Chapter Two | Neither Knight, Nor Lady
Summary: At a grand tournament held at Summerhall to celebrate Prince Maekar’s eighteenth nameday, a mysterious Baratheon rider stuns the gathered lords by defeating Prince Baelor Targaryen—only to reveal herself as Lady Myra Baratheon, igniting both admiration and scandal before the courts of the Seven Kingdoms.
Pairing: Baelor "Breakspear" Targaryen x Myra Baratheon (ofc)
Content Warnings/Contains: set pre-akotsk; young baelor targaryen; lyonel baratheon's cousin; court drama; childhood friends to lovers; sexual tension; eventual smut; angst/fluff; mutual pining; falling in love.
Chapter Two | Neither Knight, Nor Lady
The cheers still rolled across the tourney field when Myra was taken from her horse.
They came in great crashing waves, echoing over the meadow like storm-surf upon black rocks. In the galleries above, lords in bright silks and mailed knights alike were on their feet, some roaring approval, some muttering scandal behind raised cups. Squires darted through the grass, grooms shouting for room as riderless horses were seized and led away foaming.
Grooms hurried toward her, hands outstretched for the reins, but it was not the stable boys who held her eye.
Her father’s voice cut through the tumult like a lash.
She swung down from the saddle before any man could offer a hand, boots striking the torn earth with a heavy thud. The ground still seemed to sway beneath her from the fury of the ride. Her blood was singing yet, her pulse beating fast with the remembered thunder of hooves. Sweat cooled beneath the borrowed steel. The smell of horseflesh lay thick upon the air.
Lord Baratheon stood beneath the black stag banners where they snapped and strained in the afternoon breeze. He was broad as an ox and twice as grim, his dark cloak stirring about his boots. His face was a gathering storm.
Edric came shouldering through the knot of onlookers a heartbeat later, his face flushed red with fury—or shame. Mayhaps both. His hair was disordered, his mouth set in a hard line.
Lyonel followed at a more leisurely pace.
Unlike the others, he was smiling. Not some courteous little curve of the lips, either, but a broad grin ill-suited to the gravity of the moment—one that spoke of pride badly hidden and amusement worse concealed.
“Inside,” her father said.
He did not raise his voice. He had no need.
Myra tucked the helm beneath her arm and went with them toward the pavilion. The heavy canvas flap was drawn aside for Lord Baratheon and fell shut again behind them with a muffled sigh, swallowing the roar of the lists until the noise of the crowd became little more than distant surf heard through castle stone.
Within, the air was close and warm.
The pavilion smelled of tallow, oiled leather, and the pulsing heat of men’s tempers. Amber light pooled beneath the tent’s high ridgepole where black-and-gold banners had been stitched into the canvas, the crowned stag of Baratheon repeated again and again along the walls. Thick rugs had been thrown across the grass to keep the mud from creeping in, their woven patterns dulled now by trampled dirt and flecks of straw.
A trestle table sagged beneath the weight of arms and riding gear—gauntlets cast aside, a pair of spurs tangled in a belt, a helm lying on its side as though abandoned mid-thought. One candle guttered beside them, its flame bowing low when some wandering breeze found a gap in the seams. The tall support poles creaked softly overhead, ropes drawn taut where they vanished through brass rings in the cloth. A campaign chair sat overturned in one corner, and a discarded cloak had been flung over a chest as though someone had changed in temper or in haste.
For a long moment no one spoke.
Then Lord Baratheon turned on her.
“Have you lost your wits entirely?” His voice was low, but no less dangerous for that. “To shame your house so brazenly before half the Stormlands. Before the great houses of the realm. Before princes, and lords, and the king’s own blood!”
Myra did not answer at once. She set the helm down upon the trestle with deliberate care, the steel giving a soft ringing note against the worn wood. One gloved hand remained resting there, easy as you please, whilst the other went to the buckle at her wrist.
“My armour,” Edric said sharply, stabbing a finger toward the breastplate she still wore. “You stole my armour.”
Myra glanced at him at last, her eyes cool and unhurried.
“You were not wearing it.”
His nostrils flared. He took a step toward her, fists bunching at his sides as if he half-meant to tear the armour off her there and then.
