PART ONE- CHAPTER TWENTY

"Everything transitory is but an image."

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This is mad.

This is horrifying.

This is everything it shouldn't be.

Ever since Rhea woke up, all she's been hearing is how Eddard Stark betrayed her family and the throne and tried to take it for himself. Joffrey is King, and that her father died.

She needed time to process all three of these facts, and oh, it was almost as if the Gods heard her and said, 'So be it'. After all, there is nothing much to do in your chambers when you're locked up with no answers to any of your questions.

Seven moons have passed since she woke up and she has regained her bodily strength. However, her mind refuses to think straight, and that's not good. She thinks she might as well be going insane if this keeps going on.

She has no doubt that it's her mother that made sure she stayed in her chamber with no way to get out. After all, her 'always right' people skills tell her that Eddard Stark was the only true friend and ally her father had, and the fact that he didn't even want the throne didn't slip her mind. Any dumb fool in Westeros would know that Ned Stark absolutely abhorred the idea of a throne, let alone claim it- especially if it put him far away from his home.

Her dinner came to her room as she mulled over her ever-evolving thoughts, and the maid walked out without bothering to acknowledge her very clear question-'How is Eddard Stark doing? Where is he?'. 

Of course, her mother trained them well.

It seems as if her whole world has turned upside down the second her mother became Queen Regent.

She just drank the bloody soup.

Very well into the night, there was a sound at her door- distinctively audible but not so loud at the same time. Had she been fast asleep, she wouldn't have heard it.

Sleep seldom came to her without the nightmares nowadays.

She walked to the door, with the candlestick in her hand, just for precaution. She opened the door ever so slightly and saw Lord Varys on the other side, of all people.

"Lord Varys? What is it?" she asked.

"I'm really sorry to disturb your slumber, Your Highness. But I was wondering if I could have a word." She let him in.

And before she knew it, the conversation was over, and she was on her way in a dark cloak with Varys in tow, to the dungeon where they kept Eddard Stark. The guards had already been taken care of, seeing that they were lying unconscious on the ground, and this didn't make her feel any better.

"My dear, please. Come in. I'm afraid the hospitality is of very less magnitude here." He said, looking like someone who was parched, and barely alive.

"Dear Gods, what have they done to you? You don't look good at all! I'm sorry I couldn't come earlier, I had no idea how or where-" he just put a hand up to stop her.

"Time is of the essence. Listen, what I'm about to tell you, is of utmost importance. I need you to be very calm and patient and listen to everything I'm about to say. I assure you, it's all true. I would show you the evidence to go along if I could, but you see my hands are tied." He said, and Rhea felt broken. Something is going to go horribly wrong.

She nodded.

"I'm not going beat around the bush, so we'll get straight to the point. The heir to the Iron Throne is Stannis, not Joffrey."

"What do you me-"

"Your brother is illegitimate. In fact, he is a product of incest. So is your sister and your other brother. In fact, they don't get to be called Princes and Princess. You are the only trueborn child that came out of this marriage, and I'm afraid I know this information is a bit too much to carry, but time is slipping away and we have to get your mother out of the palace as soon as possible, not just to save the Kingdoms, but to also keep your half-siblings safe, considering the fact that they won't be allowed to live when the news goes out."

She knew he expected her to overreact or not take it well, but she put up a brave face and asked, "It's Uncle Jaime isn't it?" And then it didn't take her long to put two and two together and learn the remaining information-Lady Catelyn taking Tyrion uncle hostage for trying to kill Bran, when it was her mother and uncle who shoved him off of the tower, for witnessing them and catching them red-handed.

And despite all of this, she remained calm and composed.

"So what do I do?"

This time it was Lord Varys who answered.

"Until you're around and about, suspicions will rise. Then the questions will come. It won't be long before people figure out that none of your siblings are legitimate. As much as your mother loves you, she obviously loves her abominations more-"

"Don't call them that, they're little children." Rhea said, but she was ignored.

"Her bastards, then. So, she will take you out. Kill you, so the doubts are suppressed. If not for that reason, then she will- to make a statement to anyone who dares challenge her."

"She's my mother. She wouldn't do that-"

"One would think, but the situation is different. Jaime and Cersei may have not been married, but they do love each other, and as disgusting as it is, there's nothing we can do. They've hidden it successfully all these years, they'd continue to do so if they can. Your mother wants to secure her position on the throne, and the best way to do so, she'll go with."

