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The corner of her cell houses her sole confinement partner, a spider spinning its web. She’s watched the web spread the last few days, cover in dew in the mornings and trap flies as the sun fades from the small slat in the cell wall. It’s been a source of amusement for her to watch them squirm while the spider does its task, emptying them of their blood.
The killings blend together – there is often no proper trial for those the gutter knights rip from the adjoining cells, only their screams. King’s Landing has been gutted. The small folk’s anger runs hot as dragon fire, the promises of nobility merely fodder for the flame, and they want blood to run for their suffering. Mysaria is under no illusion that she will escape the blaze. She is an orchestrator after all, no? Was it not she who suggested, heart heavy, to Rhaenyra that the taxes must be raised? That the people must suffer further?
It doesn’t matter that she’d only done it because the Greens, gods damn them for their foresight, had moved the crown’s coin to Dorne where Rhaenyra could not touch it. It doesn’t matter that she and Rhaenyra had spent months before the city’s sacking slipping food into boats and in tunnels and in travelers' palms to ensure the people did not go hungry. It did not matter that it was the Green’s deceptions and treachery that had led to this suffering to begin with. No, as far as the smallfolk were concerned there was blood in Mysaria’s ledger, thick as the precious blood that coated the Iron Throne’s swords each time Rhaenyra sat upon it. Never mind that the blood came not because Rhaenyra was trying too little or was too cruel, but because she was trying too hard, gripping its sharp edges in anger and hopelessness at the rising realization that she could do nothing to protect her people so long as Aemond and the Greens plunged the realm into fire and ruin.
Rhaenyra had told her of the first time she realized the importance of the smallfolk. “It was Daemon’s idea of scaring me, I think,” she’d said, rubbing mindless circles into the small of Mysaria’s back. “Taking me to a whore house, riling me up.”
“He does so love to do that sort of thing,” was her response, which earned her a snort of amusement.
“It didn’t work of course. I am a dragon – fire and passion are in my veins. Why would I be scared of my birthright? Alyssa Targaryen, Daemon’s own mother, thought of sex was a type of dragon-riding. She said so immediately after her wedding night.”
Rhaenyra’s eyes were bright with the amusement that rarely peaked through at this point in the war’s bloodshed, the dying embers of their chamber’s fire dancing in the otherworldly purple. Mysaria knew well by now the passion of the dragon, bore its marks on her skin a multitude of times, though the marks were never so beloved from Daemon as they were when bestowed by Rhaenyra.
“Is it like riding a dragon, your grace?” she teased, moving her fingers lightly over the ridge of Rhaenyra’s nose, which crinkled adorably at the touch.
“I suppose so,” came Rhaenyra’s response, “Though I am certain Syrax would open her maw at the comparison and burn us all. I’m sure the thought is sacrilegious somehow.”
“I am not so certain Caraxes would agree,” Mysaria shot back. “Daemon used to say he would have women in the sky just as quickly as in the bed.” Rhaenyra darkened at these words; Mysaria knew that Daemon was a sore subject and the clouded look that covered Rhaenyra meant that the delicate balance between their shared history with the man and each other required she shift the discussion away. “But just as well that Syrax burns us for our sacrilege. We would not want the smallfolk to live in fear of seeing us astride in our bareness.” Rhaenyra gave a small wry smile, a concession in their dance.
“Well, they would be graced by such a vision, but I do agree it is probably for the best. At least for the whole royal image,” she said, mirth interlaced.
“The full royal image is certainly a sight reserved for the blessed few,” Mysaria’s reply filled with the fondness and love she knew she would never express out loud.
Rhaenyra knew well what she felt. Former whores, no matter how wide their web of power is cast, simply did not have the right to claim a queen’s love for their own. Besides, Daemon was in King’s Landing and despite the separated chambers, he and Rhaenyra were doing their best to present a united front. Mysaria knew, of course, Nettles occupied his bed near as often as she occupied Rhaenyra’s, that there was a love lost somewhere between the moment he crowned Rhaenyra and his departure to Harrenhall, though the details remain between the two of them. She’s never forgotten the force of his anger at being denied heir so she has her suspicions. Regardless, their united image is important for their attempts to secure the realm firmly under black and red banners. Mysaria has only this, the sight of Rhaenyra spread beside her, legs intertwined. It is more than enough.
