while they walked in this world. Carved into the sarcophagus was Mother Rhoyne, her children, the Crab King and the turtle form of the Old Man of the River. Alongside the gods of the Rhoynar, there were carvings of the Seven-Faced-God of the Andals.

The sermons came to an end, and the septon said the last prayers. As the rest of the congregation joined a hymn, his father’s coffin was lifted and slowly led a procession towards the catacombs, his eternal resting place.

The catacombs beneath Sunspear were hallowed ground. The oldest remains to be interred there were closest to the entrance; being those of Nymeria of Ny Sar herself, and her husband, Mors Martell, the first Dornishman to be entombed in the way of the Rhoynar. Following them were the remains of her daughter and heir, Arianne. Arianne’s son Mors II followed and the Red Princes, Doran, Mariah, and the first Aliandra, the woman she had been named for, came after him. On and on, through the centuries, the tombs of princes and princesses went, before last coming upon the empty one designated for her father, his name prominently engraved upon it.

Her father was well and truly gone now. He had raised her and her siblings, and taught them everything they knew. He had mourned with them as their mother heaved her life away, and on top of all that, he had forged a legacy that cast a shadow over all of them. Desperate arms were clutching at her middle. She looked to see her little brother Qyle openly sobbing. She embraced him in return and let him cry on her shoulder. Coryanne joined the two of them as their father’s coffin was slowly being pushed into the tomb, and they lingered there long after the rest of the court had left.

“He’s really gone now,” Qyle said, in the middle of his sniffles.

“Aye,” Aliandra replied, “It’s our time now.”

They stayed there for long moments more, before Elia interrupted them,“The feast is about to begin soon.”

She disentangled herself from her siblings, beckoning them to follow Elia and prepare themselves for the occasion.

“I will stay here for a bit more, Elia, the lords can wait,” Aliandra said. A flash of displeasure on was plain on her face.

“I need to be alone,” Aliandra told her, and in a soft voice, she continued “I need to grieve.”

“Very well, princess,” she replied, “Don’t take too long.”

Once Elia left, she was left alone with the ghosts and great legacies of all her ancestors. Aliandra walked to the entrance of the catacombs, where Nymeria’s body still lay. She stood head and shoulders above all her other forebears. Before she and her Rhoynar landed on the coast of Sunspear, House Martell had only a shadow of the majesty and power it held now. In those days, House Yronwood styled themselves as Bloodroyals and high kings since they ruled most of their lands. At some point in their history, even House Martell had sworn themselves to be their loyal vassal.

Nymeria had been the one to change that. She and her Rhoynar had fled the slaving barbaric dragonlords that were out to obliterate them, and settled in this new land. Instead of working to destroy the men they found here and their way of life, Nymeria had instead married Mors Martell, the former making a new home for the people she ruled, and the latter gaining a powerful ally that made their house the foremost power in Dorne, eclipsing even the so-called Bloodroyals.

The rulers who succeeded Nymeria and Mors might be less known, but they were no less important. The next four princes after Nymeria’s passing had ensured that Rhoynish law became Dornish law, doing away with archaic customs that still held sway in the rest of the Seven Kingdoms, such as the beating of women and the First Night.

Aliandra came upon the tomb of Princess Meria Martell, the Yellow Toad of Dorne, and a ruler she greatly admired. In her wisdom and guidance, the entirety of Dorne remained united against the Targaryens. She had seen off the silver bitch Rhaenys when she landed on her dragon to demand the allegiance of Dorne. She had led her people in vanishing into the sands whenever the Targaryens came upon them afterwards. Her courage and ingenuity had kept her people safe in the face of the tyranny of the selfsame Valyrians who had robbed them of their homeland. A dragon had been slain during her reign; the massive remains of Meraxes, now mottled under the heat of the Dornish sun, were displayed proudly in the courtyard of Hellholt.

