— arela ◞𓍼

YOU HAD been born a Baratheon, and yet from the moment you could walk, it seemed the world never quite knew what to do with you.

Storm’s End was a fortress built to withstand gales and thunder, but even its thick stone walls felt indifferent to your presence. You were not the eldest child, the one groomed for legacy and expectation. That was something your older brother bore with stolid strength and determination, a man as severe as lords twice his age. You were not the youngest just as well, whose sweetness and promise drew the admiring gazes of lords seeking gentle wives and docile futures. That honor belonged to your lovely sister—mild-mannered, beautiful in a way that softened rooms, perfect in all the ways men liked their daughters and brides.

You were the middle one. The forgotten one, the one of little consequence.

Your parents loved you, of course. There was no denying such fact. However, love, when spread thin and distracted by duty, has a way of becoming distant. 

They did not scold you harshly nor praise you lavishly. They did not correct you often because, in truth, there was little incentive to. You were never meant to inherit, never meant to be bargained for in marriage with the same urgency as your sister. And so, left largely to your own devices, you grew much like a vine untended. A wild little thing, curling wherever it pleased, stubbornly alive.

It was perhaps inevitable that you found your true upbringing not beneath your parents’ careful eyes, but in the booming laughter of your uncle.

Lyonel Baratheon—the Laughing Storm himself—was everything Storm’s End pretended not to be. Where the castle that was supposed to raise you had been stern, he was riotous. Where duty weighed heavy upon your house’s shoulders, he would dance. Where men spoke carefully of politics and restraint, your uncle laughed with a goblet in one hand and a sword in the other.

He was a storm given flesh. Someone charismatic, bombastic, fiercely honorable, and utterly unafraid of the world. A warrior who laughed as he crushed opponents, who roared louder when insulted, who loved with the same intensity he fought. The smallfolk adored him, the soldiers followed him without second thought, and even the court could not help but watch when he entered a room.

And you—initially unnoticed by most—were always there at his side.

You watched him dance when others stood stiff. You learned to speak boldly because he had never punished honesty. You learned to laugh loudly because he never was one to shush joy. You learned, through his indulgent guidance, that strength did not always have to be quiet, and that being feared was not half as powerful as being unforgettable.

By the time you were grown, the court had already decided what you were. The girl that was too loud. The girl who was a bit too unruly. The little doe who was just too… Baratheon.

You reveled, drank, danced, and spoke your mind with little care for propriety. You did as you wished, because no one had ever truly asked you to do otherwise. And when lords looked past you in favor of your sister, you learned not to mind. Attention, after all, had never been your currency.

That was why the banquet felt like nothing more than another night of music and wine to you—at least at first.

It had been thrown in honor of a visiting delegation and to celebrate a minor courtly occasion. It was the sort of thing that mattered greatly to those who lived by their titles and making a show of it, and very little to anyone with blood still warm in their veins. 

Normally, your uncle would have been the soul of such an evening, his booming laughter and reckless charm ensuring no one dared to call the night dull. But Lyonel Baratheon had been delayed—some matter of arms or pride or both, knowing him—and you had been sent in his stead.

The hall had murmured with disappointment at first. The Laughing Storm absent? How dreadfully proper this night would be, then. You could not, in your good conscience, abide that.

You arrived late on purpose, skirts swirling, already smiling as though the night had whispered a secret meant only for you. Torches have lined the walls, casting gold and shadow across polished stone. Lords and ladies sat stiff-backed, speaking in low voices about alliances and obligations. Music played softly, restrained, polite. To you, it was a bit too much like music meant to be listened to, not felt.

You had already lived enough lifetimes in such short span of years to know how such evenings ended. It would be dreary and miserable, with weary courtesies, half-empty cups, and promises no one intended to keep.

So you acted to fix it. You were known for such things, after all.

By then, your name carried a particular sort of reputation—one spoken with admiration by the bold and with quiet disapproval by those who preferred their daughters to be submissive, obedient. You had danced with lords and laughed with knights, shared kisses with men whose names you barely remembered by dawn. None of it had ever meant very much to you. You had broken hearts not out of cruelty, but carelessness. You loved easily, briefly, and without promise.

Men mistook your warmth for devotion. Cruelly so, if you had half a mind to be aware of yourself, you never corrected them.

So when you stepped onto the floor and pulled one noblewoman after another into motion, when you laughed and clapped and coaxed the musicians into something faster, brighter, more alive, the hall transformed. The wine began to flow. Shoes start to scuff against the floor. Conversations rose into laughter. Even the most rigid courtiers found themselves smiling despite their best efforts, roped into the crowd moving with bliss.

With little grace, that was when you saw him.

Valarr Targaryen sat at the end of the high table, ever above the salt, like a blade laid carefully upon velvet—perfectly placed, perfectly still.

You had heard of him before you ever laid eyes upon him that night. The whispers had reached you early in the evening, traded between goblets of wine, ale, and careful courtesies. The prince had come in place of his elders, they said. His family was detained by matters of the realm and obligation elsewhere, and so he had been sent to represent the dragon in their stead.

It struck you then as faintly amusing, how you stood in your uncle’s place while he sat in his family’s. Two heirs of temperament, if not of title.

He did not drink much, you note with the absence of drunken rouge on his skin. His cup remained half-touched beside him, serving more as ornament than indulgence. His posture was immaculate—shoulders squared, chin lifted just enough to command respect without seeming arrogant. His dark hair caught the reflection of torchlight, the strand of silver shining under the light like pale flame.

Among all these, it was his stillness that drew you in. For stillness, in a room so alive, was louder than laughter.

His eyes followed the crowd with quiet intensity, not lazily nor idly. He only observed, measured, and assessed. There was calculation there in his violet-brown gaze—but not cruelty. There was no boredom, either. You believe it wholly to be something else. A tension held taut beneath polished manners.

Most would have mistaken it for disinterest. You did not. Your uncle had taught you better than that.

Lyonel used to say that one must learn to listen to silence, leaning close then as though he was imparting some grand secret. He divulged that men shout their strengths, but they whisper their weaknesses. 

Watch who laughs too loud, he counseled, and who does not laugh at all.

You had grown up studying faces across feasting tables because of that man. Really, quite a surprising thing considering his disposition. But because of him, you learned which knights puffed their chests to mask insecurity, which lords softened their voices when they wanted something, which courtiers smiled without warmth. You learned how to make people comfortable, how to disarm them, how to coax them into revealing what lay beneath silk and steel.

And what you saw in Valarr was not indifference. It was restraint.

He wanted to move. You could see it in the subtle flex of his fingers against the goblet’s stem, in the way his gaze lingered a heartbeat too long on the dancers when the music swelled. But something—duty, expectation, the weight of a name older than storms—held him fast to his seat.

A prince does not lose himself in revelry. A prince remains composed. A prince represents.

You knew that burden well enough, though you are amply prudent to know that yours had always been lighter in comparison. You could afford chaos. He could not.

You noticed him because he was the only one not moving. Because in a hall you had set ablaze with laughter, he remained untouched by the flame.

You danced past him once, skirts brushing near his boots, laughter directed at an old lord that harrumphed a jest trailing where you pass as though a challenge. His eyes flicked to you—sharp and assessing—but he did not rise.

You passed him again, this time spinning deliberately closer, watching from the corner of your eye as his jaw tightened ever so slightly. It was worth noting to you that it did not seem a displeased sort, nor scandalized. Rather, he seemed quite… tempted.

When that did not break his composure, you stopped directly before him, hands on your hips, eyes bright with challenge.

Up close, you saw more. You saw that he was not shy, for shy men avoided eye contact as would a sinner avoid the seven-pointed star in a sept. He did not. He met your gaze evenly, steadily, but with caution. A certain… carefulness. As though he feared venturing wrong into a world that would remember every misstep, especially from him.

You tilted your head, studying him as one might study an opponent before a duel. Oh, you thought. You are not cold. You are merely waiting for permission to burn.

“Why, you look positively miserable,” you said, not unkindly.

He blinked, clearly startled, as though he had not expected to be addressed at all, much less so directly. “I— I beg your pardon, my lady?”

You smiled wider. “You are allowed to enjoy yourself, you know. This is a celebration, after all, not a sentencing.”

His eyes flicked past you to the whirling dancers, then back again, measured and thoughtful. “Some of us are required to maintain a certain decorum.”

“Decorums die of tediousness,” you replied at once. “Usually young and terribly unmourned, I find.”

The corner of his mouth betrayed him, twitching despite his effort to suppress it. “That may be so, but I fear my family would not appreciate me abandoning propriety in favor of—” his gaze dipped briefly to your spinning skirts, “—enthusiasm.”

“Oh, please do not flatter me,” you said mischievously. “I am far worse than enthusiasm.” 

You extended a hand. “Come dance.”

“Do you have any knowledge of who I am?”

You groan in playful vexation, eyes rolling in your sockets. “Must you truly bore me with talk of titles, Your Grace?”

“You do, then,” he concludes, appearing torn between uncertainty and relief.

“So what?” 

It truly had been unwise to act so insolently, especially with someone of such consequence such as he. Even so, after the counts of wine and beer you’ve had, though it was not too much, it did give you an almost blind confidence and unawareness that made you care far less than you should have.

“I do not… dance,” he breathed out, seeming bewildered and defeated all at once.

You leaned closer, lowering your voice as though sharing a secret meant only for him. “Liar.”

A pause stretched between you. He studied you now—not the crowd, not the room, but you. There was something like disbelief in his expression, as though he were trying to decide whether you were real or merely another reckless impulse best to be ignored.

“I truly must decline,” he said at last.

Unwilling to admit defeat, even to a challenge only you had struck against yourself, you took his hand anyway. It was warm, strong in its grip. It felt calloused in places that suggested he was no stranger to swords, no matter how courtly he appeared. He stiffened at the contact—but he did not pull away.

“Oh, do not look so frightened,” you laughed softly. “I vow not to scandalize you too terribly, or the Gods themselves shall strike me down.”

“I am not frightened,” he replied, a touch too quickly—though the faint color rising in his ears told a different story.

“Of course not,” you said, already tugging him gently upward. “You’re a dragon. Dragons do not fear storms.”

He should have refused again. He should have reminded you of titles and expectations and duty.

He did neither.

Once standing, he hesitated, uncertain what to do with his hands, his posture too formal for the lively rhythm now spilling through the hall. You stepped closer, placing one hand lightly at his shoulder, the other guiding his arm as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

“Just follow me,” you said. “I’ll take the blame if anyone scolds.”

He let out a quiet breath—half laugh, half surrender—and allowed himself to be led.

At first, his movements were careful, measured, as though he feared stepping wrong would echo through history. But you laughed when he stumbled, teased him gently when he grew too stiff, praised him when he relaxed even a fraction. Slowly, the tension eased from his shoulders. His steps grew surer. His smile—when it came—was unguarded and rare, as though it had been waiting patiently to coaxed out.

And in that moment, as the music carried you both, Valarr Targaryen realized that no duty had ever felt so heavy as the restraint he had imposed upon himself.

You, meanwhile, simply danced—unaware that with every laugh, every touch, every reckless smile, you were undoing him entirely.

It is later—when the music softened and the crowd thinned, when laughter dulled into murmurs and dancers began to drift back to their seats—you felt the shift in the air before anyone else did. You always did. Parties, you learned, had their rhythms, and this one was winding down, slipping into that familiar moment where joy became nostalgia before the night was even over.

You caught Valarr watching the musicians this time, no longer tense, no longer standing apart. Just thoughtful.

“Come,” you said quietly, tugging at his sleeve. “Before someone drags you into another polite conversation you don’t care about.”

He allowed himself to be led again, easier now, less hesitant. You guided him a few steps away from the hall and toward a balcony overlooking the vast expanse of land in this estate, where the torchlight flickered softly still and the noise faded into something manageable. Here, the air was cooler, quieter. Real.

For a moment, neither of you spoke.

Then he broke the silence, voice lower than before. “You don’t often slow down, do you, my lady.”

You glanced at him, surprised—not by the observation, but by the gentleness of it. “I do,” you said. “Just… not where people can see it. I rather it be my partiality to merrymaking that is remembered.”

“You enjoy this, then,” he said, gesturing vaguely toward the hall. “The noise. The attention.”

“It is the people I enjoy, my prince,” you corrected. “And I enjoy making things less unbearable for them.”

He smiled faintly. “You certainly make such endeavors look effortless.”

“It isn’t,” you said after a beat. Then, with a shrug, “I just grew to learn early that if no one is going to give you space, then you must take it.”

Something shifted in his expression then—something quieter, more serious.

“I… wasn’t meant to be here tonight, truth be told,” he admitted. “I had been sent.”

You hummed. “Funny that. So was I.”

He looked at you sharply. “You?”

“My uncle was delayed,” you said easily. “Storms, duties, pride—take your pick. I fill in  his sonorous absence when needed.”

Silence arose, so you turn to glance at Valarr whose stare lingered. You sensed the question before he could speak it and smiled pleasantly. “Lyonel Baratheon.”

“Lyonel Baratheon…” he repeated. “He is the one called ‘The Laughing Storm,’ is he not?”

You barely keep in a snort. You think to tell your uncle that a member of the royal family also knows him by his moniker, but save such musings for a later time. “Quite so.”

“That is… not what I expected. It is not ofttimes lords would send their nieces to attend these events on their behalf,” he said. There is a pause, before he scrambles to amend his verbiage. “W-Which is not reflective of your own abilities, of course. I believe you are well capable for your uncle to have chosen you to serve as his delegate.”

You laughed softly at his frantic response. “Do not take it to heart, Your Grace. I certainly do not. No one ever expects a woman to be trusted enough for such matters.”

You spoke then of small things at first—travel, places you had seen, places he had only heard about from lords and knights and men alike. From your perspective, it all seems much more agreeable. You told him of roads and inns and small moments that mattered more than feasts ever did. He listened closely, asking questions that showed he wasn’t merely being polite. And in turn, he spoke of expectations, of being watched even in stillness, of learning how to hold yourself so the world would not presume weakness.

“It is strange,” he said at last. “To want something so badly and yet never quite have the courage to reach for it.”

You studied him for a long moment. “Then maybe,” you said gently, “you should get out of your own head and reach for it scared.”

He looked at you then—not as a prince weighing propriety, but as a man standing at the edge of something unfamiliar and frightening and beautiful. “You make it sound simple.”

“It isn’t, my prince, nothing ever is,” you said. “But I reckon it would be worth it.”

For the first time that night, he laughed—not politely, not carefully, but honestly. And something in his chest unraveled.

When you finally stepped away, the night pulling you back toward laughter and noise, you paused just long enough to press a kiss to his cheek—quick, warm, and utterly careless.

“Thank you, Your Grace, for dancing,” you said, as if he had done you the favor.

To you, the gesture had been nothing. To him, it was everything.

As you disappeared back into the revel, Valarr remained in the balcony, heart racing, mind alight, utterly undone. He knew—without yet knowing how or why—that he would never quite escape the memory of you. He would never outrun the sound of your laughter, the warmth of your honesty. Especially not the way you saw him without reverence or fear.

Something irrevocable had begun. You, of course, noticed none of it.

You were a Baratheon, and storms never stop to see what they leave behind.

AFTER THAT night, Valarr Targaryen did not fade from your life as fleeting presences often did. He lingered.

At first, it was in the form of letters—careful, polite things carried by ravens, sealed with wax and restraint. He wrote of the weather where he was, of duties performed, of books he thought you might enjoy. You replied in looser hand, ink sometimes smudged, thoughts running ahead of formality. You wrote of travel, of boredom, of people who amused you, of nothing in particular and everything at once.

It became a rhythm.

Sometimes the letters crossed paths in the air, one raven rising as another descended. Sometimes weeks passed. Sometimes only days. And each time, you found yourself smiling before you ever broke the seal.

You met again, as though by fate’s casual design—at tourneys, at feasts, at courtly gatherings where banners snapped in the wind and history was quietly being written between cups of wine. You were almost always at your uncle’s side, laughter ringing from beneath his pavilion.

Your Uncle Lyonel thrived in such places, and you with him—your presence expected now, your energy welcomed. And Valarr was often nearby as well, not as free as you, not as unburdened, but present nonetheless.

He came with his father.

Prince Baelor—the heir to the Iron Throne, Hand to the King—commanded rooms with quiet gravity. Valarr followed a step behind, observant, composed, learning the weight he would one day bear. Where Baelor spoke of duty, Valarr listened. Where Baelor stood firm, Valarr stood straighter.

But when he found you across the crowd—laughing and dancing and alive—his reserve softened.

You grew close in the way only the young and unguarded ever truly do. Through shared glances, quiet jokes, and letters that grew warmer, bolder, though never explicit. And you, perhaps without meaning to found amusement in the way his eyes followed you, the way his attention sharpened whenever you leaned closer or laughed a bit too freely at his side.

You flirted like it was breathing—not because you often deigned to, but because warmth could not help but follow you wherever you went.

It was in the way you spoke to Valarr without fear or reverence, calling him by his name as though it were the most natural thing in the world. In the way you leaned in when he talked, not out of coyness but genuine interest, eyes bright and focused, making him feel—dangerously—like the only person in the room. You touched without thinking, as well, with a hand at his arm when you laughed, fingers brushing his sleeve as you passed, a brief squeeze of reassurance when conversation faltered. Small things, innocent things, really.

To you.

You listened to him in a way few ever did. When he spoke, you did not rush to fill the silence or redirect the topic—you let him finish, let his thoughts land, let him feel heard. You remembered details he mentioned once in passing and brought them up weeks later, casually, as though it meant nothing.

You teased him gently, never cruelly. You challenged his certainty, questioned his restraint, smiled as if you knew something he did not. Sometimes you praised him—his discipline, his thoughtfulness, the way he carried himself—and said it so plainly, so honestly, that he did not know where to place the feeling it stirred in him.

You never promised anything. You never asked for anything. And that, perhaps, was the most intoxicating part.

To Valarr, every letter felt like an invitation, every meeting like a secret shared. He mistook your ease for intimacy, your affection for intention. He thought the way you looked at him—open, amused, warm—meant you saw him as something singular when, in truth, you were simply being yourself.

Storms do not need intent to uproot trees, regardless. They only need to pass close enough. And Valarr, standing in your wake, fell like it was fate—never realizing you had never meant to make him fall at all.

The breaking point came during a tourney—one of many, but one that would stain his memory forever.

Your uncle’s tent was alive that night, swollen with sound and motion, a riot of music, sweat, and unchecked joy. Soldiers spun noblewomen badly across the rugs. Squires pounded tankards against tables in crooked rhythm. Someone had shoved a long trestle aside to make space for dancing, and the packed earth beneath your feet trembled with the force of it all.

It was chaos—glorious, unmeasured chaos—and you belonged to it the way flame belongs to air.

Valarr had gone because he thought you would be there.

And you were.

He saw you at once—however could he not? The torchlight caught in your hair, skirts fanning as you turned, laughter spilling from you without restraint. You did not merely dance, you commanded the space around you. Men straightened when you passed. Women smiled despite themselves. You were audacious joy given mortal form, as if the gods had carved you from thunder and given you a heartbeat.

He could have watched you forever.

Until he saw the lord.

The man was handsome in an easy, polished way—broad-shouldered, flushed with drink, confidence curling at the edge of his grin. His hands rested at your waist with familiarity that made Valarr’s jaw tighten. You did not remove them. If anything, you leaned closer. Your laughter softened, became something warmer. When the lord bent toward you, his mouth hovering just shy of yours, you tilted your chin up in answer.

Valarr did not remember crossing the space between you. One moment he was watching and the next—

His hand closed around your arm, firm, pulling you back. “Enough.”

The word cracked through the music like a whip.

You stumbled half a step, startled, still processing the near-kiss, still feeling the warmth of another body close to yours. The lord blinked in confusion as Valarr stepped between you, all rigid lines and burning eyes.

“She’s had too much to drink,” Valarr said, voice clipped, controlled only by force.

The musicians faltered. A lute string gave a miserable twang and went silent. Conversation thinned into sharp pockets of attention.

The lord straightened at once, recognition dawning with visible alarm. “Your—Your Grace,” he stammered, bowing awkwardly. “I meant no disrespect. I assure you, I-I had no ill intent toward the lady—”

“You were about to kiss her,” Valarr said coldly.

The lord flushed. “Only because she—she did not object—”

“I did not object,” you cut in, heat rising to your cheeks—not from shame, but fury. “Valarr—”

Valarr’s fingers tightened at your arm, unyielding but never to hurt.

The lord, desperate to recover his footing, stepped forward slightly. “My prince, I swear, the lady was willing. I would never presume—”

He reached toward you—perhaps to steady you, perhaps to prove his innocence. Valarr shoved him back with a hard palm to the chest. It was not a dramatic blow, but it was entirely unmistakable.

“Don’t you touch her,” Valarr said, voice low and lethal.

That was when the tent truly fell quiet. Whispers sparked like flint all over. A prince. A shove. Over a lady. Over you.

Your humiliation flared into something incandescent.

You tore your arm from Valarr’s grasp. “What are you doing?” you demanded under your breath, heart pounding not with swooning gratitude, but with white hot rage.

The lord looked between you, mortified. “I assure you, Your Grace, there was no dishonor meant—”

“Leave,” Valarr said, not looking at him.

“My prince—”

“Now.”

The authority in his tone brooked no argument. The lord hesitated only a moment before bowing stiffly and retreating into the crowd, eyes following him with hungry interest. You could feel every single one of them. Worse yet, with one glance toward the other end of the tent, where your Uncle Lyonel looked on with a severe gaze bordering between displeasure and concern, it was as if the embarrassment that has burrowed beneath your skin grew teeth.

Without another word, you grabbed Valarr by the wrist—hard—and pulled him through the parted bodies, past the flap of the tent, into the cooler night air beyond. The sounds of revelry rushed back in behind you, louder now, edged with speculation and no doubt your uncle’s attempt to divert the crowd’s attention.

You did not stop until you were well clear of prying ears. Only then did you turn on him.

“What in the Seven Hells was that?” you hissed, voice low but shaking with fury.

“He— He was taking advantage of you,” Valarr replied immediately. The words came out too fast, too sharp, as though he had spent too long a moment wanting to say them. “He had no right—”

“No right?” You turned on him, incredulous. “I gave him every right, Valarr. I wanted him to kiss me.”

The sentence landed like a blow.

For a moment, he did not move, did not speak. He simply stared at you, as if the ground beneath his feet had tilted and he had not yet, nor will he ever, find his balance again. The anger drained from his face first—then came confusion, raw and unguarded. After that, there appeared something unmistakably wounded.

“You do not know that,” he said at last, but the certainty was gone from his tone. “You do not know what men are like when—”

“I know exactly what men are like,” you cut in. “And I am not some fragile maiden in need of saving.”

“That is not what I think,” he said quickly.

“Then why did you treat me like one?”

The question hung between you.

Valarr dragged a hand through his hair, breath uneven now, the careful restraint he wore like armor beginning to crack. “You cannot possibly expect me to stand idly by while someone makes a spectacle of you.”

You laughed softly, humorless. “Are you listening to yourself? You are the one who made a spectacle,” you said, voice tight with restrained fury. “Do you have any idea what you just did?”

“I stopped him.”

“You shoved a lord in front of half the realm,” you said coldly. “You embarrassed him. And you embarrassed yourself.”