“Indeed, dōna, indeed.” Rhaenyra kisses her brow as if to punctuate the words, a royal anointing. She imagines she feels the weight of returned affection in the warmth of her lips. “But blessings aside, Daemon did not account for all that I witnessed that evening.”
“Oh?” Mysaria asked, intrigued.
She’d obviously known about Rhaenyra’s exploits at the whore house, had reported them to Otto Hightower herself when she had first fashioned herself into the White Worm, but she did not know what Rhaenyra had experienced beyond extreme sexual frustration, Daemon’s specialty.
“Your spies did not tell you of the play we saw that evening?” Rhaenyra teased, as she was fond of doing. Mysaria’s reply was sagely given:
“A Mistress of Whispers must never reveal her secrets, your Majesty.”
“So that’s a no then,” Rhaenyra giggled. Mysaria relished the sound even as she barely concealed a pout at Rhaenyra’s imagined triumph over her network. “Well, I’ll tell you what your informants did not. The play was a simple peasant work meant to disparage me as the heir to the throne. I was so angry at what they said. I didn’t get why they thought so little of me.” Her words reflected her younger self’s naivety – the smallfolk often disliked the Targaryen’s treatment of them.
“Ah. I had heard of those sorts of plays, though I did not know you had attended,” Mysaria said, addressing that naivety with her clear knowledge of the plays' commonality.
Rhaenyra nodded, her hair brushing against Mysaria’s neck where she seemed determined to hide herself. “So you know then what is so clear to me now? That it is the smallfolk who truly matter, whose opinion and wellbeing are the reason for a throne at all? That my seat on the Iron Throne depends fully on ensuring that their play isn’t the truth?”
Mysaria knew then what she was saying; that she was afraid the proposed taxes would bring back those old resentful feelings. She couldn’t offer any comfort. The game of thrones was fundamentally about giving and taking, wins and losses. Mysaria played the cards she was given, hoping that the concession she gave in tightening the leash around the smallfolk would pay off with the quicker defeat of Aegon Targaryen’s claim to the throne, even if it did lead to a temporary loss of love for Rhaenyra. Her Queen would rise above their hatred and bring back the era of peace known under King Jaehaerys, only better for it would come with the councils Queen Alysanne conducted, the voice of the women and the smallfolk arising alongside the men. All Mysaria and Rhaenyra needed was time – time and money. The concession had to be made.
“The people love you now, my Queen,” Mysaria lies, her words sweet, her hands sweeter. “They shouted your name in joy when you and Syrax descended to free them from the Green’s terrors. They know that every sacrifice made is to help them, to prevent the false king’s return.” Rhaenyra did not need to know of the nickname they had bestowed: Maegor with Tits, whispered in dark alley corners.
Rhaenyra’s brow hitched. She looked as if she wanted to argue, but Mysaria stopped her words by climbing atop her, mouth placed on the spot on her neck that always made moans slip past Rhaenyra’s lips. There wasn’t any talking to be had as she kissed her way downwards, teeth gently scraping as she went. When she finally reached Rhaenyra’s lower stomach, just short of where she knew Rhaenyra was aching for her, she looked up, a wicked grin on her face.
“Shall we see if it truly is like dragon riding?” Rhaenyra’s laughter at that was a joyous thing to be heard, an echo ringing in Mysaria’s ears even now as she sits staring at the spider making deft work of its latest victim in the darkness of the cell she occupies. It almost was enough to overpower the screams of anguish from anyone who had served Rhaenyra, though not quite enough to distract her from the death she was about to face.
There had been a great wail throughout the city for days during the riot – Mysaria had barely been able to get Rhaenyra out, had barely been able to convince her to flee before it was too late. They could regroup later, Mysaria had begged. In the end, it was only the thought of losing her remaining children to the city’s ransacking that convinced Rhaenyra. She hadn’t been able to even make it to the Dragonpit or Syrax because of the riots but slipped into the night. Mysaria wished she’d gone with her then and there, but had foolishly thought that splitting up would allow more members of the court to escape.
Maybe it wasn’t foolish though – the rumblings of the guards who had never truly learned to keep their mouths shut around Mysaria, despite her new moniker as Lady Misery, told her that Rhaenyra had indeed successfully fled the city. She was safe from Ser Perkins at the very least. Mysaria could only hope that safety would hold true for outside the walls of King’s Landing, but that felt too good to be true. No, she thought as the sunlight’s fading began to obscure her study of the web-wrapped fly’s body. No, there is no hope.
