It had been Grandmother's idea in the beginning, but it had taken Auntie and Uncle Ormund to turn it from an idea into a plan. Father's proclamation to marry her to Aerys and Grandfather's failure to stop it had resulted in a rift between him and Grandmother, she knows, and so Black Betha had taken things into her own hands.

Aegon may be king, she had whispered as she shuffled Rhaella onto a ship, but I am queen and a Blackwood besides. We do not suffer our women to be playthings, and nor will I.

Where am I going? Rhaella had asked, equal parts terrified and excited. She'd never traveled before, but if it meant she wouldn't marry her brother, she would agree to anything.

Far away. Your aunt is making the arrangements. The people dislike me enough without hearing that I orchestrated your escape, but Rhaelle is protected by her marriage, and Ormund is supplying the coin. You needn't worry anymore, my darling.

That had been a week ago. Now, Rhaella looks around her at her new room in a Volantene manse, still unable to believe this is real, that she'll wake up back in King's Landing betrothed to Aerys. Her caretaker is a knight in service to House Baratheon, someone she doesn't know but has been assured is as loyal as a brother to Uncle Ormund. Both Grandmother and Auntie had promised to send regular letters, and to visit when they could. Her ladies had had to be kept in the dark, and Rhaella doesn't know what they've been told as an excuse, what anyonehas been told.

Well, most of her ladies.

Loreza had been apprised of the situation, for Rhaella knows she would have hounded anyone in the Keep she could get her hands on for information, and she will forever cherish the look of triumph on the princess's face.

Make your life what you will, she had said. It is yours. Yours and yours alone. You are stronger than you know, dear Ella.

Loree had told her she would help in any way she could, should Rhaella require it, that she would not suffer Rhaella to lack for anything. She had agreed to secrecy, too, though they both regretted not being able to bring Joanna in on it all. Rhaella had considered it, but with Joanna would come Tywin, and Rhaella doesn't trust him as far as she could throw him. She can't risk this. She can't risk herself, and she can't risk Grandmother or Auntie; they would face enough censure as it is, once the news got out. She wonders what Father had done about the news; he couldn't do much, surely, what with the perpetrators being his own family.

And Aerys!

He's the one who will have to marry elsewhere. For as much as Father droned on about the witch's prophecy, Aerys is the heir to the throne, and he would have to secure it–secure it with someone who is not her. The thought makes her giddy, and she flops down on the featherbed with a girlish giggle.

You are stronger than you know, dear Ella, Loree had said.

Yes, I am.

Volantis had taken some getting used to, in the beginning, its oppressive wet heat tangling her hair and the slavery making her fume, but even so, she is happy. No Aerys, no forced marriage, no "you are a princess, Rhaella, you must act like one," no obsequious courtiers to appease. Oh, there are customs here she has to conform to, but they are not so chafing.

The sun has only just risen as she wanders the docks and passes the merchants selling their wares, like she has taken to doing every day since she arrived. It's peaceful, despite the yelling of prices and the sailors' cursing in a dozen different languages, and most recognize her by now.

She had been warned at first about setting off alone–men are men no matter where you go, she had been told–but she has made enough friends amongst these men, primarily through the coin she gives them, that she knows if someone were to approach her with nefarious intentions, they would mysteriously vanish within the hour. No one even glances at what she looks like, either; they are accustomed to the purple eyes and silver-gold hair of Valyria, and so she is nothing special. It is yet another freedom that she treasures.

She does miss her family, especially Grandmother and Auntie, but every time she considers whether she wants to go back–whether she even could go back–she remembers what Father had wanted and the way Aerys would yank on her hair, and that fleeting consideration disappears. Father is dead now, and though she'd heard something about Grandfather trying to hatch dragon eggs, but Grandmother had assured her it was a mere fancy.

She had received a letter from Mother once through Auntie, after Father had passed. It had begged her to leave Volantis, that she regretted every day she hadn't dissuaded Father from his obsessions, but Rhaella was unmoved. Maybe it was sincere, maybe she does regret it, but Rhaella can't forget how Mother would have been perfectly content to see her wed to Aerys at only three-and-ten, simply because of a riddle from Aunt Jenny's witch.

No, Rhaella would not abide. She is no longer bound to Mother's whims. Not Mother's, not anyone's, no one's except her own.

Almost none of the ships does she recognize in the docks. Volantis sees more vessels in one day than Rhaella had seen in a lifetime back in King's Landing, ships of all kinds, sizes, and crews. She doesn't stop at any of them, until she gets to one near the end. It's unremarkable on the outside, but what catches her attention is that she overhears its occupants speaking the Common Tongue. Though she's learned several languages during her time here, none had quite felt so familiar as her native one, and it is pleasant to hear it again.

Smiling, she approaches the tie-off and calls out, "From where do you hail, sers?"

"Dorne," calls back the man nearest the platform. He's carrying only a single bag, and her intrigue deepens when he turns around. She's seen that coloring before.

He says something to another crew member she can't hear, and then disembarks. He's taller than her, though is certainly no Ser Duncan, and although she wouldn't say he's handsomenecessarily, she knows all too well that beauty often masks the ugliness within.

"I have a friend from there," she says excitedly. "What is your name?"

He hesitates, though she can't fathom why. "What is yours?"

It is her turn to pause. She has a different name here, the better to conceal her identity, but something about this man's gentle dark eyes has her telling the truth. "Rhaella."

Instantly his wariness turns to incredulity. "Rhaella Targaryen? The lost princess?"