He straightened, shoulders going rigid. “I do not care what they think.”

“Well, you should!” you snapped, stepping closer. “You are not some reckless knight in a tent full of drunkards. You are the firstborn son of the heir to the Iron Throne. You cannot go about striking men because you dislike where their hands are placed.”

His eyes lifted to yours, sharp and burning. “It wasn’t dislike.”

“Then what was it? Hm?”

He faltered, actually faltered, and took a step back as if the answer had struck him before he was ever ready to speak it aloud. When he finally did, his voice was quieter and considerably unsteady.

“You nearly kissed him.”

“Yes!” you said at once, unflinching. “Yes, Valarr, I did. And what of it?”

His breath caught. His hands curled at his sides, knuckles whitening as though he were holding himself together by force alone.

“And what of—” He stopped, swallowed hard, then tried again. “What of what we have?”

The words cost him something. It showed in the way his voice cracked—not loudly, not enough for you to catch unless you were listening for it. 

But you laughed. It was not unkind nor deliberate. It was instinctive and light, almost fond, as though he had made a clever joke you had not expected.

“We?” you echoed, brows lifting in genuine surprise. “Gods, Valarr. There is no we. There never has been.”

The silence that followed was immediate and devastating.

Something in his face hardened completely, all warmth gone in an instant, as though shutters had slammed shut behind his eyes. The hurt was still there—you could see it as clear as morning—but it had been buried beneath pride and restraint and something dangerously final. Without another word, he turned away.

He did not shout. He did not argue. He did not look back. He walked into the night with his features set to stone, leaving behind the music, the laughter, and the girl who had become the axis of his world without ever knowing it.

You did not follow.

And Valarr learned, in that moment, what it meant to love a storm—and be left standing in the ruin it never meant to cause.

ALL OF it was nearly a triennium ago now—though it has never felt like something that belongs to the past. The memory remains sharp, unsoftened by time, as vivid as torchlight against canvas. You know precisely how long it has been because, at this very moment, a piece of news has reached you that makes those events feel not distant at all—but dangerously, painfully present.

You had not even been meant to hear it.

It came drifting through the stone corridors of Storm’s End as idle house staff chatter often did—careless, half-muttered, passed between handmaidens adjusting sleeves and housemen pretending not to listen. A prince, someone said. A betrothal. A lady from Tyrosh.

That was all. No certainty. No care for the damage such words could do. You suspect that they had heard it from the lords and ladies that came at your Uncle’s disposal for feasts and festivities of no apparent reason, holding onto the word “prince” to be of more consequence than the detail of this prince’s name. Either way, your heart stilled all the same. 

A prince is to be betrothed to a lady from Tyrosh.

Your mind did not need to wander through possibilities. It did not consider cousins or distant branches of the dragon’s line. It did not pause to ask which prince, or whether the rumor held truth at all. It went to him at once.

Valarr Targaryen.

Of course it did. No other prince had ever mattered enough to you for the thought to sting, after all.

The reaction was immediate and undignified. It felt like a sharp, hot twist in your chest, like breath stolen from your very insides without warning. Alarm followed close behind, quick and vicious, curling into something darker before you could stop it. A sort of bitter taste akin to jealousy, possessiveness, and perhaps a flare of something you did not yet have the courage to name.

You told yourself you had no right. You told yourself this was absurd—that you had been the one to laugh at the ridiculous notion back then, the one to dismiss, the one to watch him walk away without an effort to stop him. You had never claimed him. You had never promised him anything, nor did you even allow the possibility to linger long enough to settle.

Be that as it may, the idea of him choosing someone else, of his attention turning where it had once lingered on you, felt utterly intolerable. Not because you believed he belonged to you, but because some traitorous part of you had always assumed he would remain there. A patient man—your patient man—waiting, open, and unclaimed.

You had never been accustomed to competition.

Men always came quite easily to you. Attention, in your wealth of experience, had never needed to be fought for. And Valarr—ever-steady, ever-forbearing, ever-earnest Valarr—had felt less like a conquest and more like a certainty you could return to whenever you wished. 

The realization struck you with humiliating clarity… that you had mistaken his devotion for permanence.

Worse still, the thought of a lady from Tyrosh—foreign, elegant, deliberate—made something sharp and ugly coil in your stomach. She was someone who was chosen, worse yet, intended. Someone who might take him seriously in all the ways you had not.

In hindsight, you are reminded by it that you were meant to serve at court now. Having been summoned to King’s Landing—a role was offered to you with polite insistence, one you had accepted without much thought at the time. Truthfully, the invitation had been a matter your mother and father was made aware of prior to you. Duty, they called it. Opportunity. Proximity to power.

Proximity to him, your mind supplied unhelpfully.

Officially, your appointment was an honor beyond question. You were to serve as a lady-in-waiting to the young niece-wife of Prince Maekar Targaryen, a princess spoken of with rare and sincere fondness. Court whispered that she was gentle where her husband was unyielding, gracious where he was sharp—a tempering presence, a soft hand laid upon iron. To attend her was to stand close to the royal line without inviting suspicion, to be seen as useful rather than threatening. A perfect placement for a lady of your house.

You told yourself you understood this. You told yourself you were grateful. You even meant it, in some distant, well-mannered part of your heart.

Yet gratitude was a thin thing compared to the pulse of anticipation that followed you through every corridor of thought. The Red Keep was not merely the seat of power, to you. It was where you knew Valarr resided now, where his days unfolded beneath the same roof that would soon shelter you. 

You would attend the same feasts, kneel within the same sept (not with a choice of your own, as someone near irreligious), stay in the same courtyards where glances could linger too long and words were to be weighed like coins. You would move in the same orbit, close enough that chance alone could no longer be blamed.

As a lady-in-waiting, you would attend the princess at dawn and dusk, help oversee her household, accompany her in public, stand just behind her chair at court. You would listen more than you spoke, smile when required, learn the subtle grammar of power that ruled the Keep more firmly than any crown. And all the while, beneath silk and duty, something restless would coil in you—an awareness that this summons had not only placed you near the heart of the realm, but near the one person you had never quite managed to leave behind.

You would come to serve a princess—this was the version of the story you repeated to yourself, the one that sounded proper and orderly and fit for a lady of House Baratheon. A bidding to court was an honor. A duty, a sensible next step for someone of your birth.

But some treacherous part of you knew the truth even as you clung to the lie, that you would have gone to King’s Landing regardless, so long as he was there.

The realization did not arrive all at once. It unfurled slowly, insidious and unwelcome, coiling itself around your thoughts. You told yourself it was curiosity, nothing more. Or perhaps closure. Guilt, even. After all, you had not been kind. You had never been careful. 

This—whatever this feeling was—was unbecoming. You knew that. It was not the sort of thing a lady ought to entertain, least of all over a man she had never named, never claimed, never promised herself to. 

You had never loved him. At least, that was what you insisted. And so what did it say about you, to feel this sharp, unsettled heat in your chest at the mere suggestion that he might soon belong to someone else? It felt ugly and petty. Pernicious, if you were honest.

You had absolutely no right to it.

And yet, all the same, you did not like the idea of losing something that had once been yours in all the ways that mattered, even if you had refused to give it a name. You did not like imagining another woman laughing with him, standing where you once had, learning the weight of his silences and the steadiness of his regard. Worse still, you did not like the thought that she might take him seriously in the way you never had, or that she might be given the chance to love him properly, where you had only ever danced around the edges.

All you truly knew was a prince was to be betrothed to a lady from Tyrosh. Nothing else had been spoken to you. No assurance offered. The rumor stopped being harmless the moment it took root in your chest. It became something sharp, personal, and thoroughly past bearing.

Your pulse quickened, defiant and disordered, as a single, reckless thought took hold.

No, you thought. Not like this. Not without a fight.

KING'S LANDING greeted you the way it greeted everyone—loud and hot and unapologetically alive—just the way you remembered it. The Red Keep loomed above the city like a promise and a threat all at once, its red stone glowing beneath the sun as though it remembered every fire it had ever survived. You had been to court before, of course, in visitation to him, in trivial noise and equally unimportant celebration—but never like this. Never to stay. Never to serve.

You were escorted through halls that smelled faintly of incense and polish, past tapestries heavy with history, until you were announced into the solar of the princess you were now bound to.

Prince Maekar’s wife—his niece by blood, his princess by law—rose from her seat at once when you entered.

She was younger than you had expected, or perhaps simply softer than the court stories suggested. Her gown was modest in cut but rich in fabric, her glimmering silk-silver hair braided simply, her smile unguarded and bright. She did not wait for you to kneel for long before stepping forward herself.

“Please, my sweet,” she said gently, hands already reaching to lift you. “You are a Lady of House Baratheon. I would not have you on the floor.”

Her touch was light and reassuring, unpracticed in command, from what you could deduce, but still practiced in care. Her voice carried the same warmth, clear and earnest, lacking the brittle authority you had braced yourself to endure from someone of her status. You note, just as significantly, the sheer verity and luster in her spirit, an air about her that is uncomplicated and could not possibly be feigned.

“I am very glad you have come,” she continued, studying you not as one might appraise a servant, but as one welcomes a guest. “I have heard you are quite… lively.”

You huffed a quiet laugh before you could stop yourself. “That is one word for it, Your Grace.”

She grinned wider at that, a soft, genuine thing. “You may call me Princess,” she said and seemed quite excited by it. “I should like us to be comfortable with one another.”

It disarmed you at once.

She gestured for you to sit with her rather than stand at attention, pouring the wine herself—an intimacy you had not expected, nor quite knew how to respond to. After all your time out and about, it is not a common practice you observed from those of higher status to do such a gesture. You accepted the cup carefully, posture still stiff with habit, hands folded neatly in your lap.

“I hope the journey had not been too tiring,” the princess said. “King’s Landing can be a bit unkind to newcomers.”

“It was long, Your—Princess,” you corrected yourself quickly, earning a soft laugh from her. “But I have journeyed worser roads and even worser company. The Keep is… certainly impressive.”

“Well. That is a polite way to put it,” she smiled conspiratorially. “Most people mean overwhelming.”

You allowed yourself a small one in return. “Yes. I suppose that too.”

She asked after Storm’s End then—about the sea winds, the sound of the waves battering stone, the storms that gave your house its name. When you spoke of it, you heard yourself soften, the formality loosening just a touch.

“It must be very loud,” she said, eyes alight. “Though I imagine the storms are magnificent.”

“They are,” you replied. “You’re forced to learn quickly whether you love the noise or resent it. There is no in-between.”

“And you?” she asked. “Which are you?”

You hesitated. “I think… I grew to love it. It gives you allowance to be unruly, especially at the height of a particularly heavy rainfall, I find.”

She laughed at that, delighted. “I think I would like storms very much, then.”

After sipping from her cup, the Princess leans forward suddenly with blithe interest. “Lord Lyonel—The Laughing Storm. I have heard so many stories.”

You couldn’t help yourself as your smile turned fond. “Most of them are true, I can vouch for it. And the rest… well, they are probably understatements.”

Her laughter rang bright and genuine, echoing lightly against the stone walls. “We could use more men like him here. People tend to forget how to laugh in this place.”

“Court does have a way of weighing on people,” you said carefully.

She nodded, swirling her wine. “It does. There are days I feel as though I’ve lived a dozen lives without ever leaving these walls.” She glanced up at you then, almost shy. “I do not often get to leave the castle.”

You blinked. “Not at all?”

“Rarely,” she admitted. “There are so many rules. So many eyes. And yet…” She smiled again, softer now. “I am happy. I have my duties. My books. My garden. My lovely children. I find joy where I can.”

Something about the way she said it—without bitterness, without regret—caught you off guard.

“That is… admirable,” you said honestly. “I think I would go mad.”

She tilted her head. “Perhaps. Or perhaps you would learn new ways to be free.”

You laughed quietly, the sound surprising even yourself. “You speak like someone who has made peace with things others might resent.”

“I suppose I have,” she said simply. “And you? Are you at peace?”

The question was gentle. Curious and not demanding, which makes you hesitate, then answer truthfully. “I do not know yet, Princess.”

She reached out then, resting her hand lightly over yours. “That is all right. There is no need to rush here.”

For the first time since arriving in the Red Keep, you felt your shoulders ease up. You wondered then—quietly, unexpectedly—if perhaps joy did not always require escape.

“I imagine court will feel rather different,” she said after a moment. “Especially for someone like you.”

“I imagine it already does,” you replied honestly, then hesitated. “I can only hope I will not disappoint you.”

“You will not,” she said at once, too quickly for courtesy, her certainty earnest. “Do not think so, my lady. I did not ask for you because I needed perfection. I asked for you because I needed someone real.”

She hesitated then, fingers tightening slightly around her cup. “My last lady-in-waiting has only just retired. She has been with me since I was but a child. She knew my silences better than my words.” A small, wistful smile touched her lips. “It is strange, learning how to be without her.”

Something softened in your chest. “I’m honored you would trust me with that place,” you said quietly.

“I think you will be good for me,” the princess replied, sounding quite sure of herself. “And I for you, perhaps. We shall learn each other in time.”

She spoke of her household then—of duties and rhythms, of mornings filled with petitions and evenings heavy with ceremony. She made it all sound manageable, even gentle, as though life in the Red Keep were not something to be endured, but navigated like a thrilling venture. How she maintains such excitement for a place she’s been in for so long, you do not know.

“You will find it overwhelming at first,” she admitted softly. “But it becomes easier when you stop thinking of it as a cage and instead start thinking of it as a crossroads.”

You nodded, though your attention had already begun to drift—treacherously, involuntarily.

Your eyes traced the archways beyond her solar door. The corridors beyond. The staircases. The countless hidden turns of the castle.

Where would he be?

A part of you reckon he’d be sparring with knights in the training yard. Perhaps tending to matters of the court in council chambers, or brooding in some shaded gallery overlooking the city. The thought slipped in unbidden, persistent as an ache. You wondered if he had already passed beneath these same banners today, if you had missed him by mere moments.

“Lady Baratheon?”

You blinked, startled, realizing you had not heard the last of the princess’ words.

“I—Forgive me, Princess, I did not mean to lose myself in thought,” you said at once, flushing. “I do believe the journey was longer than I thought my body could handle.”

She regarded you for a moment, eyes thoughtful but not unkind. If anything, there was something knowing there. Something almost… amused.

“Of course,” she said, letting the matter drop with grace. “The Keep has a way of pulling one’s thoughts in many directions. Hearts are not always punctual.”

You stiffened slightly at that, though she only smiled, serene and distant, as though indulging a private fancy.

“I am glad you are here,” she added, almost dreamily. “I believe some meetings are meant to happen twice. Or perhaps… finished properly.”

You did not yet understand what she meant.

But as you left her presence later that day—heart restless, thoughts circling the same forbidden name again and again—you had the uncanny feeling that the princess already knew exactly who you were searching for. 

And perhaps, in her own quiet way, she was hoping for the same ending you had not yet dared to admit you wanted.

BY THE end of your first full day in the Red Keep, you had learned that serving a princess was less about idle attendance and more about quiet constancy. Better yet, it did not come as much of a surprise that you found yourself enjoying it.

Your first conversation with her had already softened whatever wariness you’d brought with you to court. Now, with each passing hour, that initial trust deepened into something steadier. She did not keep only one lady-in-waiting—no royal woman of rank ever did—but you were the newest, and increasingly the one most often at her side. 

There were others, of course. From elder ladies who oversaw her household accounts and dowries to younger girls learning how to walk, speak, and smile without offending half the realm. Even so, it was you she asked to remain when the room thinned. You were the lady she would ask to sit beside her in the solar as her correspondence was read and quietly annotated. You were the lady she would ask to walk with her through the gardens while she dictated replies, trusting you to remember which words must be softened and which sharpened.

You helped her dress in the mornings. Where, instead of doing so in silence, you offered kinds of conversation she must have  desperately sought for quite a time. You learned which gowns she favored when she wished to be taken seriously, which colors she wore when she was tired, and which jewels she avoided because they reminded her too much of obligations she had not chosen. 

You became, without ceremony, her gatekeeper in small ways, as well. Through announcing visitors, gently deflecting those she had no strength for that day, and lingering close enough at audiences that she could glance at you when she needed grounding.

More than anything, to a greater degree, you were her companion.

She spoke freely in your presence—more freely than court gossip would ever guess of her to be privy to. She talked of books she loved, of the quiet joy she found in tending her garden with her own hands, of spending all other free moments with her youngest children, or of how the castle felt smaller at night and louder during the day. Some of those times, she would pause mid-thought and murmur something half-formed, almost dreamlike.

“I dreamt of a dragon standing in the rain,” she said once, absently, fingers tracing the rim of her cup. “But he would not open his wings.”

Then she would blink, as if realizing she had spoken aloud, and laugh softly, brushing it aside.

Yet when you spoke—of history, of power, of the careful reading of people she seemed so intent on mastering—she listened with full attention. She asked questions. She remembered your answers. There was depth beneath her gentleness, insight beneath her warmth. A sharp steel beneath the softest of silks.

You learned things about her the court did not know, or perhaps did not care to notice. And in that knowledge, in that growing ease, you found yourself unexpectedly at home.

If only your thoughts did not keep straying—to corridors beyond your station, to footsteps that were not the princess’, to a prince you had not yet seen but felt everywhere all the same.

Still—throughout it all—your attention betrayed you.

It was your third day in the Keep. You had dined within its walls, learned the rhythms of its bells, slept beneath ceilings so intricately carved they seemed to whisper of old kings and older sins. You had walked its corridors often enough now to no longer lose your way, could anticipate which turns would open into light-filled galleries and which would narrow into shadowed passages meant for servants and secrets alike. On paper, at least, you were settling in.

And yet you had not seen him.

You told yourself it was for the best. That you required composure, distance, a steadier heart. That your first meeting after three years ought not happen by accident—some careless crossing in a corridor while your arms were full of parchment, or while you were mid-laugh at something the princess had said. You deserved more dignity than that. He did too.

Still, imagination was a traitor.

You caught yourself wondering where he walked now, which parts of the Keep he favored. Whether he still took his steps too quickly when agitated, whether his presence still seemed to bend a room toward him without effort. You imagined what it would be like to hear his voice again—not as a memory behind your eyelids softened by time, but sharp and immediate, spoken within arm’s reach. In these thoughts, your breath would hitch before you even realized it had changed.

The smallest sounds undid you. Every echo of boots against stone set your pulse racing. Every door opening drew your gaze up, unbidden, hopeful despite yourself. Once, while organizing the princess’s correspondence, you misplaced an entire letter simply because footsteps passed the solar entrance—and you were certain, for half a heartbeat, that they were his.

Your other duties suffered in subtle ways because of it, too.

You would catch yourself pausing a tad too long while fastening clasps or reading the same line of a missive twice before  understanding it. Even while walking beside the princess, listening as she spoke of her plans for a coming afternoon tea with the ladies of prospective ally houses or her thoughts on a visiting lord, part of you strained outward—toward hallways you could not see, toward a presence you felt rather than heard.

Even the princess, not often praised for being perceptive, noticed.

She noticed the way your hand stilled when a voice rose outside the door. She observed the way your attention fractured, just slightly, at even the mere sound of male laughter in the distance. She took heed of the way your thoughts seemed always half a step ahead of where you stood.

And she said nothing.

Instead, she slowed her pace when you walked together, as if giving you time to gather yourself. She repeated instructions gently when your focus slipped. Once, when you startled at the sound of approaching guards, she merely smiled and shifted the conversation elsewhere, sparing you the embarrassment of explanation.

In that silence, you sensed understanding—not prying, not judgmental, but patient. As though she knew that some absences were louder than presences, and that some names did not need to be spoken aloud to be felt in every stone of the Keep.

FOR DAYS now, she had been speaking of it—almost offhandedly at first, then with a growing fondness that made it clear the thought had taken root.

“We must take tea in the gardens,” the princess had said once while you were fastening the final clasp of her sleeve. “Not yet, of course. The sky has been too fickle. I want it clear. Properly clear.”

Another time, while you sorted correspondence at the solar table, she had sighed again that particular dreamy sigh of her and added, “When the sun behaves, it will be an enlightening day.”

That word had made you pause, quill hovering mid-air.

“Enlightening?” you had echoed, unable to keep the amusement from your voice.

She had only smiled, something small, knowing, and entirely unhelpful. “That is how it appears in my dreams, my lady.”

You had laughed then, soft and unguarded, teasing without malice. “Princess… do your dreams often plan your afternoons?”

“Why, more often than I would like,” she had replied, just as lightly. “Do yours not?”

“Oh, well, mine are far less poetic,” you had said. “Usually disordered things. Half-formed thoughts. Nothing worth arranging tea around.”

She had tilted her head, studying you with that quiet attentiveness you were beginning to recognize. “Still,” she had murmured, “I think you would make good company for an enlightening day.”

So when, on the morning of the fifth day, she invited you at last, it felt less like a command and more like the fulfillment of a long-promised indulgence.

The gardens were everything one would expect of a royal keep and still, they stole your breath. Roses climbed pale stone walls in disciplined abundance, their colors deep and lush, their scent heavy in the warming air. Low fountains murmured nearby, water catching the sunlight in quick silver flashes. The trellises, wrapped in nearly endless looping vines, arched overhead, offering dappled shade, and the paths beneath your feet were swept so clean they seemed sacramental.

You could not help but admire it all openly.

“They are beautiful,” you said, glancing around as servants set down the tea. “Even more so than the courtiers boast.”

The princess smiled into her cup. “They always boast. But I like to think the gardens listen better than most people.”

You took your place beside her, the familiar ease between you settling quickly. For a while, conversation flowed without effort—about the weather finally settling, about a book she had nearly finished, about how the roses had been transplanted years ago from another region entirely.

Then, idly, you asked, “Do you truly dream so often, Princess?”

She considered the question, eyes tracing the curve of her teacup. “Often enough that I have learned not to dismiss them,” she said. “Dragon dreams… They are not always clear. Sometimes they are only feelings. Light. Sound. A sense that something is… approaching.”

You frowned, curious rather than alarmed. “And today?”

She glanced up at the sky—blue, unmarred, almost indulgent in its clarity. “Today feels promising.”

You laughed softly, shaking your head. “You make it sound as though the day itself has its own intentions.”

“Can it not?” she countered gently.

You had no answer for that, only a fond smile. Whatever the court gossips said of her softness, whatever rumors clung to her like ill-fitting silks, moments like this revealed something else entirely. In these shared instances, one can truly distinguish her thoughtfulness, curiosity, and quiet confidence in her own inner world. If anything, your trust in her only deepened.

You were midway through explaining the difference between storm winds that threatened and those that merely boasted—using a half-remembered lesson from an old maester that served your house—when footsteps crunched across the gravel.

You did not turn at first, but the princess did, and her expression brightened just a fraction.

“Cousin!”

And your world tilted when you looked up.

Valarr Targaryen stood at the garden’s edge, sunlight catching faintly in the pale streak threaded through his dark hair. He looked… older. Not merely in years, as is obvious, but also in bearing. He looked broader through the shoulders, straighter in the spine. The softness that once clung to his expressions had now hardened into something disciplined, almost severe. His jaw was sharper now, his mouth set in a line that seemed practiced in restraint.

He bowed first to the princess. “Your Grace.”

Only then did his gaze shift and find you.