Meria’s son Nymor had hammered the last coffin on the Targaryens’ delusions of conquest. To the rest of the world, the tale of how Nymor had frightened Aegon the Dragon and his shrewish wife remained unknown, but to their family, it was a legend passed down from generation to generation with as much pride as Nymeria’s conquests or Meria’s defiance. Once the silver bitch had asked for the submission of Dorne and was denied, Nymor had conscripted his bastard son to travel to Braavos and join the order of the Faceless Men. Oberyn Sand had gone on to become a prodigious assassin, but unlike the rest of his brothers in the order, he did not let the faces they wore make him forget who he was and where he came from.

A letter was all it had taken to cower Aegon. Rhaenys’ blood had been used to write it, Aliandra knew, and the letter was short but oh, so sweet. On it, Nymor had told Aegon that should another dragon fly over Dorne, both his sons would die. All he needed to prove that was to check for a coin; bearing the sun and spear of House Martell, upon the cradles of his six-year-old Aenys and his infant Maegor. She tried to imagine how the dragon shuddered with fear when he found said coins exactly where he had been told they would be; on Aenys’ bed in the hovel that was his Aegonfort, and in the cradle of the infant monster that was Visenya’s son.

That was all it had taken to repel the Targaryens for the next century. Even Maegor had not dared fly over Dorne after usurping his nephew and killing him. Jaehaerys and the sons he had outlived only burned Morion’s fleet as it landed in the coasts of the Stormlands. Daemon Targaryen had not dared to attack Dorne in her decade-long war of the Stepstones. Did the Targaryens pass down the tale of how their war with Dorne ended within themselves, Aliandra wondered?

At last, she came upon the tomb of her father. Qoren Martell, her predecessor, and the man whose legacy she would uphold. The alliance he had forged with the Triarchy had led to prosperity for the three decades that he had been lord. Their home had blossomed for the first time in a century.

And he had thwarted the ambitions of another dragonlord. Daemon Targaryen’s conquest of the Stepstones had been made so difficult that he fled that chain of islands after a decade of making no progress in his quest.

Now, his twin daughters sought to do the same. Aliandra would not let them. Just days ago, they had invaded Lys and slew her betrothed, Drazenko Rogare. Arranging her marriage to him was one of her father’s final acts. Their alliance with House Rogare would have ensured the continued prosperity of Dorne even after the dissolution of the Triarchy. With their men, and the wealth of the Rogares, the Stepstones would have been in their total control.

Arms were circling the small of her waist once more. She could recognise that touch anywhere.

“The feast is about to begin, Ali,” there was a voice accompanying the touch, “I wished to ravish you before it did.”

Aliandra allowed herself to collapse into his chest for a few moments, before she felt an arm rise to cup her breast.

“Or, I can take you now, if you so wish,” the voice said.

“Not here,” Aliandra rasped out, her voice breathy with desire.

“Why?” he chuckled, “afraid that it will give the dead any ideas?”

“This place…” he was kneading her breasts, “…is…hallowed ground!” She exclaimed as he took the offending hand into hers and turned around to face him.

“You don’t actually believe that, do you?” he asked, chuckling once more and raising an eyebrow,”the dead are dead and gone. These are just remains we preserve.”

Gods, he was handsome. She had to kiss him. His hands strayed to her behind and she could not help but moan, “I can take you here, in front of Nymeria’s tomb. Let her see how graceful and beautiful her descendant truly is.” Oh, Gods, she moaned, as she forced his head down to kiss her once more. He tasted of wine and of naughty, naughty things.

A hand was on her breast again as they separated to take in air. Who had need of air, when there was sweet, sweet oblivion? She cupped the back of his head and kissed him again, this time feeling hands undoing the laces of her black gown. She did not stop him.

Handsome men were her weakness, or so she had always been told. If that was so, Trystane Santagar was perhaps the greatest of them. His father was the third son of that house, and great friends with her own father. They had been raised together, and in time, became as close as brothers. In turn, the two of them had become close, a closeness which morphed into desire as soon as she had flowered and her body had begun to gain a woman’s shape. These days, they could hardly be in the same room without immediately tearing each other’s clothes off.