“Aye,” she said, cutting across him. “Yet when the riders were called, you were nowhere to be found.”
His jaw clenched so hard a muscle leapt in his cheek.
“You were drunk,” Myra said. “Or abed with some whore. Mayhaps both.”
“Mind your tongue, girl,” Lord Baratheon warned.
“My tongue speaks plain truth.”
“Truth?” Edric spat. “Only knights were meant for that course. Knights. Not headstrong girls dressed up in stolen steel.”
“And where was the knight?” she asked softly. “In his saddle…or on his back?”
Edric made as if to lunge at her.
Lord Baratheon’s arm shot out across his son’s chest like a bar of iron, halting him where he stood.
“Enough!” Her father’s gaze turned back to Myra, thunder gathering behind it. “You stole armour that did not belong to you, made a fool of your brother, and turned our house into a mummer’s farce. You have shamed us before princes and lords alike—you have shamed this house enough for ten sons besides.”
His stern eyes traveled over the breastplate; the greaves, the vambraces at her arms, and with every look his mouth hardened further, as though the very sight of her in a knight’s harness was salt in an open wound.
“And for what?” he demanded. “Because you fancy yourself a rider?”
“I am a better rider than he.”
Silence fell like a dropped curtain.
Somewhere beyond the tent a horn sounded over the fields, long and low.
Myra had near forgotten him. The sound burst out of him sudden and bright, too honest to hide. He scrubbed at his mouth with the back of one hand, though the smile remained plain enough.
“Well,” he said, spreading his hands, “There’s no gainsaying that, my dear brother. She proved it plain enough.”
“Do not encourage her folly, Lyonel,” Lord Baratheon snapped.
Edric gave a bitter snort, sharp and ugly, in the close heat of the pavilion. “You made sport of a prince of the realm,” he said. “And shamed the others by your very presence.”
“You may not think me a knight,” he went on, his voice hardening into something that resembled the cold, firm stone found back at Storm’s End, “but you have just proven to the realm that you are no lady.”
His words landed harder than the rest.
For the first time the sting of them touched her. She did not show it—not in the proud tilt of her chin, nor the steady calm of her eyes—but the blow landed deeper than her father’s rage or Edric’s bluster.
Shame from a father could be borne. Rage from a brother could be laughed at. This was something meaner, colder. A judgment laid at her feet in the language of the world itself.
The candles seemed to waver in the stillness that followed, their flames bending faintly in the stale warmth of the tent. Somewhere a drop of tallow slid down and hardened white against the iron stand. Even Lyonel’s smile faded then, though not entirely; the amusement went out of him, leaving only a watchful tension in its place.
Lord Baratheon drew a slow breath through his nose.
“You will make apology,” Lord Baratheon said at last.
Her eyes lifted to study the tall, side-profile of her father.
“To Prince Maekar. To Prince Baelor. To every lord whose honour you mocked this day.”
Myra thought to speak, but instead said nothing. Her fingers tightened, almost imperceptibly, upon the edge of the trestle table. The knuckles went pale beneath the grime and sweat. Yet her face betrayed nothing. She stood in the borrowed steel as if she had been born to it; dark, raven curls still damp against her temples, her eyes steady and unbowed.
Lord Baratheon’s jaw worked once.
“You are fortunate the princes have held their tongues thus far,” he said at last, each word heavy as stone. “Another man might not have been so forbearing.”
Outside, the muted roar of the tourney rolled faintly across the fields like distant surf breaking below the cliffs of Storm’s End. The sound seemed very far away now, as though it belonged to another world entirely—one of banners and cheers and pounding hooves, not this close, dim place of anger and reckoning.
Voices murmured just beyond the flap, low and indistinct, blurred by cloth and distance into little more than the sound of men speaking somewhere beyond a wall. The shadows outside shifted once across the pale amber glow of the tent.
And a moment later the pavilion opened.
Cooler air slipped in first, carrying with it the smells of trampled grass, horse sweat, and the bright living noise of the tourney beyond. A shadow fell long across the rugs and scattered armour within. Then the flap was drawn aside in full and new visitors announced.
Two figures stepped within.