The world did not stop. The fountain still murmured, the breeze still stirred the roses. A bird even called somewhere beyond the hedges. Nevertheless, within that small circle of stone and sunlight, everything tightened as though a bowstring drawn too far.

It was not the startled stillness of prey in torchlight. It was the silence before a storm breaks over open sea.

His composure slipped, barely. There was a pause in his breath and the faintest narrowing of his eyes, not in anger, not quite in surprise—something deeper. Recognition. Memory.

You had imagined this moment a hundred times in the corridors of the Keep, in the privacy of your chamber before sleep claimed you. You had rehearsed calm greetings, measured smiles, a perfectly dignified nod.

None of it survived the reality.

You forgot how to breathe, and somehow, he recovered first.

“Your Grace,” he said evenly to the princess, drawing his gaze from you with deliberate control, “you sent for me?”

Sent for him? Your head turned so quickly toward the princess it was almost undignified. Confusion was written plainly across your face. You had not known. You would have prepared. You would have—

The princess merely lifted her cup, serene as ever. “Yes,” she said lightly. “I only wished to ask about your training. And whether you will accompany your father to the Riverlands for the name tourney of Lord Harroway’s grandson.”

There was something in the way she phrased it, in a manner too smooth and too careful to be truly casual.

Valarr inclined his head. “I am to go. My father believes it… advantageous.”

His tone was respectful, attentive—yet his shoulders held a stiffness that had not been there when he first approached. He has his hands clasped behind his back, fingers curling once against his palm before stilling. His weight shifted, not away from you yet not quite toward you either, as though he were standing on uncertain ground.

You noticed none of it, of course, for you were too busy noticing everything else.

The changes are more prominent to you, now that you have beheld him longer. How much taller he seemed. How his hair was unmistakably shorter than how he usually wore it from years past. How his voice had deepened, roughened at the edges. How the sunlight caught against his cheekbone and made him look carved from something stronger than flesh. He truly was refined now. A man contained, no longer the boy who had once laughed too freely and spoken too quickly.

You had wondered for days what it would be like to see him again, but you had not been prepared for this.

The princess gestured toward an empty chair. “Will you sit, Cousin?”

He hesitated—only a breath, barely perceptible—before inclining his head and doing as she asked. He did not take the seat beside you. Instead, he chose one angled just so: close enough to be proper, distant enough to be intentional. The space between you felt measured, accounted for, as carefully placed as any word left unsaid.

The princess smoothed her skirts, unbothered, and turned the conversation forward.

“I must confess,” the princess said lightly, turning her cup in her hands, “I know the Riverlands through maps and songs at best. They always sound either terribly romantic or deeply inconvenient. Which is it truly?”

Valarr answered at once, grateful—perhaps—for the solid ground of the subject. “Both hold truths, Your Grace. The rivers make travel slow, but they also gather people. Lords who would not cross mountains will cross bridges.”

“And which houses will attend?” she asked. “I can never keep them straight.”

“Those of note are House Tully, of course. Likely the Freys, as well. Though whether they arrive early or late is always a matter of speculation. A handful of river knights are often quite eager to prove themselves.” His tone was calm, practiced. His eyes never strayed from her face.

You curled your fingers more tightly around your teacup.

“Is it common,” the princess went on, “for such a tourney to carry… meaning beyond the lists?”

“Yes,” Valarr said. “Especially now. A visible show of unity reassures uncertain bannermen. It reminds them where power sits.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “Interesting… So presence matters just as much as victory.”

“It does.”

Her gaze flicked to you then, soft but deliberate. “I have heard that Lady Baratheon has seen more tourneys than I ever will,” she said. “Perhaps she might have an opinion of it.”

You straightened instinctively. “In the Riverlands, spectacle carries weight,” you said carefully. “The lords there are proud men. They notice who attends, who is honored publicly. A strong showing—”

“—is already expected,” Valarr interjected smoothly.

You faltered.

He did not raise his voice. He did not look at you. He simply continued, as though you had not spoken at all.

“My father’s presence alone will satisfy most concerns,” he said to the princess. “Victory is secondary. Order is what they wish to see.”

The princess hesitated. “Still, Lady Baratheon’s point about pride—”

“Pride is easily managed,” Valarr said. “River lords posture, but they do not fracture so easily.”

You swallowed. “Some do,” you said quietly. “Old grievances linger. A careless slight—”

“I believe you overestimate the fragility of their loyalties,” he replied at once. Measured and polite, yes, but final. The words struck like a door closing.

You stared into your tea. “It was only an observation,” you said after a moment, your voice steadier than you felt.

“And I have acknowledged it,” Valarr said, still facing his cousin just as he raises his own cup to his lips. “We simply disagree.”

The princess shifted in her seat, the air between the three of you suddenly taut. “If it is any consolation, I find differing views most useful,” she said gently.

“As do I, Your Grace,” Valarr answered at once.

But he did not look at you when he said it. Soon, thick and unmistakable silence crept in. The fountain’s murmur seemed suddenly too loud. You focused on breathing, on not shrinking.

At last, Valarr rose.

“I should not keep you from your afternoon,” he said to the princess, bowing with impeccable courtesy. “I thank you for the tea.”

She inclined her head, regret flickering across her features so briefly you might have imagined it.

He turned then. For a heartbeat—only one—his gaze met yours again.

There was something there. Something tightly leashed. His jaw tightened, as if swallowing words that had nearly escaped. His fingers flexed once at his side. His throat moved with a restrained breath.

You saw none of it. You only saw the wall.

He inclined his head. “Lady Baratheon.”

No smile. No softness. No indication of fondly recalling the past. And then he was gone, gravel crunching beneath his boots until even that sound faded into the hum of the garden.

You sat very still even after he was completely out of reach.

The garden felt altered in his absence. It is not quieter, precisely, but it feels hollowed out to you now. The fountains continued their patient song, the birds flitted and called from the hedges, and sunlight still warmed the stone beneath your palms. Life went on with an almost insulting normalcy.

The princess watched the path he had taken, her expression thoughtful, then faintly troubled. She set her cup aside, fingers folding together in her lap.

“I fear,” she said gently, “that did not go as I had hoped.”

You glanced at her, surprised by the candor.

“He has grown… disciplined,” she added after a moment, as if searching for a kinder word. There was regret there now, unmistakable. Not disappointment in him, but in the sharpness he had allowed to surface. “And yet discipline need not be unkind.”

You managed a small, careful smile. “It suits him,” you said, because it was easier than admitting how thoroughly it had cut.

But the truth pressed close all the same.

It was not what he had said that lingered. To you, what struck was everything he had chosen not to. You were not so blind to not see the way his eyes had slid past you. You were not so foolish to not take note the way your name had never crossed his lips. You were not so wrapped in your own head to not notice the way he had looked at you as though you were no more than another voice at court, easily dismissed.

A stranger.

The sting came suddenly, bright and humiliating, and you had to look down lest it show too clearly on your face. 

And yet—even as it hurt—you knew.

You knew this small, sharp ache was nothing. Not truly. It could not compare to the quiet devastation you had left behind years ago, spoken so carelessly, laughing where you should have been gentle. He was the one who turned away in the end, leaving with a sharpness that cut through the air between you. But you remained where you were, rooted in place, watching his retreating back without running after him and without fully understanding what had just been broken—or how deeply you had wounded him.

This—this coldness, this distance—was restraint learned the hard way. The knowledge did not soften the pain, as it only settled heavier in your chest.

You reached for your teacup, then thought better of it, setting it aside with deliberate care. Your hands steadied as your resolve did.

“I am sorry,” the princess said softly, and though she did not name what for, you understood. She had seen enough. Perhaps more than she had intended.

You inclined your head to her, gratitude mingling with resolve. “You had no way of knowing.”

But you did.

You had known this reunion was inevitable, that it would not be gentle. You had simply underestimated how much it would still matter.

Very well, you thought. If this was the shape of the ground between you now—cold stone, measured distance, pride sharpened into armor—then you would cross it all the same. If he would not meet you halfway, you would take the first step. And the next. And however many it required.

You would make him forgive you. You would make him remember not the girl who laughed and left, but the one who stayed. He will have to remember that you were the one who chose him, even now, even late.

And if, in the course of that effort, a certain lady from Tyrosh found her future less certain than gossip promised— 

Well. She would just have to accept that certain storms did not retreat simply because someone else wished for clear skies.

YOU TOLD yourself, at first, that you would be subtle, measured, and reasonable. 

You swore you would allow time to do its work—that familiarity would soften him, that proximity would loosen the careful knots he had tied around himself. You were, after all, no green girl chasing attention in corridors. You were a lady of House Baratheon, trained in restraint, in wit, in the art of saying much while appearing to say very little.

So you began there, engineering coincidence.

A shared corridor at the hour he favored after training, when his hair was still damp at the nape and the scent of leather and steel clung faintly to him. You would pass with an idle remark—about the weather turning, about the guards changing rotation, about a tourney rumor spoken lightly enough to invite correction.

Once, you smiled and said, “I hear the yard has been dull of late. Either the men are improving, or you are growing too merciful.”

He paused. Then turned. Then, for one grueling, hopeful heartbeat, you thought you had him.

“Discipline discourages carelessness, Lady Baratheon,” he replied evenly. Then he inclined his head and walked on.

You stood there, smiling after him like a fool, heat creeping up your neck.

All right, then. 

Subtlety, you decided, was overrated.

You knew—intellectually—that this was unbecoming. You could not even begin to fool yourself into thinking that waiting around corners and timing footsteps was the sort of thing women—prudent, self-reliant women—who had sat at councils and spoken freely among lords, did in their free moments. This was something girls in songs would do, swooningly and utterly overcome with passion. You knew that desperation was an unbecoming color, and worse, that you had no real claim to him. 

You had no worthy title. You hadn’t even a promise to cling to. What you had only was a history you had fractured with your own hands.

And yet, confidence had always been your vice as much as your strength. Baratheon blood did not know how to retreat quietly, and you were far too used to being wanted, to being answered when you reached.

So you waited.

It was absurd, really—standing just out of sight near the turn of a gallery, pretending to examine a tapestry you had already memorized, counting breaths and footsteps like a conspirator in your own folly. You told yourself you were merely testing fate, convinced yourself that if he passed, he passed. If not, you would go on with dignity intact.

And he did. He passed. It just so happened that you stepped out at precisely the wrong—or right—moment.

The collision was sudden, solid. You gasped as you stumbled forward, a moment you hadn’t foreseen, the world tilting—

And Valarr caught you.

His hands came up instinctively, strong and sure at your waist, steadying you before you could hit the stone. For the briefest instant, you were pressed against him, close enough to feel the heat of his body, the sharp inhale he failed to hide. His grip tightened, just slightly, as though his body had remembered something his mind had not permitted.

For half a heartbeat, neither of you moved. Then he realized.

He released you as if he were burned. It happened so abruptly that it was almost comical, with you staggering back a step, skirts tangling, barely managing to keep your balance. He retreated as well, posture snapping into rigid control, jaw set hard enough to ache.

“I—” you began, then stopped, pulse racing. You forced a laugh that came out a touch too bright. “F— Forgive me. I should watch where I am going.”

His eyes flicked over you, sharp and quick, as if checking for injury—and then away just as fast as it passed.

“Yes,” he said shortly. “You should.”

There it was again. That distance, that restraint wound so tight it creaked. He inclined his head, already moving to leave.

You watched him go, heart pounding—not with triumph, but with something messier. Because for that fleeting second, when his hands had been on you, you had felt it. 

Not indifference. Not absence. Reaction.

And that was dangerous.

Because it made you bold where you ought to have been cautious. It made you tell yourself stories—that if you pushed just a little more, teased just a little harder, forced him to remember the ease between you, the laughter, the almosts—

You would get him back.

You did not like how possessive that thought sounded, how little it cared for propriety or patience or the quiet dignity expected of you now. You did not like how easily you justified it—how you told yourself that you were only reclaiming something that had once been yours, even though it had never been named, never promised.

Manipulative, perhaps. But storms were not known for their restraint. And you were far from done.

You became… inventive. If subtlety had failed, then information would not.

You learned quickly that the Red Keep ran on whispers as much as it did on banners. You’ve come to learn that maids talked when they folded linen. Pages talked when they thought themselves unseen. Guards talked when wine loosened their tongues. You listened—never too intently, never so directly as to invite suspicion, but with the practiced ease of someone raised among courts and camps alike.

You asked about schedules in the guise of courtesy. You asked about quiet places one might visit within the Keep under the pretense of needing space for your duties. Sometimes you laughed and said, “I am forever losing people in this castle,” and the servants, eager to be useful, gladly told you where one might be found.

You did not often ask the princess.

It is not because she would not tell you—on the contrary, you suspected she would answer with disarming honesty—but because there was something in her gaze now. A knowing softness, a patience that suggested she saw far more than she said. You had the distinct sense that if you pressed her too directly, she might smile that gentle, prophetic smile of hers and say something altogether too revealing.

So you kept your scheming elsewhere. And inevitably, one truth surfaced again and again. 

If Valarr was not at court, nor in the training yard, then he was in the library.

Always.

The realization struck you with a strange pang of fondness before you could stop it. You remembered him telling you once—years ago, sprawled across a bench with ink-smudged fingers and a book balanced precariously on his knee—that his love of reading came from both his parents, though especially his mother. Lady Jena Dondarrion, gentle and sharp-minded, who had loved stories and histories and passed that love on quietly, against all assumptions. She had been the one, he’d said, to coax Prince Baelor into lingering longer over pages instead of parchments.

It felt… intimate, remembering that.

And so you went to the library. Casually, of course.

You told yourself—very reasonably—that it made sense. The princess had mentioned wanting certain correspondence copied. You enjoyed reading. Libraries were public spaces. It was entirely innocent.

Never mind that you timed your arrival with surgical precision. Never mind that you waited just long enough for him to be well and truly settled, for the likelihood of him leaving to be minimal. Once he began reading, you knew, it took effort to pull him away. He would not abandon a chapter lightly.

You entered as though summoned by chance.

The library was cool and hushed, sunlight slanting through high windows, dust motes drifting lazily in the air. And there he was—seated at one of the long tables, a book open before him, brow faintly furrowed in concentration.

Your heart tripped.

You approached with measured steps, schooling your expression into mild interest. When you were close enough to see the title, you tilted your head and said lightly, “That one puts men to sleep by the third chapter. I would have thought you braver.”

You had meant it teasingly. Familiar. A bold grasp for an opening.

He did look at you then, properly this time. His gaze lingered just a fraction too long—on your face, your posture, the way you held yourself as though this were all effortless. Something unreadable flickered there before it vanished behind reserve.

“It teaches patience,” he said. Then, after a pause, “And restraint.”

You laughed, a little breathless despite yourself. “I see. Such riveting qualities.”

He inclined his head once, as if acknowledging a point already concluded, and returned to his reading. 

Dismissed.

You lingered for another heartbeat—long enough to feel foolish—then drifted away before your composure could crack. Your retreat felt infinitely louder than your arrival.

Another day, another attempt.

You tried conversation next—safe, neutral ground.

“You always favored histories,” you remarked once, gesturing to the stack beside him. “Have you ever considered that you might enjoy something lighter? Poetry, perhaps?”

“No,” he replied without looking up.

You smiled anyway. “Straightforward as ever.”

Silence.

Another time, you dared a softer approach. “You read like your mother used to,” you said quietly, testing the words as one might test ice.

That earned you a reaction—his hand stilled on the page. But when he spoke, his voice was carefully blank. “That is not a comparison I make lightly.”

“I— I meant no offense, Your Grace,” you said quickly.

“I know,” he answered. And turned the page.

Every exchange ended the same way. With your words reaching toward him, his responses closing ranks. It was polite, correct, impenetrable. All in all, the most painfully awkward of all conversations you ever struck.

You began to feel like a ghost haunting his periphery—noticed only enough to be avoided. And yet, for all his distance, there were moments you could not quite explain. The way his shoulders tensed when you came too close. The way he always acknowledged you, however briefly, even when he ignored others. The way he never told you to leave.

You told yourself these things meant nothing. After all, you were the one orchestrating these encounters. The one lingering where you ought not. The one pretending coincidence where there was intent.

You were not proud of it, but you were not ready to stop. Not yet.

So next came games.

It is not in the form of light sparring upon supper-table debates, for that had been proven too easy for him to deflect. No, if you were going to reach him, you would have to reach the boy he had once been. The one who delighted in puzzles, the one who would abandon sleep to chase the satisfaction of a riddle solved.

You remembered, with painful clarity, the afternoons nearly three years ago when you would sit with him on the parapets trading clues back and forth, each more elaborate than the last. You had liked riddles well enough—but he had loved them. He thoroughly loved the chase, the pattern. The satisfying click of revelation.

So you built one.

It was, in hindsight, unhinged.

You began with a scrap of parchment slipped into a book you knew he had already borrowed from the library—a book of old Valyrian histories he had read twice before. The note was written in a cipher you both used to tease one another with in the past.

Where dragons once bowed and lions pretended not to notice.

He would know it referred to the small carved antechamber near the throne room—an old alcove where statues of past kings stood half-forgotten.

He found it, of course, with little to no difficulty. You learned this later from a breathless page who had witnessed the prince examining the statues with narrowed eyes before discovering the next clue tucked behind a loose stone.

You had anticipated his path carefully. Each location you chose had meaning. From the training yard where he had once insisted on teaching you how to properly grip a practice sword, to the balcony overlooking Blackwater Bay where he had confessed his hatred of storms despite your lineage, and even the old rookery tower where you had argued about boundless of things, including fate, whether it was written or forged.

At each place, there was a riddle. At each riddle, a memory.

You even enlisted the princess.

It had taken only the slightest explanation and a promise that it would do no harm. She had listened with that soft, knowing look and agreed.

When Valarr reached her solar, following a clue that read Seek the dreamer who sees what others do not, he had apparently smiled—actually smiled—and bowed in amused confusion.

“I did not know you conspired in children’s games, Cousin,” he had said. The princess gushes to you much later how it had been so long since he last regarded her as such.

“Enlightening days invite unusual pastimes,” she had replied serenely, handing him the next folded parchment.

By then, you were certain. You were decisively certain that he knew, that he had begun to suspect the hand behind the hunt. You were quite assured that each clue was stirring something old and familiar within him. Why else would he continue? He could have stopped at any time. Instead, he followed every thread.

By the time he reached the final location—the small, sun-warmed alcove overlooking the sea where you had once spent an entire afternoon arguing about whether he would make a better king or a better knight—his steps were quick, eager.

You were already there, waiting, and in your hands, you held the prize.

It was a small leather-bound book—its edges worn, its spine carefully mended. The very same volume of riddles he had once lent you and never received back. You had kept it all these years. Inside, tucked between the pages, was a pressed stormflower from Storm’s End. It was a quiet offering, a memory returned.

When he stepped into the alcove and saw you, his expression was incandescent. For a heartbeat.

His smile—bright, unguarded, triumphant—lit his entire face as he lifted his gaze, already beginning to say something. And then he realized.

It was you.

The smile vanished as though struck. His features did not harden all at once. They faltered first—confusion, recognition, something dangerously close to hope flickering in his eyes before discipline slammed down over it like a portcullis.

His jaw set. His hand, which had half-lifted in anticipation of accepting whatever prize awaited him, curled slowly into a fist.

You swallowed, forcing brightness into your voice. “You solved it.”

Silence.

“I thought,” you continued, holding the book out, “you might like your property returned.”

He stared at it. He looked on at the worn leather, at the familiar edges, at the stem of the stormflower peeking just slightly from between the pages. His throat worked.

For a moment—a fragile, breathless moment—you thought you had him. Thought he might step forward, take it, let the past bridge the distance you had both been circling for days.

He did take a step and your heart hopelessly leapt. But then something shuttered behind his eyes. His hand flexed once more, not reaching but resisting. And instead of closing the space between you, he drew back.

“You should not have,” he said, voice tight.

“I wanted to,” you answered, too quickly.

“That is precisely the problem.”

The words struck harder than any dismissal before them.

Before you could respond, before you could salvage the fragile thing hanging between you, he turned and he left. Not briskly, not angrily. But decisively.

You stood there alone in the sunlight, the book still extended in your hand, feeling absurd and small and terribly, terribly young.

For the first time since you had begun this campaign of coincidences and cleverness, you did not know what to do next. And added to the long ledger of things you did not know—he did not truly flee.

He did not stop until the salt left the air and the corridors closed around him, stone swallowing sound. Only then did he falter. His hand struck the wall, then slid flat as if to steady himself. He dragged his fingers through his hair, once—twice—jaw tight, breath measured and failing all the same. His knuckles pressed to his mouth. He bit down until copper bloomed.

Unwanted flashes cut through him. From your waist beneath his hands days ago when you collided in the passage, to your face lit warm by lanterns and candles in the library as you tried—again—to banter, and the small, unmistakable fracture in your composure when he turned cold and left the book of riddles untouched.

He squeezed his eyes shut. He had known it was you—known from the first clue, the phrasing only you favored, the memories threaded too carefully to be coincidence. He had followed anyway, and that was the cruelty of it.

He could still see you at the end, bright with hope, holding the past as though it were something he might simply take. His fist curled, then tightened.

He could not.

Whether bound by pride, by penance, or by a future already being shaped for him beyond these walls, he refused to name it. Wanting you did not make you possible. So he stood there, miserable and silent, and told himself, again, that he cannot.

For you, each attempt only ended the same way—not in cruelty, not in anything sharp enough to justify indignation, but in distance. Distance which he drew that is still polite, considered, unassailable. He gave you nothing that could be seized and shaken into meaning.

And the most infuriating part of it all was that you understood.

You understood why he did this. You understood why he kept his voice even, his gaze measured, his courtesy intact like armor. You understood that you were no longer simply someone he had once loved—or once been hurt by—but a disruption, a risk. A temptation he had no right to indulge. Whispers traveled faster than truth in the Keep, and those whispers spoke of Tyrosh, of alliances spun in silk and salt, of a woman he had not yet met but already owed fidelity to in spirit if not in name.

You told yourself—often—that he was being honorable. Valiant, even. Loyal to a future that did not include you.

And in your clearer moments, you thought you deserved this coldness. You had been careless once. You were cruel even without intending to be. You had left wounds that did not bleed until much later, and now he bore the scars while you bore only regret. Perhaps he could sense the selfishness beneath your efforts, the wanting disguised as reconciliation. Perhaps he saw through you entirely. 

But while that thought should have quieted you, it did not.

Understanding did nothing to soothe the resentment crawling beneath your skin, sharp and restless, furious at circumstance, at timing, at the sheer unfairness of wanting something that had already decided it would not be yours. You could admit fault and still feel wronged by the world for remembering it. The contradiction made your head ache.

By the time the dinners blurred into one another, you told yourself—firmly—that this would be the last time.

Wine loosened your resolve before it dulled your pride. Your thoughts slurred not into recklessness, but into honesty. When the table thinned and conversation softened into murmurs, you found yourself speaking without quite deciding to.

“Do you think,” you asked lightly, too lightly, “that people truly change—or do they simply learn which parts of themselves to keep hidden?”

He paused, appraised you under a dismantling gaze, just long enough for hope to be cruel, and looked away.

“They change,” he said at last, eyes on his cup rather than on you. “Or they should. Growth requires leaving some things behind.”

The words were not unkind, and that was exactly what ended it.

You nodded, as though he had confirmed something you already suspected. You did not press. You did not smile. You let the silence settle between you like a final stone laid carefully in place.