When the jet black gown became a lump on the floor, she sent a prayer to the Gods not to damn her soul into the seven hells for defiling the catacombs. The Gods would understand. She had to have him, she just had.

His clothes were the next to go. The beautiful black velvet surcoat he wore today had the arms of his house prominently displayed on it; a leopard holding an axe on a half blue and half silver background. Aliandra tore it apart. Their lips met again with hunger, tongues dancing with each other as her hands fumbled with the lacings of his breeches. Once they were off, he lifted her up, her legs wrapping around his waist, her hands cradling his neck and his manhood sheathing itself within her. Their wetness mingled with her moonblood and oh, it was glorious.

Trystane moved to situate her in between him and the tomb of some prince or the other. Aliandra did not care. He had been right about the dead, she thought, as a moan escaped her once he began to move within her. Even the rituals they did to put them to rest were for them, the living, in an attempt to supposedly honour them.

Whispered praises in her ears made her soar past her peak quickly, suddenly, and with a shout that the dead would surely hear. Trystane continued, and followed her into the skies shortly after, his mouth on one of her breasts, one of his arms on the other, and his other arm firmly holding her bottom to support her while she was plastered on the wall.

He looked at her reverently with his blue eyes and olive skin, before placing an oh-so-gentle kiss on her lips. Aliandra would have none of that, and so she moved to deepen the kiss.

“More,” she demanded, “I want more.”

“You’ll have me to yourself tonight, Ali,” the fiend had to audacity to tell her.

“I want more, now!” She was not whining, she was not!

After a chuckle, he obliged, this time taking her once more atop the pile of their discarded clothes.

“I’m glad your betrothed died,” Trystane said as they basked in their afterglow, Aliandra lying squarely on top of him, tracing unintelligble circles on his bare chest.

She lifted her head to look him in the eyes as she replied, “You would have still been mine if he hadn’t. The only thing I had to do was bear a trueborn heir of his blood, to ensure the alliance bore fruit. The rest of my children would have been yours.”

“And now that he’s gone?” He asked as she set her head back down and began kissing his throat.

“I’m yet to decide. All the nobility of Dorne are here tonight. Most of them brought their comely sons or brothers to try and woe me this past fortnight. I’ll have to make an alliance that will benefit my house. Again, like with Drazenko, I only have to bear them an heir, and then I’ll be free to bed and be bred by whomever I wish to.”

“The rest of the Westeros has just fought a war because their princess did just so.”

Aliandra laughed, “Their princess erred by placing her bastards as heirs to two houses, when she had trueborn children who could could inherit and marry each other.”

“Those trueborn children are the ones who remain, perhaps they will marry each other.”

“Not if I can help it.”

“What?” he asked, puzzled.

“You’ve heard of the exploits of Daemon Targaryen’s twin whelps, have you not? They’ve sacked Myr and Lys, and conquered the Stepstones and Tyrosh. Something even their father did not achieve.

“Their war against themselves has left them vulnerable, and given us a window of opportunity that will not last long. We have to get rid of them before they and their dragons begin to multiply once more.

“You aim to have them killed?”

“Aye,” Aliandra said, “I’ve already sent agents to steal into the Archon’s palace in Tyrosh. There’s bound to be chaos now that they’ve freed the slaves and executed the nobles of that city. It should be easy enough to be kill them.”

“What about the dragon one of those girls ride?”

Aliandra gave it some thought, before she decided she truly didn’t care. Without a rider, dragons were as stupid as cats. Even in Dorne they had heard of the princess’ she-dragon that had descended to the ground to be killed by peasants instead of staying in the sky and destroying its opposition with her flames. “It’ll probably fly back to Valyria and die there, the same way the dragons in the Century of Blood did once the dragonlords in Tyrosh and Lys were done away with.”

