103 AC
one year after the drowning

     TEARS spilt across Lyra's cheeks as she wept bitterly before the mantlepiece. The dancing flames in the hearth continued to crackle with callous disregard. Her heart ached as if torn asunder, the burden of her own existence weighing down upon her shoulders. Between her fingers was clutched the necklace that Daemon had given her, its Vlayrian steel and emerald gemstone cold to the touch in her warm hands. The only thing she carried with her that still connected her to her husband. She held tightly onto it like a prayer, as if it would offer her redemption, as if it would give her absolution.

Visions swam in her pale eyes; of things long gone, things still living and those that may yet come to pass. Haunting her as if from a dark veil of shadows that her mind unwittingly uncovered. She could feel it, the hands of death creeping along her skin and leaving a trail of moonburnt witchcraft in its wake. Yet still she could not divine meaning from it all, that her frail body was now whole and a strange flame kindled within her soul. That she stood at the entrance of the city of the dead and was turned away.

The wind howled through the open balcony doors, whipping her hair about her shoulders. Soft, silken footfalls approached her in the quiet of the night and gentle hands reached out to wrap a cloak around Lyra's shuddering frame. "My dear..." Saera murmured as she held her in comfort. "How much longer will you inflict yourself with such misery?" Lyra continued to sob into her shoulder. "Why won't you tell him? I can easily send him a letter on the morrow, nay, this very hour."

Lyra clasped her arms, looking up with eyes brimming with despair as she shook her head imperatively. "No, you must not, please!"

"Lyra..." Saera pleaded. "Why must you insist on this? Your husband grieves across the Narrow Sea and your children are in want of their father."

"Saera," she uttered in a deathly whisper. "You know why—I died and came back to life by will of the Lord of Light in his very temple. They say I am chosen, blessed, but I have been cursed. I see things in the flames, terrifying things, of my husband. Of my children and my family."

For the first time in Saera Targaryen's life, she did not know what to say. She had never been pious, had never paid heed to the call of the divine. Preferring instead to delight herself with impurity and vice. The only higher power that she believed in was herself, she who was of Old Valyria with dragon blood coursing through her veins. The whole world was her birthright and the gods would play to her whims. Dragon dreams had never come to her nor her father or mother, or her host of siblings and their children. The dream of Aegon the Conqueror was but a forgotten whisper on the wind, a myth lost to time.

But Lyra was forged from frost and snow and winter terrors. In the North, dread things still haunted the everwinter woods. She was never meant to be here, to cross the threshold of the god of flames and shadows. To die within foreign halls and awaken to the kiss of life. Saera had only heard of the tales sung by the red priestesses in their temples of light. Absurdity and folly, she had thought, but now she stood the fool. The gods still lived and breathed in this world, rousing from their slumber only to sate their black hunger. Spinning destiny from beneath withered trees and hands of fire.

She felt her mouth go dry. "But you miss him so terribly," she said softly.

Lyra's lips trembled before her, tears welling once more and dripping down her chin like thawing hoar. "I miss him," she blubbed, "and it torments me deeply, senselessly. But I cannot return to him until I understand this affliction. This wretched suffering I feel every day."

Saera's lilac eyes searched her face for a hint of madness but she only saw grief and fear. She knew not what was the right course of action and she felt pity for the girl who was so far away from her home. "He might help you overcome it," she suggested. "He can come here, you need not leave if you are not ready."

"No, he must not come," Lyra insisted, turning away adamantly. "I do not wish for him to see me in this state. It will only hurt him more."

"But is he not already hurting?" Saera questioned.

Lyra went quiet though she still trembled as her misty eyes fell to the limestone floor. Saera finally understood why the Northerners were well-known to be hard-headed and stubborn fools. They held their virtues close to their hearts and would rather suffer a thousand deaths in silence before relinquishing their honour.

"I saw him in the flames," Lyra whispered then. "I saw him plunge into icy waters to his doom, I saw his dragon pull himself out alone with his belly gorged and wing-arm torn clean off."

A chill washed over Saera, though the only reason she could see such a thing happening was in a clash with another dragon. She was about to retort when Lyra grasped hold of her wrist, face turning back to her with eyes filled with foreboding terror.

"I saw my children engulfed in dragonfire but unburnt, I saw them seek passage to flee Westeros to the eastern lands," she spoke. "I saw dragons dancing upon the clouds with jaws and claws locked upon the other, I saw fields of war burning from the Crownlands to the North." Her hold tightened. "I dreamt I was back in the crypts under Winterfell, I dreamt of the late king and Aegon the Conqueror beneath the halls of my father. I dreamt I was a raven, a wolf and a dragon. I dreamt I was inside the weirwood tree in the Red Keep watching my son and niece."

Apprehension pooled in her belly and Saera tore her hand free to grasp Lyra's face. She was feverish to the touch, burning and hot. "You are still ill, you know not what you say," Saera breathed.