Prince Baelor Targaryen filled the doorway. He no longer wore the dark steel armour he had ridden in, though he looked as if he had scarcely taken the time to rid himself of it. His black doublet hung unlaced at the throat. Dust clung to his boots and dark riding breeches, and sweat had darkened the collar of his shirt. His ash brown hair was still damp with sweat, a few unruly strands plastered to his temples and curling faintly at the nape of his neck. A faint smear of dirt marked one cheek where he had wiped his brow with an unthinking hand, and upon his skin in other places—smudged along his jaw, streaked faintly at one cheek, and caught against the back of his hand where he had wiped at sweat and not thought to wash. He looked as though he had come straight from the yard, with all the heat and haste of the contest still clinging to him.
Prince Maekar followed a pace behind, openly curious.
Where Baelor entered with a calm so effortless it might have been mistaken for indifference, Maekar came in with the sharp energy of youth still upon him, amusement not yet banished from his face. His eyes were alive with both curiosity and a hidden layer of judgement, darting from one Baratheon to the next as he took the measure of the room and all the strain coiled within it.
The pavilion tent seemed suddenly smaller.
"My prince,” Lord Baratheon said at once, bowing his head with respect. One could almost hear the iron go into him as his back straightened.
Edric followed stiffly a heartbeat later, though there was reluctance plain in him. Even Lyonel’s grin faded to something more suitable; fitting the presence of princes. He dipped his head as well, easier than the others.
Myra felt their movement at her side and made herself do the same. The curtsey felt strange in stolen steel. Leather creaked. Metal whispered softly against itself as she bent the knee.
For a moment, no one spoke.
The silence had a different shape now. Not the silence of anger, but of waiting.
Baelor’s eyes moved across the room, from face to face; taking in the hard line of Lord Baratheon’s mouth, the red in Edric’s cheeks, the half-hidden amusement still lingering in Lyonel. Baelor said nothing of what he saw.
Then, at last, his eyes moved to Myra, the girl in armour standing amongst them all like the centre of some storm not yet spent.
Recognition touched his face at once, though he gave no sign of surprise. If anything, the faintest ghost of a smile stirred at one corner of his mouth, gone almost before it was there.
Lord Baratheon cleared his throat.
“Your Grace,” Lord Baratheon said, and though his voice held steady, strain ran beneath it like a crack beneath ice, “you must forgive this… scandalous misadventure. My daughter meant no slight to the crown. I give you my word, she shall make proper apology for her conduct.”
Her father stood stiff as oak, one hand curled behind his back, the other resting on the edge of the trestle table as though to keep from striking it. The candlelight caught the hard planes of his face and the grey beginning at his beard. Beside him, Edric shifted his weight and stared at the ground with all the sullen fury of a chastened boy grown too quickly into a man’s body.
Myra kept her eyes lowered.
Even so, she could feel Baelor’s gaze upon her as plainly as if he had set a hand upon her shoulder. It was not a heavy look, nor a lord’s hard judgment, but it warmed her all the same. The silence stretched for half a heartbeat longer, until the air itself seemed to wait on his answer.
When he spoke, his voice was calm.
“That will not be necessary,” he began. “No offence is taken, Lord Baratheon. Nor by my brother.”
His words settled over the pavilion like a hush of warm, spring air dancing across a crop of fresh grain.
Lord Baratheon did not relax, but some small measure of strain left the line of his mouth.
Baelor’s eyes returned to Myra.
“You rode well, Lady Myra,” he said. “You have my commendation.”
At that she lifted her gaze, but only just, enough to meet his eyes for the briefest instant. There was dust still at his cheek and a damp curl fallen untidily against his brow. The sight of him might almost have made her smile.
“You are too kind, Your Grace,” she said carefully.
“Yes,” he father voiced, “Very gracious, indeed.”
Maekar’s laugh rang bright through the close heat of the tent.
“Gracious?” the younger prince said. “Gods, I thought it the finest moment of the day.”
Lord Baratheon stiffened anew. The cords in his neck stood out.
“I mean it,” Maekar said, grinning with no effort now to hide it. He took another step in, boots stirring the rushes underfoot, his eyes alight with the memory of the lists. “You should have seen the look on Dondarrion’s face when you knocked him from his saddle.”
