Margaery?

  There were two suns in the sky. One was the sun she had always known, the sun that fed her garden. The other was a thing of blood, its tail painting half the sky the same red.

  It too fed her garden.

  A smile crossed her lips as she closed her eyes and breathed deeply of the godswood she had devoured and made her own. The corpses of the trees were all that was left, the suns in the sky only for her.

  "You feel it also…"

  The words quickened her heart and drew her eyes to a thing walking the steps of her garden, its three eyes watching her. Every step saw her shiver as it became more a man, a smile she knew crossing its lips. "Solomon," she whispered.

  "The turn of a new age, a new chapter in the story of the world." His hands even felt something like a man's when he took hers in them. "Yours to make your own."

  She felt how deep her roots went, snaking into the very bedrock of the Red Keep. A few roses bloomed further afield, most near the Great Sept of Baelor. Yet…

  "You've found yourself disheartened still," she heard him whisper. "The seedlings you've sent to Highgarden, they all wilted and died soon after they bloomed."

  Something sour and bitter touched her tongue, and a part of her wanted to turn it on him. He had not visited her since a crown of paint was placed upon her brow and a kiss upon her lips.

  "I have never been far, but I could have been closer. I can only hope you will forgive me."

  It was another kiss that she dared to steal instead as she stared into his three eyes, tasting blood and honey. "Is it another dream?"

  He tangled paint into her hair. "As long as we are in the heart of your garden, I have as much substance as the birds that perch upon its thorns and the ants that crawl the length of its soil. And I would help you."

  The words tickled her thoughts as he knelt, smearing yellow where his hand touched the black soil.

  "There are near three hundred leagues between here and Highgarden. A distance that not even three hundred years would see your garden bridge. Yet how much distance is there between two thoughts?"

  Her brows touched in confusion. The question was as queer as asking her to weigh a thought.

  "The roots of the first weirwoods did not touch for a thousand years," he continued as he stood. "It was through dreams that they were connected, for the distance between one thought and another is much more open to interpretation."

  He took her hands again, his three eyes staring down at her.

  "Let me show you."

  What had she to fear after how far she had come? With her nod, he lowered his head to return her kiss.

  It was no courtly kiss…

  A sound of surprise escaped her as his tongue pushed past her own and slithered down her throat. Again she tasted blood and honey, but there was more, spices as far as Qarth and the sweet flesh of fruits.

  Her breath only returned to her when he retreated, though only from her throat. She shivered not unlike a leaf as it crawled into her head, touching parts she did not know could be touched.

  She tugged at the laces of her gown, feeling as if she had just crossed the Red Mountains into a Dornish desert. The next moment she felt as cold as if she had passed the Wall into the Lands of Always Winter. Her skin felt like there were spiders skittering across it. She still planted her bare feet and let him finish his work, his tongue as nimble and dextrous as a musician's fingers.

  When he would finally retreat, the strength in her legs had fled with him, her knees touching the black soil.

  Solomon joined her quietly, his thumb ghosting across her knuckles. "Breathe, Your Grace."

  As she breathed in deep of her garden again, the sweetness and the hint of rain, it did not take her long to see. All the time she had spoken to her flowers, it was as if she were underwater, their sounds drowned out and muted. Now they were a symphony, one that beat to the rhythm of the second heartbeat in her belly.

  The roses near the Sept of Baelor that felt so faint now added their own distant melody to her symphony. "I wish all the world could hear it," she whispered.

  His three eyes had closed as if he listened to it also. "Perhaps they might."

  She found herself hungry for more than a kiss, even a kiss as that. Only to see that he had turned fainter, the starkness of the yellow he was made from more faded. Her hands smothered in petals passed through his.

  "I think it time a king truly saw his queen," he whispered to her instead.

  The words woke a worry she had turned a blind eye to. A feat that had only become harder since the horror she had become grew more unruly.

  "Renly will not have a choice but to embrace this new age after the news that will reach you on the morrow. Not if he means to keep his crown."

  They had heard that Stannis had taken a crown in the same breath as he took Storm's End, but that was two days past. When she thought to ask, she saw that he had already gone from the world.

  Her fingers touched her lips daintily, a smear of yellow sticking to them that she devoured.

  The rest of the day saw her tending to her garden with her sworn shield, carefully listening to its symphony. It was as the sun died that she caught his coal-black eyes.

  "Is your heart set, ser? I suspect the days to come will be fraught with uncertainty."

  He did not shy from her question, a ghost of a smile quirking his lips. "It has been many a moon since even a thread of doubt touched it. My knightly father ever begs for news with which to play at a lord."

  "And your sister?"

  "Is rather fond of her new husband. Ser Moryn spoils her by her count."