That night, you lay awake despite the wine still swimming through you, head aching, thoughts stubbornly clear. You replayed his answer until it lost all ambiguity. It was not a warning. It was not an invitation. It was a line, drawn cleanly and without malice.

You were not a girl so easily discouraged—never had been. But even you knew when persistence turned into trespass. And as bitter as it tasted to admit, you knew this too: He deserved peace.

And whatever he had become, it was no longer someone who could afford to want you.

THE ARRIVAL of the lady from Tyrosh became the Keep’s only language for an entire week.

It crept into every corridor and bled into every conversation—murmured between servants polishing bannisters, traded like coin between ladies at embroidery, speculated upon openly by guards who pretended not to care. Preparations swelled until even the stones seemed to hum with anticipation. Drapes were changed, menus were revised, and even the courtyards were scrubbed twice over. It was said she would arrive on the eve of Prince Matarys’ name day, as though fate itself had chosen spectacle over subtlety.

You learned her name late. Too late.

Kiera.

It came to you in passing, spoken casually by another lady-in-waiting as though it had always been known, and the sound of it landed with an unexpected weight. You felt a sharp, belated shame bloom beneath your ribs—hot and undeserved. You had spent weeks thinking of her as an idea, a rumor, a threat. Never as a woman with a name, with a life already entangled in expectation before she had even crossed the sea.

That stung more than jealousy ever could.

You had always been better than that. A champion of female companionship, through and through. The sort who bristled at careless cruelty, who knew too well how often women were turned into symbols rather than people. And yet, wrapped up in Valarr—his silence, his restraint, the ache of unfinished things—you had allowed yourself to forget that there was another woman standing at the edge of this story, blameless and unknowing.

You corrected yourself quietly, thoroughly. And from then on, you made yourself scarce.

You buried your hours in duty, shadowing the princess from dawn until candlelight, anticipating needs before they were spoken, volunteering for tasks no one else wanted. You rearranged schedules, took longer routes through the Keep. You learned which corridors Valarr favored and avoided them with strategic precision. If he entered a room, you found reason to leave it. If his name surfaced in conversation, you redirected it with practiced ease.

Avoidance, you discovered, was its own kind of discipline.

By the time the banners were raised and the final preparations set in place—by the time the Keep held its breath for the arrival of Lady Kiera—you had convinced yourself you were ready. You had persuaded yourself to believe that you had done the decent thing, that whatever bitterness lingered beneath your composure was contained, managed, mastered.

Some things were already in motion long before you understood them. Some choices, once made, could not be unmade by cleverness or persistence or longing. And this, you told yourself quietly, was one of them.

Lady Kiera of Tyrosh was received with all the ceremony the moment demanded, and more.

The court gathered in full splendor, not merely out of courtesy, but calculation. This was no simple visit of a noblewoman from across the Narrow Sea. Tyrosh had long been a sympathetic harbor to the Blackfyre cause, its ports and coin too often turned toward exile and rebellion. To welcome the daughter of its Archon was to make a statement: that old loyalties were being rewritten, that the Iron Throne’s reach now extended into waters once hostile.

Prince Baelor himself stood at the forefront, composed and gracious, his presence lending the occasion its gravity. Beside him was Prince Maekar, solid and stern as ever, his wife the princess radiant in silk chosen carefully for Tyroshi eyes. Their sons were arrayed nearby—Daeron with his easy charm, Aerion sharp-eyed and restless, and young Aegon watching everything with a curiosity far older than his years—while their daughters Daella and Rhaella fidgeted with their own frocks.

Prince Matarys hovered close to Valarr, excitement barely contained—his name day looming, his world suddenly fuller for it.

And Valarr himself… Well, you did not look at him. You stood where you belonged, half a step behind the princess as her lady-in-waiting, posture perfect, expression serene. You answered when spoken to, inclined your head at the proper moments, and kept your gaze precisely where it ought to be. Still, you felt it—the unmistakable weight of his attention, like heat against your skin. Especially then. Especially then.

You did not return it.

Lady Kiera was presented at last, and she did not disappoint expectation. She moved with an ease that spoke of sunlit courtyards and salt air rather than rigid halls, her smile unguarded, her eyes bright with curiosity rather than calculation. She greeted the princess with warmth and respect and familiarity, developed from their shared correspondence for the past few moons.

“And you must be her lady,” Kiera said next, turning to you without hesitation, as though it were the most natural thing in the world to include you. “I was hoping I might meet you. The princess speaks of you fondly in her letters.”

You blinked—just once—before smiling.

“I’m honored, my lady,” you replied. “I hope the journey treated you kindly.”

She laughed softly. “As kindly as the sea ever does. I believe it sensed I was in good spirits.”

“I have never seen Tyrosh,” you admitted lightly. “Only heard it described. They say the markets are all color and noise—nothing like court.”

Lady Kiera’s smile widened. “That is a generous way of saying chaos. But yes—color everywhere. Even the fishmongers dress as though they are attending a festival.”

You laughed before you could stop yourself. “Then King’s Landing must seem terribly gray by comparison.”

“Hopelessly,” she said, good-natured rather than critical. “I may have to bring half the Free Cities’ silks with me next time, just to survive it.”

“I would welcome the improvement,” you replied, meaning it.

She inclined her head, warm and sincere. “I hope we’ll speak again.”

“As do I, my lady.”

She drifted away then, drawn into greetings with other lords and ladies—still smiling, still effortless. And only once she was gone did the weight of it settle in your chest. The ease, the kindness, the fact that she had given you nothing but goodwill.

And guilt settled into you like a stone.

Because she was kind. Because she was real. Because she was not the faceless rival you had once allowed her to be in your mind, but a woman standing before you—warm, earnest, and wholly undeserving of your earlier bitterness. And Valarr… Valarr deserved someone untouched by old wounds and half-healed regrets.

She had barely stepped away when you felt the shift again—that subtle tightening in the air that always preceded him.

You did not look at first. You told yourself you would not. But the sound reached you anyway—the soft cadence of his voice, courteous and warm in a way he had not been with you. When you finally glanced, only briefly, you saw it. Valarr was bowing now over Lady Kiera’s hand, pressing a gentleman’s kiss to her knuckles. Careful, correct, and impeccably princely.

She smiled at him. But it is not the polite smile of court obligation, rather something lighter, genuine.

Something in your chest lurched, sharp and instinctive, and you looked away at once—too quickly, almost guiltily. As if you had been caught witnessing something you had no right to see. Which, you told yourself firmly, you did not.

You schooled your expression before anyone could read it. You forced the reaction down into the quiet places where you had been storing so many other feelings lately. No one noticed. No one ever did. You had always been good at that.

You had wanted him back, there was no point to deny this truth. But standing there—having already been greeted, already included, already treated with courtesy by a woman who owed you nothing—you understood something with aching clarity: wanting did not grant you the right to take. Not from him. Not from her.

So you smiled. You wished her welcome. And you meant it.

No matter how much it cost you.

“STOP FUSSING,” the princess said gently, not even turning from the mirror. “You will crease the fabric before you ever wear it.”

“I am not fussing,” you muttered, attempting—and failing—to smooth the skirt of the gown you had very clearly been fussing over.

Around you, her chambers were alive with silk and laughter. The other ladies of her entourage moved in a whirl of color and perfume, fastening clasps, adjusting sleeves, arguing amiably over ribbons. The princess had refused—flatly refused—to have them dressed in matching, somber hues like ornamental servants.

“If I must sit through hours of ceremony,” she had declared earlier that afternoon, “I will at least be surrounded by beauty.”

And so beauty there was.

Lysa wore a dark purple satin embroidered with tiny silver stars at the hem. Elenei had chosen a soft rose silk with gauze sleeves that floated when she moved. Another had donned green velvet cut daringly square at the neckline. None of them matched. None of them looked diminished.

And the princess herself—

Her gown lay across the bed like poured sunlight. Cloth-of-crimson threaded with darker maroon dragons, the bodice structured and regal, the skirts layered in cascading panels of deep silver silk that caught the light with every shift. Pearls traced the neckline as garnets winked at the wrists.

You, meanwhile, held up your own selection with clear reluctance.

“It is too much,” you insisted. “I am your lady-in-waiting, not a rival spectacle. This one is perfectly suitable.” You gestured toward the far more modest gown draped over a chair—soft brown with minimal embellishment.

The princess finally turned, eyebrow lifting. “That one might as well be fit for mourning, my lady, not celebration.”

“It is appropriate.”

“It is dull,” she corrected serenely. “Wear the gold.”

The gold in question was hardly scandalous—but it was beautiful. A deep topaz silk that mirrored sunlight, with subtle silver beading at the cuffs and along the square neckline. It was elegant, striking. And, to top it off, it had been in the shade of your house colors. Hues you have missed oh-so-dearly to don since you arrived in the Keep more than a fortnight ago.

“You will not overshadow me,” she added, amused. “If necessary, I shall simply wear something more magnificent.”

“You already are,” you said dryly, helping her step into the first linen layer.

Laughter rippled through the room. Layer by careful layer, you and the other ladies dressed her: chemise, corset pulled firm and laced tight, underskirts arranged for volume, the heavy outer gown settled over her shoulders. You fastened the tiny pearl closures at her back while another adjusted the train so it fell in perfect symmetry.

When at last the final ribbon was tied and the last crease smoothed, she drew a measured breath and said lightly, “Leave us, please.”

There was no protest, no visible offense. The princess had always been careful of that.

You had heard whispers of favoritism before—quiet murmurs from lesser courts about ladies elevated too high in their mistress’s confidence, but she had never allowed such talk to root here. If she asked you to remain, she would later send you on an errand while another stayed behind. If she sought your counsel, she would later seek theirs too. She cultivated harmony deliberately, insisting her ladies be companions rather than competitors.

Tonight was no different. As the others departed, she called after them, “Find the emerald clasp for my hair, if you would be so kind, my ladies. I believe I left it in the cedar chest.”

They left cheerfully enough.

When the door closed, silence settled softly between you. She met your eyes in the mirror.

“You have been very diligent in avoiding my cousin,” she said.

You stilled only briefly before resuming the arrangement of her hair. “I am being sensible.”

“Is that what we are calling it?”

You exhaled slowly. “I am merely an observer now, Princess. As I should have been from the start.” You focused on pinning a section into place. “The distance between us took root because of my own doing. It is only fitting I respect it. Perhaps it is better this way. I broke his heart once. I have no right to disrupt what peace he has found now.”

Her gaze softened, but she did not relent. “And the scavenger hunt?”

Heat crept up your neck at the memory it wrung out.

“I apologize,” she added quickly. “I should have asked sooner. Maekar’s duties have consumed much of my time. I did not mean to ignore what was happening beneath my own roof.”

“It was childish,” you said, sharper than intended. “An elaborate attempt to reclaim something that was never mine to begin with. I behaved like a spoiled little girl who could not tolerate not being wanted.”

“Is that truly what you believe?” she asked quietly.

You hesitated.

“You are not spoiled,” she continued. “And you are rarely childish. Why do you think you tried so hard?”

You opened your mouth—closed it. Because you were proud? Because you hated losing? Because you resented Tyroshi silks and distant promises?

Or—

Because you loved him.

The thought rose unbidden, unwelcome, undeniable.

You would not have orchestrated riddles across the Keep for pride alone. You would not have humiliated yourself repeatedly for vanity. You would not have felt your chest fracture at the sight of him kissing another woman’s hand if it were merely wounded ego.

You swallowed.

“I do not like what it makes me look like,” you admitted finally.

She reached for your hand, squeezing it gently. “I did not ask what it looks like,” she said. “I asked what it is.”

And for the first time in weeks, you had no clever answer.

Love.

It had always sounded like something other people were certain about.

You had never been.

You knew, in the abstract, that your parents loved one another. You had been told as much often enough. But your childhood had kept you at a distance from their quieter moments. You remembered departures more than embraces. You recalled of their letters more than laughter. Whatever tenderness existed between them had unfolded largely beyond your sight, tucked into spaces children were not invited to linger.

So you had grown up understanding love as fact, not feeling.

Then there was your Uncle Lyonel—surrounded perpetually by beautiful women, draped across feasts and balconies like ornaments. He called them sweet names. They called him worse ones when he was out of earshot. There had been heat there, certainly. Desire. Amusement. Possession. But it was all so temporary. A rotation of faces and favors. Flesh-love, if one were honest, bright and consuming and gone by morning.

You had seen enough of that to know it was not the thing poets bled over.

And you had read the poets. You have listened to ladies sigh over ballads and septas speak of devotion as though it were a divine affliction. You had heard housemaids whisper about knights who swore themselves to one woman alone, about longing that made food taste like ash and sleep impossible.

It had always seemed… excessive.

Men had admired you before. Knights had written verses in your honor. Lords had angled for your favor with polished compliments and earnest promises. You had entertained some of it, deflected most of it, never once feeling as though something vital hung in the balance. Attention was pleasant. Attraction was easy. None of it rooted deeply enough to frighten you.

You had never measured your pulse after parting from any of them. You had never orchestrated riddles across an entire castle. You had never felt resentment burn beneath your skin at the sight of a courteous kiss.

Perhaps that was why you had not named what you felt for Valarr. Because naming it meant admitting it was not pride, not wounded vanity. Not mere habit or nostalgia.

It meant it was something that could break.

You stared at your reflection in the mirror, thoughts spiraling inward, until the princess’s voice cut cleanly through them.

“You have been quiet for far too long.”

You blinked, pulled back into the room. She studied you—not unkindly. Simply waiting.

You hesitated, then allowed the smallest, most cautious concession.

“Perhaps,” you said slowly, testing the word as though it might shatter, “it is possible that I… care for him more than I intended.”

It was not a declaration, not a vow. But it was still the faintest warming to the idea.

THE CORRIDOR toward the Great Hall grew warmer with every step.

Music seeped through the stone first—muted strings and laughter softened by distance—followed by the unmistakable swell of voices gathered in celebration. The princess walked ahead of you, unhurried and luminous, her gown whispering over the floor. You lifted its train slightly, smoothing the heavy silk where it threatened to catch, while another lady adjusted the fall of her sleeves and a third lightly coaxed a curl back into place among her silver hair.

“You’ll fuss a hole through it if you’re not careful,” the princess murmured, amusement threading her voice as you reached to tame a stubborn fold for the third time.

“You look perfect,” you replied reflexively, fingers retreating. “I only fear the hall may not survive it.”

She laughed softly, then glanced back at you. “Are you ready?”

You inhaled once, steadying yourself. “Yes, Princess.”

At the doors, you inclined your head to the herald and gave the signal.

His staff struck stone, and his voice rang clear and ceremonial. “Her Grace, Princess of Summerhall—daughter of Prince Aerys Targaryen, wife to Prince Maekar Targaryen, of the blood of the dragon.”

The doors swung wide.

If anyone noticed that she was fashionably late, no one dared remark upon it—nor did they seem inclined to. The hall turned as one body, conversation dipping in a soft, reverent hush before swelling again with unmistakable warmth. This was not the pause of judgment. It was the pause of recognition, of affection.

Smiles bloomed openly. Lords straightened in their seats. Ladies leaned forward, eager to behold rather than critical. Even the servants seemed to slow, as though unwilling to break the moment too quickly. The princess moved through it all as if she had been expected precisely then, as if the night itself had waited for her arrival before truly beginning.

You followed a respectful pace behind her, heart swelling with something close to pride. It was impossible not to feel it. She wore her welcome with effortless grace—not preening, not shrinking—but simply being. Radiant in deep scarlet silk threaded through with silver, her gown caught the candlelight like ruby under water. The embroidery along her bodice gleamed subtly, intricate rather than ostentatious, as though it had been made not to demand attention but to reward it.

She looked, absurdly, like something sent down rather than born—late not out of carelessness, but because the heavens themselves had taken their time.

You felt honored simply to walk in her wake, to be counted among her retinue. To belong, even in this small way, to her brilliance.

At the high table, King Daeron II rose slightly, his expression warm rather than formal, and beside him Queen MyriahMartell smiled with an open fondness at their granddaughter. The princess bowed, perfect and unhurried. They inclined their heads in return, not merely as monarchs, but as family.

A heartbeat later, Prince Maekar stood.

He crossed the space between them without ceremony, offering his arm. The way his face softened as she took it was unmistakable. Whatever the court whispered of alliances and duty, this—this quiet ease, this pride—was not feigned. He looked at her as though the hall had rearranged itself around her presence, as though her lateness had only sharpened his relief to see her at last.

They moved together to their seats amid renewed applause. 

Only then did you withdraw, as was proper, stepping back to your place farther down the table. And only then—traitorously, unbidden—did your gaze lift.

Across the hall, nearly opposite you, sat Valarr—between his father and Matarys—with Lady Kiera to his other side and Prince Daeron beyond her, already flushed and unsteady with drink. You told yourself not to search for him, yet your gaze found his all the same.

Valarr was not watching his luminous cousin. He was watching you.

The realization struck like a misstep on stone. You looked away at once, forcing your attention back where it belonged—to the princess, to her place at Maekar’s side, to the way the hall seemed brighter simply for having her in it.

You told yourself that was enough. You told yourself not to think of anything else.

When the hall at last settled into something resembling order, King Daeron II rose from his seat.

He did not need to raise his voice as the room quieted for him all the same.

“My lords, my ladies,” he began, hands resting lightly on the carved edge of the table, “tonight we are fortunate enough to celebrate more than one blessing.”

A murmur of approval rippled outward.

“We welcome Lady Kiera of Tyrosh to our court—daughter of the Archon, and honored guest beneath our roof. The Narrow Sea has too often divided friend from friend, kin from kin, and worse—fanned old embers into flame.” His gaze swept the hall meaningfully, and no one mistook his reference. “Let it be known that we prefer bridges to bonfires. If there is to be fire in this realm, let it warm our halls—not burn our future.”

Polite laughter followed that, warm and approving.

“Tyrosh is a proud city. Westeros is a proud kingdom. Pride, when tempered by wisdom, need not lead to strife. It may instead lead to partnership. May this visit mark not merely courtesy, but confidence—confidence that peace is forged not only in battlefields, but at tables such as these.”

He turned slightly then, smile deepening.

“And as though that were not cause enough for celebration, we mark also the name day of my grandson, Prince Matarys—who grows another year older and, I trust, another year wiser.”

Cheers broke out properly at that, Matarys grinning unabashedly. The king waited for the sound to soften before continuing.

“Life grants us many duties,” he said, more quietly now. “Some we choose. Others are chosen for us. We do not always control the path set before us—but we do control the manner in which we walk it. With resentment… or with grace. With division… or with loyalty. The realm endures not because we are spared hardship, but because we meet it together.”

Your throat tightened unexpectedly. You kept your gaze lowered, fingers tightening briefly around your goblet.

“We must remember,” the king went on, “that what strengthens one branch strengthens the whole tree. Alliances are not chains. They are roots. And roots, though unseen, are what allow us to weather storms.”

There it was—that quiet, piercing wisdom he was known for. So gentle it felt almost like comfort, so precise it felt almost like rebuke.

You swallowed the lump rising in your throat.

Alliances are not chains.

You told yourself it was only politics. You told yourself it was only the language of rulers and realms. It had nothing to do with the sharp ache beneath your ribs, nothing to do with wanting something that perhaps had been set aside for the good of more than just two foolish hearts.

You forced the thought down and smoothed your expression.

The king lifted his cup. “To Tyrosh. To Westeros. To growth, to loyalty, and to the years yet ahead.”

The hall erupted in agreement. Goblets rose. Servants moved in seamless unison. Music swelled once more as the feast properly began.

You ate, spoke when spoken to, and laughed at the proper moments and kept your posture composed. You made sure to have your hands folded neatly, your wine never more than half-finished. From a distance, you might have looked perfectly at ease.

From the inside, you were cataloguing everything—perhaps because looking outward felt safer than turning inward.

You could not help but admire the family gathered at the high table. King Daeron sat close to Queen Myriah, his hand resting over hers more often than not, their heads inclined together in quiet, practiced intimacy. It was not showy affection, but something settled and enduring, the kind that had survived decades and burdens alike. When she spoke, he listened. When he laughed, it was softer for her.

Prince Baelor, ever the dutiful heir, looked content in a way that surprised you. He had no romantic companion at his side, yet there was no bitterness to him—only a gentle pride as he watched his youngest brother, Maekar, with open fondness. He clapped Maekar on the shoulder at one point, said something that made the prince groan and grin all the same. It struck you then how love took many shapes, not all of them romantic, and how Baelor seemed full of it nonetheless.

Further down the table, Aerion leaned toward Daella, whispering something that made her scowl before she flicked a grape at him with impressive aim. He laughed; she did not—but her lips twitched despite herself. Aegon and Rhaella, seated nearby, were less discreet, rolling grapes between their fingers as though plotting some small mischief, their heads bent together conspiratorially until a sharp look from an elder sent them into feigned innocence.

Prince Daeron was… well. Daeron. Loud, flushed, already halfway to drunk and raising his cup at anyone who glanced his way, whether they deserved a toast or not.

And then there was Valarr.

He sat in polite conversation with Lady Kiera, his posture impeccable, his smile courteous. Too courteous. He nodded as she spoke, murmured replies at the right intervals, laughed softly when she did. And all the while—all the while—his gaze kept straying.

To you.

It is not boldly, not enough for anyone else to notice. They were just brief glances, stolen and swift, as though his eyes betrayed him before his discipline reined them back in.

It unnerved you. Not only because it felt improper—because he was speaking with the woman everyone believed would be his future wife—but because of the sheer contradiction of it all. Days ago, he could barely acknowledge your presence without icing his voice. Now he watched you as though anchoring himself, as though you were something he needed to keep within sight.

The emotional whiplash left you dizzy.

You looked away. Then back. Then resolutely down at your plate.

When the music softened and shifted into a livelier tune, it was the princess who rose first.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, delighted, already tugging at Prince Maekar’s sleeve. “This was played at our wedding banquet, do you remember?”

He groaned theatrically. “How could I forget? You danced until your slippers were ruined.”

“And I would do it again,” she declared, beaming.

He rolled his eyes, but the fondness in his smile ruined any pretense of complaint as he stood and offered his hand. She took it eagerly, skirts gathered, and the two of them made their way to the floor amid warm applause.

Their joy was infectious. One couple joined them. Then another. Laughter soon rose, and the hall loosened, as if the night itself had taken a deeper breath.

That was when you saw Valarr lean toward Prince Daeron.

He said something low, brief. Daeron waved him off with an exaggerated flick of his wrist and a grin that suggested he had not listened at all.

Valarr straightened, then he turned to Lady Kiera and offered his hand. She smiled—bright, unguarded—and wrapped her fingers around his.

You told yourself, again, that you could bear it.

You told yourself that you had borne worse things than this. From silence, distance, to the slow, unspoken unmaking of whatever you and Valarr had once been. This, at least, had form. This had music and steps and smiles that could be explained away as duty, as courtesy, as inevitability.

So you watched him offer his hand to Lady Kiera and told yourself it meant nothing.

You held your chin high, your shoulders set back, your expression carefully neutral. You even managed a sip of wine as they took their places on the floor, as if the sight before you was no more than another pair among many. Of course he would dance with her. Of course he would. She was Tyroshi, noble, newly arrived—his future, if rumor was to be believed. What did it matter whether it meant something or not? What did it change, really?