Lost princess? "What do you mean by that?"

"N-No one knows where you went," he answers. "Rumors abound, but Volantis has never been one of them. To think I've met you by accident, of all things."

It occurs to her only then that perhaps this man would not have her best interests in mind. "Please, won't you tell me who you are?"

"I suppose there's no harm in it now. Doran Martell, my lady, son of Princess Loreza. She was your lady-in-waiting many years ago."

"Loree!" she exclaims. "Oh, what fortune! Is she well, I hope?"

"Quite. She and His Grace have been putting together plans for better irrigation across all of Dorne. The other lords may take ill to his reforms, but Dorne has prospered for it."

"It pleases me to hear it," she says. She glances up at his ship and apologizes, "I should let you tend to your affairs. I did not mean to interrupt."

"It's no interruption, princess. I am here to tour the Free Cities, and as it happens this is one of them."

"I can show you around," she offers, "if you'd like."

He smiles. "If it's no trouble."

Doran had told her he only meant to stay in Volantis for a fortnight, but two moons have waxed and waned and yet still he joins her every morning for her walk along the harbor. He is quiet, preferring to listen rather than to talk, but every now and then he has a quip or a comment that makes her sides ache with laughter, and she's discovered that she likes it most when he smiles, for it lights up his face and shows that for all his intelligence is that of a man far older, he still very much has his youth.

She's also noticed that sometimes when she looks at him her stomach swoops, a strange feeling that is at once terrifying, confounding, and exhilarating. She's too scared to put a name to it—she hardly knows him!—but nevertheless the thought of him leaving disappoints her much more than she know it ought.

He tells her of his family and of hers, and in turn she tells him of the Free Cities and teaches him as much as she can of the bastard Valyrian spoken here. He picks it up quickly, and she's grateful for it; she likes the way his voice deepens as he trips over the harsh syllables, how he watches her to get the intonations right.

She gets up the courage one day to ask him why he hadn't wed, why Loreza hadn't forced him to the way Rhaella's parents had intended.

"I think she hoped Lord Gargalen's daughter would catch my eye," he says, "but when that didn't happen, she focused on Elia and Oberyn instead," he'd answered. "And you? Not marrying your brother, that I understand, but after all this time you've still not found anyone?"

"There was someone, once." She has never forgotten him, a man scarcely older than her who had lightened her heart and even taken her maidenhead, but then his father had ordered him to undertake a voyage to Slaver's Bay–for what, Rhaella hadn't asked–and he'd never returned. She doesn't know if he'd been killed or if he had made a home there, but he had been years ago and ever since, she's never felt any particular desire for another man.

At least, not until…

No. She won't go there. What would the heir to Dorne want with a disgraced princess in exile? He is a friend, nothing more.

She knows it's all too good to last, though, and indeed one day he receives a letter from his mother. "My sister is to be wed," he explains with a grin.

"To whom?" He had told her of the abortive betrothal trip that both of his siblings had taken not long ago, and that Joanna's death had severed any hopes of a match being made.

"A boy my uncle squired," he answers. "Ser Arthur of House Dayne. I can't imagine Mother is too happy about it–she's always had high ambitions for Elia–but it seems she has been convinced. I imagine his being named the Sword of the Morning helped. I am glad of it. Elia's life has not been easy."

She is glad as well, for she knows better than most the freedom that comes with not marrying against your will, but she also knows what this means. "I suppose you shall be leaving soon, then. It would not due to miss your sister's wedding."

Doran looks up at her with a frown. "Oh…yes, I should find a ship."

"There should be plenty willing to take you to Dorne, but if you should have any troubles, I know my way around these men," she says. She feels guilty for being upset at the prospect of no longer having his company, and so plasters on an extra-bright smile. "You'll give my best to your mother, won't you? I miss her so."

"Of course." He opens his mouth to say more, but then decides against it. "Take care, princess."

He's at her door the next morning looking a way she hasn't seen before: nervous. "My prince? Has something happened?"

"Come with me," he says in a rush. "Mother will shelter you, you'll have nothing to fear. You shouldn't have to waste away your whole life here in Volantis."

"I can't," she says. "It's too dangerous. For me, and for your family. And I don't want to cast a pall on your sister's day."

"It would be no pall."

"Doran, I…I don't know."

"Think about it, at least," he says. "The ship's captain will not set out until the morrow. Meet me at the furthest pier at sunrise."

That night, she packs and unpacks a dozen times, going over the ramifications in her head until she doesn't know one thought from another. She can't sleep a wink, and it's only when she sees the sky begin to lighten that her head clears.

Home.

Does she even know what that is? She's been here since she was only a girl, and now she is long since a woman. What does she know of Westeros anymore? Grandmother and Auntie are always with her in spirit, yet she does long to see them. They'd visited less than a handful of times apiece, and though their letters have been wonders to receive, she yearns to once again hear her aunt's sharp tongue and feel her grandmother's warm embrace. And if it means all of that and seeing Loree again?

If it means seeing Doran every day?

With a spontaneity she's never known, she hastily scrawls a note to the caretaker, shoves whatever she can reach into a bag and races out the door. Habit has her calling to the merchants she passes, and she all but skids to a stop at the end of the pier.

"Doran!" At first she thinks somehow she'd missed him, that he'd already left, but then she sees him emerge from the hold, just as he'd done that first day, and she feels a rush of something new, something she can't describe.

Make your life what you will. It is yours.