CHAPTER NINETEEN.
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Girl, show your teeth.
Never forget what you can do with them.

CAITLYN SIEHL
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THE DIAGNOSIS, HORRID AND WRETCHED and unavoidable, comes with the flowering of the cherry blossoms.

It comes after weeks of lost appetites and dizzy spells and forgetfulness and headaches. Discomfort and paranoia. Something nagging in the back of the mind. It spurred a visit of the Grand Maester — the appointment lacks the life-changing intention it would soon hold. It would come many weeks too late.

Rhaegar Targaryen, protector of the realm, is ill.

Aegon's hands are shaking as he reaches for the wine and fills his cup to the brim. It bears the family's sigil. He runs his thumb over it as he steps up beside Rhaenys. The two of them had always been mirrors of their parents, at least in looks. The only thing Rhaenys had inherited from her father were the purple orbs, all else was purely her mother's. And Aegon's slightly tan skin was the only sign he had some Dornish blood flowing through his veins.

     "Jon says," Aegon's voice sounds like a shell of himself, "That the sickness will kill him."

     Rhaenys bows her head as she worries her fingers. "To my understanding," she exhales, "It will."

     She reaches for Aegon, hand falling between his shoulder blades as he reaches to push at the unfallen tears clouding his lower lashes with his knuckles. His arm slips around her and they feel like children again, huddling together after a scolding.

     Aegon has always been closer to his mother. Perhaps it was the freeness he felt by her side; no expectations to adhere to, no future being measured. In her eyes, he was not the future king. He was simply her son. Her dear, dear boy — a picky eater who enjoyed bed-time stories about love, a decidedly stern six-year-old who insisted he'd protect her from anything, a loud teenager who would go out of his way to buy her favorite tea at the market. He was never the future of the House Targaryen in her eyes. Only Aegon. Sweet, clever, strong.

     In childhood, Rhaenys had been her father's favourite and she had returned the sentiment. Only after she'd been old enough to understand why Lady Lyanna had suddenly become Queen Lyanna had she distanced herself. Rhaenys never forgave Rhaegar for his indiscretions and the rift between the king and his daughter had never mended. Still, she cannot deny that there is an ache in her chest now that grows bigger every day.

CLARYSSE JUST WANTS TO GO HOME. That above all else. It seems like another life when she thinks of Highgarden and how only a year ago she was strolling through the gardens with her siblings, hardly a care in the world. She does not recognises the girl she used to be.

What had started as an effort to find her a royal husband has morphed into weeks of heartbreak. More than once, Clarysse has wished that they could have another try at it. There are so many things she would alter if she had the chance. But most of all — and it does shame her to think it — she wants it all over so she can leave this place. To be a wife and not a betrothed, to get to know Quentyn without being in this crucible, to start a family of her own. To properly nurse her heartbreak. To appease the quarrels between the Dornish and the Tyrells. To have a restful night, for once. She wants to leave so much it hurts to breathe. Whether she goes to Highgarden or to Sunspear is of no importance anymore.

She is burdened, and there is no one who can relieve her. Even the gardens of the Keep, which she so loved, seem dull now. Her grandmother tuts beside her, "Come now, Clara, do try not to look so miserable."

     She straightens her back. "Forgive me, grandmother."

     "There is nothing to forgive," Olenna replies after a short silence. "You do know that, don't you?"

     Clarysse stills. "I sullied my reputation," she answers quietly. "The court knows that I was offered and refused."

     "That is where you are wrong, child. Prince Aegon would have taken you to wife gladly. It is the king who seems to have lost his wits."

     She stays silent, fighting back tears, even as a smile steals onto her face at her grandmothers very treacherous words. Especially now that the king is ill.

Lady Olenna goes on, "It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness, that is life."

Her grandmother is a hard woman, unrelenting in her tutalage and almost cruel in her demand of perfection. But Clarysse knows that she very much loves her grandchildren and wants to see them content. She only realises now how much these words mean to her. To hear that she holds no blame from someone so blunt as her grandmother lifts a burden from her shoulders.

Were it not for the fact that Lady Olenna despises tears, Clarysse might have started crying. Instead, she reminds herself of her standing and plasters a smile on her face. It is well that she does so, for when they round the next corner, it is Aegon of all people that they encounter. It almost seems as if he had been waiting for them.

There is a spark when their eyes meet, but it is the last gasp of something that is dying. They have not talked in weeks. Since the announcement of his betrothal, to be exact. They simply stand and stare at each other for a long moment until her grandmother clears her throat meaningfully.

"I shall leave you, my dear." With a warning glance at the prince, Lady Olenna departs. For a moment, Clarysse is frozen, can only stare at him.

He looks so lovely, she thinks sadly. No one should be allowed to be this handsome.

Clarysse shakes her head, attempting to dislodge the thought. You're not a foolish girl anymore, she reminds herself for the thousandth time and turns her eyes away. He's not for you, so there's no sense in dreaming.

"Prince Aegon," she finally says. It is the first time in some time that she has said his name above a whisper. For that second, it feels a magnificent thing, to say his name as if she has a right to, as if it is hers again.

She pauses.

She does not say his name again.

     "I owe you an apology," he starts, voice low.

     "An understatement, to be sure."

"I tried to talk to you."

She hums, refusing to look at him. "What is there to say?"

     "Are you still angry with me?"

It is a simple question and the person that voices it is calm, collected. Still, it makes her tremble with rage. Clarysse can imagine his face, lips pressed in a thin line and forehead smoothed, without any creases, and the way he lets his arms hang by his sides. She doesn't need to see Aegon to know what he looks like.

But she turns to look at him anyway. She sees him. She looks at him and sees his arms hanging, his lips pressed in a thin line and his forehead without any creases.

"No," she lies. What is the point of telling the truth? He cannot turn back the time and nothing else would make it well again.

     Still, Aegon doesn't seem relieved. "I couldn't —" He pauses and tries again, "I wanted to tell you. I went to your chambers on the morning of my father's name day. But your grandmother sent me away, said there would be plenty of time during the feast."

      Abruptly, indignation flares up, hot and furious and she curles his hands into fists at her sides.

But frankly, Clarysse is tired.

As quick as her temper has been riled, it fades, replaced by a bone-deep exhaustion that feels like an impossible burden, weighing her down. She is done, done hanging on to something that will not amount to anything in the future, done casting her heart onto someone that never truly wanted it in the first place.

     "It doesn't matter. I don't care why you did what you did. I only care what it cost us."

     Suddenly it is too hard to be in his presence, too painful to know that before long he would belong to someone else. "I am sorry about your father," Clarysse says and takes her leave without another word.