"I feel fine," Lyra replied. "I have been like this ever since returning from the temple. His fire is inside of me."

Doubt flashed within Saera's lilac eyes as she inspected Lyra once more. She brushed away the stray tendrils of sable hair that blew into her face. "I—I do not know what to tell you, Lyra. If it is wisdom you seek, I do not have it."

"I want to go home," Lyra confided in her. "I want to return to my son and husband but I cannot... I cannot..."

"Then what will you do?" Saera asked.

"I will seek my answers in the red temple," she said. "I will become a red priestess and learn more of their rites."

"And how long will that take?" the older woman uttered in dismay. "Months, years, you may never even find what you seek. Are you going to stay there forever, a servant to the sacred fire?"

"No, I promise I will not," Lyra swore. "I will stay a while, learn whatever I can, then I will return home."

"And the children?" Saera pressed.

"They will be fine here," she said. "I will find a way, I will visit often, but I must do this. There is a reason why I was revived and I need to know why."

Saera pursed her lips into a thin line with concern etched across her face. She was not fond of the idea and she had half a mind of summoning Daemon to reason with Lyra himself. But firelight was reflected in her pale eyes, prophecies that should not be spoken aloud swirled like mist within her hazy gaze. Saera could see it for herself as if looking through glassy waters, the doom of her bloodline smouldering like the embers of her ancestral lands. She did not want to believe it yet she could not deny what she saw. There was only truth in Lyra Stark's words, occult mysteries woven into her bones and mettle.

Swallowing hard, she let out a shaky breath. "I believe you, Lyra," she said. "But I wish you would send word to him... just to alleviate his grief if only but a little."

"I do not wish for him to garner false hope." Lyra frowned. "What if the Lord of Light decided I was not fit to carry out his will and take the breath back from my lungs?"

"Then I shall be very cross and will give him a piece of my mind," Saera responded drily.

A laugh escaped Lyra's lips, startling Saera slightly. She looked back to her in bewilderment at what might be so amusing in her words. "That is exactly what Daemon would say," Lyra explained as mirth continued to bubble forth from her chest before her shoulders fell with a despondent sigh. "I miss him, Saera... I miss him every day."

"Then do what you must with haste," Saera told her. "So that your family may be whole once more."

Lyra nodded resolutely, determination set on her brows. Neither woman truly knew whether this was the right path, or if anything would come out of it but Lyra saw little choice in the matter. She could return to Westeros, plagued with pyretic visions and dreams, or acquire mastery over the flames and its hidden secrets within. When the tears dried upon her cheeks and Saera left to her own chambers, sleep eluded Lyra as was its wont to do. She stayed by her children's side as they slumbered peacefully in their crib. Their golden spun her gleamed beneath the silver moonbeams like their father and his father before him, beautiful and serene as glistening waters flowing gently into a creak.

She sat there until the golden glow of the morn rose from the banks of the Rhoyne and she bent over to place a kiss each on their heads. "My dearest hearts, I love you always."

Donning a cloak of blood velvet, she slipped silently through the manse to the entranceway. Saera stepped out onto the balcony overlooking the main hall, jade meeting lilac briefly in mutual acknowledgement before each disappeared from sight behind the threshold. Lyra retraced her steps through the blushing gardens and arid streets of Volantis, following the nightfires that had begun to dim in the distance. She climbed the grand steps of the High Temple, glancing briefly at the fiery brands on the faces of the slave soldiers that lined the edifice.

It was warm within those vaulted halls, silvery hymns echoing from deep within the inner alcoves of their shrines. Lyra made her way towards the eternal fire that blazed within the heart of its atrium. Even in the light of day, the flames danced with a haunting radiance and her eyes gazed hollowly through the wraiths that clung to the dark shadows. A red priestess approached then, her face was a familiar one that Lyra easily remembered. The one who had performed the rite of the last kiss on her.

"I saw your coming," she spoke wispily in the Common Tongue with a lilting accent. "I have waited for you, the one who was chosen by our Lord. You come seeking answers, allow me to enlighten you."

Tentatively, Lyra reached out to accept her proffered hand. "Please help me," she whispered back.

"Tell me of your name," the priestess requested.

Lyra hesitated as her fingers clasped the necklace around her throat. She did not want reports of her activities to reach the wrong ears, or lest Daemon would hear a whisper of her name and come looking. "Lyenne. My name is Lyenne."

AUTHOR'S NOTE. i'm doing some revisions and slight overhaul to this story <3 some changes that i plan are writing more details in some chapters. i wrote this story on a whim after coming out of a three-year-long hiatus or something, and my writing has improved after getting back into it. and say goodbye to lyra waking up to that maybe, maybe not dream with daemon in the early chapters lol. i'll still be working on current chapters in the meantime, and revising wherever i see fit. forever grateful to hear what you think and thank you for still reading <33