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The Dornish Letter Chapter 8 (Dancing with Vipers)
🕑 Added 2025-06-08 20:52:23 +0000 UTCThe Dornish Letter Chapter 8 (Dancing with Vipers)
Jon Snow stood barefoot in the middle of the Sunrise Chamber, glaring at the open wardrobe like it had insulted his honor. The heat clung to his skin, sweat already slick at the small of his back, despite the sun sinking lower behind Sunspear's spires.
The clothes waiting inside were nothing like Winterfell's somber grays and furs. The Dornish preferred colors that looked like fire had kissed the cloth—reds, golds, deep umbers—and fabrics that weighed no more than a whisper. It felt less like dressing for dinner and more like preparing to be unwrapped at the table.
Jon tugged open a hanger holding a wine-red vest edged in hammered bronze. It was sleeveless, cut scandalously low along the chest, and made of some shimmering stuff that caught the light like dragon scales. He turned it in his hands.
"This looks like something Robb would dare me to wear. Then he'd laugh when I actually did."
Still, the alternative—leather jerkin and wool shirt—felt suicidal in Dornish heat. He'd already sweat through his underclothes twice today. If he dressed like a Northerner tonight, they'd find his corpse face-first in a bowl of firefruit stew.
Jon sighed, peeled off his current tunic, and let the warm air stroke across his bare chest. The mirror by the wardrobe caught the motion. He glanced at his reflection—shoulders broader than when he left Winterfell, a body lean with muscle from years of swordplay and dawn patrols in the cold. His hair had grown longer since the journey began, a dark mass of curls brushing past his shoulders. But it was the eyes that gave him pause.
Bright violet.
Beautiful, Nymeria had whispered once against his neck, lips slick with wine and laughter. Dangerous, she'd added later, after moaning herself hoarse on his fingers.
He pulled on the vest slowly, the fabric cool against overheated skin. It clung around his torso in all the ways that made him feel entirely too aware of his body. The trousers—black, soft, loose but drawn tight at the waist with a braided cord—were somehow worse. They felt like nothing at all, like someone else's scandal.
He stared at himself again.
"You look like you're about to seduce someone," he muttered, frowning. "Or be seduced. Probably both. Gods, even Theon would blush."
Still, it wasn't a bad look. His skin was slightly darker from the sun, his shoulders broader now than when he'd left the North. And when he wasn't scowling—which was rare, to be fair—he'd been told he was handsome. Ros had said so, more than once, in between the times she'd gasped his name with her thighs trembling around his face. And she didn't strike him as the sort to lie for flattery's sake.
He reached for a cloak out of instinct, then paused. In the North, it was as natural as putting on boots. But here?
"They'd laugh me out of the hall," he muttered. "And then set fire to the cloak."
He hung it back.
Jon moved to his small desk and found a bronze comb. As he worked it through his curls, he thought of Robb leaning against the doorframe of his old chamber back in Winterfell, arms crossed and smirking.
"You preen more than Sansa, Snow," Robb would say.
And Arya—gods, Arya—she'd have snorted so hard she'd choke on her lemon cake. "What's the point? You should not try to flatter them, you look like Sansa right now, ughhh."
Jon chuckled under his breath. The memories hurt, but they also warmed him in a strange way. He missed them both like a lost limb. Maybe even more than that.
After smoothing his hair back and tying it at the base of his neck, he fastened a narrow leather cuff around one wrist and left the other bare. Simple. Comfortable. Just enough to not look like he was trying too hard.
Then he sat on the edge of the bed—gods, that bed—and tried not to think about how many people it could fit. It felt like a dare from Prince Oberyn himself. Jon swore the man took a wicked joy in furnishing a chamber like this for a Stark bastard.
He leaned back on his hands, looking up at the ceiling, letting the quiet of the hour settle around him.
There was tension in his shoulders. It wasn't just the feast. It was everything—the glances from the Martell women, the veiled comments, the way Prince Doran's eyes seemed to strip layers from him with each passing moment. The cryptic words about his eyes.
And now, Arianne.