Edric moved sharply at that, the leather at his sword belt creaking. His discomfort sat ill upon him.
“It was hardly proper,” Lord Baratheon said, with all the measured weight of a man forcing restraint upon himself. “My daughter forgot herself.”
“Did she?” Maekar asked. His glance flicked back to Myra, quick and bright with interest, as though he had found a new sort of game at court and meant to see how it played out. “She rode better than half the men out there, today.”
“Be that as it may, that is not the matter at hand,” Lord Baratheon replied, his voice gone flat and formal.
Baelor lifted one hand then.
The gesture was slight, almost lazy, but there was command in it all the same. It stilled the room more surely than a shout might have done. Even Maekar held his tongue.
“No,” Baelor said. “It is not.”
“No offence was taken from my position,” he went on, his tone mild as summer rain. “Yet I cannot answer for the others. I would counsel against entering such contests again without forewarning… or at the least, leave first sought.”
Myra couldn’t control the smile threatening to grace her soft features. She had heard the faintest thread of amusement touch his words; so light it might have passed unnoticed by any who did not know him.
She looked to him, and his eyes found her once more.
And for the briefest instant, he smiled.
She knew, it wasn’t the distant courtesy of a prince indulging a lord’s unruly daughter. But rather the quiet, knowing smile of a boy she had once known.
Maekar’s grin too widened.
“Well,” he said, clapping his hands together once, “If this is what the Stormlands breed for sport, I should like to see what they do for war.”
“That, my prince, is something we’d best discuss with a cup in hand.”
He stepped forward with easy familiarity, clapping Edric hard upon the shoulder.
“Come, cousin. I think the prince deserves a proper Stormlands welcome after witnessing such scandal.”
Edric muttered something beneath his breath but did not resist when Lyonel steered him toward the tent flap.
Lyonel cast a glance back toward Lord Baratheon.
“And you as well, uncle. The day is too fine to waste it scowling in a canvas box.”
Lord Baratheon hesitated, his stern gaze lingering upon Myra a moment longer.
“You will remain here,” he told her curtly.
Myra inclined her head without argument.
“As you command, father.”
Maekar chuckled softly. “Come, my lord,” he said, clapping Lord Baratheon lightly upon the arm. “Let us leave the victor a moment to breathe. Gods know she’s earned that much.”
With that he followed Lyonel out into the sunlight. Edric went after them, shooting his sister a final look of simmering fury before the tent flap fell closed.
For a moment after the others had gone, Myra did not move.
The pavilion seemed to exhale around her. Voices that had filled it moments before faded into nothing, leaving behind a quiet so sudden it felt almost strange. Beyond the canvas walls the tourney still lived—cheers rolling across the meadow, the distant thunder of hooves, a horn sounding somewhere down the lists—but inside the tent those sounds came softened and far away, like echoes carried across water.
The air no longer felt crowded.
Where tempers had pressed close a moment ago, there was space now. The cloth walls stirred faintly as the wind passed over them, the whole pavilion breathing slow and steady like some great beast at rest. A loose cord somewhere tapped idly against a wooden pole. From the open seam near the entrance slipped a pale line of daylight, stretching across the ground like a blade of gold.
It was the sort of quiet that comes only after a storm has broken.
And in that quiet, Myra realised she was not alone.
Baelor Targaryen had not followed the others out into the sunlight, but rather stood beside the trestle table as though the place belonged to him by quiet right, one hand resting lightly against the wood. The noise of the tourney seemed to fall away around him. There was nothing hurried in his bearing now, none of the sharp urgency of the lists—only that easy steadiness that had followed him since boyhood, as natural to him as breathing.
He was not broad in the brutish fashion of some knights, but rather long and lean, all quiet strength and balance. There was not the slightest air of arrogance about him, though he carried himself like a man accustomed to command without needing to show it. Even at rest there was a coiled grace in him, the sort that spoke of years in the saddle and blade-work practiced until it became second nature. One had only to watch the way he shifted his weight, the easy looseness in his shoulders, to know he moved as comfortably with sword or reins in hand as other men did with a cup of wine.
