[117] The Sun Rises on a New Spear
Chapter 117: The Sun Rises on a New Spear
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Arianne stood tall on the weathered walls, the ancient stones beneath her feet carrying the legacy of a hundred Martell rulers before her.
Her silver eyes swept across the faces surrounding her—guards with white knuckles gripping useless spears, courtiers frozen in shock, servants peering wide-eyed from doorways and alcoves.
Viserys's declaration wasn’t something unexpected, and yet it pressed down on Arianne's shoulders with nervousness.
How would her father react?
The scorching Dornish sun, which had moments ago warmed her bronze skin, now felt like ice against her flesh. Ruler of Dorne. The title she had craved all her life, the title she thought would escape her since her father seemed to see her as not fit for it… Now, it was gifted to her amidst dragons and betrayal.
“Ari…” Her gaze met Uncle Oberyn's a moment later.
She had expected fury, challenges, perhaps even his infamous viper's strike. Instead, a deep, weary sigh escaped his lips as he looked away, a flicker of resignation crossing his handsome features. It wasn't surrender—the Red Viper never truly surrendered—but recognition of an inescapable truth.
Dragons had come to Dorne, and with them, change.
The startled silence was shattered as her father found his voice. Doran Martell's words emerged not with fear but with cold, controlled rage that Arianne had rarely witnessed during his years of calculated patience.
"Her?" he spat, his dark eyes boring into her with an intensity that made her want to step backward—but she held her ground. "My foolish daughter, who chases fleeting passions? Her, who conspires behind closed doors with guards and knights?” He grumbled. “Be honest with him, Ari. You think yourself fit to rule Dorne?"
The accusations landed like a carefully aimed dart, designed to wound and undermine her before the Dragon King himself.
"You lack the patience, the wisdom, the foresight that rulership demands. Your reckless ambition blinds you to consequences. Your vanity outweighs your judgment."
Her earlier nervousness was well-founded. Arianne felt the sting of his words—truths and half-truths she had wrestled with in the darkness of countless sleepless nights. Yet rather than crumbling beneath them, she found her resolve hardening like Dornish steel under flame.
She wanted to talk back and defend herself.
“Doran,” Viserys called right then. From the corner of her eye, she noticed him hovering nearby, his translucent wings catching the sunlight. A dangerous glint appeared in his violet eyes, and it touched her; was he so angered seeing her be insulted? Daenerys Targaryen came down from her own dragon, her odd draconic features clear now.
Before he could speak further, Arianne raised her hand. "Your Grace," she called, her voice firm. "If I may? Allow me to answer my father."
Viserys studied her for a moment, the desert breeze ruffling his silver-gold hair. A faint, approving smile touched his lips before he nodded his assent.
Drawing her posture straight, Arianne turned back to face Doran. She felt the warmth of Viserion's massive body behind her, the dragon's presence lending her words power that no title alone could bestow.
"You speak of patience, Father," she began, her voice ringing across the area. "But your patience became paralysis. You speak of wisdom, yet you backed a Blackfyre pretender against the true power that now commands our skies. What proof did you have that he truly was my cousin, when even Uncle Oberyn proposed his doubt?"
The words flowed from her with surprising ease, as though she had rehearsed them a thousand times in her mind. She continued. "You gambled with Dorne's future on whispers and shadows, ignoring the firestorm gathering before your very eyes. I’d appreciate it if you answered what you’d do now, if the Dragonking is angered and decides to burn Dorne to the ground? His dragons aside, what about those ships?”
She gestured toward the horizon, where hundreds of warships formed an impenetrable blockade around Sunspear's harbor, then upward to the dragons who had reshaped the world in a mere year.
"Look around you!" The force and passion in her voice made even Areo Hotah shift uncomfortably. "Viserys Targaryen holds us in his hand. Resistance means annihilation. My choice was not betrayal, but survival! I chose to bend the knee so Dorne would not break. Then who’s the wise one here, you or I?”
She stepped closer to her father's wheelchair, close enough to see the lines of age and worry that had deepened on his face during her absence.
"I chose to secure a future for our people, a future you nearly threw away. Perhaps I lack your years of quiet plotting, but I do not lack the eyes to see reality, nor the courage to face it. That is what Dorne needs now."
Her words filled the air, as weighty as summer storm clouds.
Doran's face contorted with disbelief and fury, his fingers gripping the arms of his wheelchair until his knuckles whitened. Even Oberyn looked at her with a flicker of grudging respect, though pain still shadowed his eyes.
Viserys nodded slowly, satisfaction evident in his expression. “I love every word the Highlady has said,” he said and patted Viserion's gleaming scales and nudged his chin toward the sprawling city below the castle. “Do it.”
Viserion stretched her massive neck, golden scales catching the sunlight.
Guards flinched, while Ellaria stifled a cry, all of them fearing that dragonfire would consume them all.
Instead, the dragon took a deep, rumbling breath and let out a roar that somehow transformed into words that echoed over Sunspear, reaching every corner of the city.
"BE WISE TO HEAR, FOOLISH HUMANS OF THE DESERT! TODAY, BY THE WORDS OF I, VISERION, YOUR RULER IS NO LONGER DORAN MARTELL! FROM THIS DAY FORWARD, HIGH LADY ARIANNE MARTELL RULES DORNE! LET ALL BE KNOWN!"
The announcement reverberated through stone and air, the final, undeniable seal on the transfer of power. A Dragon’s Announcement. Arianne felt the powerful words tremble through her very bones, making real what had moments ago seemed impossible.
In the stunned silence that followed, Viserys gave his dragon a dry look and whispered just loudly enough for Arianne to hear.
"By the words of I, Viserion?" he asked, eyebrow raised.
The golden dragon pointedly refused to meet his gaze. She’s cute. Arinna smiled for more than one reason. Today was a good day. But it was yet to end.
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