Ser Perkins – there was a fear in that name for her. She’d heard him as she maneuvered throughout the Red Keep trying to find an opening for her own escape. He slaughtered any who served Rhaenyra without a second thought. Ten knights alone she’d stumbled upon, bowels hanging out from wounds, throats slashed, armor crimson. The tenth had given her pause – the knight was a boy more than anything, merely six and ten. He reminded her of Jacaerys Velaryon and the thought had made her wretch loudly enough to draw the attention of one of Perkin’s gutter knights. She’d been taken, her status too high to afford the same lack of care in a quick blade’s slide, so here she sat studying spiders.
Another bout of terror comes from the whispers that float throughout the guards' haughty bragging – the booms and wails she’d heard throughout the city the few days were not merely the boasts of rioters' aims. No, it was worse by far than countless deaths. The Dragonpit had been stormed, the dragons slain. One guard, whom Mysaria particularly despised, wore a gaping burn wound delivered from the fiery jaws of ‘that pretty blue one, though not so pretty now’ with such pride that her empty stomach felt ready to wretch. She remembered the death of Melys, how she’d told Rhaenyra on Dragonstone that this was a mistake. The strength of the symbol is everything. What were the Targaryens without their dragons? The smallfolk knew now that the dragons were not unkillable gods and neither were their masters. Mysaria saw the end of it all, the pieces in motion. This was the beginning of the end, a small death predating the larger one. It did not matter who won the war now. She’d wept then, great tears that she’d kept at bay for the first few days of her imprisonment. They weren’t for herself, but for Rhaenyra and that rapidly slipping future she’d imagined. An era of peace. It felt like a cruel joke now. A fly buzzing around a living corpse in a dark, damp section of the Red Keep awaiting the moment when its caught in the sticky reality and can struggle no more.
Mysaria’s concentration on the fly’s brutal end is quickly ended by the approach of her own. It appears Ser Perkin, the flea of a man, has finally found a punishment he deems appropriate for her.
“Hello, whore,” the guard who has come to collect her addresses her with the moniker as if her past shames her. “Time’s up, sweetling.” That earns a flinch, though she desperately tries to conceal it. The look on his face tells her she has not. She rises from her viewing spot and makes her way to him.
As she passes the spider’s corner, the guard before her, Mysaria swipes the webbing away from the wall. The spider scurries away, running from the destruction of its home. She’s sickeningly certain of the boots that will crush it without a thought. It’s an inescapable fate; the wheel will always turn, the mold of life set centuries in the past. Spider to boot, women who know too much to sword, queens who will never be to fire. Mysaria goes to her fate head held high.
The guard's hand is rough around her arm as he drags her to the throne room to Perkin. She imagines it leaving a bruise, encompassing her arm and then thinks herself a fool once more. Mysaria is not leaving here, that much is clear, but she wishes unreasonably that the bruise was gifted by Rhaenyra instead. He pushes her to her knees the instant she's in front of Perkin. He’s not on the throne – he’d never dare risk inserting himself into the war that way – but the throne still looms behind him. Mysaria can see Rhaenyra’s dried blood on the swords and it's a strange comfort to her, as if Rhaenyra was here with her at this moment.
He towers above her, leering down. She almost snorts. How many men have paid good coins to get her in this position on her knees? All this moment cost was the stability of the realm. How amusing.
“We’ve heard the stories from the traitor’s servants.” Perkin’s sneer is a permanent fixture upon his ugly face as he begins. “King’s whore once more, is that right?” So the rumor was that it was she, not Nettles, in Daemon’s bedroom, then.
“King Consort, Ser, but yes,” Mysaria replies, the deception passing easily from her tongue.
She is the Queen’s lover – never whore or love though sometimes dōna in the rare softer moment – but Perkin needs not know that. They want her to be Daemon’s whore and she’s played that role before. It’s a small manipulation she can give, a twist in the story’s narrative that might protect Rhaenyra from history’s stinging words or at least not add to the pile of accusations that are certain to pass from maester to maester.
“Not king at all really, though?” He glares as if he did not call Daemon king first. A clumsy trap, she thinks wryly, but one she will fall into nonetheless. She knows there is no amount of weaving that could paint her involvement with Rhaenyra as her Mistress of Shadows differently.