Myra noticed that his face had sharpened with age since their last meeting. The softness of youth had long since given way to something more defined—strong nose, a mouth that seemed forever on the verge of a knowing smile, and those strange mismatched eyes that had made castle maids whisper when they were children. One was dark as smoke. The other caught the candlelight and held it, touched faintly with amber.
Those eyes were on her now.
He had always been handsome. Even as a boy he had been too pretty for sense, septas muttering of Valyrian blood and troublesome charm. Time had only made it worse.
Today the sweat and dust only made him look more real, more dangerous somehow, and no less handsome for it.
He watched her quietly as the canvas settled again and sealed them in, the muffled roar of the crowd drifting faintly through the thick cloth walls like surf upon a distant shore.
Myra became suddenly aware of the weight of the borrowed armour pressing against her ribs and shoulders. The breastplate pinched beneath her arms, the straps biting through her tunic where the leather had rubbed her raw. The steel that had felt so light upon horseback now seemed to drag at her with every breath.
She lowered her eyes and sank into a small, proper curtsey.
“Baelor Breakspear,” she said with careful formality. “Lord of the realm and heir to the Iron Throne—”
“You know I hate it when you call me that.”
His voice cut gently across her words.
It drew a smile from her despite herself. When she straightened again, he was looking at her with that same familiar expression he had worn upon the field after the race, half amusement, half something warmer.
She crossed to him then and took his hand briefly between both of hers, squeezing it in quiet greeting, the cold metal of his rings biting faintly into her palm.
“It is good to see you, Bael.”
For a moment he did not answer. Instead his fingers closed gently around hers in return, a small answering pressure—warm, steady, and familiar.
Then he offered her a gentle smile.
For a moment neither spoke. The years between childhood and now seemed to narrow to nothing in the close stillness of the tent, as though the long roads and passing seasons between Storm’s End and Summerhall had folded neatly away.
Then Myra turned aside and set about unfastening the armour.
The clasps had grown stubborn with sweat and dust. Leather creaked beneath her fingers as she loosened them one by one, setting each piece aside upon the table with care. The breastplate gave a dull iron thud as it met the wood.
“You rode exceptionally well today,” he said at last.
“My father does not share your sentiment.”
She let out a breath that might have been a laugh if there had been more humour in it. “He believes I have shamed myself and disgraced the name of Baratheon before half the realm.”
Baelor’s brow lifted faintly.
She glanced back over her shoulder at him, dark curls clinging damply to her neck, mischief brightening her eyes.
The final clasp came loose beneath her fingers. She stripped the breastplate away and set it down with a muted clang.
“But I would not take it back.”
Baelor folded his arms loosely over his chest.
“If only to see the look on Edric’s face.”
That earned a low laugh from him, quiet and genuine.
“Yes,” he said. “That is a sight I shall remember for some time.”
She leaned back against the trestle then, the wood pressing against the backs of her thighs, and studied him openly before returning her attention to the layers of leather and steel coating her body.
Myra had nearly freed herself of the worst of the borrowed armour when she came to the vambrace about her forearm. The strap had twisted under the metal brace, and no matter how she worried at it, the buckle would not come free.
She frowned down at it and tugged again.
The steel bit stubbornly into her wrist.
Baelor watched a moment before stepping forward.
“Hold still,” he said quietly.
He took her arm in his hands and turned it slightly, searching beneath the fold of leather for the hidden buckle. His fingers brushed the inside of her wrist, warm against skin gone cool beneath the steel. The touch was light, almost absent-minded, yet it sent a small shiver along the length of her arm all the same. Baelor bent his head over the stubborn fastening, his brow drawn faintly as he worked the leather loose.
She felt that touch more keenly than she ought.
Baelor bent his head as he worked the strap loose.
“You do not seem overly offended by my actions today…” Myra began, her voice almost unsure of itself—or of his answer. “I had wondered whether you might scold me, just as Father had.”
“And spoil the finest moment of the tourney?”
His eyes softened as he looked at her, and for an instant she saw the boy beneath the prince.
“No,” he said, shaking his head faintly. “Not today.”
Outside, the crowd gave a fresh roar as another contest began upon the field. Inside, the air between them felt suddenly very still.
She could feel the warmth of him at her shoulder, the faint stir of his breath against the loose curls near her ear as he worried at the stubborn fastening. Horse, leather, sweat, and that faint spice he always carried from some Dornish oil or soap—those scents clung to him still, and they were achingly familiar.
