"I win again! Where is your mind at, Elyana? You are making this too easy." Lucia chuckled as she knocked over a chess piece carved to be a dragon. Elyana sighed and gave her lady a tight lip smile. Her mind was not in the chess game, her mind was someplace else. With her husband, to be exact. "I am sorry. I happen to be distracted." Elyana sighed as she looked around her parlor.

Helaena was looking out of the window of the parlor whilst the twins and Maelor ran around playing with their wooden soldiers. Elyana took a deep breath and rubbed her belly, daydreaming of her own child running around with it's cousins soon. "Why?" Lucia asked as she set up the board to start another game.

"Aemond has been very busy with council lately, I worry he is not taking good care of himself. I've barely even seen him in the last week since he returned from Storm's End. The council meets until late at night." Elyana huffed and rubbed her eyes, trying to get her mind to stop thinking for a moment.

"Do not fret, sister. This will all be over so soon." Helaena whispered as she moved to where the two girls were sitting and joined them. Elyana smiled and sighed heavily, then watched as Helaena and Lucia began a new chess game. She believed Helaena, she had a knack for the future. Elyana stood up from her seat and moved to the window where Helaena had been standing, looking out into the night sky. So late yet the men were still in council.

"Auntie, play with me!" Jaehaera beamed and tugged at Elyana's skirts, handing her a rag doll that had been sewn to her by Elyana herself. She smiled as she took it in her hands and kneeled, taking Jaehaera in her arms and playing with her.

Hours would pass until Helaena thought it time to visit the Queen in her chambers with the children. An activity that Elyana enjoyed joining very much, as it was a way to bond with Aemond's mother. Elyana took to grabbing Jaehaera's hand whilst Lucia grabbed Jaehaerys' and Helaena took Maelor in her arms.

They were escorted by Helaena's guard and midway there, Elyana beamed when they crossed paths with Aemond. "Darling..." He breathed out as he engulfed his wife in a rather tired hug. Elyana hugged him back eagerly, then he kissed her forehead. "Where are you headed?" Aemond asked quietly whilst Elyana sighed and looked at the kids.

"We're taking them to see your mother before they are put to bed." Elyana answered, earning a nod back from him. "I'll join you." Aemond stated but Elyana could see just how tired he was in the look in his eye.

"No my love, it is fine. Go take a calming bath and I will be there so shortly, okay?" Elyana said with a smile, whilst Aemond nodded and rubbed his temple. "Where is Conrad?" Aemond asked as he looked around the corridor.

"I gave him today off, since I've been all day with Hel and all of her guards." Elyana said nonchalantly, making Aemond frown. "I do not like that, Elyana. We do not pay him to frolick around the castle." Aemond sighed but them looked to Helaena's guard and calmed down.

"Be quick, alright?" He asked with a smile before bending to Jaehaera's height and putting his hand up for her to high five. "Isn't your auntie the prettiest one?" Aemond asked with a chuckle as he looked to his niece lovingly. Jaehaera clapped her hands and engulfed Aemond's leg in a tight hug, causing him to chuckle.

After Aemond disappeared down the hallway, the girls and the children kept on making their way to Alicent's chambers. They got there rather quickly, and Helaena was the first one in, "Mother, I've brough the children." Helaena would announce as they all entered the dimly lit room, only for cries and gags to be heard. Elyana gasped when she spotted the Queen Mother, bound and gagged by the corner of the room. Helaena shrieked, whilst Alicent's teary eyes were darting wildly across the room trying to tell them something. Suddenly Helaena's guard fell to the floor. He had been stabbed in the back by an unknown force.

"Ah... till you finally join us, Lady Elyana." A big man emerged from Alicent's bedchamber, causing Elyana to let out a scream and yank Jaehaera up into her arms. When Elyana and Lucia turned to flee with the children, the door was instantly blocked by a skinnier man who was smiling sinisterly at the girls whilst twirling a dagger in his hands. What was going on?

Alicent's muffled cries became louder as she realized what was going to happen. "Now before you scream for help... I suggest you do not, unless of course you want Cheese here to rape that little girl you have in your arms." Helaena shrieked at the bigger man's words, tears freely streaming down her face as she held Maelor tightly in her arms. Elyana whimpered, tears too beginning to fall from her eyes.

"Please... do not hurt the children..." Elyana begged, her grip around Jaehaera becoming almost bone crushing to the child. "Oh we will not... At least tis not in our plans, now come, let the children go." Lucia shook her head fiercely, and Elyana only cried harder. "Let them go now, or else they suffer with you." The skinny one, who was mentioned to be called Cheese stated.

Dubiously the three children were placed on the ground by the women, and the three of them ran to their grandmother who was crying hysterically against the rag that was bound around her mouth. Lucia and Elyana took to hugging each other tightly, whilst Helaena stood paralyzed with her eyes on her children.

"We've been waiting here all bored for what seems to be ages." Cheese sighed as he continued to twirl his dagger, moving about the room as he eyed the woman in front of him. "Blood here needs some sort of relief, which of you is it gonna be?" He asked cruelly, then he sighed at the lack of response.

"Now now, Cheese... do not be so bold. These are good ladies we are treating with. The Pretender Queen, the Kinslayer's Whore, and an unfortunate soul who just so happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time." Blood would sigh as his slimy eyes assessed Lucia, who was crying uncontrollably into Elyana's shoulder.

"Tell them why we're here... come on now. We do not have all night, or perhaps we do." Blood chuckled as he moved about the room, approaching Elyana and taking a long and hard sniff. He sighed and leaned in to kiss her cheek, only for her to lean back with the help of Lucia.