Gods help him, that woman was trouble in silk.
Jon still remembered her walking into his chambers like she owned them—and maybe she did. Her breasts alone, and he was pretty sure they'd been intentionally placed at eye level, just to test his restraint. The way she moved, how her voice caressed every syllable—it was like sparring with heat itself.
He let out a slow breath, eyes closed.
"Focus, Snow. This isn't a brothel. And she's not Ros."
Well. She wasn't Ros. But he couldn't forget the feel of Nymeria's skin under his tongue, either. The way she writhed against him during their nights aboard the Desert Wind. She'd called him greedy once. Called him cruel another. But it was always with a grin on her flushed face and her legs pulling him closer.
Yet even then, he'd held back. No bastards. No children to carry his shame forward into another generation.
Jon clenched his jaw. This was no brothel, true. But it wasn't the North either.
It was Dorne. And in Dorne, even the rules wore perfume and flirted with you.
A knock sounded at the door. Not a servant's knock—this one was softer. Familiar.
He rose, smoothed the front of his vest (which really didn't help—it still showed half his damned chest), and moved to open it.
Arianne was framed in the doorway like a portrait in firelight.
Her dress—or what little deserved to be called one—was a sheer wrap of golden mesh that draped like water over her shoulders and arms, catching every glimmer of candlelight like fireflies. Beneath it, her bodice was a dark bronze that cupped her breasts like it was holding on for dear life. The neckline plunged low, the swell of her breasts threatening rebellion with each breath she took. And the skirts were split so high on either side that the flash of thigh with every step was more weapon than fashion.
Jon blinked once.
"Did you forget to finish dressing, Princess?"
Arianne grinned, unhurried, unbothered, the kind of grin only a woman could wear when she knew a man was two seconds from forgetting his name.
"Is that Northern modesty I hear trembling in your voice, Lord Snow?"
"I was going to say you look... regal," he offered, forcing himself to focus on her eyes. "A color like that doesn't walk into a room. It announces itself."
"A color?" she echoed, arching a perfectly shaped brow. "You mean this?" She gave a slow spin, and Jon caught a full view of her back—bare from the nape of her neck to the small of her spine, the sheer gold wrap clinging like a second skin. "Just a little gold. Sunspear likes its sunsets to be bold."
Jon coughed and glanced at the mirror to avoid staring at her ass.
"You're going to start fires in that dress."
"That's the idea." She stepped closer, close enough that he could feel the warmth of her skin through the thin fabric. "And you're not doing yourself any favors, wolf. You look like a man trying to seduce half the court."
Jon glanced down at his own outfit—deep red vest trimmed in bronze, tight black trousers, and his sleeveless arms on full display.
"You think so?" he said with feigned innocence. "And here I was worried the neckline wasn't deep enough."
"You could always unlace it more," she murmured, fingers twitching toward the bronze fastenings. "I'd wager it gets more interesting the lower I go."
He took a half-step back. "You're going to cause a duel before we reach the feast."
"I'd win," she said brightly, sliding her hand through his arm. "Come. They're expecting you."
"I'm not sure I'm dressed for feasting," Jon muttered as she led him toward the corridor. "I feel like I'm going to be licked clean by the air."
"That's the goal, Jon Snow. In Dorne, the air deserves a good view."
"I'm starting to think everyone in Dorne wants a good view."
"Not everyone," she said with mock solemnity. "Some want a taste."
Jon coughed again, wondering if the heat on his face was the temperature or Arianne's words. He wasn't unfamiliar with seduction. Ros had cooed into his ear more than once, breath hot and needy while her fingers guided his down her slick thighs. Nymeria had been louder—wilder—bucking against his tongue on the storm-tossed bed of the Desert Wind, her breathless curses turning into purrs.
But Arianne wasn't asking for pleasure. She was promising it—with a threat behind the smile.
They moved through the hallway, her hand light but possessive on his arm. Every time she leaned in to whisper a teasing comment, her breasts brushed his bicep, soft and maddening. She carried herself like a queen disguised as a scandal.
"Do all Martells try to kill with innuendo?" he asked dryly.
