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leiawritesstories · 1 year

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Queen of the Seven Kingdoms

Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmm........hi

this obviously is not the promised/anticipated FTBF update, but instead is something completely different! because my brain is just Like That! anyway, here, have this little something that i don't entirely know what to do with so i'm just gonna leave it here.

word count: ~2.5k

enjoy!

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Aelin Ashryver Galathynius was completely and utterly petrified.

She rested one elegant hand on the smooth, polished marble railing and stared out over the gently rippling waters of the Great Ocean, eyes closed, feeling the early-evening breeze waft across her face. She'd only been standing like that for a moment before booted footsteps clicked on the tiled flooring behind her and a man's voice broke into her reverie.

"Ah, there you are, little cousin." Aedion Ashryver, her cousin who was three years her senior and absolutely insufferable about it, strolled through the delicate curtains, coming to stand by her side. "Have you been hiding away up here this whole time?"

Aelin rolled her eyes. "I do not hide away, Aedy." The deliberate use of his childhood nickname aimed to irritate.

The prince huffed. "Then what do you call it when you conveniently forget to make an appearance for our guests?"

"You neither needed nor wanted me at that men's meeting," she returned coolly. "I simply did you the favor of not interrupting."

"Bullshit," Aedion muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. "This is your future we are talking about, Aelin, you do know that?"

"My future is all I ever hear about," she scoffed. "At least do me the favor of flattering my intelligence and call it what it is--the next step in your scheme to retake the throne."

Aedion wrapped his hand around her bared bicep, turning her to face him. "Fine." His eyes, the turquoise hue twin to her own, bored into hers. "Your marriage to Prince Whitethorn is a key step in our journey to reclaim our rightful throne. Understood?"

"Kind of you to refer to it as ours," she snorted. "Aedion, we have been in Wendlyn for ten years, and now you decide that this is the time?"

He sighed heavily. "I cannot expect--"

"If you finish that sentence, I will personally tear off your ears and stuff them down your throat," Aelin snapped. "Do remind me who insisted that I be by your side at all important meetings since the day Galan took us in?"

Aedion had the grace to flush slightly. "All right, I won't be an ass."

"Too late for that."

He poked her shoulder. "Please, Aelin, I...I don't want to force you to anything any more than you want to be forced."

"Yet clearly, that want only goes so far." Freeing herself from his halfhearted grasp, she took a step back, rooting herself in the last embers of the falling sun's warmth. "Tell me, Aed--when the Whitethorns approached you offering their armada in exchange for my hand, how long did it take you to cave?"

His face shuttered. "Good night, Aelin." Spinning sharply on his heel, he stalked out of her rooms, the rapid click of his bootheels indicating his muffled ire.

"Aed--"

"Don't." The soft warning sounded off to the left.

Aelin turned, her right hand straying towards the slender knife she kept strapped to her upper thigh, the steel politely hidden by her gauzy skirts. "Who's there?"

"Just me." Philippa, who had been Aelin's lady's maid since she came to Wendlyn, emerged from the door to the bathing room. "Your cousin will come to his senses; he just needs to see it."

Aelin sighed and tugged the pins from her hair, letting the soft blonde waves cascade down her back. "If he'd only been open about this visit being a marriage negotiation, I wouldn't have such a problem with the whole thing." She yanked the ties of her dress, allowing the sheer layers of fabric to fall loose on her frame as she entered the bathing room. "I knew I would not get to decide the time of my marriage, but..."

Philippa's motherly face softened in sympathy. "But you deserve more than an order, Highness."

"Don't call me that," Aelin mumbled, stepping gracefully out of her dress. "How many times do I have to tell you, just call me Aelin?"

"At least once more, my lady," Philippa teased.

Grumbling, Aelin stepped into the huge, sunken tub--really, it was more of a pool--wincing slightly at the faint twinge of pain when the hot water hit the scars clawing across her back. After four years carrying the marks, she thought she'd be used to the faint hints of pain that still cropped up.

She was not.

Drawing in a deep inhale, Aelin submerged herself into the bath's scalding embrace, closing her eyes against the water. Odd as it may seem, she'd never been bothered by the heat, instead finding it comforting--even when others would not even be able to get into the tub until it had been tempered with cooler water. She allowed herself exactly sixty seconds to luxuriate beneath the bath's surface before standing up, steaming water cascading off of her body, and settling down on a step.