Nothing, you insisted.

At first, their steps were measured and polite. It was the sort of dance that could belong to anyone. You clung to that, to the idea that it was all surface and ceremony. You watched the patterns instead of their faces, the sweep of silk and the precise turns, the way the light caught on jewels and embroidery.

Then Valarr laughed.

It was not the restrained kind of curve of the mouth he offered most of the court. It was not the courteous, practiced smile he had worn these past days—cold, distant, almost unfamiliar. This was bright and insouciant. It broke from him easily, as if summoned without effort.

Your breath caught.

You told yourself not to look at him, and failed. His head was tilted toward Lady Kiera, his expression alight, eyes crinkled with genuine amusement. She said something you could not hear, and he laughed again, louder this time, as if the sound had been waiting in him all along.

It struck you then, sharp and unmerciful, how he had only ever laughed like that with you.

Memory rose unbidden, of other halls, other nights. The way you and Valarr used to dance at banquets, how the steps would dissolve into something lighter, freer, until you were laughing breathlessly, conspirators against the stiffness of courtly expectation. How he would lean in to murmur some absurd observation, just to make you laugh harder. How the world had once narrowed to the space between you, warm and certain.

You had thought that laughter belonged to the past. Watching him now, you wondered—painfully—if he looked even happier than he had been then. If this was simply how he was, now, with her.

Your fingers tightened around your cup. You barely noticed.

The dance carried on, and with it came a familiar figure: the turn where one partner’s hand rose, briefly, to cradle the other’s cheek. An intimate gesture, fleeting enough to be proper, bold enough to mean something all the same.

Valarr’s hand lifted.

Lady Kiera laughed as he did it, bright and easy, her head tipping into his touch without hesitation. They were still laughing when the step ended, still caught in that shared moment, as though nothing else in the hall existed.

Something inside you gave way.

It was not a dramatic shattering. It was quieter than that—a final, exhausted crack. The last place you had been bracing yourself simply collapsed.

You rose from your seat too quickly. Your chair shifted just a fraction too loud in your ears, though no one else seemed to notice. You stilled yourself at once, schooling your movements, forcing grace back into your limbs. You would not make a scene. You would not let this be seen as weakness.

But you could not stay.

You set your cup aside with care and smoothed your skirts. You walked, then, not fast enough to be called fleeing but not slow enough to pretend you were lingering. Each step toward the doors felt deliberate, controlled, as though you were walking out of the hall by choice rather than necessity.

Your heart ached with every pace. You did not look back—but you felt it, all the same. The weight of Valarr’s gaze, sudden and sharp, as he noticed your absence. As he turned, perhaps, mid-laughter, to see you going.

You kept walking. You told yourself you were fine. You told yourself you could endure this, too. And you told yourself—over and over—not to turn around.

THE GODSWOOD had never been sacred to you in the way it was meant to be.

You had never been one for gods, old or new. The Seven were stories you had learned because you were expected to learn them, names and virtues recited by rote, their temples grand and echoing and somehow distant. And the old gods, the weirwoods, the faces carved into bark—those had always felt like someone else’s faith, someone else’s history. You had never knelt properly nor have you ever prayed with any real conviction.

And yet, a few days after you first arrived at the Keep, you had wandered—half-lost, half-avoiding the noise of court—and found the Godswood by accident. There were no heralds, no marble. There were just earth and leaves and the hush of wind through branches. The weirwood stood at its heart, pale and ancient, its red leaves scattered like embers against dark soil, its carved face solemn and watchful.

You had stopped there without knowing why.

Breathing had come easier, your shoulders loosened. The constant, invisible weight you carried—expectation, propriety, restraint—had slipped, just a little. You had not prayed. You had simply stood, hands folded, listening to the quiet.

From then on, it became something uniquely yours.

When the days pressed too close, when words crowded your thoughts, when you needed to remember how to be only yourself and nothing else—you came here. You paced the paths. You sat beneath the branches. You breathed. You thought. Or, sometimes, you just didn’t.

It was no surprise to you that your feet carried you there now.

The night air was cool against your flushed skin, the sounds of the feast already distant, dulled to something indistinct and harmless. You barely noticed when the path gave way to roots and leaves, when the pale trunk of the weirwood came into view. You only knew that your chest felt too tight, your thoughts too loud.

You stopped beneath the tree and dragged in a breath, then another.

Your hands went to your hair, fingers threading through it, tugging slightly as if grounding yourself might keep you from unraveling completely. Jealousy burned sharp and ugly in your chest—jealousy, and regret so heavy it felt like grief. Regret for every unsaid word. Every step not taken. Every moment you had convinced yourself to be sensible, to be patient, to be quiet.

And then—worse than all of it—the realization you could no longer outrun.

You loved him.

It is not simple fondness. It is not mere habit. It is not some lingering affection that time might have dulled. It was love, clear and undeniable, settling into you with aching certainty now that it was far too late to do anything with it. You had loved him when it was easy. You had loved him when it was complicated. And somehow, foolishly, you had kept loving him even when he pulled away.

You pressed your palm to the rough bark of the weirwood, grounding yourself in its cold solidity, breathing hard as if you had run a great distance.

Get a hold of yourself, you told yourself fiercely. This changes nothing.

Then, you feel a presence shifted behind you.

You did not hear footsteps—not really. Just the subtle awareness of another body, another warmth in the cool night air. A hand lifted, hesitated, and then brushed your shoulder lightly, tentative, as if asking permission rather than taking it.

You flinched.

“Of course you’re here right now,” you said, the words sharp with sarcasm and something far more wounded beneath it, before you even turned.

The hand withdrew at once.

There was a pause—long enough to stretch, long enough for the tension to thicken between you. When Valarr spoke, his voice was measured, carefully even, as though he were choosing each word with deliberate calm.

“I do not know what you mean.”

You turned then, finally, to face him.

He stood a few paces back, posture composed but eyes searching, dark hair catching the faint silver of moonlight through the branches. Up close, he looked much as he always had—and yet entirely different, too. He is still guarded, uncertain. As if he had followed you here on instinct and was only now realizing what he did, how fragile the moment he intruded on was.

“You never do, don’t you?” you said, a bitter little smile tugging at your mouth. “Funny how that works.”

His brow furrowed slightly, but he did not retreat. “You left the hall,” he said instead. “Abruptly.”

“I needed air.”

“So I gathered.” His gaze flicked, briefly, to the weirwood at your side. “I thought—” He stopped himself, then tried again. “I wanted to make sure you were well.”

You laughed softly, humorless. “And are you satisfied?”

Valarr hesitated before he shakes his head once. “You do not look well.”

“Insightful as ever.” You folded your arms, as much to hold yourself together as to keep him at a distance. “Shouldn’t you be dancing?”

Something shifted in his expression at that. It is not anger nor defensiveness. This was something closer to guilt—or frustration, carefully contained. Which, you had to admit, you did not quite understand what for.

“I was,” he said quietly.

“Good.” You inclined your head, mockingly polite. “Then by all means, Your Grace, please do not let me detain you.”

“That is not fair.”

You met his gaze then, really met it, and felt the old pull. That dangerous, familiar, unwelcome tug. “Neither is following me into the one place I go to be alone.”

Silence fell between you, thick and charged. The weirwood loomed above, ancient and impassive, bearing witness without judgment.

Valarr exhaled slowly. “I did not come to argue.”

“Then you came poorly prepared,” you said, though the edge in your voice wavered now, thinning under the weight in your chest. “Because I do not think I can keep pretending I have nothing to say.”

For a moment, he only looked at you. It was not a look of wariness or being distant. It was a gaze that was just there. Waiting.

“Then… say it,” he murmured. “I am here now.”

You let out a breath you hadn’t realized you were holding. It came out shaky, almost a laugh, though there was nothing funny about it.

“I have been awful,” you said suddenly. “To you. For longer than I care to admit. I see that now.”

His brows knit together at once. “You have not—”

“No,” you cut in, softer but firm, because if you let him interrupt now, you’d lose your nerve. “Let me finish. Please.”

He stilled. His mouth opened as if to protest, then closed again. He nodded once.

You swallowed a lump that grew in your throat, gaze dropping to the roots at your feet, twisted and exposed like the truth you were finally forcing into the open.

“I was sharp when I shouldn’t have been. Petty. I said things just to see if they would land, just to see if you still noticed me.” Your fingers curled at your sides. “And when you didn’t—when you pulled away—I panicked.”

You shook your head, a rueful, broken thing. “So I tried to be clever about it. Casual. As if I wasn’t trying at all.”

You glanced up at him then, just briefly, to make sure he was still listening. He was—utterly still, eyes fixed on you with an intensity that made your chest ache. He looked like he wanted to speak, like something sat heavy on his tongue, but he stayed silent.

“I struck up conversations I’d rehearsed in my head,” you went on, voice trembling now. “I ‘accidentally’ bumped into you in corridors I had no business being in. I timed my visits to the library down to the bell, just to make sure you would already be there—head bent over some book, pretending not to notice me.”

A breathy laugh escaped you, wet with tears. “Gods, and the riddles. The damned scavenger hunt. I told myself it was harmless. That it was just… fun. But it wasn’t. It was me clawing for your attention because I did not know how else to ask for it.”

Valarr shifted then, just slightly. His jaw tightened. His hand flexed at his side, like he wanted to reach for you and didn’t dare.

“I told myself I was just bored,” you said. “Or mischievous. O— Or that I hated the idea of you changing because change is inconvenient and I’m selfish.” Your voice cracked. “But that was a lie. Or at least—only part of one.”

You drew in a breath, sharp and unsteady. “I was afraid. Afraid of losing you in a way that didn’t come with a clean ending. I was so afraid that one day you would belong to someone else and I’d have to stand there smiling, pretending it did not hollow me out completely.”

Your eyes burned now, and you didn’t bother blinking it away.

“I do not want you to marry her,” you said quietly, suddenly aware of the wet streaks on your cheeks. “It is not because Lady Kiera is unworthy, or because I think I deserve you more—but because the thought of it feels like watching a door close that I never realized I was standing in front of.”

Valarr inhaled sharply at that. “You—”

“I know,” you rushed on, the words tumbling faster now, afraid if you slowed you’d falter. “I know how it sounds. It is messy and it is— I know it is far too late. I know I do not get to demand anything from you, least of all after the way I acted.”

Your voice softened, dropping into something achingly sincere. “But this is not a game. It never was. And it isn’t jealousy for jealousy’s sake, or wounded pride, or some foolish need to be chosen.”

You lifted your gaze fully to him now, tears clinging stubbornly to your lashes. “I care about you, Valarr. Deeply. Irrevocably. I think I have for a long time—I just didn’t know how to name it, and I was terrified of what would happen if I did.”

Silence stretched between you, heavy and electric.

Valarr looked like he was holding himself together by sheer will alone. He took a step forward, then stopped, as if afraid of breaking something fragile.

“I didn’t plan to say any of this,” you whispered. “I just… couldn’t keep carrying it.”

The Godswood remained quiet, the weirwood’s carved eyes watching without judgment, as the truth settled between you—aching, irrevocable, and terribly alive.

For a long moment after you finished, the world did not move.

The wind stirred the red leaves overhead. Somewhere beyond the trees, a faint echo of laughter drifted from the hall. But between you and Valarr—nothing.

He stood very still. A bit too still than what you would have hoped for. His face had gone unreadable in that careful way he wore at court, but you saw the pulse in his throat, the tightness in his jaw. He was absorbing it. Every reckless word. Every trembling confession.

And he was saying nothing.

The silence began to rot inside you.

“Well?” you demanded at last, the vulnerability curdling into defensiveness. “Don’t you have anything to say?”

Valarr blinked, as if startled by the sharpness in your tone. Then he huffed out a breath—almost a laugh. Not amused, not kind. It was disbelieving.

His head dropped, dark hair falling forward as he shook it slightly, like he could not quite fathom what he’d just heard.

“You…” He let out another short, incredulous breath.

And then—without answering—he turned. He turned as if to leave. The sight hit harder than anything else that night.

Of course, you thought numbly. Of course this is how it ends.

You swallowed down the sting, the humiliation rising hot and choking. “Right,” you muttered, mostly to yourself. “That was foolish of me.”

You turned away too, because if he was going to walk back into the light and leave you standing here with your heart flayed open, you would not give him the satisfaction of seeing you break. You made it two steps toward the weirwood before your composure fractured.

Fresh, hot tears came again quietly, stubborn and humiliating. You pressed your palm to the pale bark again, forehead nearly following, shoulders trembling despite your effort to steady your breathing. The Godswood, your sanctuary, felt cruelly indifferent tonight.

You had done it. You had said it. And it had not been enough.

But then, footsteps crushed softly against fallen leaves behind you.

You stiffened but did not turn.

“I was never going to marry Kiera.”

The words were so abrupt, so out of place, that for a second you thought you had imagined them.

You turned slowly.

Valarr stood a few paces away again, closer than before, his expression no longer composed—no longer controlled.

“She was promised to Daeron,” he said, more firmly now. “From the beginning.”

You stared at him.

Oh.

Oh.

“W-What?”

That was all that came out. Small and bare and entirely awestruck.

Your mind scrambled backward, replaying every assumption you had made. Every glance. Every whispered conversation. You come to the dawning awareness that not once—not once—had anyone explicitly said it was Valarr.

You had simply… decided. Because he was the only prince who had ever mattered to you.

The realization landed with quiet, devastating clarity.

It had always been him. Even when you pretended otherwise. Even when you told yourself you were only irritated, only competitive, only restless.

It had been him.

Valarr let out a frustrated sound, running a hand through his hair. “Do you have any idea,” he began, his voice tight, “what it has been like—these past weeks?”

You opened your mouth, ready to defend yourself, to argue—

“Don’t,” he cut in immediately, sharper now. “Not yet. You have said your piece. Let me say mine.”

You closed your mouth.

He stepped closer.

“I pulled away because you were hurting me,” he said, not cruelly, but plainly. “Because every jest you made felt barbed. Every ‘accident’ you have admitted to be orchestrated felt like a test I did not know I was taking. You would lean close one moment and freeze me out the next. Do you know what that does to a man who—”

He stopped himself, jaw clenching.

“To a man who what?” you whispered.

His eyes flashed—not just with anger, but with years of something far deeper.

“To a man who has been in love with you for years.”

The words didn’t explode. They landed heavy, wholly unquestionable.

“You broke my heart once already,” he went on, voice roughening. “Do you remember? That night at a tourney, with the lord you nearly kissed in your uncle’s tent.” His jaw tightened. “And when I confronted you, you defended him. You defended him instead of choosing me. You made me feel as though I had imagined everything between us.”

Your breath caught sharply.

“I hated you for that,” he admitted, the confession torn from somewhere old and festering. “Or I tried to. I told myself I did. It was easier than admitting I was still thinking about you every waking hour.”

His laugh this time was hollow. “Years. I have measured years by whether you were in the room.”

The ache in his voice deepened.

“And these past weeks?” He shook his head. “Torture. Watching you try to draw me back in—smiling at me one moment, needling me the next. Do you know how much restraint it took not to respond? Not to keep holding you close in the corridor when you ‘accidentally’ ran into me? Not to stay in the library when you lingered, pretending to search for a book you had already read twice?”

You stared at him.

“I knew,” he said softly. “I knew you timed it. I knew the riddles were an excuse. I let you believe you were clever. Because... Because if I admitted I knew, I would have had to admit how desperately I wanted you to keep trying.”

The honesty stripped him bare.

“I thought I imagined it at first,” he continued, voice uneven. “Thought perhaps I had mistaken friendliness for something more. But then you would look at me like I was the only person in the room. And the next day you would treat me as though I’d offended you merely by existing.”

You flinched.

“Yes,” he pressed, frustration bleeding through. “You were sharp. You were cruel sometimes. You made me feel foolish for hoping. So I stopped hoping. I thought that was what you wanted.”

“It wasn’t,” you breathed.

“I know that now,” he shot back. “But you never said it.”

His chest rose and fell unevenly.

“I tried to be sensible,” he said more quietly. “Tried to tell myself that whatever this was between us was one-sided. That you enjoyed the attention, the game, the chase—but that you would never choose me.”

The hurt in his voice was naked now, painstakingly unshielded.

“And still,” he went on, stepping even closer, “I could not stop.”

You looked up at him fully then, tears tracking freely down your cheeks.

“I love that you are sharp,” he said, the words tumbling out faster now, urgent and unguarded. “I love that you argue with maesters twice your age because you cannot stand half-truths. I love that when you are nervous, you twist the ring on your finger without realizing it. I love that you hum under your breath when you think no one is listening—and that it is always the same half-finished melody.”

Your breath hitched.

“I love that you pretend to dislike sweetwine but always finish a cup of it when served, or steal a sip from mine. That you read the last page of a book first because you cannot bear uncertainty. That you care too much about people who do not deserve it and then act as though you do not care at all.”

His voice shook.

“The world may call you difficult. Too proud. Too willful. But those are the very things that make you… you. And I would not trade them for a softer, quieter woman who never challenges me.”

You shook your head faintly, overwhelmed. “Valarr—”

“I was cold because I was wounded, my lady,” he admitted. “Not because I felt nothing. But because I felt too much. Because loving you has never been mild. It has always been consuming.”

The confession settled between you, thick and trembling.

“I have watched you walk into rooms and pretend you do not feel,” he said softly. “But I see it. I have always seen it. Even when you pretended to choose someone else. Even when I tried to hate you for it.”

His hand lifted, hesitant at first, before brushing a tear from your cheek with aching gentleness.

“And tonight,” he murmured, voice breaking just slightly, “when you left the hall—I thought you were walking away from me again. And I… I realized I could not survive that twice.”

The vulnerability in his eyes was raw. Petrifying and hopeful.

“It has always been you,” he said quietly. “Even when you made it unbearable. Even when you made it hard. Even when I told myself I was done.”

The Godswood seemed to close in around you, the world narrowing to the space between your breaths. And for the first time that night, the pain in your chest shifted— no longer sharp and splintering, but trembling with something that felt dangerously like being chosen.

For a suspended, fragile moment, neither of you moved. Nonetheless, the air between you had changed.

All the sharp edges—the resentment, the pride, the misread silences—had dissolved into something unbearably clear. There was no more guessing now. No more strategizing. No more pretending not to feel.

You loved him. 

You loved him not in the restless, impulsive way you had once disguised as teasing or possession, not in the shallow thrill of wanting to be wanted. You loved him in the terrifying, steady way that demanded you choose him openly.

And he loved you—not despite your flaws, not in ignorance of them—but because of them. Through them. Around them.

Your hand lifted without conscious thought, settling against his chest. You felt the rapid beat of his heart beneath your palm, strong and unguarded.

“You infuriate me,” you whispered, voice trembling but soft now.

A faint, breathless huff of a laugh escaped him. “I am aware.”

“And you are unbearably certain of yourself.”

“Only about you.”

That did it.

You closed the distance first—but he met you halfway.

The kiss was not tentative. It was an impact.

Valarr’s hands came up immediately—one sliding to the back of your neck, fingers threading into the hair at your nape, not rough but firm, anchoring. The other hand enveloped the side of your face, thumb brushing your cheek as if confirming you were real before pulling you fully to him.

Your breath vanished. Your other hand slid from his chest up into his hair, gripping at the base of his skull, holding him as tightly as he held you. There was nothing restrained about it. No courtly politeness of careful moderation.

It was years of yearning and waiting igniting all at once.

His mouth moved against yours with urgency—not careless, not frantic—but hungry in a way that felt earned. Every restrained glance. Every swallowed word. Every almost and never and what-if poured into that single point of contact.

You felt him exhale against you, felt the tremor in his hands as his fingers tightened slightly in your hair. Your body pressed closer without thought, as if drawn by gravity.

You had been kissed before. You were not naive.

But this— This was not a kiss meant to impress or distract or amuse. This was a claiming and a surrender all at once. It felt like the world narrowing to heat and breath and the sharp, dizzying realization that you were exactly where you were meant to be.

When you finally parted, it was not from lack of want—but from lack of air. Your foreheads hovered close. Your noses brushed. Your breaths tangled together, warm and uneven.

For a moment, neither of you spoke. His thumb was still resting against your cheek.

“You taste like sweetwine,” he murmured softly.

You huffed a breath that might have been a laugh. “Did you not just say I disliked it?”

“Darling, I will never put it past you to lie.”

You did laugh then—quiet, disbelieving, a little breathless. Your heart felt different now. It was not frantic any longer, not fractured. Steady.

You had spent so long acting from jealousy. From fear. From the need to reclaim something you thought you were losing. But this—this was not about losing.

It was about choosing. Choosing him with full knowledge of the risks, choosing him without games. Without pride to hide behind.

“I do not want to be that person anymore,” you admitted softly. “The one who pushes and pulls. The one who hurts you just to see if you’ll stay.”

His forehead rested against yours. “Then don’t be.”

“I want to choose you,” you said. “Not because I’m afraid of someone else having you. But because I love you.”

The words did not tremble this time. They settled.

His breath caught. He pulled back just enough to look at you properly, his hands still warm at your face, his eyes searching as if committing this version of you to memory.

“Marry me.”

Your eyes widened slightly. “Valarr—”

“I have loved you through pride and pettiness,” he said, almost fiercely. “Through misunderstanding and resentment. I have tried to bury it and failed. I have tried to replace it and failed.”

A faint, crooked smile tugged at his mouth. “I am done pretending I want anything else.”

You stared at him, heart pounding anew—but not from fear. “Are you proposing to me in the Godswood at night without witnesses?” you asked faintly.

“Yes.”

“You realize that is terribly improper.”

“I find I no longer care.”

You studied him—this man who had yearned for you for years, who had been wounded by you, who had still chosen you.

“And if I say yes?” you asked softly.

His hand slid fully into yours, fingers lacing with intention. “Then I will spend the rest of my life arguing with you in libraries and pretending not to notice when you steal my wine.”

A slow smile spread across your face as you close the distance and kiss him again. He returns it gladly, like a man starved of affection, passionate and undone all at once. You pull away just as he settles into the rhythm of it.

“You will,” you said thoughtfully, ignoring his mumbled protest at the sudden departure, “have to endure my sharp tongue—”

“I adore your sharp tongue—” A kiss.

“—And my pride—”

“—I admire it—” Another.

“—And my tendency toward dramatics.”

“—I expect it.” And another.

You exhaled, a sound halfway between laughter and awe. For so long you had been the girl who flirted to distract herself. You had been the woman who toyed with affection because true love felt too heavy to name. Now you stood here, stripped of artifice, choosing—choosing him—openly.

“Yes,” you said.

The word felt like stepping forward instead of circling endlessly.

“Yes,” you repeated, stronger this time. “I will marry you.”

The relief that broke across his face was almost boyish—raw and luminous. He pulled you into him again, less desperate this time but no less certain, his arms wrapping fully around you as if anchoring both of you to this new reality.

Above you, the red leaves of the weirwood stirred softly. And for the first time in years, there was no misreading. No almost.

Only alignment.

IT HAD been three moons since the night in the Godswood.

Three moons since Valarr had asked for your hand beneath red leaves and watchful branches. Three moons since you had said yes—not out of jealousy, not out of pride, but out of something steady and terrifyingly certain.

The Keep had not been quiet about it.

As expected, the princess had been the first to know.

