Memories of a different mother, actually knowing my father, of having a sibling of my own. My lord uncle and lady aunt, forever indifferent.īut I also recalled over a quarter century more of life in a different world. My mother, Janna, endlessly kind but always sad when she thought I could not see her. Endless hours stuck in a room with Maester Lomys with my cousins, learning numbers and letters and history.
I remembered years of playing with Margaery, Desmera, and Loras on the grounds below, with both Willas and Garlan tolerating our antics with varying degrees of patience. Okay, I thought as I took a deep breath of sweet-smelling air. The sounds of steel clashing the general cacophony of people drifted on the wind from the other side of the tower, from the castle town I knew lay beyond the walls to the south. Beyond that, the great hedge maze continued for at least a mile before being cut off by the slow-flowing Mander. I was just high enough in the tower the Tyrells called home to see over the first wall, granting me sight of the whirls of color that were the flower gardens between it and the outer wall further down the hill. I pulled aside the green and gold curtains and, sure enough, a spectacular view of the Reach greeted me. My chambers were “comfortably cozy” as my mother always said, and so I was able to cross to my only window in just a few steps. I ignored her order before my door was halfway shut. “Don’t you move, I’ll go and fetch Lomys.” She tweaked my nose and left my room. I went to sit up, but my mother’s hand held firm.
“Fine,” I said, surprised that I meant it. “Lyonel!” She smiled, wide but strained, and placed a hand over my bare chest, right above my heart. My mother sat at my bedside, humming The Bear and the Maiden Fair under her breath, and only took a moment to realize I was awake. It was too much for my brain to process, and I must have passed out, as the next thing I remember was waking up in my bed with a cold cloth being pressed to my forehead by a gentle hand.
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I remembered reading all about Westeros in a series of books, which led me to remember another world where everything Westerosi was nothing more than fiction, which spiraled into the random images I’d been seeing starting to connect and make sense. “But how is it that you know this when I just got through saying we’d start talking about Robert’s Rebellion tomorrow?” “That’s… correct,” he said, scratching at the edge of his chin. It was the maester’s turn to look confused. “He raised his banners when the Mad King demanded the heads of Robert Baratheon and Eddard Stark.” “Lord Jon Arryn,” I said, shaking away the last of the thoughts of a beach I’d never been. The girl pouted at being interrupted, and glance toward Margaery only showed that both my cousins shared the same confusion. “Who was the first lord to declare rebellion against the Mad King?” A Treatise on King Robert’s Rebellion, the title read, by Grandmaester Pycelle.
“Let’s see if you’ve been paying attention at all.” The maester apparently thought me too slow to respond, and pulled a book from a nearby shelf and slammed it before me. The smell of salt and wind was still strong in my nose, and the image of a beautiful woman tearing a book from my hands while dragging me toward the water was slow to leave me. My cousins on either side of me leaned away as our teacher strode across his small chambers toward us, his wispy white hair flying in every direction while a scowl made shadows catch on his many wrinkles. “ Lyonel.” The maester snapped out my name in a tone that always meant he was at the end of his rope.
Maester Lomys, of all people, triggered the dam breaking, turning the trickle into a deluge. All battled for time in my mind and it became hard to focus on the hear and now when everything around me seemed nothing more than a waking dream. Places I’d never been, faces I’d never seen, songs and stories I did not understand. Ideas I could not grasp like a word lost on the tip of the tongue. It began as a trickle, thoughts and feelings flashing through my head, brief and blurry. I was about eight years old when my memories came back to me.
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