As her lady's maid helped her bathe, Aelin once again let her gaze drift out the windows, watching the Great Ocean shift and stir under the darkening sky. Watching the ripples and crests of the waves.

Looking east, back towards the seven kingdoms that were her right to reclaim.

It was far too godsdamned early for this nonsense.

Prince Rowan Whitethorn shifted in his saddle, pressing a soothing hand to his horse's neck. Shh, Chiri, we will ride soon. He didn't know why the hell Aedion Ashryver had requested this...business to happen at the crack of dawn, but a promise was a promise.

And, if he was being completely honest, Rowan didn't think he would mind if his first sight of Princess Aelin Ashryver Galathynius was something of a bleary memory, given the early hour.

Arranged marriage tended to do that to a person.

Conceptually, Rowan completely understood and even agreed with the rationale. Doranelle and the Whitethorn clan were ancient, powerful, and filthy rich--just what the last two living Ashryvers needed to back their claim to the Erilean throne. And the Ashryvers were no struggling pair, either. The two cousins might have been the last of their line, but they brought the legendary power of the Ashryver-Galathynius line--the dynasty even older than the Whitethorns and rumored to have dormant fire magic sleeping in its veins. And a rather staggering fortune squirreled away in foreign banks.

So, when Aedion and Galan Ashryver had reached out to Ellys a few months ago, it had taken Rowan's lovely (if somewhat rash) uncle all of ten minutes to decide that he was going to send Rowan off to marry the foreign princess. Of course, he sent a full contingent of Whitethorn family, warriors, and personnel along, but Rowan knew that if Ellys had ordered him to go alone, he would have gone alone.

After all, he was the Whitethorn prince--maybe he wasn't the head of the clan, but he was the head of the army. And that certainly counted for something.

Resisting the urge to glance at the rising sun for some hint of the time, Rowan muffled a yawn.

To his right, his cousin Endymion coughed quietly. "You could at least pretend to be happy on your betrothal day."

"Piss off," Rowan grumbled.

Enda smirked. "Where's the grinning groom?"

"He'd be grinning a whole lot more if this whole damn business wasn't so...contractual." Rowan frowned. "It's not like I don't understand why this has to happen, I'd just rather not have it all so suddenly."

"Right." Enda offered a small, crooked half-grin of condolence. "The princess is probably in the same position, y'know. Maybe you'll find some consolation in that."

"Always with the optimism," Rowan grunted.

Enda beamed. "Much better outlook than your infernal grouchiness."

"Why don't you--oh." All the breath suddenly and unexpectedly rushed out of Rowan's lungs, his calculating emerald gaze trained on the stone stairs in front of the Whitethorn contingent.

Where a golden-haired woman who looked eerily like the female version of Aedion Ashryver was descending the stairs, her expression carefully placid, her sharp turquoise eyes trained onto Rowan.

Princess Aelin Ashryver Galathynius.

His...his fiancée.

With Aedion and a handful of guards and staff at her back, Aelin strode down the stone steps with all the royal confidence of her ancient bloodline, stopping a pace away from him. Rowan found himself mildly shocked at how small she appeared from his perch atop Chiri. Her stature, though, was no match for the fire blazing in her sea-glass eyes.

Finding himself unable to speak, Rowan simply nudged his horse slightly forwards, locking his eyes onto the princess's. There was a long, rather tense, beat of silence.

Then he reached down, swung Princess Aelin Ashryver Galathynius up into his saddle, settling her in front of him, wheeled Chiri about, and galloped down the drive in a cloud of dust and gravel.

Aedion blinked. "That went...well?"

Enda chuckled. "If Rowan had decided he didn't approve of the princess, we would know. Trust me, Ashryver."

"Why do I find that concerning?" Aedion muttered. He tipped his head at the contingent behind him.

"Let's go."

Aelin's brain still hadn't caught up with the fact that she was currently sitting in the same saddle as Prince Rowan Whitethorn of Doranelle, the famed warrior-prince of Wendlyn. Or that he'd been remarkably gentle despite the brute force of the way he swung her up into his saddle.

Or that she was going to be married to him at sundown.

Rowan reined in his stallion at the edge of Galan's grounds. "We can wait for the others to catch up," he said, the deep rumble of his voice surprising her.

"So you're not the kind to run off with your bride, then?" Aelin snarked, the barbed comment slipping out before she could think twice about it.

Rowan's eyes widened--in shock or outrage or interest, she couldn't tell. "No."

"Mmm." She tilted her head. "I thought a warrior prince would be more interesting."

