A Feast for Dragons

incredulous.
“Gods forbid. I would it were a finish. Tywin Lannister is dead. So are Robert
Baratheon, Amory Lorch, and now Gregor Clegane, all those who had a hand in
murdering Elia and her children. Even Joffrey, who was not yet born when Elia
died. I saw the boy perish with mine own eyes, clawing at his throat as he
tried to draw a breath. Who else is there to kill? Do Myrcella and Tommen need
to die so the shades of Rhaenys and Aegon can be at rest? Where does it end?”
    “It ends in blood, as it began,” said Lady Nym. “It ends
when Casterly Rock is cracked open, so the sun can shine on the maggots and the
worms within. It ends with the utter ruin of Tywin Lannister and all his
works.”
    “The man died at the hand of his own son,” Ellaria snapped
back. “What more could you wish?”
    “I could wish that he died at
my
hand.” Lady
Nym settled in a chair, her long black braid falling across one shoulder to her
lap. She had her father’s widow’s peak. Beneath it her eyes were large and
lustrous. Her wine-red lips curled in a silken smile. “If he had, his dying
would not have been so easy.”
    “Ser Gregor does look lonely,” said Tyene, in her sweet
septa’s voice. “He would like some company, I’m certain.”
    Ellaria’s cheeks were wet with tears, her dark eyes shining.
Even weeping, she has a strength in her
, the captain thought.
    “Oberyn wanted vengeance for Elia. Now the three of you want
vengeance for him. I have four daughters, I remind you. Your sisters. My Elia is
fourteen, almost a woman. Obella is twelve, on the brink of maidenhood. They
worship you, as Dorea and Loreza worship them. If you should die, must El and
Obella seek vengeance for you, then Dorea and Loree for them? Is that how it
goes, round and round forever? I ask again,
where does it end?”
Ellaria Sand laid her hand on the Mountain’s head. “I saw your father die. Here
is his killer. Can I take a skull to bed with me, to give me comfort in the
night? Will it make me laugh, write me songs, care for me when I am old and
sick?”
    “What would you have us do, my lady?” asked the Lady Nym.
“Shall we lay down our spears and smile, and forget all the wrongs that have
been done to us?”
    “War will come, whether we wish it or not,” said Obara. “A
boy king sits the Iron Throne. Lord Stannis holds the Wall and is gathering
northmen to his cause. The two queens are squabbling over Tommen like bitches
with a juicy bone. The ironmen have taken the Shields and are raiding up the
Mander, deep into the heart of the Reach, which means Highgarden will be
preoccupied as well. Our enemies are in disarray. The time is ripe.”
    “Ripe for what? To make more skulls?” Ellaria Sand turned to
the prince. “They will not see. I can hear no more of this.”
    “Go back to your girls, Ellaria,” the prince told her. “I
swear to you, no harm will come to them.”
    “My prince.” Ellaria kissed him on the brow and took her
leave. Areo Hotah was sad to see her go.
She is a good woman
.
    When she had gone, Lady Nym said, “I know she loved our
father well, but it is plain she never understood him.”
    The prince gave her a curious look. “She understood more
than you ever will, Nymeria. And she made your father happy. In the end a
gentle heart may be worth more than pride or valor. Be that as it may, there
are things Ellaria does not know and should not know. This war has already
begun.”
    Obara laughed. “Aye, our sweet Arianne has seen to that.”
    The princess flushed, and Hotah saw a spasm of anger pass
across her father’s face. “What she did, she did as much for you as for
herself. I would not be so quick to mock.”
    “That was praise,” Obara Sand insisted. “Procrastinate,
obscure, prevaricate, dissemble, and delay all you like, Uncle, Ser Balon must
still come face-to-face with Myrcella at the Water Gardens, and when he does
he’s like to see she’s short an ear. And when the girl tells him how your
captain cut Arys Oakheart from neck to groin with that steel wife of his,
well …”
    “No.” Princess Arianne unfolded from the cushion where she
sat and put a hand on Hotah’s arm. “That wasn’t how it happened, Cousin. Ser
Arys was slain by Gerold Dayne.”
    The Sand Snakes looked at one another. “Darkstar?”
    “Darkstar did it,” his little princess said. “He tried to
kill Princess Myrcella too. As she will tell Ser Balon.”
    Nym smiled. “That part at least is true.”
    “It is