“Well no,” her voice a quiet calm authority in the relative silence of the room, the air of anticipation keeping the gathered crowd silent. “Daemon is not king at all. King Consort, to the one true Queen, Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen, First of Her Name, Queen of the Andals and the Rho–” The titles are interrupted by Perkin’s swift kick to her stomach and subsequent crack; the steel of his armored boot has broken a rib.
She laughs then, a mad sound amongst the now jeering crowd, blood painting her lips and defiance in her eyes. Mysaria dares him to do more with that defiance, though the man is likely too stupid to grasp that. His plans were already in place before she was dragged here and defiance will not alter their course. He gestures to the guard, who wrenches her into a standing position. Perkin’s is close enough that she can feel the foul heat of his breath when he opens his mouth to deliver the final blow.
“Well then. Decided that you want a traitor’s death instead of a whore’s?” She merely glares as her response. He turns to the crowd around them, a wicked smile as he addresses them.
“How many of you have suffered because of the White Wyrm?” He shouts. She recognizes the voice of a blacksmith, perhaps a friend of Hugh Hammer’s, though her mind is too scattered to be certain of it.
“TOO MANY! TOO MANY HAVE DIED AT THE HANDS OF THIS WHORE!”
This is met with a cry, a reverberation of the riot's screams. Mysaria had become a sort of nobility in her quest to shape the realm for the better and they were hungry for her blood too. She couldn’t blame them, really. The balance of the scales, the concessions she made – she was responsible regardless of their understanding as to why she had done any of it.
Perkin waits for the crowd’s roaring to dull before he turns to her once more, his eyes nothing more than black glittering joy. Mysaria realizes with cold dread that he is beyond excited for whatever suffering he has planned.
“Well, my lords and ladies, perhaps we should show her some mercy?” An uncomfortable pause – the crowd does not know where he is going with this.
“Lady Misery,” he begins with a smile, “in my endless grace, I have decided to allow you an opportunity for freedom.”
An angry cry gets silenced by the raise of his hand. Mysaria faintly remembers Rhaenyra offering her freedom at Dragonstone – this offer is not such a kindness. Her fear rears itself slightly and she battles to keep it down. Fear will not change this ending.
“If – and only if – you can make it from here to the Gate of the Gods whilst enduring my punishment, I will generously grant you leave of the city.”
“And the punishment, Ser?” She manages to keep the tremble from her voice, but barely.
“Why, only one befitting the high ranking of the White Wyrm. You must strip-” and at this, Mysaria cannot suppress her grimace for she knows what sort of thing will follow – “and travel through the city with my man’s whip upon your back.” At his words, the crowd screams their approval. She merely nods.
“So be it then.”
Perkin signals his guard, who proceeds with her to the entrance of the Keep, the crowd a twisted funeral procession trailing behind them. “No need to muddy the floors of the Keep for His Majesty’s return, aye!” Perkin shouts to the revelers whose laughter sounds like a knife to Mysaria’s ears.
Mysaria does not register much of the in-between – the removal of her clothes, the jeering of the crowd, and her first hesitant step on the city’s cobblestone are lost as she attempts to carefully detach her mind from reality– but the first sting of the whip cruelly jolts her back into her body. She cries out at the rip of flesh, vomits at the sound of the separation. The crowd’s laughter is a dull roar that registers somewhere between the pain that pulses in with every beat of her heart and the tears that cloud the steps ahead of her. The guard doesn’t give her a single moment to adjust. There will be no relief here.
She forces herself to stand, ribs aching, to put one foot in front of the other. There’s almost a look of wonder in the crowd as she moves forward, respect for the strength she has to move forward in the endless eyes, but it is quickly overtaken by their glee at the guard’s brutality. He follows her meager steps quickly, matching each movement of her feet with the hard motion of his swinging arm.
Mysaria makes it halfway through the city before her collapse is final. She begs her body to get up, to find some sort of strength, but she knows it's a useless endeavor. The guard stands above her, unrelenting. He swings over and over again, the lashes craving further into her skin where grooves had already been laid by the previous blow. Mysaria laughs weakly, blood seeping from her arms, legs, and head, out of her mouth. Spider meets boot.
As the darkness overtakes her, the rhythm of the guard's blows fading into static, blood pours from her back into her eyes, she feels as if a fire is
consuming her broken skin. It burns like a lover’s embrace, Rhaenyra’s arms around her once again, the fire a welcome to a home she never really had. She slips into it willingly as the final crack of the whip sounds, consumed by the endless blaze. The words she hears crackling in their sparks feel like absolution.
“Hello, Dōna.”