She gave a slow smile. "Just the dangerous ones."
"I'll sleep with armor on tonight."
"Why bother?" Her gaze was brazen. "I'd only take it off."
Jon didn't respond—mostly because his cock had twitched at her tone and he wasn't sure how to walk and hide that at the same time. He focused on the floor tiles. One foot, then the other. Don't trip. Don't blush. Don't say something stupid.
"So what's the trick?" he asked finally. "Do I need to toast someone? Tell a story about snowbanks and direwolves? Or just smile and hope my vest holds together?"
"Smile," she said. "And let me do the rest. No one expects a Northern boy to know our dances, but they'll watch. They want to know if you're stiff everywhere."
Jon gave a faint snort. "Tell them to ask Nymeria."
"Oh, they already have."
A pause.
He looked over.
Arianne's grin turned wicked. "She said your tongue should be declared a weapon."
"Gods."
"And your fingers," she added, squeezing his arm with meaning. "But she says you're frustratingly noble about the rest."
Jon sighed. "So now it's common knowledge I'm good with my mouth, but not my cock?"
Arianne laughed, low and delighted. "Oh, Jon Snow. It's not a secret when the girls are bragging."
He rubbed a hand through his curls. "Fantastic. Now when I say I want to be known for more than what's between my legs, they'll think I'm being modest."
"No," Arianne said. "They'll think you're playing coy. And coy is irresistible."
They turned another corner, and the sound of music drifted through the corridor—pipes, soft drums, the hum of voices. The feast had begun.
Jon adjusted his vest. "I'm not a lord," he muttered again, mostly to himself.
"You don't have to be," Arianne said. "You just have to be unforgettable."
She stopped him a step from the doors, her hand resting on his chest, right above where the vest parted to show the slope of his collarbone.
"Breathe, wolf."
"I'm breathing."
"Not like you're about to be hunted. Like you're about to hunt."
Jon met her eyes.
They were dark and glittering, like stormclouds in the sun. Mischief. Intelligence. And something else, flickering just beneath the surface—curiosity, maybe. Or calculation.
He squared his shoulders. Smiled.
"Let's go in before your dress starts another war."
Her lips curved. "Afraid of what they'll say?"
"I'm afraid of what I'll do," he said under his breath, and opened the doors.
Just before they stepped into the fire of the great hall, Arianne stopped him again—this time with less flirtation, more weight in her hand where it still rested lightly on his arm.
"Jon," she said, her voice quieter now. The music ahead muffled it, but it didn't soften it. "One thing before we go in."
He raised a brow, surprised at the shift in tone. "You're not about to tell me I have soup on my shirt, are you?"
Arianne gave a breath of a laugh, but her gaze held steady. "If someone at the table jabs at you—says something meant to get under your skin—don't bristle. Don't grow cold like a Stark. And don't get loud like a Stormlander. Let them talk. Let them feel clever."
"Smile?" Jon guessed.
"Smile," she confirmed, "like you're above it. Because you are. And because if you act like an insult is beneath you, then it is."
He studied her for a beat, then gave a crooked grin. "You know, you sound suspiciously like someone who's done a lot of feasting and smiling through fools."
"I've feasted with men twice my age who thought they were gods because they had land or armies. But words? Words are power too. Choose yours like a prince, not a soldier."
Jon nodded, slower this time. "All right. Smile like it's beneath me. Speak like a prince."
"And when in doubt," she added, leaning in close so her lips nearly brushed his ear, "say something clever and walk away. Nothing stings like a handsome man who doesn't need to prove himself."
He huffed softly. "You think I'm handsome?"
Arianne smirked. "I know you are. That's half your advantage. Now stop asking questions and make them stare."
With that, she gave his arm a final squeeze and led him into the glow of the feast.
The doors to the grand banquet hall opened with a flourish of golden silk and music so foreign it tickled the back of Jon's brain like a dream he hadn't asked for. Lutes unlike any he'd heard, drums that sounded like thunder wrapped in velvet, flutes with breathy, serpentine tones. It all crashed together in a hot, perfumed wall of sound as he stepped in beside Arianne, her fingers still curled lightly around his arm like they were glued there.