  "As he spoiled myself whenever I dared step a foot near Oldtown." Perhaps her uncle's quiet grief might also pass with time. "Not even my Hightower uncles could match his fervor."

  It had been some years since she last visited her mother's House. Now that Solomon had shown her the way, she was even more determined to see her garden bloom in the very heart of the Citadel.

  It was after a few quiet breaths that he spoke again. "And of the matter we had spoken on?"

  Margaery touched her hand to his, her thousand petals tickling him. "I did not care if our treacherous maester choked on his folly. That could not be farther from the truth with you, ser. Sorcery is a dark room for me still, one I wander blindly."

  "You think too lowly of yourself, Your Grace." The zeal in his eyes left a queer feeling in her belly. "I would insist."

  A smile touched her own lips. "You insist of your queen, Ser Morwyn? I suppose I cannot refuse such courage."

  The sunset caught on his armor the same color as he removed it to bare his arms. Into each she carved open a red seam with a knife and filled it with seedlings that drank deeply of his blood, twining around the breadth of muscle at her whisperings.

  As they were bedecked in the light of a red sun and a moon, she stitched his skin together again.

  "We will see how they would bloom…"

  He flexed an arm, a blossom of pain showing on his smooth features. "I have a keener appreciation for your poise now, Your Grace."

  She helped him replace his armor with another smile, the rose at her belly shifting slightly.

  The morn met her with her youngest brother, and she already suspected for what reason. His honeyed eyes so much like her own had a ghost of panic to them.

  "There has been news fresh from Dorne. Renly has called a meeting of the small council."

  Margaery entwined her arm with his, voicing the question while they walked.

  He gave a sigh. "Prince Doran has made fools of us all. Viserys Targaryen has declared himself and means to wed his daughter."

  "Two new kings in the span of a sennight," she whispered lowly. "That would have made five kings had Balon Greyjoy not met his end a moon ago."

  "There's more. He's claimed to have hatched a dragon. His sister also."

  A breath left her lips. Suddenly she understood Solomon's parting words.

  "A queer lie," he continued. "Surely they do not think we will believe it?"

  She wondered now of Cersei's flight from King's Landing. They had assumed it was Pycelle that warned her…

  "And if it isn't?" she faintly asked.

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  The thought did not seem to trouble Loras as they entered the small council chambers. Her eyes found their Grand Maester first, drawn by the symphony of the thirteen roses blooming throughout him, curling from his belly and up his spine. A fair punishment for all the lives his duplicity had doomed six-and-ten years ago, and all he might have imperiled again.

  He would not even meet her eyes as she sat with the smallest of smiles.

  There was only the one seat empty, for their lord of Stark had left for White Harbor near as soon as he had arrived with a scar around his neck, a treacherous thing that had almost been the end of him as much as the poisoned wine. He had spoken of a Mance Rayder marching on the Wall with a hundred thousand wildlings at his back, and would not be dissuaded.

  It seemed the world was set to fall apart around them.

  Renly greeted her with perfect courtesy, and only the softest frown on his lips, the sunlight catching on his Baratheon black hair as much as his crown. His eyes seemed greener today for the doublet adorned with peacock feathers and jadestones.

  It was not long that her grandmother arrived, her cane striking the stones. "It seems our Dornish peace is a mummer's peace. And now we've mummer's dragons also."

  "You think it another ruse?" Lord Selwyn asked.

  He was returned a scoff for it. "All the tongues of Dorne wag the same. A few even say it was three dragons. In another moon it will be seven."

  There was a touch of something she had never seen on her. It was so faint she wondered if she hadn't imagined it.

  "The Dornish Marches are quiet," Lord Jason Mallister followed. "If Prince Doran had called his banners, it seems strange to me that we would not see such."

  The slight frown on Renly's lips had remained. "You have been quiet, Grand Maester."

  She watched placidly as Pycelle blustered through an answer. "Y-Your Grace, the last time the realm saw a dragon was during the reign of Aegon the Third. The fifth Aegon had tried to bring the beasts back and burned for it, the last of the royal eggs lost with Summerhall. I find it altogether unlikely."

  "Prince Doran is not a fool," Renly whispered into the quiet after.

  "Yet we have determined he is rather fond of games," Grandmother followed. "And need I mention the king of mummers that has found his way there?"

  "Is my brother's red shadow a mummer also?"

  Though her grandmother was loath to see sorcery anywhere, a willful blindness she was thankful for, a thousand souls had seen Stannis's red priestess work her wiles on the wildfire. "We've yet to hear any stories of Stannis taking to the skies on a dragon."

  "Small mercies," Lord Selwyn muttered.

  It was she that broke the quiet this time. "It is not all ill news. The Golden Company has sailed east, not west. Some say they make for Qarth. Others say Slaver's Bay."