A few tears fell down her eye, but she was quick to wipe them off. There was no time to cry. She was going to die.

Eddard spoke this time. "Here's what you should do. Arya is missing, but I have full faith that she'll make it out, as scared as I am. Sansa on the other hand, Robb is coming for her now-"

"What do you mean Robb is coming?"

"He's started a war to get me out. But either way, there is no certainty, as much as I believe in my son. The priority is you. Get to Robb's camp somehow. He'll keep you safe, he loves you. Your mother has scrapped the wedding, and Cat won't be welcoming to it either, but I know. So run from here as fast as you can, for you need to get yourself safe. There's nobody here capable of saving you."

"And what about you?"

"We're still thinking about that, but we can only pray."

She heard one of the guards regaining consciousness when he murmured a bit, so Varys was alarmed, and slipped a parchment into her hands. He got her out, but not before she kissed Eddard Stark goodbye, in hopes of seeing him again.

When she was safely led to her room, she opened her parchment and saw the message.

Whenever you're ready. A horse for you in the night. Just let me know when, though we would prefer you to be on the road within three days.

She heard the marriage was scrapped. Meaning she wasn't to be married to Robb anymore. She wasn't his anymore.

She crushed the parchment and threw it into the fire. She cried so much that night, for her father, and how she wanted him.

And then, when she was composed, she came to a decision.

He'll keep you safe, he loves you.

Keeping that thought in mind, and saying it to herself over and over, Rhea turned to the study and quickly picked up the parchment and quill and began to write.

Dear Robb,

I can't think straight. You said you would keep me safe but right now in the situation I'm at and the revelations I've just experienced, I'm finding it hard to trust anyone at all.

It seems to me that ever since my father passed on, there is no one to keep me tied to the world, as all that's going through my mind nowadays is whether I'm going to come out of this unhurt, though I know it's highly impossible.

I met your father in the dungeon thanks to Lord Varys, and he told me that all three of my siblings happen to be products of incest. Not just illegitimate, but more. They told me that my mother will have my head just to keep the doubts at bay.

I don't know what to do.

Your father tells me that our betrothal has been scrapped by my mother the second she became Queen Regnant. I am not legally bound to be yours anymore, but I am willing to be yours should your heart allow it.

I'm in love with you, Robb Stark. I so deeply am.

I want you to be the one to keep me safe, not anyone else. I won't have our family situations decide our fate, but if how my family has treated your father bothers you enough to not want this I'll understand well enough and I would keep away from you.

Yours,

Rhea.

There.

She gathered the courage to finally say it to him. To tell him that she loves him, despite the fact that he'll probably hate her after all that's happened. With the fear that he might not say it back, especially given the fact that there's no reason for him to do so, with Eddard Stark in the dungeons, she knows she's taking a huge leap of faith.

She doesn't expect to be saved by Robb when he comes for Sansa, no. She wished she knew what was going through his head, so she could plan her next move.

The one thing that keeps striking her mind was whether her mother was actually cruel enough to kill her to save her three other children?

But that's when she remembered what she read in a fairytale as a child.

"...All these members of her family she really loved, and that's what made them family."

Her mother was daring enough to pursue an affair, and that showed how much she loved Uncle Jaime, as much as she didn't like the idea. She loved him and she obviously loved the children that came out of it.

But, she never did love her father, and obviously didn't see any sort of affection towards her from her mother her whole life, the matched what her siblings received.

Her mother would do anything for family.

She'd take heads off of anyone, and would make sure she was more monster than woman, to keep them safe.

And the harsh truth dawns on her, that she never loved her father and her any more than she loved an outsider.

She never was family.

And despite being her firstborn, the fact that she wasn't family meant that she had no security from her blood relatives.

And for some reason she couldn't put her finger on, she didn't feel sad about it.

It just felt like a realisation long overdue.

She then went on to the next course of action and wrote to Lord Varys.

Seven moons from now, two horses, for I am to take Sansa with me. She needs to be kept safe too.

She went over to her bed, but sleep was an enemy that wished to keep her waiting. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the family portrait, with her and her three siblings in it, with her parents right behind. That portrait didn't feel right anymore with her mother in it, and her father gone.

So she took it off and threw it into the fireplace.

The next morning, that portrait was replaced with a painting of her from a tourney that felt like a million years ago.

She was going to put herself first this time.

***