He'd expected grandeur—palaces didn't build themselves with copper inlaid floors and obsidian columns for modesty's sake—but this... this was excessive. The light alone stunned him. Hundreds of hanging lamps swung lazily overhead, each flickering like it was drunk on its own oil. They gave the hall a molten hue, turning gold into fire.
The heat hit next, thick and clinging. It was like walking into a hearth with wine-soaked air. No northern feast smelled like this—meat and spice and roasted figs, some perfume he couldn't name, and something sweet and sharp that made his mouth water before the first bite. He wasn't even seated yet and already he was sweating in places he didn't know sweat belonged.
Jon kept his pace steady, back straight. Beside him, Arianne looked like sin incarnate in motion, her golden mesh wrap barely disguising the play of her hips as she walked.
At the high table, Prince Doran sat regal and still, draped in robes the color of ripened figs. His face was unreadable, lips pressed tight, hands folded atop the carved arms of his seat. Beside him, Oberyn lounged like a man at a brothel, legs spread, a goblet in one hand and Ellaria sitting on his lap, and moving her buttocks against his thighs.
A man was sitting next to Prince Doran, looking displeased, near him were sitting three other boys who looked similar to the man, Jon knew they must be his sons.
"Lord Yronwood is the stone-faced man seated to my father's left," she whispered against his ear, her breath warm. "Arrived with his brood four days ago. Business with Father. Best be cautious."
Jon didn't nod, just glanced sidelong. A grim-faced man with a squared jaw and arms like carved oak, seated stiffly, surrounded by his three sons. They looked carved too, but not from the same tree—one slim and sharp-eyed, another tall and golden, and the third already watching Jon like a hawk watching something smaller and worth pecking.
Jon schooled his face. Nothing worse than a Stark face that revealed what you were thinking. Smile like it's beneath you, he reminded himself. Speak like a prince.
"Come," Arianne said, tugging him gently. "Time to dazzle."
He was led to his seat beside her, the silk cushion softer than any saddle he'd ridden. Across from him sat Tyene, smiling sweetly, her golden hair pinned up like a crown. To her side, Nymeria gave him a smirk and a wink that promised nothing wholesome. Near them, Sarella—half-hidden by her curls and a book she'd somehow smuggled into a feast—looked up and grinned.
"Jon," Sarella said. "You clean up well."
Jon gave her a smile. "I had help. Apparently looking brooding in wool doesn't pass for formalwear here."
"You've upgraded from a crow to a red-breasted sparrow," Nymeria said, voice low enough only their side of the table heard. "Though I confess, I miss the fur. All those layers. So mysterious."
"Now you get to see where I sweat," Jon deadpanned, and Tyene actually laughed.
Plates began to arrive. Platters steaming with meat he couldn't name, sauces as bright as summer sunsets, coils of flatbread laced with herbs and oils. Jon reached for a skewered something and took a bite.
Fire.
Literal fire. He coughed once, twice, and managed to swallow without yelping. His eyes watered, throat a torch.
"I warned you," Nymeria said, hiding a smirk behind her goblet.
"You let me suffer on purpose," Jon rasped, reaching for anything liquid. Arianne offered her cup without hesitation.
"Sweet wine helps," she murmured. "I'd say you get used to it, but that would be a lie. We just stop pretending to care."
Jon took a gulp. The wine was cool, almost syrupy, and kissed his burning mouth like a lover with cold lips. He exhaled slowly, finally managing a nod.
"I'll survive," he said, voice rough but recovering. "Assuming the next course doesn't come armed with blades."
"Dessert is worse," Sarella offered helpfully. "They'll sneak chili into anything."
Jon shook his head. "You people are mad."
Tyene smiled sweetly. "Welcome to Dorne, pretty wolf."
And Jon smiled back, letting it curl at the corners. Not smirking, not mocking. Just amused. He didn't belong—but tonight, he wasn't pretending to.
He'd play their game. He just had to survive the spice first.