Months had passed since she had last seen him.
Yet he had not changed in any way that mattered.
Myra hesitated a moment before speaking.
“I did not mean to shame you,” she said quietly, a confession she was ready to let go of. " "Nor to wound you—”"
For a heartbeat the only sound between them was the faint creak of leather beneath his hands and the distant murmur of the crowd outside the tent.
Baelor did not look up from the strap.
“You need not apologise, Myra.” he said quietly.
The buckle resisted him a moment longer before finally yielding beneath his fingers. He worked it free with a small tug and loosened the strap.
“And if the realm must whisper of the day a Baratheon bested a dragon prince,” he added mildly, “I cannot think of better tales for them to tell.”
Myra studied him as he spoke, searching his face for some hint of wounded pride or quiet resentment, but found none. There was only that same steady calm that had always been his, as immovable as the cliffs beneath Storm’s End.
“You are too gracious,” she said.
Baelor’s mouth curved faintly, though he still did not lift his gaze.
“Do not mistake grace for truth,” he replied. “You caught me fair.”
Only then did he glance up at her, the ghost of a smile touching the corner of his mouth.
“And I have never enjoyed losing quite so much.”
The buckle gave at last with a soft snap and the strap slipped free.
He eased the vambrace from her arm and set it aside upon the table with the others.
For a moment his hand lingered near her wrist, as if he had forgotten to move it away.
Myra flexed her wrist, relieved.
“You have saved me from wrestling that thing another quarter hour.”
“A prince must have his uses.”
“Oh, I would not say prince,” she replied lightly. “Stable boy, perhaps.”
“You handled the horse well enough out there.”
“That is generous of you,” he said.
Myra settled back against the table, folding her arms loosely now that the armour was gone.
“You are growing slow in your old age.”
“Old age?” Baelor scoffed softly. “I am three-and-twenty.”
“A lifetime, to a woman of my experience.”
His laugh came low and warm, the sound filling the stillness of the pavilion in a way that felt strangely familiar after so long apart.
She was younger than him, and he knew it.
“You always did have a sharp tongue.”
“And you always needed someone to tell you when you were being insufferable.”
His eyes warmed at that, the faintest glimmer of boyish amusement returning to them.
It had been too long since they had spoken so easily. Too long since the words between them had come without caution, without rank, without the quiet weight of all they were meant to become. Once, they had spoken so every day—racing along the cliffs at Storm’s End, arguing over hawks and horses and which of them could ride faster into the teeth of a storm. Now there were crowns and courts and fathers’ expectations between them, things that did not belong in the laughter of children.
Myra rubbed absently at the red mark the steel had left upon her wrist. The skin there was raw where the leather had chafed. Then her gaze drifted toward the painted screen set in the corner of the pavilion, where a cedar chest stood half open beneath a folded gown of storm-grey and gold embroidery.
“If my father means to scold me as a daughter and not as some wayward son,” she said, “I suppose I ought to look the part again.”
Baelor’s eyes flicked toward the screen, then back to her.
Myra laughed softly, the sound light against the hush of the tent.
She gave no answer to that, save the slight quirk of her mouth. Then gathered up the gown and slipped behind the screen.
The painted wood was old, its lacquer cracked here and there with age, the colours faded by many summers beneath the sun. Yet it served well enough. Shadows moved softly upon the silk stretched across its frame as she tugged free the last of Edric’s stolen finery. A buckle struck the rugs with a dull clink. Then another. The whisper of linen followed, then the softer hush of skirts being shaken loose.
Behind the screen, she spoke as easily as if she still stood before him.
“You have gone very quiet, Bael.”
“I was considering whether stable boys are expected to wait upon ladies as well.”
“Oh, certainly. You may brush my hair next.”
She smiled to herself, though he could not see it.
There was no modesty in her, not with him. There never had been. Baelor had seen her muddy to the knees at Storm’s End, hair tangled full of burrs, face wind-burnt and laughing after some reckless ride across the cliffs. He had seen her bleeding from scrapes and grinning through it, hands blackened with hawk-mews dirt or stable dust.
