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What transpires as the sun sets on Harrenhal in the year 281 AC will reverberate throughout Westeros for decades to come. The dragon prince wins a tourney but he does not take the sun princess, his wife, for his queen of love and beauty. He rides his courser pass his wife and instead gives the crown of blue roses to the wolf maid, who is betrothed to his cousin, the storm lord.
All watching, highborn and lowborn alike, know that there will be repercussions, but none can imagine the future that awaits them. There is a feast afterwards, and all eyes are on the dragon prince and the wolf maid, and all tongues speak of them. When glances are cast at the sun princess, it is only to spare her a pitying thought. She is a comely enough woman, but all know her health has ever been frail and none can fault the dragon prince for being captivated by the youthful vigor of the wolf maid.
Only the sun princess’s brother, the red viper, feels differently. His sister is a goddess among women and she deserves better. He would have preferred to stay away, but he attends the feast so that his sister will not have to face her humiliation alone. He sits by her side and his eyes blaze with hate for her husband.
The storm lord is initially angry and jealous, but his cousin’s assurance that he meant no offense is taken as truth, and soon he has consumed so much wine that the matter is forgotten for the time being. The wolf maid’s eldest brother, the wild wolf, is not so easily mollified. He remembers the way his sister looked at the dragon prince and the way she wept when he sang his sad songs.
When the sun princess and her brother leave the hall, everyone assumes it is to spare her further humiliation. When the wolf maid and her brother leave, they assume it is an attempt to dampen the gossip. No mortal man nor woman watching will ever know differently. But there are eyes watching that go themselves unseen and they see the sins committed that night.
High up in a tower in the massive ruined castle the sun princess gives vent to her fury. She has a gentle nature and a gracious presence, which are all too often mistaken for weakness. She is not weak. She is strong, stronger than her husband believes. They did not marry for love, for few of their station do. But she is fond of him and she believed him fond of her. To be spurned so publicly is an insult that cannot be countenanced.
Yet there is nothing she can do to give expression to her anger and shame and hurt. The dragon prince’s father is known as the mad king for good reason. He has burned men alive for imagined slights. All the sun princess can do is rage to the sympathetic ear of her favorite brother.
“They all think I do not please Rhaegar, but it is he who does not please me. He touches me with naught but the lightest of touches, as if he fears to injure me.”
The red viper’s eyes blaze still, but no longer with hate. He looks on his sister with the passion he has until now hidden. “Let me love you, Elia, as he will not.”
Incest is a sin most foul, condemned by the old gods and the news gods alike. Only the dragons dare flout the gods with impunity. The dragon prince himself was born of a brother and a sister, and the sun princess has had to accept that her own children will wed each other. But deep down she has always admired her brother as a man and she has known that he loves her as a woman as well as a sister.
“Oberyn.”
She takes his face between her hands and he fears she means to gently refuse him. But instead she brings her mouth to his and kisses him a lover’s kiss. It is as if a dam breaks within him. He devours her lips. He takes hold of the front of her gown and rips it apart, and when her breasts are bared to him, he handles them roughly. He nips at her tender throat, leaving a trail of bites that will eventually lead down one thigh and up back the other.
But they are not the only ones committing this particular sin tonight.
Outside the walls of the castle, where the tourney attendees have raised a field of tents flying their colorful banners, the wild wolf leads the wolf maid by the arm. The other wolves and their servants have remained behind at the feast, and the two have privacy they have not had since they rode down from the cold north.
The wild wolf shoves his sister into their tent roughly. He is desperate to prove to her and to himself that she belongs to him. He unbuckles his belt and uses it to bind her hands behind her back. The wolf maid is no proper lady and at home she often wears breeches so that her riding and sword fighting will not be hampered. But she is wearing a voluminous gown in honor of the feast and it makes the wild wolf wilder.
His sister is changing. She wears dresses without protest and cries over songs of doomed love. She is not herself, not the female version of himself she used to be. He has to prove that he is still the dominant male in her life. He raises her skirts and applies his hand to her rear with fury. She howls as he spanks her. She howls not in pain, but rather in outrage.
“Brandon! How dare you!”
“You’re mine, Lyanna, have you forgotten that?”
“You’re behaving like a brute,” she rebukes, but his wildness and his roughness are what drew them together, for she, too, is wild and rough and her blood heats not despite this cruel treatment, but because of it.
The wild wolf throws the wolf maid to the ground face-down and crouches between her legs. He frees his manhood from his breeches and slides an arm beneath his sister’s hips to elevate her womanhood. He forces himself into her without tenderness and she welcomes every inch of him. It is not the first time they have mated.
He aims both to punish her and to please her, and he succeeds. She does not love him like she used to, as she is beginning to love the dragon prince, but she loves this and she knows it will never be like this with anyone else. She pants at each thrust, needing just a little more. But her brother knows her too well and he will not allow her release until she swears herself to him.
“Tell me you’re mine.” He holds her hips so firmly that tomorrow her maid will see handprints on her skin and assume they are the dragon prince’s.
“You are mine, Lyanna, say it!” He plows her savagely, like a true wolf.
“I’m yours,” she says, at last. She does not know whether it is truth or lie she speaks, but she’ll say anything he wants to hear at this moment. “I’m yours, Brandon.”
He cannot play a harp like the dragon prince, but the wild wolf’s fingers are adept at playing a woman’s pleasure center. The wolf maid howls long and loud. Those few in tents nearby who hear her assume she is a whore and think enviously of procuring her for themselves.
The wild wolf does not howl. He growls, “Mine,” and he spurts his seed deep inside her.
Up in the tower the sun princess and the red viper similarly spend themselves.
A year later the wolf maid will disappear with the dragon prince and the wild wolf will be murdered at the command of the mad king while seeking her return. That same mad king will keep the sun princess a hostage while his kingdom rebels, and she will die a terrible death. The wolf maid will die, too, although hers will be a natural death. And many years later the red viper will die attempting to avenge the sun princess.
Do not think these are the only tragedies borne of brothers loving their sisters too well. It seems to be a rather common sin in the Seven Kingdoms. But those are other tales for another time.