The Feast - Later
Laughter rolled from the high table like a wave of sun-warmed wine. At the center of it, of course, sat Prince Oberyn Martell. A ruby ring glinted as he lifted his goblet, finishing a story that had already made two of the Yronwood sons guffaw like drunk sellswords.
"...and when I asked the magistrate of Volantis how his daughter learned to ride so well, he told me she'd trained on sand steeds since she could walk." Oberyn's grin widened, sharp and wicked. "I didn't have the heart to tell him she spent the entire night learning a different kind of saddle work."
Laughter broke again—loudest from Ser Ynys Yronwood, who slapped the table. "Seven hells, Prince Oberyn, if half your tales are true, then Volantis has never recovered."
"Only half?" Oberyn arched an eyebrow, then shrugged with a theatrical sigh. "Then I've clearly failed as a storyteller."
Quentyn sat further down the table, his posture stiff. He sipped at his wine more than he drank it, and while the candlelight caught his curly brown hair and clean-shaven cheeks, his expression belonged to a man watching a cockfight with no coin in the game.
Cletus Yronwood leaned closer to Oberyn, his eyes gleaming with interest. "Tell us about the pirate queen again—the one with the sapphire nipple ring."
"Oh, that one." Oberyn leaned back, swirling his wine lazily. "Nyessa the Storm-Eyed. Gods, she was a terror. Made a necklace of ears from the men she killed, and a belt of the ones she only wounded." He raised a brow. "I wore neither. But she let me live, which was rare. Perhaps she liked my tongue."
Ynys roared again. Even Gwyneth, the quietest of the Yronwood brothers, allowed a thin-lipped smile.
Quentyn shifted. "You speak lightly of dangerous people, Uncle."
"Because I'm not afraid of dangerous people," Oberyn said simply, turning his gaze to his nephew with that effortless blend of heat and mockery. "And because they are the most interesting ones."
"They don't always laugh back," Quentyn replied stiffly.
"No," Oberyn agreed, "but if you're clever, they don't get the last word either."
He leaned forward, now addressing the Yronwood boys as if imparting the kind of wisdom you couldn't read in any Maester's book. "Let me tell you something—people remember the man who smiles through danger. Who doesn't bristle, doesn't bark. Just smiles... and plots."
Cletus gave a slow nod, his grin fading into something more thoughtful. "Sounds like a lesson, that."
"Everything's a lesson," Oberyn said, raising his goblet again. "The trick is deciding which ones to ignore, and which ones to learn before someone sticks a blade in your ribs."
Quentyn looked away, jaw tight. "Some prefer a blade to loose tongues."
"And some prefer loose tongues and blades," Oberyn murmured.
The table was still ringing with laughter from Oberyn's last ribald tale when the prince turned to Jon with a lazy smile and that calculating gleam that never quite left his eyes.
"Well, little wolf," he drawled, swirling dark wine in a goblet chased with rubies, "we've heard enough of my sins. What of your North? Surely it has its own devils. Or, if not, at least a good story."
Jon lifted his goblet to stall. The Dornish wine still tasted like half-fermented fruit, but he'd learned to keep from coughing. "You want a northern tale, Prince Oberyn?"
"A tale," Tyene said from his right, eyes bright. "Or a song."
"Or a scandal," Sarella added, leaning in, curls wild and sharp eyes sharper.
Jon smiled. "I'm no bard, and as for scandal, the North's too cold to keep many secrets hot. But... there was a trip. To the Wall. Two years ago."
That got attention. Even Quentyn turned, though he looked more constipated than curious.
Jon set the goblet down. "Lord Stark took Robb and me—well, we begged to go, really. It was more snow than we'd seen in years. A blizzard met us halfway through the Kingsroad. The horses started to look at us like we were fools."
A few quiet chuckles.
"We reached Castle Black by the ninth day of the storm. A wall of ice taller than any tower, stretching longer than any river I've seen. And the cold? It made your bones ache in places you didn't know had bones."
Tyene giggled, hiding it behind her hand.