You had barely finished your halting explanation—tripping over the words proposal and Godswood and yes—when her eyes widened to an almost scandalized degree of delight.

“I knew it,” she breathed, clutching your hands in hers. “I absolutely knew it.”

The composure lasted all of three seconds.

Then she let out a barely contained squeal, dragging you into an embrace that smelled faintly of roses and parchment and expensive ink. She pulled back only to grip your shoulders, shaking you lightly in disbelief before pressing her hands over her mouth in an attempt to muffle another shriek of laughter.

“You are going to marry him,” she whispered, as though it were the most delicious secret in the realm.

You felt your own giddy laughter bubbling up in answer, the two of you dissolving into quiet, girlish giggles that would have scandalized half the court had they witnessed it. She leaned her forehead against yours, eyes shining.

“It is about time,” she declared at last, though her grin betrayed how thoroughly she had enjoyed every dramatic step that led here.

Prince Baelor had reacted with less subtlety. 

There had been a long stare, a heavy exhale, and then a clap on Valarr’s shoulder that nearly knocked him forward. When he turned to you, he inclined his head with deliberate courtesy. “You will find,” he said evenly, “that my son is steadfast once he has chosen.” A pause—brief, almost private. “And I believe he has chosen well.”

Later, you had learned that he drew Valarr aside that evening, away from the noise and congratulations. Whatever passed between them had not been meant for you—but Valarr told you enough.

“He said,” Valarr recounted softly, a rare vulnerability flickering across his face, “that my mother would have liked you.”

He did not say tolerated, or approved of. He had said, that Lady Jena Dondarrion would have liked you.

And coming from Prince Baelor, that had felt like the highest blessing of all.

Lady Kiera, gracious as ever, had smiled with genuine warmth when the announcement was made. Daeron at her side—her Daeron, as it had always been—looked quietly pleased, fingers laced with hers as though the matter had never been in question.

It had never been in question, and that was the mortifying part.

No one had ever said Valarr was to be betrothed to Lady Kiera. No proclamation had named him. No formal hint had been dropped. You had simply assumed, and you had not confessed that particular misunderstanding to the lady from Tyrosh. Some dignities were better left buried.

Valarr, unfortunately, did not share that philosophy.

Now, months later, seated across from Kiera and Daeron at supper, you found yourself uncharacteristically… bashful. You, who had once thrived on provocation and spectacle, now carefully avoided meeting Kiera’s knowing gaze for too long. You spoke politely. You smiled with composure. You did not make dramatic declarations across the table.

Valarr noticed, because of course he did.

Later that evening, when the hall had thinned and the torches burned lower, he leaned toward you, voice warm against your ear. “You were very well behaved tonight.”

You narrowed your eyes slightly. “I am always well behaved.”

He hummed. “Mm. Shall I remind you of the night you nearly declared war on me over a misunderstanding of your own invention?”

You stepped lightly on his boot beneath the table. He only grinned.

“You could at least have the decency not to look so pleased about it,” you muttered.

“I am pleased,” he replied easily. “It is poetic.”

“It is humiliating.”

“It is romantic,” he corrected softly.

You opened your mouth to argue, but he reached for your hand, thumb brushing over your knuckles in a gesture so gentle it stole the sharpness from your tongue.

“You chose me,” he said quietly. “Before you even knew you had.”

The teasing faded from his expression, replaced by something steadier. Something that still, even now, made your chest tighten.

You had changed in these months—not softened exactly, but steadied. The jealousy that once drove you had dissolved into something far braver. You no longer needed to test him. No longer needed to wound to measure devotion. You chose him openly now, and in doing so, found yourself less restless.

But you were still Baratheon.

You still laughed too loudly when something struck you as absurd. You still rode your horse faster than was entirely prudent. You still spoke before thinking when provoked.

The difference was this: You were no longer ashamed of it. And he no longer flinched from it.

Valarr loved you in your fire as much as in your tenderness. He met your recklessness not with restraint, but with balance. When you surged forward, he steadied. When he overthought, you pulled him into motion.

You fit—not because you were tamed, but because you were understood.

“You are staring,” he murmured now, brushing his thumb along your jaw.

“I am allowed,” you replied. “You are to be my husband.”

His mouth curved slowly. “Gods help the realm.”

“The realm will thrive,” you said loftily. “Under your influence.”

He leaned closer, laughter softening into something warmer. “Under our influence.”

Your breath caught just slightly at that.

He kissed you then—not the desperate, world-altering kiss from the Godswood, but something quieter. Intentional. His hand cupped your cheek, your fingers curled into the front of his tunic. It was slower now, familiar in the way only chosen love can be. When he pulled back, your foreheads rested together, a shared smile lingering between you.

The storms within you had not vanished. They had simply found a sky wide enough to hold them. 

And perhaps that was the most significant thing in the end. You had never needed to be less wild, less fierce, less Baratheon. You had only needed someone who would stand beside the thunder—and call it beautiful.

The pavilion smelled of poultice and blood. Dunk stood with his hands jammed into his armpits as if doing so would help him stay together. He was much too big for the space and far too helpless in it, every shift seemed to make the ground give way.

Prince Baelor lay on a low bed with blankets folded under his shoulders to keep him from rolling, though in truth the Prince had yet to show a single sign of life other than breathing. His head was turned to the side as to not put pressure on the affliction, his hair had been shorn where the blow had struck and the clean linen protecting the area was already turning pink at the centre.

The maester had washed the blood away and tried to staunch it as much as he could by filling the space, but Dunk could still see the shape of it in his mind, an ugly cavity where a skull ought to be smooth.

"Will this help?" a voice asked, too young and trying not to sound it.

Egg stood by the bed, clutching a folded cloth as if it were a sword. His eyes were fixed on his Uncle's face with a stubborn kind of fury, as though staring hard enough might keep the man tethered to this world.

The maester's mouth tightened. "It may ease his pain, if he feels any. That is all."

Prince Valarr was on the other side of the bed. He had not sat, or leaned, he stood straight-backed in his doublet as if he were already in a sept, made of marble like the statues of dead kings. His hands betrayed him, knuckles white with his fingers curled around nothing.

"He feels," Valarr said, voice quiet and uncharacteristically weak for a prince. It wasn't a question, it was a demand that could not be met.

The maester glanced at the bandages and Dunk saw something like fear flicker across the old man's face before it disappeared behind training.

"We have done what can be done. If the gods are... merciful, he may yet return to us."

Dunk swallowed whatever he wanted to say. Can't you do anything else? The maester held Baelor's head steady while he tipped a few drops between the prince's lips, he rubbed his throat to coax a swallow that came sloe and half-wrong. A thin line of liquid dribbled down his chin which was swiped away with a piece of linen.

"You'll save him," Egg said suddenly, and it came out harsh and brave. Desperate all the same. "You have to."

The maester's gaze slid past him, past Dunk, to Valarr. For a heartbeat his face softened, as if he wanted to say something kinder for a son watching his father die. What came out was the truth, plain and simple.

"We will keep him comfortable, we will watch, we will pray. If he is to live, it would not be by my hand alone."

Valarr remained steadfast but he stared down at his father with an expression Dunk couldn't begin to name. Grief, yes. But there was something else threaded through it, something that made the air brittle. Guilt? Perhaps, it was Valarr's armour that guarded Baelor, his armour that failed and allowed the injury to occur. But Valarr had not swung the mace. That was Maekar.

Dunk had seen it happen in a flash of panic and steel, Maekar trying to reach for Aerion. Striking his brother with a blow that was meant to deter.

Egg made a thin, furious noise. "There has to be-"

"There is not," the maester resigned.

Dunk's hands suddently felt enormous and useless, his thoughts scrambled for something, anything, that could make a difference. But he only had a sword at his hip and the certainty that steel was of no use against a broken skull.

Dunk stumbled out into the cold air as if fleeing smoke. The sky was darker now. He sucked in a breath and it tasted of mud and fear. There was nothing to be done. Prince Baelor would die. And he would die for Duncan.

Just when all hope seemed lost, the horizon opened for him.

Perched on a line of Baelor's pavillion as if it belonged there was a crow, black feathers slick against the twilight. It should have been a dark omen, an animal of death appearing at Baelor's bed but this crow was special.

It did not hop away when Dunk stepped closer, it only watched with a bright knowing eye, head cocked.

This one had a pale scar along its beak like a scratch left by an old knife. He had seen that scar before, years ago. When he had been bleeding out and feverish.

The tent rustled, and he heard Egg's voice, small now, asking something - begging perhaps. Dunk could not make out the words. The crow clicked its beak once, sharp as flint.

His hands curled into fists. He saw Ser Arlan's face as it had been when he was alive, heard his voice clearer now too.

The crow's her signature. Don't bring steel into her hollow.

Dunk looked down at his sword, one he hadn't parted from in days. His fingers unclasped the belt, he set the blade down on a crate beside the pavilion like a man laying a child to bed.

Behind him, the tent flap snapped open. Egg burst out, face puffy and blotched. He stopped when he saw Duncan without his sword. "What are you doing?" His voice more a plea than a scold. "Ser Duncan, what are you-"

Dunk pointed at the crow. "You see that?" He needed to check that his mind wasn't conjuring up images to give him hope.

Egg followed his finger. "It's a crow."

"Good, it's hers." Dunk said, surprising himself with how certain he sounded.

"Hers?" And then, because he was Egg, because he was curious even at the edge of grief. "Who are you talking about?"

"A... friend." Dunk said, awkwardly because the word was too small to describe what she had done. "A woman who... who pulled me back once when I ought to have died. A witch, maybe." She was definitely a witch but he couldn't just admit that.

Egg's eyes went huge. "A witch."

The tent shifted again, and the Young Prince stepped out into the open air. He moved like a man who had decided not to fall apart until later. His gaze flicked across their faces. "What is this?" Valarr asked.

Dunk hesitated. He could lie, say nothing. Few took happiness in the mention of witchcraft.

But inside the pavilion, Baelor was dying - because of him.

"There is someone," Dunk started. "Not far, or maybe far. I don't know. I've always been able to find her, when I needed her. Or she's found me. She's in the woods."

Valarr's face tightened at the word woods and the unspoken truth behind it. Witch.

"We have maesters," It sounded like something he'd been taught to say, something that was always worked before. "We have-"

"We have nothing that's helping him," Dunk cut it before remembering his station. "I beg your pardon, my prince."

Egg stepped between them as if he could break the tension with his small body. "If she saved you, maybe she can save him. We have to try."

Valarr looked at Egg as if seeing him for the first time, a boy with too much heart and not enough sense. "I have been told all my life to steer clear of witchcraft," He said. "That it is a lie that wears a woman's face."

Dunk went to open his mouth but Valarr held up a single, shaking finger. "But I have also been told that my father will die." The crow hopped down onto a high crate like it had been waiting too long.

Valarr's eyes flicked to it. "If there is a chance," he said, and the words cost him something. "Then I will take it, take me to your friend."

Egg latched onto Dunk's sleeve at once. "I'm coming with you, Ser Duncan."

"No," Dunk began, but Egg's grip tightened and his stubbornness flared liked a flame.

"You said she is your friend," He said fiercely. "You said she saved you. I'm coming."

Dunk looked at the boy, and felt something soft and aching in his chest. "Fine," Dunk said. "But you stay close. Do as I say and you don't touch a thing. She gets cranky when people do that."

Egg nodded quickly. "Yes, ser."

Dunk turned back to the bird, as he took a step towards the dark line of trees beyond the camp the crow lifted, flapped once, and glided ahead, low over the grass like a shadow pulling them by the hand.

Dunk set his jaw and followed it into the trees, Egg hurried to keep up. Valarr's footsteps fell behind them, measured, as if a prince could walk into a witchwood without letting fear show on his face.

The woods took them the way deep water takes a stone, quietly, without hurry, like it had been waiting. Somewhere above, something skittered along bark, quick as lightning.

The crow had disappeared some time ago, every now and then Duncan could've sworn he saw it swoop through the trees in his peripherals but everytime he turned to look, it was gone.

Egg kept close at Dunk's elbow. The knight could tell he was trying to be brave in the way all boys did, too quietly, as if the silence could protect him. Even Valarr, who Dunk had never talked to outside of a few hours ago, was walking closer.

"You said she saved you," Egg whispered, like speaking too loudly would wake what slept between the trees. "Before. You said you ought... to have died."

"Aye," he said. "I was four and ten."

Egg glanced up at him, eyes wide. "How did you get hurt?"

Dunk's thoughts snagged on the old pain. He remembered the taste of blood in his mouth, the way the world had blurred and faded and the last thought he had. So this is what death feels like.

"We were on the road," he said slowly. "The memories of that time are fuzzy. I can't remember the place's name. Some men thought an old knight and a young squire would be easy pickings. They were wrong about Ser Arlan being easy." His voice tightened as he continued. "But they had more knives than we had luck."

Valarr's footsteps drew closer, maybe he wanted to hear to story. To be reassured that this woman could save his father.

"One of them caught me. I got two blades, something in me ruptured. Internal bleeding, she said. I remember falling, I couldn't breathe proper and blood was coming up from my lungs. Ser Arlan tried to keep me awake and stop the blood but it kept coming."

Egg swallowed audibly. "And he took you to her."

"That he did."

"Did he know her?"

"He did. I asked how, once. He told me that some debts are best paid quietly. I think she owed him."

Valarr spoke for the first time since they'd left camp. "What did she do?" As if the act could be measured and judged.

"She told Ser Arlan to put me down," Dunk said. "Said I needed to feel the ground under me. Made him take off his mail and set it aside. She doesn't like having steel near." Valarr's gaze moved down to where Duncan's sword ought to have been.

"Did it hurt?" Egg's voice was small.

Dunk let out a small laugh. "Yes," he said. "It hurt. But I don't think it was her doing, I think that was just my injuries. Then all of a sudden it didn't. It wasn't like she had given me milk of the poppy. It was like the pain became far off. It gave me time to think and recover my senses."

He could hear Ser Arlan's voice again, low and careful. Do as she says, lad. Don't argue. Don't touch the charms.

"She told me to keep breathing, not to try. She told me to do it, like she was pulling on the reins of a horse. And I did. Something about her made me do it, maybe that was the true witchcraft."

They walked on, the trees grew closer, and branches knit overhead. After a time, Egg asked, "And you've been able to find her ever since?"

Dunk's lips pressed together. "When I needed her," he said, and it sounded like superstition the moment the words left his mouth. He hated that it did, he wished for the world to be a thing you could hit with a hammer until it made sense.

"She doesn't live like other folk," he added. "Sometimes you'll happen across her like she's always been there. Sometimes you'll turn around, and she'll be right there behind you, quiet as a shadow. You don't hear her coming."

Egg looked around at the black trunks and glistening leaves, as if Dunk's words would prompt her to appear. "That's not possible."

Dunk snorted softly. "A lot of things are impossible. And yet."

Valarr's voice came again, controlled and strained. "Why does she help you if the debt's been paid?"

Dunk thought of the first time he'd met her, of Ser Arlan's face lined with worry, of him kneeling on damp earth and speaking to a girl in a low voice that carried respect. He thought of the way she'd looked at Dunk as if she were weighing him up in her mind. Not his size, but something else. Something more valuable.

"I don't know," Dunk admitted. "Maybe she liked Ser Arlan, maybe she saw something in me worth saving." He swallowed before continuing. "I know what people say of witches. That they kill without mercy, but she's not like that. Not at all. I think she just likes helping people, she hides away because she knows what people would do if they knew what she was capable of."

Bringing people back from the brink of death. Valarr and Egg thought to themselves. A powerful skill, what else was she capable of? She must be one powerful witch. If it is true, she would be caged by some high lord. Forced to do their bidding over and over again.

Egg's pace quickened by half a step, eager despite the fear. "What is she like?"

"She's... calm." He said. "Not meek or anxious. She doesn't take insults from anyone, she'll give some remark or just stare at you like she's counting your bones. She feels deeply for people, perhaps more deeply than anyone I've met. But she hides that part. Sometimes, she laughs at things that aren't funny. That always made me feel like she knows something I don't...though, I am fairly certain she can see the future."

Egg shivered, from the cold or excitement, Dunk couldn't tell. "And she has a crow," Egg said, like that made it all more real.

"Aye, that one." Dunk looked to the sky as if the bird would appear. "Keep your coins, brooches, and chains hidden. It will steal anything shiny it can get its mouth around to give to her as a gift, as long as it's not steel. She keeps them as a collection."

"You're certain she can save him," Valarr spoke, now fully alongside them. It wasn't really a question, more of a line he was trying to hold.

Dunk wanted to say yes. To swear on his sword that his father would be safe for both Baelor's sake and Valarr's. "I don't believe her crow would come if there was nothing to be done. Besides, I'm certain the maesters can do nothing. And I'm certain she's done what shouldn't be possible before."

Valarr's breath hissed through his teeth, a sound like steel being drawn. Suddenly, a crow's call was heard ahead of them, it reverberated through the forest. Its wings could be heard beating, once, twice, as it disappeared into a deeper pocket of the dark. Dunk's heart lurched.

Egg grabbed his sleeve. "Ser Duncan-".

"There," Dunk said, though he had no reason to know yet. Something in him remembered this feeling, stumbling through the trees with blood spewing from his mouth and Ser Arlan's voice in his ear.

He pushed on, faster now. Branches snagged at Valarr's cloak as he followed behind closely. The trees thinned as if the forest was making space. The clearing was not empty.

Trinkets hung from the branches, strips of cloth, bones bleached white, little bundles of herbs, and twigs that had been arranged into symbols. They swung with the breeze that ran through the area.

Then the wind stopped as if the life had been sucked out of the clearing, and all fell silent.

As if the forest had exhaled her, she was there. Not a crunch of leaves or a snap of branches. Just there, in the alcove of a tree, watching them as if she'd been waiting for hours.

The crow was settled on her thigh, and Dunk's heart thudded painfully in his chest.

"You three are late." Your voice was as soft as moss, it hadn't changed since Dunk had last seen you.

He found his tongue at last. "Prince Baelor," He managed, the sound came out like a prayer and an apology. "He's-"

"I know," She said as she lifted herself from the ground, swiping any dirt away from her clothes.

Her eyes were on Dunk, but he had this sudden, unsettling feeling that she was looking through him, past him, all the way to the pavilion and the dying man inside.

She moved as though she belonged. Certain of herself and her abilities. Dunk had always felt clumsy compared to her, all boots and breath and loud human warmth.

Egg's gaze flicked over her abode. "You..." he began, then faltered, as if he weren't sure what to say. "You knew we were coming."

The witch's mouth curved. "Of course, I knew."

Valarr stepped forward a half pace. "How?" His voice was polite but bordering on anxious. "No one in camp sent word. No rider-"

"No," You agreed softly. Your gaze slid to him, taking him in the way you'd taken Dunk in years ago. "No rider would have reached me in time."

Egg blurted, "Then how?"

You tipped her head, considering whether the question deserved a serious answer before shrugging and saying, very simply. "The wind told me."

"The wind... doesn't talk." Egg frowned.

"It does, to us witches at least." There was a quiet finality that made the argument seem childish.

Dunk felt Valarr's stare, sharp and disbelieving yet so desperate. The prince's lips pressed into a line, as if he were reciting all the lessons he'd been taught about women in woods. Dunk could see the battle inside him, between what he'd been told and what he wanted.

No, what he needed.

Dunk looked at the trinkets laid out around her. "You've been... preparing." He nodded at the items.

Your eyes softened for a second. "I set out what I would need," you said. "How far is the prince?"

"Not too far," Dunk answered, looking back the way they came.

"He's sinking. I can feel it. And you wouldn't have come to me if he weren't."

Egg's breath caught, "Can you save him?"

The witch looked at the young boy before her. Your gaze was fond, sad and wary as the same. "He is not yours," you said gently. "Yet you are afraid for him all the same."

Egg's cheeks went red. "He's good." He said fiercely. "He- he didn't deserve this."

"No one deserves this." You murmured. "Perhaps, besides your elder brother. His soul has been consumed by the Targaryen madness."

Valarr's voice came out tight. "If you can help him. Then name your price."

"I do not bargain like a merchant over a dying man." You said, though there was no cruelty to be found in your voice. You looked at each of them individually before continuing. "Bring me to him. Now."

Your hands were stained, not with blood but with old green smears. Crushed herbs, perhaps, or something else. There were cuts along your fingers that were half-healed as though you'd been working for hours.

"You really knew?" Dunk said quietly.

You walked past him, carrying your copious amount of supplies. "I told you...the wind."

Egg hurried to keep up. "What did it say?"

"It said a good man was being taken." You replied. "It said that two young princes would follow a knight true at heart. It said grief would come hidden behind duty."

The path back was not the same path in reverse. Dunk was sure of it. The trees had shifted. The ground rose where it had been flat. He would have been lost in minutes, but the crow flew overhead, and the woman followed it without a moment of hesitation.

Valarr watched her hands, he didn't want to look too closely at her eyes no matter how welcoming they seemed. He watched her hands instead because they seemed safer.

Her hands were full.

A bowl was held carefully against her hip, a small bundle of different herbs tied with twine in the other. A pouch at her belt bumped softly with each step, heavy with whatever she'd packed, chalk, charcoal, bones, stones and perhaps even teeth. Strips of cloth were folded and tucked under her elbow, even the crow seemed to add weight, hopping from branch to branch over her.

Valarr's throat worked. He had been told, like many other followers of the Seven, that women like this were snares. That you did not speak too freely to them. That you did not accept gifts, and you did not offer help, because that would be an invitation, and that could become a binding.

But then he glanced ahead, imaging his father's tent, the way the man's chest barely rose. And teachings, for all their weight and worth, did not keep a man alive.

She stepped over a root without looking, like she knew where it would be before it was there. Her balance was too sure for someone carrying so much.

Still.

Valarr could not stand behind her like a boy being led. He had to do something with his hands, if only to stop him from thinking of what fate awaits his beloved father.

He moved closer, careful not to brush her sleeve. His voice came out steadier than he felt it. "- My lady." The words tasted strange in his mouth. He had addressed ladies of court with silks and jewels and perfumed hair. This woman smelled of damp earth, which actually might've been more appealing than the perfume, to be honest.

You did not slow or turn your head. "I'm no lady."

Valarr's ears warmed, but he kept walking alongside you, matching your pace. "Then..." He swallowed and cursed himself for fumbling like a squire. "Then-"

Your eyes flicked to him briefly, quick and assessing. "Then speak... my prince."

"You are... carrying a great deal." He gestured, awkwardly, at the bowl, the bundles, at everything. "Might I carry something?"

For a heartbeat, he thought she might laugh. Instead, she looked ahead and said nothing at all.

He held his hands out slightly, palms open, in the universal posture of 'I mean no harm'. It felt ridiculous.

"I can carry the bowl," he added quickly, before pride could choke him. "Or the cloth. Whatever you wish."

She slowed then, and her gaze slid to his hands. He got that odd feeling that he was being tested. "You're afraid of me." You stated. It was not an accusation, it was an observation.

Valarr's jaw tightened. Lying would be pointless. "Yes."

"And still you offer."

"Yes," he said again, because there was no other answer. His voice dropped without his permission. "Because my father is dying."

You made a quiet sound, almost a sign, almost a snort, and adjusted your grip. "You've been taught to fear us." Then again, though you look more amused now. "And it is not just because your father is dying."

