Trystane Martell does not remember falling in love.
He remembers burnished gold curls, jade eyes, pink lips, pinker cheeks, soft, white hands that felt so cool—like the hands of one of the many statues of the Maiden in the Water Gardens—when they were placed in his own. He remembers her beauty, he does not remember falling in love.
He remembers the cyvasse games almost too complicated for him to follow, her correspondence with her mother, her uncle, her brother, the king (only one, not the other, never the other, she sent the letters, they were always sent back), the late nights in the palace library he watched the candlelight flicker over her as she read everything she could on the political reforms and military conquests of fallen dynasties, the hours spent talking in circles with anyone who would listen, honing her words into blades concealed by honey and sugar. He remembers her hunger to learn what her family called the game, but he does not remember falling in love.
He remembers swimming under the light of the sun and the light of her sister the moon, laughter like a chorus of bells, spinning, spinning, spinning in the arms of a knight at a court ball, walks shared in the gardens, flowers everywhere, worn more than her own jewelry, dancing barefoot in the patches of sun below the windows, sugar dissolving on her tongue like blood in water. He remembers her joy, but he does not remember falling in love.
He remembers knives, swords, poisons, ways to kill a man, ways to make a man wish you had killed him, ways to kill a man that he couldn’t do but she could (a woman’s most powerful weapon was between her legs), the Stranger wrapping her in its cloak and kissing her on the mouth, Death making her its lover as it had done him when he had been seven, his father placing live steel in his hand for the first time. He remembers her taking to the art of killing as she took to the art of anything else, but he does not remember falling in love.
He remembers silk slippers, draped dressing gowns that did nothing to hide the curves and lines of a growing body, the flush of flesh beneath fabric, corset strings untied with shaking fingers, the thread of self-control snapping as she unrobed herself in front of him for the millionth time, play-wrestling her to the ground and taking her, blood on their thighs, blood on the sand. He remembers lust, he does not remember falling in love.
He remembers the melody of a caged songbird, ribbons bound at her wrists and throat like colored, silken chains, face painted like a porcelain doll’s, practiced words, practiced curtsies, a dress so heaven and thick it was almost like armor. He remembers the bride-prize, he does not remember falling in love.
He remembers the words and phrases spoken to her back but not to her face, bastard, abomination, born of incest, whore, kingslayer, kinslayer, raving mad, zealot, Elia and her children. He remembers how she swam upstream against her family’s reputation, and said not a word about it, for it or against it, for or against them (he knows that if the chips were down, her pieces on the cyvasse board would land with them as surely as his would land with hers), but he does not remember falling in love.
Trystane Martell does not remember falling in love, but he is in love, it is an undeniable fact of the universe: Trystane Martell is in love with Myrcella Baratheon, so damn anyone who gets in her way.
He fights like a dog when the Sand Snakes pull him away, away from the wall of hands and faded, gray fabric and Maester chains, away from Myrcella.
There’s blood in his mouth, he’d bitten someone, the sword at his hip determined not to be drawn — he didn’t want to hurt them, not really.
“Let me see her! Let me see her!”
They can’t, they don’t, they won’t.
“Let me see her!”
“Would you be quiet, cousin?” One of the Sand Snakes asks as they pull his wrestling form down the hallway away from the sickroom. “Mama and the Maesters are in there with her, your lady love is in good hands.”
“They aren’t my hands!”
A chortle of grim amusement, “And what do you know of healing?”
“I can sew a wound.” He spat defiantly. “Or have you forgotten the lessons we took?”
“Her entire face?”
“She deserves—”
“Oh, enough of this!” Lria yanked his sword from its sheath on Trystane’s belt and brought the pummel down on the back of his head, darkness rushing up to meet him.
He just had time to think that his hands were still slick with Myrcella’s blood before the darkness swallowed him whole.