“You have thought of it all,” he complimented, running his fingers through her waist-length jet black hair, stopping at her bottom and cupping it seductively.

“Take me one more time, and then we can go to this feast you so desired to,” she commanded. Trystane obeyed, and made Aliandra scream for a third time.

She climbed up to her quarters in the Tower of the Sun, her intention being to bathe and redress herself ahead of the feast, only to be met by Elia’s enraged gaze.

“What?” Aliandra asked, indignant.

“You dare defile the resting place of our ancestors?” she asked, with her arms crossed in offense.

“I am a princess, am I not? The Princess of Dorne now,” she replied, her voice commanding “I appreciate your council, Elia, and I may need it from time to time, but it is not for you to question me and my deeds.”

Her voice softened, “Now, please, go to the feast, I’ll join you soon enough.”

Elia took a deep breath, glanced at the ceiling before muttering a subtle, ‘Seven save us,’ and took her leave.

It did not take too long for Aliandra to bathe, dress, and head back down to join the sombre feast in honour of her father. She was seated in a place honour as was her due as Princess of Dorne, her little brother and sister to her right and left.

The rest of the night was spent in sombre reflection and recollection on the life and achievements of Prince Qoren Martell. Trystane’s father told a charming story of how he and Father used to sneak away to play in the desert, one of them pretending to be a dragon and the other a longbowman, shooting the dragon and killing it. Lady Blackmont, who had been Father’s paramour soon after Mother had died, sang a dirge with lovely words towards him, a song that had Aliandra unsuspectedly shedding tears.

None of them had anything bad to say. Father had come upon his princedom as a boy, soon after the demise of his own mother, Mara Martell. Even in his boyhood, he had been lauded as a vast improvement on Morion Martell, the foolish prince who had made open war with the dragon and had sent an entire generation of Dornish youth to die under its flames. Qoren had done the opposite in the Dornish campaign of the Stepstones; using the same tactical mastery that had made the dragons of old chase their own tails whenever they flew over their lands.

Then came her turn. She knew the rest of the lords would be looking to her now, determining what sort of a princess she would be. Aliandra rose up from her seat and began.

“Qoren Martell was the greatest of princes, forged from the same cloth that Nymeria, Meria and the Red Princes had been forged from. He was a man apart, a remarkable man and a good father. He has raised me and my siblings well, and we shall forever strive to be like him.

“I aim to guide Dorne to gain more glory, more honours, and more riches. The dragons are all but destroyed, the rest of their Seven Kingdoms weak. Our eternal enemies, the Stormlands and the Reach, have been all but decimated in the civil war they waged on themselves these past two years. We have a chance to strike, to make more gains on those lands than we have in two centuries. We can take the Stepstones for our own too, just as my father did. All you'll get from me is more of what you got from him.”

There was an uproarious cheer following her proclamation, with many chanting her name, hailing her as the new Nymeria. She felt rather proud of that. She was of Nymeria’s blood, and like the Princess of Ny Sar, Aliandra would lead them to greater heights than any princess before her. Aliandra raised her goblet, filled with Dornish Red, and gave a toast to her father and their future.

The feast went on late into the night.

It was the next morning when she summoned the great lords and ladies of Dorne, to truly iron out the details of what she intended of them to achieve the prosperity she envisioned.

The lords nearest to the marches were eager to begin their invasions into the Stormlands and the Reach once more, under the guise of a Vulture King as Dornish princes had always done to ensure deniability whenever the Iron Throne turned to them in askance. The houses of the Greenblood and the other rivers that crossed Dorne agreed to send their ships to contribute to the fleet her father had begun constructing. Said fleet would then launch to harrass the Stepstones and gain a foothold there. Again, like her father had done, they were to seek allies among the Three Daughters of the fallen Triarchy. The promises of places of honour and possible matches to either her or her siblings seemed to be enough to soften the resolves of the more reticent rulers such as shrewish Lady Fowler and fat Lord Yronwood.