Valarr's brows drew together. He kept his hand out anyway, stubbornly open. "Then why?" He asked, and it came out more honest than princely. "Why would I-"

She didn't look at him when she answered. Her eyes stayed on the path. "Because you're a good person," she said simply.

The words landed wrong, like a cloak thrown over him that doesn't quite fit. Valarr almost stumbled on a root he didn't see. "I-" he began, then stopped. Praise from courtiers was easy, they always wanted something. This didn't sound like that.

The witch glanced back at him then. "Don't argue. It's clear as day." She looked at the space around him, over his shoulder, as if searching.

Valarr looked down. "You don't know me."

"I can see it. Do not tell me what I can and cannot see. It's right there." You gestured around him. "You cannot escape it."

He forced himself to stay calm. "What," he said, carefully, "is there?"

You exhaled through her nose, the smallest hint of impatience. "Your aura," she said, like naming it made it easier to understand. "The shape of you."

Valarr stared at her profile, trying to decide if this was some trick meant to unsettle him. "That's not a thing."

"It's a thing," she replied. "It's just not something people are taught to notice. But some people are more sensitive to them. Have you ever gotten a bad feeling about someone you've just met? It's similar, just deeper."

He frowned. "An aura."

"Yes." She shifted the items in her arms. "Everyone has one. Some people glow like hearth fires. Some people are like smoke, cunning, and not to be trusted. Others are... cold."

Valarr's fingers flexed, hands unsure of what to do with themselves. "And mine?" He asked before he could stop himself.

"Yours is clean... warm... and light." She said slowly, like she was trying to select the truest word. "Not spotless. No one is. But clean like river water over stone. Purifying. It tells me that others are cleansed in your presence. You inspire others to do better. I imagine your father's is much the same." It shouldn't have pleased him the way it did, it did soothe his nerves though. "Your aura leans forward. Towards people. Toward the needs of others. The cruel ones don't do that, they curl inwards. They take."

Valarr swallowed. “And you can tell that just by looking.”

“I can,” she said. “It’s why fear doesn’t impress me. Half the men who fear witches are good men who were taught wrong. The other half are bad men who don’t want others to see them for what they are. Vermin.”

His hands hovered again, still offered. “Then let me carry something,” he said, stubborn. “If you can see what I am, then you can see I mean it.”

"...Very well," she said at last. She leaned forward and held out the bowl, herbs, and other bits and pieces that were hidden in the folds of her clothes.

He took them with both hands, careful, reverent despite himself.

"Don't let it touch the ground," she told him.

"I won't."

"And don't let anyone else touch it. I've only allowed you to."

"No one will," Valarr promised, and meant it with a fierceness that surprised him.

You believed him, and not just because his father's life was on the line.

Egg lifted his head like a hound catching a scent. "We're close." He whispered.

Dunk didn't answer, but he could see torchlight now between the trunks, they shone like little wavering stars that made the dark seem less endless.

The elder prince kept a half step behind the witch, items steady in his hands. Her loyal crow swooped over the camp's edge and landed on a stake, watching the tents like a sentry. A few men nearby saw it and made signs against ill-luck without thinking. They knew that the crown prince's life hung in the balance, and under normal circumstances, a crow would be the last thing you wanted to see.

"Seven save us," someone muttered. The words made your skin prickle, made it burn. When Dunk turned to look at you, knowing the effect such words could have, you looked unimpressed if a little uncomfortable. Gods and curses were small talk you'd grown bored of years ago.

A guard stepped forward with a hand raised. "Halt. Who goes-" He got as far as the princes before stopping, startled. "Prince-"

"Enough, Prince Baelor is dying." Dunk had said, voice rough.

The guard's eyes darted to Valarr as if astonished that the hedge knight was making a demand, but the prince had nothing to say. He didn't think he could speak even if the Gods demanded it of him. Not with his father so close. The guard looked to the woman beside them, silent, and he hesitated, confusion and suspicion making him stupid.

It was Egg's voice that cut through, steady with command. "Out of our way."

Rank did what fear could not. The guard stepped aside at once, and the group of men around him shifted as if the ground was burning. They watched the witch pass with a morbid fascination.

"That's a woods-woman-"

"Gods above, she's got charms-"

Egg tucked closer to Dunk, as if the words were being sent his way. Dunk wanted to scoop him up and hide him in his cloak like a pup.

The witch moved through the camp as if walking through mist. Knights, squires, and servants alive found themselves stepping away as she grew closer.

They reached Baelor's pavilion, and Dunk shoved the flap aside. The maester looked up sharply, eyes red-rimmed with exhaustion. "Ser Duncan, you cannot simply-" He fell upon the woman, and his voice faltered before returning twice as sharp. "What is this? Who is that?"

Egg rushed towards the bed. "He's still breathing," he whispered, relief and terror mixing as he watched his Uncle's chest barely lift.

Valarr stepped in behind them, holding the supplies as if it were Baelor's skull in his hands. The maester's eyes widened at the sight of a prince holding items for a witch like a serving boy.

You stood still for a heartbeat, taking in the area. Then your gaze went to Baelor's face, and something in you shifted, recognition. "He's slipping," you said, the words sliding off your tongue without meaning to.

The maester bristled at her words. "And you, are a-"

"A nuisance," you supplied, calmly as ever. "Yes, have you anything useful to say, or shall I get to work?"

Dunk flinched, expecting outrage, but the maester's mouth opened, shut, and opened again like a fish. He couldn't quite believe the audacity.

Valarr's voice came controlled, but there was steel to be found there as well. "She has come to help."

"To help?" The maester reiterated like the idea was unfathomable. "This is a prince of the blood. This is- this is-"

"-a man," the witch said, and the simplicity cut through his indignation. You stepped closer to the bed and stopped just shy of touching. "A man with his skull caved in."

Her eyes flicked to the maester's chain around his neck. Then to the tools of his kit, the buckles, the metal clasps.

"No steel inside the circle," You said, moving items off the floor so that you might place down a cover that you can draw on.

You drew out a large circumference before gesturing Dunk and Valarr over to the cot that held Baelor. "Prince, give me your items. You two are going to lift him, carefully, into the middle of the circle. Turn him until I say so."

She gestured forward with her head as her hands were now full again, and both men wasted no time before lifting the prince up by the wooden slats on either side. They slowly moved into the circle, as to not disturb the crown prince.

Once in the centre, they moved in opposite directions to change Baelor's orientation. "Stop," The word came suddenly from the witch's lips. "Put him down gently."

Egg stepped around the circle, not quite sure what he was allowed to do. "Why does he need to face this way?"

"His head is to the east. So that the sun might shine its light on his soul first."

It made no sense to anyone else in the room, and Valarr honestly had no idea how she could tell the cardinal directions from inside a tent just off feeling alone, but realised that if she could see auras, then this truly wasn't all that weird, all things considered.

Valarr swallowed as he looked down at his father. "Tell us what you need," he said, because that was something he could do, something that sounded like a command rather than a plea.

The witch held out the bowl to him, "Place this at the foot of the bed," she said. "Carefully."

Valarr knelt, the movement looked wrong on him, and yet he did so without hesitation. He set the bowl down as if it were a sleeping babe.

"Good," she murmured.

The witch's fingers brushed the air over Baelor's bandages, not touching, hovering as if feeling for heat. Though Dunk knew she had lost that ability long ago. Her hand trembled once, subtly.

The maester's eyes narrowed. "Whatever you plan, I will not permit-"

"You will," she said without looking at him. She drew herbs, charcoal and other items they could not name from her satchel. "Because if you don't, he will die."

Silence swallowed the tent. The maester went still at that before falling back helpless.

She moved around the circle silently, drawing insignias into the circle at seemingly random spots. They were too old and too wrong to be letters. A few times, she flicked a few drops of mysterious substance onto the chalk line, and the air seemed to thicken.

"A boundary," she spoke unprompted. "To ward of spirits that might wish to take advantage of Prince Baelor's predicament."

She finished the last mark and sat back on her heels before looking up at all of them. "Now, move nothing unless I tell you. Speak to him only if I ask. And if anyone breaks my line-" her eyes slid to the maester, "-then you will watch as the spirits tear him apart."

Valarr's breath trembled in anticipation. "I won't let anyone touch it," he said. Just as fierce as back in the forest. The witch's gaze softened with approval. Then she nodded once and turned back to Baelor as if the rest of them had become nothing more than furniture.

The witch dipped two fingers into the bowl at the foot of the bed that she'd poured another unknown liquid into (it was grey-tinted but that was about all they could make out. She drew a wet line down Baelor's wrist, then another along the inside of his forearm.

She murmured under her breath, nothing in the common tongue. An ancient language only she seemed to know. Valarr couldn't make any sense of them, but his skin prickled at their sound nonetheless.

She pressed her palm, very lightly, against Baelor's breastbone. "Breathe," she told him. It was a command, but a light one, like she was coaxing him into it. Like she'd commanded Dunk, years ago, with blood in his mouth and death close enough to taste.

Baelor's breath hitched.

Egg's eyes went wide, and he looked to Dunk, who didn't seem all that surprised. Just hopeful. Valarr leaned forward on his feet and stopped himself from approaching his father with visible effort.

She closed her eyes. Her brow knit in concentration. Her hand moved to the side of his father's neck where the pulse lived. The flame of the lantern dipped.

"It's time to return." She whispered, meant only for Baelor. "It doesn't have to be all the way. Just enough." She paused again before continuing, quieter now. "Your son is waiting."

Her fingers of her right hand slid to the bandage at the back of his skull while her left hand picked herbs from her satchel. She slid the greens into the Prince's mouth with little fuss, and he swallowed them down on his own.

The maester wasn't looking at the witch but at his prince's face, desperate and helpless. "Father above," he whispered so that only those closest to him could hear. Dunk and Egg. "Mother, have mercy. Warrior, lend him strength..."

She could not hear the prayer, and it wasn't meant as a weapon, but Dunk watched as the witch's fingers tightened into a fist. A faint hiss escaped her teeth.

It wasn't in pain per se, but rather irritation, like how one might act when a mosquito flies too close and draws blood. The skin above the veins in her hands flushed red as if her blood began to boil.

Egg didn't notice, but Valarr certainly did. "What-?" His breath caught.

The witch looked over her shoulder, searching for the cause of her irritation. She looked past them, trying to keep her attention tethered to Baelor and not the sour sting crawling under her skin. "Pray in your mind... or better yet, go outside," she said, words clipped.

The maester faltered mid-prayer, startled more by her tone than anything else. "I am praying for the prince," he stammered, defensive and ashamed all at once. "Not against you."

Dunk swallowed, he had seen this before when he'd run into the witch sometime ago. Intent mattered. He'd watched her burn worse when men and women alike prayed at her, not for someone. When the faith was a blade, and she was the target.

Despite the fear being for Baelor and not of her, it still scraped because, despite what people liked to hope, their gods were not merciful. And they had no love for her.

The witch flexed her hand once, shaking off the nettle sting. "I'm aware. But your gods don't like me, and they'll take any chance to strike me even if you don't mean to. If you must pray, please specify that they do not harm me. That would be much appreciated."

The maester's lips pressed together at her words. He looked torn between indignation and desperation. "Why?" He demanded, and truthfully, Valarr wished to know as well. "If you do good, with your... abilities. If you truly mean to save him, why would the Seven-?"

"Because I'm not one of theirs, and if you wish for the truth?" She said, looking at them fully now. "Fate has decided that Baelor should die today. They don't like that I've made a habit of disagreeing, or actively fighting back." The red on her skin had faded now, and she seemed more comfortable.

They had nothing to say to that. Fate has decided...

The maester continued to pray quietly, but must have heeded her words because she didn't respond like before.

Her fingers hovered at the back of Baelor's head again. She did not touch, but she held her palm there. Baelor's chest rose.

Then rose again, smoother than the last.

You shifted your stance, bracing yourself, and then you began the real work. Murmuring those old words again, tracing invisible lines over Baelor's throat and brow, forcefully anchoring his breath.

"Now," you murmured, "Stay." The words landed heavily in the same space. Egg swallowed hard, and Valarr's nails dug into his palms.

Baelor's chest rose steadier yet, like he'd settled into sleep instead of death. Your hands slowed, and your lips moved one last time. Then you lifted your fingers up through the air as though you were closing an unseen door.

She sat back on her heels inside the chalk circle, and nothing happened. There was no sudden gasp, or opening of eyes, and certainly no sudden miracles.

Egg let out a thin breath that sounded like it might've been trapped in him for hours. "Is... is it done?" He whispered.

You didn't answer straight away. You were staring down at your hands as if they belonged to someone else. You flexed your hands, once, slow and then placed the palm against the earth, grounding yourself like you'd told Dunk to do long ago.

"It's done, "she said at last, voice flat with fatigue. "Now we wait."

The maester's hand hovered uselessly over his kit. "If the swelling-"

"Will settle," she cut in "If you stop jostling him like a sack of grain. Keep him dim. Keep him quiet. Let him sleep. You'll know within a few hours if the thread holds."

"Hours." Egg repeated, maybe he could bargain with time by saying the word.

You reached into your pouch and drew out a bundle wrapped in cloth. You loosened it and spilled its contents onto the ground. Bones, all kinds of bones, and a set of worn cards with edges softened by use, their faces marked with inked figures.

"I can look," you offered, as if you were speaking of checking the weather. "Bones and cards. But it won't change what's been decided. It will tell us which way the wind is blowing."

Valarr stepped forward as you gestured for him. As Baelor's son, he should be the one present. He stared at the bone as if they might bite. "You can... see the future."

"I can talk to the wind, I can see auras, I can read the cards and the bones to see what is possible. The paths. Visions of the future come more rarely, even if I do know the gist of what is to happen."

She lifted one of the cards, pinched it between two fingers, and for a moment Dunk saw her blink, once, twice, like a woman trying to fight sleep. Her face tightened with confusion.

She held the card closer to the lanternlight.

Egg leaned in, curiosity fighting fear. "What does it say?"

The witch stared at the card as if the ink had shifted without looking. "It says..." she paused before she brought the lantern closer, and realisation settled on her features. "Ah, it says what it has always said."

The men looked between each other, somewhat confused. She looked from the card before lifting the herbs next to her to the light, fingers brushing over the more colourful flowers attached to them. Then, she looked up towards, the tapestry hung on the wall. The intricate weaves. The colours. She hummed, nodding to herself as if taking stock of her surroundings like they were brand new.

"There's no need to worry yet. It's my own affliction that is confusing me, not the prince's."

Dunk's stomach tightened, because he'd recognised that look. He'd seen it once before, when you'd saved him and gingerly reached for the campfire like it was a stray dog that might bite. Back then he'd thought you were only tired, now he thinks he knows better.

"Come closer, Prince," you said, and Valarr obeyed at once, sitting in front of you as you gestured his down.

You turned to your bones first, forsaking the cards. They gathered in your palm, warming with your breath as you whispered into them. You cast them onto the cloth.

They clicked as they fell, the sound too loud in a tent too quiet.

You leaned in and studied the way they'd landed. Valarr watched your face with intent as you hummed, turning back to your cards once more.

You spread them out in a neat arch, you held your hand out over them in demonstration. "You are his closest blood, so it will be more accurate if you do this part." Valarr's spine straightened with your words. "Hold out your hand like so." He hovered his hand over the cards, and you placed yours over his. Your touch was ice cold despite the heat in the tent. "Now, you will move your hand over the cards. The relevant cards will move on their own."

Gingerly, he did as he was told. Palm flat over the cards, he moved it slowly and watched with awe as cards nudged towards you from the neat arch you had laid them.

You lifted your hand away at last and gestured towards the bones. "Three of them are strong. One is weak." Your gaze flicked up to Valarr's eyes. "That's good odds for living."

Then you turned the first card, the second and the third.

A figure inked in black stood upright, arms raised as if holding up a roof. The second card showed water, dark and contained. The third was a wheel. You stared for a long moment, then nodded, a short decisive motion that made Egg's shoulders sag with sudden, shaky relief.

"He wakes."

Valarr's whole body went taught, as if someone yanked a string through his limbs. "When?" He demanded, too quickly, too hungry.

You didn't snap at him for it like Dunk thought you would've. You looked back to Baelor and spoke with the same blunt certainty you'd used when you'd told him to breath. "Not tonight. Tomorrow perhaps. The bones say it will be sooner rather than later." You fiddled with a few of the pieces. "Long before the sun reaches its peak in the sky, soon after the it rises in the east."

"He'll be...him?" Egg asked, they knew what magic could do to one's soul if used incorrectly.

"He'll be him," you confirmed. You drew another card from the arch and observed its contents. "He'll have headaches. Bad ones, some days. And if he is too stressed or angry, his body may seize." Your gaze cut to the maester. "Turn him on his side. Clear his mouth. Don't put a spoon between his teeth like fools. Let it pass. They will not kill him."

The maester blinked, and despite his previous disdain he absorbed the knowledge readily. "Treatable," he said, like he was tasting the concept.

Valarr swallowed. "No graver affliction?" He asked, voice small like a young boy's.

You shook your head. "I have seen blindness after my work, Paralysis. But the cards preempted those issues then. If they do not speak of it now, it will not become a problem."

Dunk's knees threatened to give, relief hitting him like a blow. He braced a hand on the bedpost to stay upright. For a moment, no one spoke but then Valarr looked up at you, and duty returned to his face like armour sliding into place.

"What do you want?" he asked. "For payment. If he wakes up, we will give you anything. Truly."

The maester's head jerked up, and Egg went still. Dunk knew they had nothing to worry about, you had never asked for payment before. Ypu didn't even glance at them. You looked at Baelor, then your face twisted in something like weary amusement.

Men and their payments.

"I want you to keep him alive," you said. "This man will be king and he will be a great one. He will be respected but he will also be loved. He will do many great things."

Valarr blinked. "That's-" he faltered, searching for the proper words. "That's not payment."

"It is to me," you replied, simply.

"But-" He swallowed again. "Gold. Land. Protection. A vow. Anything. Name it."

You leaned back on your hands. "I will stay," you said simply. "To ensure his care...After that, you owe me nothing." You added a shrug on the end as if the deal had already been made.

Valarr's eyes narrowed, not in suspicion of you, but in suspicion of the world. Magic of this kind did not come without cost. Of all the things he'd been taught, that was a certainty like a statue.

"Nothing?" he repeated. "That's not-" Possible, he stopped. His gaze slid over you, the way you held yourself too still, the faint tremor you hid. His eyes dropped to your cards, then the fire which you'd kept glancing at when you thought no one was looking.

"You..." Valarr began, voice rough. Dunk felt it, the moment the thought finally found Valarr and settled behind his eyes. If the debt was paid, and no one else had paid it... then-

"You paid it."

You hummed quietly, and your fingers gathered the bones and the cards around you.

His throat bobbed. "What did it cost?"

You didn't answer immediately. Not because you couldn't, but because saying it out loud always made it real in a way you preferred to avoid. Your fingers paused over the bones and then resumed your careful gathering.

"Enough," you said, voice tired.

Valarr's jaw tightened. "That isn't an answer."

You looked up them, and the lanternlight caught your eyes. Dunk saw it clearly now, how your gaze didn't settle on the bright things in the pavilion the way others might. Earlier, you were taking in the shapes and edges. The card you'd held when you got confused held intricate colours, in the dim lighting even Dunk could see that from his distance. It was one of the few reasons he was able to discern what it depicted.

It was strange that you couldn't, you'd had to bring the lantern to it to figure out which card it was.

"What colour is the tapestry?" His voice came unbidden, you'd looked at earlier in your confusion. You'd analysed it carefully.

You blinked once, slow. "I can see it. I can't see what colour it is."

Dunk swallowed. "You could," he said. "You could see colours earlier."

"A few hours ago, yes." You agreed. Your mouth twitched with what might be humour.

Valarr's hands curled at his sides. "So that's what it cost. You paid with-"

"With a piece," you finished for him. "A sliver of my soul. Pieces can be given to hold the door open for those who have lost their way."

Egg hugged himself. "Why would you do that?"

You looked at them again. "Because fate takes," you said. "It takes the good in the world and leaves the rest as a lesson. I've never been fond of such lessons. Besides, what is the importance of colour? Compared to the magnificence of a future King?"

Valarr stared at you, as if seeing you for the first time. "And when there is nothing left?" He asked.

You shrugged casually. "Then I die," you said. "I will have given myself away one threat at a time."

The prince edged forward, hands fisting and unfisting at his side. "Tell me how to repay you," he said, voice strained. "Tell me what to give so you don't have to keep-"

You shook your head once. "There is nothing to replace what has been lost. It cannot be made right. But perhaps there is one small thing you can do." Valarr looked up at you as you extended the olive branch. "I will stay to tend to Prince Baelor. I would appreciate if you men refrained from calling me a monster and trying to make your gods strike me harder than they already have."

Valarr's jaw tightened. "No one will touch you," he promised with steel. He knew his father would agree, he would be grateful that you saved his life magic or not because you'd done it selflessly and Baelor had always appreciated acts of selflessness.

You nodded, as if considering the way you'd considered his aura. "Good."

"Now," you said briskly, as if you hadn’t just confessed your own slow death, "sit with him. Quietly. If he stirs, don’t crowd him. If he seizes, don’t panic. If the maester starts bleeding him because he doesn’t know what else to do, stop him."

The maester bristled faintly, but you only chuckled at his ire. Valarr's voice cracked despite him. "And you?" He asked. "Are you- are you alright?"

Other than giving away part of your soul, predicament.

You paused, before your expression softened into a grateful smile, something kind and gentle. "I will be."

Morning came slowly.

The pavilion was dim by design, the flap kept mostly shut so the sun could not stab its spears of light inside. Still, it crept in around the seams, pale in the early hour, turning everything into soft shapes. The camp was waking as well, muffled bootsteps, a horse snorting nearby, distant voices trying to speak quietly and failing.

Valarr had not slept. Not properly. He'd sat with his back to a tent pole until the ache in his back became familiar, his thoughts became sludge several times throughout the night before he forced them to sharpen. He counted his father's breaths like a prayer.

Now it was just the three of them in the Pavilion. You and Valarr. The maester had been sent away at dawn, 'to fetch fresh water,' Valarr had said, and the man had gone with a stiff nod. Dunk had been ordered to get something to eat, and Egg had been peeled away only after he fell asleep sitting upright, head lolling against a bedpost like a little doll with its strings cut.

Valarr remained, as did you.

You were turning something over in your fingers, a little charm made of twine and bone. You rolled it as if doing so helped keep you tethered.

"You can listen to the wind, you can see auras. What else can you do?" Valarr asked quietly.

You didn't look up. "Plenty."

"That's not an answer," he muttered, and even exhausted, he couldn't quite keep the princely edge from his voice.

Valarr shifted, wincing as pins and needles bit his legs. “You said you can see auras,” he said. “You can talk to the wind. You can read bones and cards.”

You watched Baelor's chest rise and fall before you answered. "Sometimes," you said, "things people have carried for a long time tend to carry them back."

Valarr frowned, "That's a riddle."

"It's true," you corrected, and your eyes slid over him in that quiet, measuring way. "Give me something of yours. Something you've had for a while."

His brows drew together. "Why?"

"You asked what else I could do?" She parried with a mischievous smile. "And because you'll understand the so-called riddle."

Valarr hesitated, then reached down toward his belt. He moved carefully, and his fingers found a small buckle hidden beneath his doublet, old and worn at the edges. Not steel.

