CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
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The die is cast.

JULIUS CAESAR
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TO CONCLUDE THE KING'S NAME DAY celebrations, there is to be a feast.

     Clarysse looks up to the massive head table in the Great Hall, where the royal family sits. The king remains a handsome man at his age, and looks as healthy as ever. His two lovely wives flank him, sitting to his left and right. Aegon looks every bit the dragon prince, clad in a richly embroidered red and black doublet. A thin gold circlet set with a trio of rubies sits atop his head, and his purple eyes shine from beneath it. He projects confidence as always, but Clarysse thinks that she detects a hint of something else beneath it. She tries to catch his eye and fails.

Clarysse has always been observant. Ever since she was a child, she'd had a knack of seeing things others didn't. It had made her such a good daughter — she could sense her father's anger before he knew it himself, could always predict when Margaery was seconds away from a tantrum and swoop in to soothe her, knew when her grandmother was about to say something cruel and try to keep the peace. Yet she doesn't notice Aegon's despair until it is too late.

The king looks content as he adresses his subjects, to thank them for their attendance and to hope for another nineteen years of prosperity and peace under his rule.

Clarysse stills when she hears the words, "I am joyous to announce the union between House Targaryen and House Stark once more. My first-born son Aegon will wed the Lady Sansa after spring."

     Reactions come slowly, as if she is in a trance and cannot keep up with the rest of the world. Her head spins irrationally.

     Loras reacts first. The bony hand of their grandmother on his arm is most likely what keeps him in his chair. The sneer on his handsome face tells the lords and ladies around them what they need to know. That yes, they are as surprised as anyone else in the hall. That no, they didn't know — and that may be the biggest insult. Her sister reacts second. Margaery turns to her with wide eyes, fearful and unbelieving, and just stares at her. Her mouth opens once, twice, but no words leave her. She seems to be caught between the ferocity of her emotions. Clarysse is, too.

     When Rhaegar finishes his speech, the room is bathed in a silence that screams of confusion.

     He might not have known, she silently thinks, fidgeting with her hands as they rest in her lap. Aegon might not have known. Just yesterday they had taken a stroll in the gardens. But then Clarysse remembers his frown at the beginning of the night, how he had not looked at her once during the day. She had simply thought him occupied, though it had struck her as odd.

     Her throat lets out a choked noise, that is drowned out by the applause that slowly fills the hall.

     Her grandmother hovers at the corner of her vision, looks at her with sad, sad eyes.

     She feels a scream rising in her throat and bites her tongue just in time to muffle the sound. The pain is too much, too much, too much.

     Slowly, Clarysse looks up, meeting a pair of lilac eyes that watch her closely, evaluating her every move and expression. They burn into her skin, peering through the mask of supremacy and carefully hidden emotion with very little difficulty, just as she does with him. Have I done you wrong? it echoes in her head, the words reminding her of their first dance. She wishes then that she had never accepted his offer, had never been pulled in by him and his charms. Look away, she wants to tell him, look at your bride, not at me. You don't have the right to look at me ever again.

     Her stomach clenches. Bile churning, throat closing up.

     After the meal, Clarysse wouldn't be able to tell you what she ate. It all tastes like ash, and the wine, surely the finest available, tastes too bitter, then too sweet. Her head spins, and she ends up drinking more than she eats. Loras tries speaking to her and Margaery holds her clammy hand beneath the table but Clarysse is numb to everything around her.

He will wed Sansa Stark. Everything else seems blurry and unreal. That is the only truth she can see as the courses are served, one by one.

Aegon will marry Sansa Stark, she thinks angrily, and a smaller, softer part of her thinks, and he has betrayed me.

     Clarysse considers pretty, young, virginal Lady Sansa, who has never lost anything or earned anything and goes to marry a prince in spring, and pities her. Because experience is a cruel teacher. She knows, better than most.

IT IS HER UPRINGING AND IMPECCABLE MANNERS that make her smile for the royal court, through all nineteen courses, through the mummer's play and the fool's japes. Her jaw hurts by the time the dancing begins.

     Aegon and Sansa Stark lead the dancing, and watching them, one would think there had never been a couple so radiant, so graceful, so perfectly matched. Lady Sansa's smile is as bright as a summer morning. But Clarysse listens to the conversations surrounding her and sees the courtiers for what they are. Discontent. Clarysse knows that she is well liked by the lords and ladies that reside in the Red Keep. But more importantly, House Stark is clearly favoured above all else by the king. This is no simple engangement, this decides the next ruling queen. To have the second queen in succession of the same house is an insult of the highest order. Even Lyanna Stark cannot hide her anxious frown as her steely eyes flit from face to face.

     Her brother Loras, in a fit of gallantry, leads her through the first dance before returning to his seat. Clarysse has barely caught her breath when Quentyn Martell sweeps in to lead her. She had not wanted to dance at all, but she must save face. She must not be ruined by this.

     Around them, the evening is a blaze of feast and candles; one great long song of clatter and chatter echoing amongst the Great Hall. Clarysse can feel her siblings eyes on her: quiet Garlan blinking up from behind his cup, angry Loras demanding more wine, somber Margaery.

     Prince Quentyn is a handsome man. She has seen him in the melee a few days prior, brandishing a spear as easily as a boy hefts a twig. She has seen him mangle a knight's arm, laugh a pearl-cut smile with blood-streaked cheeks and extend a hand to lift his foe from the sand. He did not win, that honour went to his uncle Oberyn, but he was an impressing sight none the less. Not that Clarysse had given him a second glance. Her attention had been on a different prince. But now —

     "You wish my eyes were violet."

     It is a statement, yet it hangs in the air as a question. It lingers there, soft-spun on a night thick with the balm of summer.

     "I have no care what colour your eyes are," she answers drily.

     The lie cuts some of the sweetness from the warm night. It burns her tongue as it burns the air, as she looks up from his hands and sees that he is staring at her. His eyes are not violet. They are not Aegon's.

"You wish I played a silver harp," says Quentyn Martell. "You wish I sang songs so sad cups are filled with tears instead of wine. Shall I sing one for you now, Lady Clarysse?" He lays a hand to his chest and tips back his head with a flourish. "A bear there was, a bear, a bear — " He blinks innocently at her as she tries hiding a smile and fails. "You wound me. I have heard I've a voice to rival the king."

He truly is very handsome, if Clarysse were of a mind to appreciate it. He had asked her out of ambition, she knows, and pity. He, too, heard the rumours, the mockery. Her smile stays on. She has smiled so much, it doesn't even take effort anymore.

Clarysse dances first with Loras, then with Quentyn, then finally with Aegon. He holds her as if she's made of glass, fragile and delicate, and she wants to grab him, shake him —

Instead, her smile is steel and she stays quiet. No words pass between them. There is nothing to say.

They finish the dance, and Clarysse leaves the feast shortly after, head held high.

She had trained herself as a girl to walk with confidence and pride, no matter the circumstance. Even now, as she wants to drop to her knees and sob, her instincts would not allow it. She is a lady, and they will never see her cry.

     "Away it goes," she whispers as the doors of the Great Hall close behind her.