  Grandmother gave a quiet sniff as Renly thrummed his fingers upon the long table that sat them.

  "I would say Balon Greyjoy has given us an opportunity. It will take the ironborn time to select a new king at this kingsmoot his brother has called. Time enough to show Stannis the sepulcher he has made of his cause at Storm's End." His eyes turned on the Lord of the Arbor. "Lord Paxter, you will have a moon to marshall your might and sail for Storm's End."

  "Your brother is a seasoned naval commander," he returned carefully, the sun faintly catching on Redwyne orange hair streaked with white and grey. "It is unlikely we will surprise him."

  "I expect we won't. Yet Stannis will not abandon the seat he thinks was always his by right. He would sooner starve himself into a crowned corpse." The faintest bitterness touched Renly as he continued. "I will marshall an army from the crownlands and march it on Storm's End myself. Stannis will swiftly find himself caught between an anvil at sea and a hammer on land."

  There was another quiet that their lord of Mallister would soon break. "It threatens disaster, Your Grace. Even if you succeeded, Stannis will have bled us for every scrap of flotsam. It will leave the ironborn free to reave and rape from Bear Island to the Arbor."

  Undoubtedly the lord had his own Seagard in mind.

  "This war is won as soon as the westerlands or the Vale come to heel," he continued. "The Lannisters are outnumbered two to one and Lord Grafton near three to one."

  His king gave a sigh for it. "Perhaps you are right." He stood. "In any case, an army from the crownlands must needs be mustered. Against the Dornish, if not my brother. I leave that to you, my lords."

  Their Grand Maester found the courage to speak again. "A white raven arrived from the Citadel in the night, Your Grace. The long summer has ended, and I fear it will not be near as long until winter finds us also."

  "The Starks are always proven right in the end," Grandmother spoke near to the doors.

  Renly whispered something into her brother's ear before they separated. Margaery joined him before he could depart with a smile sweet as honey. "It has been some time since we had spoken, husband."

  He stared at her a moment. "It has."

  They moved to his quarters, where he poured a cup of Arbor red for both of them. While the sour taste danced on her tongue, she listened to him venture a guess. "Lady Olenna has already made her opinion on the need for an heir clear."

  The wine had helped steel her nerves for what she was to say, and do. "You'll find I already have a babe at my belly."

  He did not understand, so she slipped the gloves from her hands and the gown from her shoulders. Where the rose nestled into her belly and kissed her womb was a storm of squirming vines and thorns and petals, her ribs shifted unnaturally as they began to wrap around her heart.

  For all she was a horror, there was nothing like her under the sun.

  "Solomon," he whispered after only a breath. There was a paleness to him now that made him seem even more a statue carved from stone. "He had given you a rose at Highgarden."

  "A rose that has bloomed a thousand times over." She took a step closer to him. "This news from Dorne. I think it as true as what stands before you."

  His eyes turned on the ring he twisted around his finger, its black onyx antlers turned inward. "To what end? I offered him a lordship, even Dragonstone if he so wished."

  The question haunted her thoughts also. "I do not expect Prince Doran will have had any more luck than we. All he has whispered in my ear is that he would see me follow my heart."

  When Renly touched her eyes again, it was as if he had seen her for the first time. "Even if he will not take a side, the Faith will."

  "And who will they support? Stannis and his red witch? The abomination born of incest that hides in the Rock with a mother that all the realm loathes?"

  A shiver went through her as she saw it. It was not by chance. Solomon had robbed the Faith of every crown they could have thrown their weight behind.

  She stirred even nearer. "He had said a bleeding sky would herald a new Age of Heroes, and now one need only look at the heavens. We cannot shy away from it." A flicker passed his eyes as her hands took his, the room drowned in the sweetness of her garden. Her pale fingers touched the hand the ring laid on. "If it was also watered…"

  "With blood, you mean?" He had a touch of fever to him. "Per—"

  The moment the word dared to slip past his lips, she stirred in surprise as the antlers cut into his flesh, her hands stained in his blood. His own surprise had him pushing past her to stand, more than a touch of panic in his eyes as it stubbornly stuck to him.

  Suddenly he groaned, his hands tangling in his black locks as he hunched over. She watched with parted lips as a pair of antlers sprung from those same black locks, rising higher and higher. A moan escaped her lips in the same breath, the petals sprouting from her scars greedily drinking in the blood that graced them. The blood of a king.

  When the sorcery calmed, a thousand yellow petals had sprouted from her arms and neck, and Renly stood breathless, his crown tangled in antlers black as his hair and half as tall as him.

  A smile curved across her lips. He was a king from a story now, just as she was a queen that mothers warned their children from misbehaving with.

  And what a kingdom they would build…

  horns sprouting from his skull, all while his young wife paces a yellow garden.")