He pressed his lips together, definitely trying not to snort. "Are you implying that you wanted your betrothed to run off with you?"

Just like that, reality slammed into her. "Right. Betrothed."

The prince--gods, no, this was not the time to start thinking about his admittedly rather attractive appearance--loosed a soft, short sigh. "Does it feel like a business contract to you, too?"

For some reason she couldn't name, she decided to be honest. "I'm a princess, Prince. My marriage was always going to be little more than a business contract."

"Call me Rowan," he responded, and Aelin nearly laughed.

"Rowan, then," she offered, rolling his name on her tongue. "All right, but only if you call me Aelin."

"Aelin." He pronounced her name with such care, the syllables flowing with the dips of his accent. "I...I can't honestly say I expected the betrothal process to go like this."

"But here we are," she mumbled.

"Here we are," he agreed. "And--"

And then Enda, Aedion, and the rest of the contingent appeared, and whatever conversation might have been beginning was abruptly cut short.

The actual marriage ceremony itself was short and simple and something of a blur. Aelin didn't quite remember repeating the priestess's words, didn't quite remember the sash tied around her and Rowan's hands, binding the two together. She didn't quite remember the following feast, barely even tasted the rich array of foods laid out before her. She twisted the plain gold band around her left ring finger, wondering how something so small and simple could possibly represent something so wholly life-altering.

As the sun began to descend, Philippa and a Whitethorn woman came to Aelin's sides and led her away from the feast to a private tent, where they helped her out of her ornate wedding gown and into a sheer, flowing nightgown. They loosed her hair from its complicated braids, allowing the golden waves to spill down her back unfettered, and took all her jewelry except her wedding band and the delicate golden necklace she always wore.

They led her out to a waiting horse and cart and handed her into the seat, murmuring quiet goodbyes and good wishes and reminders that she could just close her eyes and let her mind roam. Then the driver nudged the horse into motion, and Aelin was taken away.

She was dropped off near a rock outcropping with an absolutely stunning view of the Great Ocean. It was to that view that she turned, sighing faintly at the caress of the sun's fading warmth, letting her eyes drift over the blaze of colors painting the sunset sky. She closed her eyes and felt the evening breeze kiss her skin and lift her hair, rooting herself in the peace of that moment.

Once again, footsteps behind her broke into her peace. This time, though, the footsteps were her husband's.

Rowan stopped a pace or two away from her, his jaw slightly agape as he drank in the sight of her. In the fading sunlight, the long silvery strands of his braid glinted golden, a few stray ones loose and waving in the breeze, framing the sharp angular planes of his face. "Aelin," he whispered, her name a caress.

She turned to face him, showing down the fear that welled up within her. Not fast enough, though, because the flicker that crossed his face told her he'd seen it.

"I won't."

She blinked. "What?"

He raised his hands, palms up. "Unless and until you tell me to, I won't touch you, Aelin."

A surge of deep gratitude swept over her. "Thank you, Rowan," she whispered, suddenly finding the man attractive in more ways than just his appearance.

A tiny smile flicked across his face. "I have a gift for you."

She raised a brow. "Oh?"

He nodded. "Come here." He held out a hand. Aelin slipped her hand into his, something sparking in her blood at the feel of his large, warm, calloused hand wrapped around hers. He led her down the ledge to where his horse and another mare were hobbled, led her up to the mare's side. "Her name is Kasida."

"Rowan," Aelin breathed, incredulous. "An Asterion?"

Her husband's lips quirked upwards. "The Whitethorn clan has something of a fondness for rare breeds of horses; there are several Asterion mares and a few stallions in our stables." He tugged the end of his braid, a little nervously. "I...thought Kasida would be a proper gift for my wife. For the Ashryver and Galathynius heiress."

Aelin's heart fluttered at his thoughtfulness, his sincerity. Almost before she registered it, she rose up onto her toes and pecked a kiss against Rowan's cheek. "She's beautiful."

Rowan's tiny smile grew, curling his lips further upwards. "Here," he murmured. "Let me help you up." Cupping his hands, he boosted Aelin into the saddle, then smoothly mounted his stallion. "Ready?"

Once she'd adjusted herself in the saddle, Aelin nodded. "I am."

And together, the Prince of Doranelle and the heir to the Ashryver-Galathynius dynasty galloped off into the night.

~~~

A/N: most of this scene and concept comes from the first season of Game of Thrones, with some alterations for the TOG characters and world.

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