Jon glanced at her and went on. "The brothers gave us beds stuffed with straw and lent us black cloaks two sizes too big. But that night, the Old Bear—Lord Commander Mormont—invited my father to the common hall. I went along. He told stories. Not just about wildlings. About giants. Ice spiders the size of hounds. And the undead as they called them."
"Do you believe them?" Sarella asked.
Jon hesitated. "No. But that's not the point. You listen to a man who's lived his life staring into snow and shadow, and you start to wonder what's truth and what's just frostbitten memory."
Oberyn's eyes gleamed. "That's a fine answer."
"And the end?" Jon added. "I fell asleep upright, in my cloak, trying to stay awake through a tale about how the Wall was built by Brandon the Builder and thirty-seven giants who were all very bad at masonry."
Even Doran smiled faintly. Nymeria laughed with open amusement, brushing her fingers along the stem of her wine glass.
Arianne's hand, meanwhile, rested calmly on the table beside Jon's... though not for long.
A few seconds later, her fingers slid beneath the table's edge, slow and sinuous as a snake—and bolder than one. Jon froze. Her fingers brushed his thigh. Then lower.
He glanced at her. Her expression was pure innocence, her full lips just beginning to wrap around a slice of blood orange.
He gave her a pointed look. She lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug and kept chewing. Her hand, meanwhile, kept moving.
Gods be good.
Her fingers found his cock, hidden beneath the silk of his loose trousers, and stroked along its length once, twice, with maddening confidence. It was already half-hard. It had a habit of acting without consulting him whenever she was near. The cock betratyed him-the bastard- and it was starting to get hard from her hand.
Jon exhaled through his nose. Not now. Not now.
"I assume," came a clipped voice from across the table, "you didn't come to Dorne just to tell bedtime stories."
Ytys Yronwood. The oldest of the Yronwood boys. All lean, sun-golden arrogance, with a hawkish nose and the bored eyes of someone who thinks their words carry weight.
Jon turned toward him, ignoring the hand still teasing him under the table. "I wasn't aware I needed to justify my presence."
Ytys offered a thin smile. "You sit beside the Princess. The Prince of Dorne laughs at your jests. One might think you were here as decoration. Or a... conversation piece."
The table quieted.
Jon tilted his head. "Is that your concern, Yronwood? That I'm just a pretty ornament?"
Silence.
Then Jon smiled, sharp and cold. "My father always said pretty blades are just as deadly. I suppose we'll see what kind of steel I am."
A beat passed. Then Oberyn gave a low, satisfied chuckle and raised his goblet. "Spoken like a man of metal. Your father taught you well."
Arianne's fingers stroked once more, then withdrew, leaving him hard and flustered behind a perfect façade. He stared ahead and sipped his wine like it hadn't just taken a full measure of restraint not to moan.
Ytys bristled but said no more. Lord Yronwood, seated a little behind his sons, raised his goblet toward Jon with a nod that was just short of approval.
Jon inclined his head politely. His cock was still aching, his thighs tight beneath the table, but his voice was smooth when he asked, "So, Lord Yronwood, what stories do you favor? I imagine Dorne has no shortage."
Beside him, Arianne leaned in, her lips brushing close to his ear as Lord Yronwood started talking about the old days. "You handled that well, my wolf."
"I'm growing tired of being underestimated," Jon muttered, then blinked. "Also, stop groping me in front of your father."
"He's blind in one eye and bored in both," she whispered, wicked. "Besides. I like watching you keep your composure."
"You're going to make me spill my wine in my lap."
"Then I'll have to come help clean it, won't I?"
Gods. Her perfume—jasmine and citrus—lingered on his skin now.
Tyene asked him another question—about how they kept warm during winter in the North, and whether hot springs were as magical as the songs claimed. He answered smoothly.
Every response bought him more goodwill, every smile from Oberyn and glance from Doran another mark of respect. Jon Snow was not just surviving the viper's nest tonight—he was dancing with the snakes and smiling all the while.
Comments
Bryce Wilcox
Bro this is great! When's the next one you think?
Gonzalez Portillo Alan
Good chapter