And for years, they had shared—
She shook her head, dismissing the thought before it could wander further down that road.
A screen and a shift were more courtesy than necessity between them.
She unlaced her sweat-damp tunic and let it fall. Drew the clean gown over her head. The fabric was cooler than her skin, soft where the armour had been hard, whispering lightly as it settled about her shoulders. She fastened it one-handed at the sides, cursing once beneath her breath when the laces snagged.
“Need help?” Baelor called.
“With lacing a gown? Gods preserve me, no. Your talents end at horseflesh and buckles.”
When she stepped out at last, she had changed from iron to silk.
The gown was a dark storm-grey that caught almost black in the candlelight, fitted close at the bodice before falling soft to the floor. Gold thread traced subtle patterns along the sleeves and hem, glimmering faintly whenever the flame stirred. It left her throat bare and showed the strong line of her collarbones. Her hair, half-damp and disordered from the helm, fell loose in dark waves about her shoulders.
Baelor looked at her a moment longer than he ought.
“Well?” she asked. “Do I look sufficiently ladylike to save the honour of House Baratheon?”
His gaze rose from the grey silk to her face.
She laughed, the sound bright as a bell, before playfully slapping his shoulder.
Outside, the roar of the crowd rose again, followed by the pounding drumbeat of hooves from somewhere beyond the canvas walls. The pavilion cloth stirred faintly as the wind shifted across the tourney field.
Baelor glanced toward the flap.
“I had thought you might attend the feast this evening.”
Myra snorted and looked at him with open disbelief.
“If my father permits me to leave my chambers before winter, I may consider it.”
Baelor studied her in the wavering candlelight, the easy humour fading somewhat from his face.
“You frightened him today, Myra. He is your father…”
Myra’s smile faded, though only a little.
Before Baelor could continue, the tent flap stirred again and a head pushed through.
A spill of bright afternoon light followed him into the dim pavilion, cutting across the rugs and the scattered armour upon the table. For a moment the younger prince remained half outside, one hand still holding the canvas aside as he peered in.
He looked from one to the other, one brow creeping upward as he took in the half-stripped armour upon the table, Myra standing flushed and untidy beside it, and his brother lingering rather longer than a prince might reasonably be expected to do.
The corner of his mouth twitched.
“Well, there you are,” he said to Baelor. “I was beginning to think you’d wandered off entirely.”
His gaze flicked to Myra then, slow and measuring, the amusement in it sharp as a blade.
“Gods,” he added, taking in the armour strewn about the table. “You truly did it, didn’t you?”
He gave a short breath of laughter.
“The Stormlords are drinking like damned sailors out there. Half the field’s already emptied two casks of your father’s wine celebrating the girl who knocked their pride into the dirt.”
Baelor let out a soft breath, something between resignation and reluctant amusement.
“I suppose I am required.”
“You most certainly are, Your Grace.” Myra agreed.
The title hung there just long enough to draw Baelor’s attention. He narrowed his eyes and gave Myra a sharp look at her sudden return to formality, though the faintest ghost of a smile lingered at the corner of his mouth.
Maekar snorted softly at that little exchange.
“Come along, brother,” he said. “If you leave them to it much longer, the Stormlords will drink the bloody cellars dry.”
He cast Myra one last quick look, amused and faintly approving all at once.
“Well ridden, my lady. You’ve given them something to choke on for years.”
With that he stepped back, letting the canvas fall shut behind him with a soft rustle.
For a moment the tent was quiet again.
Baelor looked back to Myra.
“They will drink the cellars dry if I do not intervene.”
“I should hate to be responsible for that.”
He smiled at that, the warmth of it softening the sharper lines of his face.
Myra tilted her head, studying him beneath the wavering candlelight.
Baelor regarded her a moment longer, as if there were something more he meant to say and had thought better of. For an instant it seemed he might speak again, but whatever words had risen to his lips were left unspoken.
Then she gave a small nod.
“I hope to see you there.”
He lingered a heartbeat longer than was necessary, his gaze resting on her as though committing the moment to memory.
And with that he turned and went toward the light beyond the tent, pushing aside the canvas flap and stepping out into the bright noise of the tourney field once more.
Chapter Three | A Dangerous Dance
