Daeron is dead.

The news rang hollow in Olyvar’s ears, resounding over and over again. The King is dead. The King is dead.

Baratheon’s letter crumpled beneath his fingers.

Dead. The King was dead.

There was no word as to how. No word as to why. But, besides the fact that verifying the truth would only take a raven to King’s Landing to reveal the deception, and that it would have been foolish to attempt said deception in the first place...

He knew it in his heart of heart, that Robert Baratheon’s words spoke true.

Daeron is dead.

Just like his mother. Just like his father. Just his his sister might as well be. Dead or absent, it mattered little.

It still meant that they were gone.

(And the warning bells clanging in his head of what the King's death meant did not help. Have the Baratheons won a great victory? the Prince Within asked. Do the Rebels march upon King's Landing? The Pass? The Boneway?)

(But, Olyvar did not care. His cousin was dead.)

The King was dead, and the loyalty Olyvar owed him nothing more than chains, holding him place.

He was trapped, Olyvar realized. Trapped in a web of his own weave, trapped by the hope he had tried to make. Ensnared and entwined by blood-ties and bonds of friendships, constantly pulling this way and that, always weighing down on him like a stone slab on an eggshell. His vassals unruly, his allies untrustworthy, and the alliance he had spent so long building, so long praying for--

All for fucking nothing.

The alliance, one he had hoped would come together in fairness and trust, had become a twisted version of itself, helmed by his goodbrother. Vickon. His friend, who claimed to want the best for him-- but Olyvar could no longer believe it. The corsairs remained unpunished, unharmed. The Lannisters, his kinsmen through Naerys, grew distant. And the naval might he had worked so hard to bring down on Qos and his ilk were now being pointed elsewhere.

Everything he had done had been done for naught.

(All the joy the wedding brought had turned to ash in his mouth.)

And now, this.

The King was dead.

The last of his kin to care for him was dead.

Olyvar was alone.

(he had always been alone. But now--)

(now, he could no longer lie to himself that he was not.)

And who had he to blame but himself? Daeron had helped him, trusted him, cared for him in a way not even Olyvar’s sister had bothered to when she left him-- and now Daeron was dead through his inaction.

Numbly, he noted the Prince Within surfacing once again, his assurances ringing as hollow as the letter had. Twas not his fault? Of course it was, it always was. He had been too slow, too cautious, to unwilling to risk sending aid, to push forth through the fury and aid his cousin. He had been too much of a burden, for his sister to stay. He had been too much of a weakling to defend his lands without aid, he had been too hasty in searching for the ‘solution that would solve his problems for him. He had done everything wrong.

He was everything he never wished to be, and nothing he wanted to.

Aerea, so long ago, had chose him to choose-- choose between what he had wanted, and what Dorne needed.

But he couldn’t.

And he had tried. Oh, Rhoyne, how he’d tried, over and over and over again to make things work. Moons spent planning and forging and praying and hoping, countless sleepless nights as the fires from the coast lit the sky alight.

All for nothing.

...

The letter had wet spots on it now, Olyvar noted, and he smiled. Rain in Dorne, he thought to himself, knowing fully well it was not raining. How odd.

Olyvar laughed.

Daeron is dead.

Olyavr wept.

The dam he had spent two years maintaining broke, and the tide took him.

Olyvar crumbled into nothingness and fell into the abyss, his dark, oily hands of his burdens dragging him into nothingness, away from the despair. Olyvar let the darkness take him.

Olyvar closed his eyes and let the world fall away.

---

And then the darkness receded, and all that was left was a very surprised Prince.

Not Olyvar.

Only the Prince Within, finally without.

Oh, no.