"You are all traitors to the crown of the rightful Queen Rhaenyra... and one of you here is the prize that the kinslayer will pay for what he did to his own sister." Cheese stated, pointing his dagger around which caused Elyana to close her eyes in defeat. They had come for her. They were here to avenge Lucerys Velaryon.

"He took one of the most precious things in the life of the Queen, her second son, his nephew, and he killed him. Now is it not fair that we take his good pregnant whore of a wife too? The most precious thing he has?" Cheese asked cynically, making Lucia whimper and shake her head as Elyana cried. Was there any salvation at this point? Would anyone save her from this? Helaena did say it would all be over soon, did she mean for her?

"But Lucerys was not just a second son, like the kinslayer. No, Lucerys was the Heir to Driftmark... So is it not fair that we take an heir too?" Blood asked, and Helaena instantly knew what the men meant and let out a blood curling scream. "Shut your damn mouth before I take your mother and impale her with my..." Blood did not finish his sentence, he did not need to. They all knew what he meant.

Suddenly Blood yanked Elyana by her hair and twirled her around and into his body, pressing his dagger to her neck. Elyana cried hopelessly as Lucia fell to the ground, refusing to look at the position her best friend was in. Then Cheese grabbed Jaehaerys and lifted the weeping boy into his arms, bringing the dagger to his neck also.

"Please do not hurt him, please." Elyana cried whilst shaking her head as she tried to reach for the toddler but she was yanked back into the arms of her captor. "No no... whores do not get a choice... the choice is made by the Pretender Queen...." Cheese stated, pointing his dagger to Helaena who was weeping uncontrollably as she took in the scene in front of her.

"One..." Blood said, "Or two..." Cheese continued.

"One of them dies for the sins of the kinslayer, and you get to decide who..." Blood laughed as he looked to Helaena expectantly.

"NO...no...no...no... take me! Please take me instead!" Helaena begged, falling to the ground as she sobbed hysterically. "Choose one... your son or your brother's whore... or else your daughter and your mother die."

Elyana closed her eyes and prayed to the Gods. Not for salvation, or anything in specific. She simply prayed. And she thought of Aemond. Leaving him in the world alone was her worst fear, yet she dared not beg Helaena for her life. Elyana knew Jaehaerys was a child and her son, and Elyana did not intend to compete with that. She would choose him to be saved over herself a hundred times. He was an innocent. She made peace, and like she had told Aegon... she was not scared of death.

"Hel... it is okay." Elyana assured the hysterical woman, who shook her head and trembled as she looked between her son and her brother's wife. But to nobody's suprise, Helaena pointed to Elyana. "You hear that, you whore? Your good sister wants you dead!" Cheese laughed manically.

"Too bad we are liars." He sighed and with one easy slice, Jaehaerys' body fell to the ground whilst he still held his severed head in hands.

The next series of events were a blur to Elyana. Somehow Lucia got a knife and was charging at Blood with it yet her brave attempt to protect Elyana was detered by Cheese, who was quicker and stronger. A punch was thrown to Lucia's face, causing the dagger she held to fly from her hands, and then she was beat to the ground. Helaena's screams echoed the room as Elyana cried in horror as she watched Lucia be kicked, over and over again into unconsciousness.

Then it happened. A slice to Elyana's body. They did not slice her throat, no, instead the man sliced her stomach. He let her go, and she looked down at her belly, at her pregnant belly, in shock. So much blood. It was a diagonal cut that spread through her abdomen, and that is when she knew. They came for her child, not for her. She was but the means for revenge.

Her vision was blurry as the blood poured from her stomach and then her knees gave out. Her body fell with a hard thud unto the ground and next to her best friend, making the men laugh. Elyana was in a haze, staring at the ceiling as she listened to Helaena cry and scream at the scene of her beheaded child. She clutched her stomach, praying that mayhaps her baby would be okay. But she could feel herself going, going out of the consciousness and slipping into a lull. Up until Cheese leaned towards her.

"Daemon and Erryk send their regards." Elyana watched as he tore the head of Jaehaerys out of Helaena's hands and threw it in a sack, and she watched as they turned around as if nothing... fleeing their crimes.

Elyana looked at Lucia's unconscious body and then to the weeping Helaena and the body of her dead nephew, and she did not know what came over her. Perhaps it was the adrenaline of being stabbed, or the anger and impotence. But somehow Elyana had stood up from ground, clutching her stomach as if fearing her intestines would fall from her body.

She limped to the dagger Lucia had pulled and then with all of the force that she could muster in her body she ran to Blood before he could cross through the door and stabbed him in the back.

"I heard screaming!" Muffled voices were heard from outside the chambers. 

The man fell to his knees, and his partner simply ran and left him there. Elyana took out the dagger from his flesh and pushed him into the ground, staddling him and then... then she saw red. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. She lost count of how many times she had stabbed the man under her. His face was unrecognizable, his blood spraying unto her own frame as she continued her savage attack.

She did not cease her stabs, not even when she knew he was well dead. She did not cease the stabs until the guards were bursting into the chambers and tearing her off him. She thrashed around as they held her until she heard his voice. "Elyana!" Aemond had come to her. He kneeled besides her in pure shock, taking her into his arms instantly, not caring for her bloody frame.

Elyana looked at him with a frown, and then she looked down at her stomach. Aemond followed her gaze and let out a blood curling curse. She tried smiling, to reassure him she was okay, but her eyes rolled to the back of her head before she slumped over his lap.

Slipping into the sweet warmth of the unkown.