Aliandra was all smiles when the meeting was done. Her next stop was to her master-at-arms, to enquire of the agents she had sent to do away with the Targaryens in Tyrosh. If they were successful, she might end up accomplishing a feat Princess Nymeria, Prince Garin, and all the other Rhoynar that had been imolated in the Spice Wars could only dream of.

Second Moon, 132 AC

“Another letter from King’s Landing, princess,” Maester Maldon told her. Since becoming the ruling princess, each day began by going through any letters she might have received.

“Again?” she sighed as she took a swill of Dornish Red, “What does it say?” she asked, tiredly.

“The Regency Council asks that you command your Dornishmen to cease their raids into the marches. The war has ended, and the King’s Peace is to be preserved,” the maester informed her.

Aliandra did not restrain herself from rolling her eyes, “Reply that Dorne disavows any raiding that is happening in the Stormlands. Oh, and remind them that even though they style their kings as the ‘Lord of the Seven Kingdoms’, Dorne is not and will never be under the aegis of the Iron Throne. We see no other ruler in Dorne but its princess.”

“Of course,” the old man replied.

“Has there been any correspondence from the fleet at the Stepstones? It has been three turns of the moon. They ought to have made some headway by now.”

“Not yet, princess,” he replied.

Though she hid it well, Aliandra was worried. Word had reached them a moon’s turn ago that the fleets stationed on the ports all along the Heel of Essos had been destroyed by dragonfire. And soon after that, Volantis from the East and Pentos from the North had begun invading the lands of Myr, Lys and the Disputed Lands. Their most recent reports had it that Pentos had conquered almost the entirety of the domain of Myr, and they were now advancing into the city itself, which had been overrun by lawlessness since the Targaryens had sacked it and freed its slaves. Volantis, as at now, was only beginning to make headway into the Disputed Lands held by Lys.

The fact that the Targaryens had not even put out a token protest of the actions of Pentos and Volantis was concerning. Were they in league with them? Or did they just not care if one Free City asserted themselves above others? Aliandra suspected it was the former. The Dragonlords had a habit of interfering with all other polities in the Known World, even those that were not their own. The Conqueror had burned down a Volantene fleet during the Century of Blood. His son had warred against a Lyseni pirate who had seized the Stepstones, and the Conciliator had imposed disfavourable terms of trade on Myr after his heir died when a crossbow shot punched through his throat. His disfavour towards the Myrish was one of the events that had led to the formation of the Triarchy in the first place.

All that was nothing compared to now. The Targaryen girl had sacked two Free Cities, and annexed a third as part of their domain. Her fleet was meant to contest that, but she had received no reports concerning it since they had docked on Shame Isle, the nearest isle of the Stepstones to Dorne. No matter, Aliandra decided, there were more ships being built each day. And, those she had sent to kill the Targaryens would finish their mission soon enough. Admittedly, she was not of the patient sort, but she had to wait. Infiltrating a foreign castle took time and effort. Mayhaps the next raven she received would be to inform her of their death.

Distant screams startled her out of her stupor. She outpaced the maester in getting to the window of her solar.

Fire. There were yellow-and-silver flames raining down on the harbour. It took an embarrassingly long moment for her mind to register that that was not a miracle or a trick of the light. Dragon. There was a fucking dragon in the fucking sky! Fuck!

Author’s Note: Baela does not play. I hope you liked this glimpse into Dorne and where they stand on the politics at this time. Aside from Aliandra’s personality, I really wanted to try and delve into Dornish culture and history a bit, in an attempt at juxtaposing them with the Targaryens. The conflict between these two races is millenia old, and it’s not dying down as we have seen. Again, as shown in the last chapter, the Targaryens have lost quite a bit of their perceived invincibility and majesty after the carnage of the Dance. Please tell me what you think on this chapter and Aliandra in the comments. Next chapter we return to Tyrosh with the Targaryen siblings.