He held it in his palm for a moment before offering it to you.

"It was on my first belt," he said. "When I was little. My mother had it made." His voice softened.

Your fingers closed around the buckle, and the change was small but unmistakable. Your thumb traced the carved vine, guiding you somewhere.

"Sunlight," You finally spoke. "Through light curtains." Your voice was quiet, as though you didn't want to disturb what you were seeing. "A chamber that smells of beeswax and... oranges. Someone is humming." You paused, brow creasing with faint surprise.

"You're laughing. You're-" Your eyes flicked under your lids like tracking a moving thing. "You've got the best on wrong. Twice around your waist. You speak of being ready to be a knight already. You're about two feet tall."

Valarr's lips parted, and let out a soft breath that was almost a laugh. "I did," he said, voice warm with recognition. He'd forgotten about that. "Gods, I did that."

You nodded, still half in the memory. "She kneels before you," he said, and for a heartbeat, your tone gentled. "Because you're small, proud, and won't ask for help." Your thumb stilled on the buckle. "Her hands are quick, though her nails are bitten. She smells like rosewater." A wide smile came to your face at the feeling of maternal care, it was bright. Like you were experiencing warmth for the first time. Your own mother had never cared for you in such away, especially not after discovering what you were capable of.

You continued, voice low. "She says-" You paused. "You'll be tall one day. But you'll always be my boy."

Valarr's breath left him slowly. He stared at the buckle in your fingers like it had just given him his mother back for a moment. Not just her life. Her voice, her smile. Alive and ordinary.

You blinked again, and your gaze returned fully to the tent, to Valarr's face. You held the buckle a moment longer, then extended it back to him

"Thank you," you said simply.

Valarr took it carefully, reverent without meaning to be. "For what?" he asked.

"For sharing her with me," you replied. "Even if you didn't mean to." Your mouth curved again, small and sincere. "Memories are sacred. People guard them. They lose them. You let me hold one."

Valarr swallowed, the buckle warm in his palm from your touch. "I had lost it. It felt like remembering properly."

"Yes," you murmured. Then, after a beat, you added, almost gently, "Your mother was beautiful."

Valarr's eyes stung. He didn't look away this time.

"She was," he said, voice rough with gratitude. "She really was."

You nodded, and it settled something inside you.

And then Baelor made a small wet sound in his throat. Valarr's head snapped toward the bed. Baelor's fingers twitched beneath the blanket, and you both sharpened to attention.

Every muscle in Valarr's body was braced. Baelor's lips parted and a breath dragged in deeper than either of you had heard from him all night.

Valarr swallowed loudly. "Father?" he whispered.

Baelor twitched stronger this time. The hand nearest the edge of the blanket flexed as if searching for something to hold. His brow pinched in the faintest grimace.

Pain, Valarr realised. But pain arrived with waking. You were already rummaging around your bag for some pain relief for the prince when his lashes fluttered.

He hovered in place, trembling like a man caught at the edge of a cliff. You lifted one hand, palm outward, a quiet signal for patience.

Baelor's eyes opened. They were half-lidded and unfocused, like he was surfacing from deep water, but his gaze was searching across the tent.

His mouth moved, and no sound came at first. He swallowed and tied again.

"W-" he rasped, voice rough. "Where..."

Valarr's chest tightened so hard it hurt. "You're safe," he said quickly, too quickly. "You're safe, Father. It's me. I'm here."

Baelor searched until his eyes snagged on his son's face. Recognition didn't bloom all at once. It struggled through the fog and then, like a door finally finding its latch, it caught.

"Valarr," Baelor breathed.

Valarr's eyes burned again. He nodded hard. "Yes," he whispered. "Yes. I'm here."

The crown prince tried to lift his head and immediately winced. Instinctively, his hand rose towards the back of his skull, searching for the damage.

You moved just enough to intercept. Catching his wrist with the gentlest pressure and guiding the hand back down to the blanket.

"No, my prince," you spoke, close and steady. "Leave it and breathe."

Baelor's gaze moved to the sound of your voice. He stared at you, trying to piece together the wreckage that was your mind. His brow furrowed.

"Who...?" He managed, and the word broke apart around the edges.

"A friend," Valarr said, voice thick. He swallowed and tried again, softer. "She saved you."

Baelor's eyes lingered on you, then his gaze drifted to the crow that was now perched above him. It clicked its beak and cawed loudly.

His lips twitched, a small smile. "A... crow." he rasped like it was the strangest thing in the world.

Valarr almost laughed and cried at one. "Yes. Yes, a crow."

"Sorry. He can get excited." You added looking up at the bird.

The elder prince suddenly looked exhausted. Waking must have taken everything he had. His voice came again, fainter now. "My head..."

"It must hurt. I can remedy that." You said matter-of-factly. "You were struck hard but you're going to be okay."

"Maekar. He must be worried." He whispered.

Of all things Baelor could have reached for in the fog, he reached for his brother. Even now."Of all things Baelor could have reached for in the fog, he reached for his brother. Even now.

"He is," Valarr said quietly. He glanced at you and then back to his father. "He's... he's beside himself."

Baelor's brow furrowed in confusion. "I remember him hitting me. He was trying to get to Aerion."

Valarr nodded once, and despite his anger at his Uncle, he spoke honestly. "He didn't intend-"

"I know," Baelor breathed, and the certainty in it was astounding. "He didn't mean for this."

Forgiveness offered before anyone had even asked for it. Baelor truly was unchanged.

You stepped forward with a small vial. "This will help," you said softly, holding it to Baelor's mouth. "For the pain. It won't steal your mind the way poppy does."

Baelor's eyes flicked to you, still dazed, but he drank when you pushed your hand forward.

Valarr watched the way his father's breathing remained even.

Alive. Alive.

Baelor exhaled, long and slow. "Thank you," and the gratitude in it wasn't courtly, but honest and true.

You inclined your head. "Rest," you replied, like it was the only thanks you would accept.

Baelor’s eyes closed, not in collapse this time, but in surrender to healing. His breathing stayed steady, no wet hitch, no faltering thread, just sleep taking him gently.

Silence settled in the pavilion.

Valarr sat very still, listening to his father’s breaths until he could trust them. Only then did he turn his head toward you.

You were gathering your things again, cards stacked, bones wrapped, the little twine charm rolled between your fingers as if it anchored you. The way you moved was careful, economical, like someone who had learned not to waste anything... not even motion.

Valarr stared at you for a long moment. Then he stood, slowly, as if he was afraid to disturb the air.

"I don’t know how to say it properly," he said, voice low. "I’ve been taught manners and gratitude and a hundred pretty phrases that mean nothing when you've-" He faltered, then forced the words through. "When you gave up part of yourself for him."

You didn’t look up. “Don’t make it into worship, prince.”

“I’m not,” Valarr said quickly. His voice roughened. “I’m-” He swallowed. “I’m thanking you.”

You paused, just a fraction. Your fingers stilled on the cloth bundle. Valarr exhaled shakily. “He spoke Maekar’s name first,” he said, almost to himself. Wonder and heartbreak tangled together. “Even after… even after what happened.”

“That’s who he is,” you murmured.

Valarr nodded. “That’s why it mattered.” He took another breath, steadier now. “Maekar thinks he’s killed him.”

You hummed, quiet. "Then you should go and end that misery before it festers."

Valarr’s jaw tightened. "I will." His gaze flicked to his father’s sleeping form, then back to you. "But-" He hesitated, and his cheeks warmed. "When he’s more awake... when he understands what happened... he’ll want to thank you himself."

You snorted softly, humourless. "Kings and princes always want to thank with gold and promises."

"He’ll want more than that," Valarr said, and there was certainty in it now, born of knowing his father. "He’ll want to keep you close." He looked away briefly, embarrassed by how it sounded. "Not as a... not as a prisoner. As protection. As honour. As-"

You seemed to understand. For a moment you almost look caught out, like someone who's spent a lifetime slipping through the cracks and had forgotten what it felt like to be offered a door.

"That's dangerous," you said.

Valarr met your gaze. "So is letting you vanish back into the woods after what you've done," he replied, voice firm. "Many saw you come enter the camp with us, they know why you've come. Once they discover that Baelor has survived such an injury, they might come hunting.

Valarr's fingers curled around the old buckle in his palm. "I won't force you, and I won't allow anyone else to either," he said. "But... if he asks, will you at least hear him?"

"I’ll stay until I’m sure he’s steady," you said at last. "That was my word."

Valarr’s throat bobbed. "And after?"

You looked back at him, eyes that saw the world in shape and shadow now, but still saw people with unnerving clarity. "After," you said, "we’ll see what the wind says."

Valarr nodded, accepting that as the closest thing to a promise you would give. He stepped carefully around the chalk line, stopping at its edge like a man respecting a border. Then he bowed sincerely.

"Thank you," he said again, and this time the words didn’t shake. "Truly."

Your mouth curved, faint and tired. "Go," you told him. "Before your uncle makes himself sick with guilt."

Valarr turned toward the pavilion flap, hand already reaching for it, then paused and glanced back once.

Baelor slept on. Alive.

And you sat beside him in the dim, a witch in a prince’s tent, having given him a piece of her soul to ensure his survival.

Valarr swallowed, steadying himself with that sight, and slipped out into the waking camp to go find Maekar, and end one brother’s torment with a simple, impossible truth.

He lives.

Boy oh boy, I am churning these out. The creative juices are flowing. My boy Valarr, I love him with all my heart, and obviously I had to write Baelor surviving cause we all know he would've been the best Targaryen king.

He laughs when your head pops out of the water at the edge of the dock. “Wow, that took you longer than usual,” he teases, brown eyes glinting in the dawn. “You getting sloppy?”

You huff, splashing some water up at him but it barely touches him. “I’m tired, you moron. I’ve been out there for an hour.”

Luke leans down at the edge of the dock, offering you a hand. His face is bemused when you latch onto him, and with a good flex of his bicep he pulls you up. “All right, c’mon,” he grunts.

All your energy evaporates the second your body’s out of the water. You’re far too lazy to be graceful, so you sprawl out onto the dock like a dying fish, letting the sun kiss every inch of you. “Eww,” Luke giggles overtop you, prodding your side with the tip of his shoe. “Get up, you mermaid.” 

“Make me, you mailman.”

Your arm drapes over your eyes, and you sigh. There really is nothing better than these moments; droplets of water soaking into your skin after an early morning swim, your best friend right beside you. 

He keeps nudging you with your shoe, over and over until your ribs start to hurt. You groan, swatting him away and stretching out your limbs with a groan, letting them pop and relax, until you blearily make your way to your feet. 

“You forgot your towel again,” Luke condones, but like always, he’s brought one for you. 

He goes through a practiced routine of drying you off, wrapping the towel around your shoulders and down your arms, across your back, scrunching the water out of your hair. It doesn’t matter how cold the water gets—this part always makes you warm. 

“Thanks,” you smile as he hands the towel off to you. “Anything interesting happen this morning, O Captain, my captain?”

“Not yet, sailor, sir,” he replies in a stuffy, gruff voice the two of you have joked around with since you were kids. “Just grabbing you for breakfast.”

You giggle, following him past the docks and to the shore. Once you’ve grabbed all your stuff, you both fall in stride and head towards your cabin, your twin five-beaded necklaces hanging over your shirts. 

Five years ago, when you got to Camp for the first time, you were as big a loser as any. You were bad at everything—everything—and had no real friends until you accidentally whacked some other friendless loser in the head with an oar when you were about to go canoeing. Luke got mad at you, but his little sister Annabeth was even more furious. He offered to be your partner for the day anyway. You’ve been partners ever since. 

Over the years the two of you have grown in status at the camp, more so Luke than you. He’s an excellent cabin leader and by far the greatest swordsman in camp. You, still unclaimed, have found solace in giving younger campers swimming lessons and wading out there on your own till you get sunstroke. (It’s happened a few times. Luke is never pleased, but also refuses to let the Apollo campers take care of you. He nurses you back to health with ice cream and horrible gossip.)

But every night you return to the Hermes cabin with a hollowness in your chest. One bunk emptied, then immediately filled. You’ve had the same one for five years, and the only condolence is that it’s right next to Luke’s, and sometimes you spend hours at night making faces at each other till your laughter endangers other people’s sleep. 

Yes, you love the water at Camp Half-Blood, but you love Luke most. 

Rumours of a new kid are rustling at camp. You haven’t seen him, but you’re just dying to get in on the gossip. Apparently he slayed a minotaur. Apparently Annabeth has seen him. And apparently he’s unclaimed. You hate to admit it, but this is the most exciting news you’ve heard in weeks!

Your afternoon is spent giving some swimming lessons and taking some Demeter campers canoeing. (Some of them freak out on the water. so it’s a nice challenge to untangle the sea plants they get hooked around their boat.) It feels like you’ve been here forever. A break is in desperate demand right now. 

You have no idea what kind of God heard your prayers, but your fellow counsellor has an unimpressed look on her face when she taps you on the shoulder and goes, “Your friend’s calling you.” 

The way she says it is almost degrading. You turn to look back at the shore to see the dark curly hair you’d spot a mile away. Next to him is a much shorter orange blob, shuffling awkwardly as Luke attempts to flag you down. Score!

You shoot an apologetic look at her. “Uh … I’ll be right back.” You wince, already disposing of your baggy orange shirt (it’s Luke’s) with your bathing suit underneath. 

“No you won’t,” she says dryly. “Just go.”

You flash a smile you hope is loaded with charm, and you’re off into water. As you swim, the only thing on your mind is I really really hope that’s the new kid, and I wonder what Luke’s face looks like right now. (He’s probably grinning, eyes crinkled at the sides as he tries to follow your figure beneath the waves. Maybe he’s doing that cute thing where his head tilts to the side as he watches.) 

When you’re close enough to the shore, you come out of the water, wringing your hair. “Hey, guys!” It’s Luke, Chris, and some blonde kid you’re sure is the new one. “What’s up?”

Luke is about to say something, then he frowns. “Where’s my shirt?”

“Left it in the canoe, I’ll go back for it later,” you reply, limply gesturing behind you. 

“And where’s your towel?”  

“Okay, I did bring one this time!” You counter. “I just gave it to a little Ares kid ‘cause she forgot hers.” 

Luke clicks his tongue, shakes his head at you, but of course he’s got one in his hands so what’s the worry? He’s endearingly amused when you take the cloth and dry yourself off, and the new boy, having watched this all raptly, widens his eyes and drawls, “Ohhhh, so you’re his gi—”

“This is Camp’s resident mermaid, Percy.” Chris butts in, adding your name almost as an afterthought. 

After you fasten your towel around you, you’re put off by Percy’s scrutinizing stare. “Look, it’s been a pretty weird day so I cannot tell if you’re joking or not.” 

“I’m not a mermaid,” you snipe, throwing Chris a dirty look. “People just call me that because I give swimming lessons here.” You stick your hand out to the blonde boy. “Nice to meet you, Percy.” 

He gives a polite nod, a little awkward. “Right back at ya.” The two of you study each other as you shake. He’s young, probably about twelve, a smatter of freckles across his face. His eyes look like the lake. Something itches in the back of your brain. There’s a moment where the shake is suspended, neither of you have let go but are no longer actively holding on, and you see it in his face that he’s studying you, too. Huh.

The conversation continues as normal, but you almost start to feel queasy for a second. “We’re trying to find something Percy’s good at,” Luke says with a pat on Percy’s shoulder. “You got any ideas?”

“Yes, please, because I really would like to have a word with my father,” Percy clips. “Is Glory, like, purely a skill thing or can I get some if I tie someone else’s shoes or something?” 

“I don’t have shoes,” you add unhelpfully. 

“It’s okay, dude,” Luke squeezes Percy’s shoulder. “Camp is great, no matter where you end up.”

Even if you’re like her, he means without saying. Even if you don’t end up anywhere. 

You meet Luke’s eyes. This is a kid that wants so badly to meet his father, to ease the ache inside him. You are the absolute worst person for this. One of the longest current unclaimed streaks and your ache remains. To Percy, you’re the biggest example of a failure there is, and Luke is only just now realizing it. 

“Maybe try the infirmary?” You pipe, shuffling back and forth on the sand. “You might have a knack for medicine.”

“Doubt it,” Percy swallows. “But yeah, okay. Who’s your parent, again?”

Percy can’t see it, but Luke and Chris send you a shifty look and all you can do is widen your eyes to be like, Help! Don’t make me crush his dreams! I don’t want another kid to hate me! 

You swallow. No matter how fast you think, you cannot come to a logical sentence. “I, uh—”

Just then, in another stroke of luck (wow, that’s two more than usual) an Athena counsellor that looks insanely disgruntled is running towards you. “Stolls put spiders in our cabin again,” he heaves once at a stop. “Please get rid of them.”

“Can’t you just squash ‘em?” Percy asks. 

“Not the spiders, the twins.” 

Chris is already nodding, but Luke looks to you first. He’s anxious, disappointed. You wish you could smooth out the creases in his brow with your thumb. “Don’t worry,” you stretch out a smile. “I’ll chill with Percy. It won’t take you guys too long.”

He’s still hesitant. You’re not sure this is a good call either. But he reaches out, quickly squeezes your shoulder and mutters, “Thank you.” Your skin feels gooey when he touches it. 

His signature roguish smile returns as he looks back to Percy. The side of his face is shadowed by the sun so well it makes you jealous. “Don’t give her a hard time, eh?” He reprimands playfully. 

Percy smiles a little. “I’ll try not to.”

You are once again reminded just how easy it is to love Luke. How effortlessly he moves into your heart. It happened to you after you slapped him with an oar. It’s already happening to Percy.

You’re sure he won’t like you nearly half as much. 

After Luke and Chris leave, Percy resigns to staring out at the campers canoeing on the lake. Maybe now is a good time to admit you’re not good with kids. Luke has tried many times to make you his welcome partner, but you can’t take to the role nearly as well. You’re perpetually antsy. And sweaty. 

“So, what cabin are you a part of that lets you do this all day?” Percy asks, squinting against the sun. 

Your heart gets heavy. With a sigh, you sit yourself down, and Percy soon follows. “Hermes, actually,” you say as casually as you can. 

Percy goes pale as a sheet. “Uh, what?”

“I’m unclaimed,” you clarify. “I don’t … I don’t have a parent.”

There’s always a pitiful pause whenever a camper figures that out. This one is somehow … clunkier. “Oh,” Percy says. “Oh. Okay, that makes sense. For a second I thought—phew.” Then his eyes trail down to the thread hooked around your fingers, the five beads you run your thumb over. “How long have you been here?”

“Five long, blissful years,” you hum dryly. 

Water ripples over pebbles on the shore. Every new camper’s ambition is eroded by the truth you represent. Percy’s no different. His brows furrow and his face falls. “And you’ve never been claimed?” He asks, and you can feel the noxious mix of pity, confusion and despair laced beneath it. 

You shake your head, watching some Demeter kids splashing each other’s canoes with their oars. “Nope. But it’s not so bad. I like my cabin, you know? I like my life. Doesn’t really matter who your parents are anyway, I think. You do the same activities as everyone else, just on different teams.”

“But doesn’t it make you mad?”

“It used to,” you shrug, “But not anymore. It’s just …” You sigh, rolling a bead against your thumb. “If I’m unclaimed, I’m unclaimed. That’s the way it is. You can’t force the Gods to do anything.” 

“That’s what Luke said,” Percy remarks, almost bitterly. 

“I’m a rare case though, Percy,” you half-lie to him, nudging him a bit with your shoulder. “You’ll get claimed. It’s your first day. And until then you’re kind of free to be whatever. You don’t have to fit into anything, which is kinda nice, and you can screw around as much as you want and nobody can really get mad at you ‘cause you’re new.” A smile rises on your face. “And I heard you killed a minotaur, so you’ve already got some cool points.”

His face screws up in a grimace, and it makes you laugh. “Oh joy, cool points. Can’t live without those.”

Okay, maybe you’re not bad with kids. Maybe you’re just bad with boring kids. Because this is going decent, right? 

“What if I don’t get claimed, though?” Percy asks after a moment, a vulnerable note eclipsing him. It resonates inside your chest. You pause for a moment, heaving a loaded breath. 

“Do you fart a lot in your sleep?”

His melancholy pauses. He looks at you like you’ve grown another head. “Uh … what? No? I think?”

“Then you can take the bunk above mine if you want. It’s empty now,” you say. “And if you’re never claimed you can come swimming with me, and we can find seashells to put under Luke’s pillow every night until he starts thinking they’ve always been there.”

Percy blinks. “Do you have any friends?”

“Yes, and I’m going to torture him until I die. Cabin eleven is oodles of fun, Percy, you’ll see!”

He looks a little horrified. “Luke said I was going to like you,” he mutters. “I … am not sure if he’s right.”

Oh, well. You’ll take it. 

ii. you can't help but become the sun

You can’t sleep, and Luke knows it. His eyes burn into the side of your face as you stare up at your bunk. You sneak him a look. He smiles ruefully. Sweeping his arm up from beneath his covers, a makeshift tent is formed next to him. He nods to you. Before you know it, you’ve abandoned your own bed, taking a single step until you skirt into the pocket of his mattress Luke has carved for you. He lets the sheets fall, cocooning you with him the way he always does. 

You’ve been sharing beds on occasion for years. One of you gets cold, has a nightmare, or wants to talk until your mind fades out, the only solution is a place next to each other. Whispers against cheeks, giggles muffled into pillows, necklaces knocking together. You used to be further apart. Now you can’t remember the last time Luke hasn’t latched onto you the second you’re within reach. It warms you a little more each time. 

When your head hits his pillow, the two of you just stare at each other for a moment, lips pursed in amusement. His face is so wildly nostalgic to you—five years seems like too short a time to have known him. His eyes are pitch-dark and soft with exhaustion, but you can still pick out the trademark Hermes mirth glimmering through. You sometimes forget his scar, probably because you know he wants you to forget it. He’d kill you for thinking this, but you kind of like the way it hugs the curve of his cheek, bunches up when his dimple appears. It makes you sad. It makes you happy. It makes you love him. 

“Percy likes you,” he whispers, opening himself up so your chin brushes his shoulder. “That’s a first.”

He’s only wearing a tank top to sleep, so his warmth seeps through his skin when you tap him on the chest. “Shut up!” You hiss back, tapering into a giggle. “Has he picked up on anything yet?”

Luke bites the inside of his cheek, regretfully shaking his head. “Nope. But all that skill stuff is kinda arbitrary anyways. He’s still hung up on kleos, though, so … that’ll come in handy for Capture the Flag.”

“Ah, yes. Using a child’s misguided need for fulfilment as a weapon. A camp classic.” 

“Well someone’s gotta be useful for Capture the Flag in this cabin and it sure as hell isn’t you, mermaid,” he barbs back. 

Your jaw drops in mock offense and you squeeze a hand around his shoulder to shake him. “I will put you in a headlock right now, Luke, I’ll break your arm—”

“Be quiet!” He giggles as you attempt to wrangle yourself on top of him. “I’ll be nice to you, I’ll be nice, stop!” You get absolutely nowhere before the bed creaks and Luke shoves you back down. Your pulse rattles through your mouth as you laugh silently. “You’re the worst,” he mutters in your ear, raising the hairs on your neck.

“Well Percy likes me, so,” you turn your nose to the sky like a haughty old lady. 

“Percy’s a funnier, less annoying version of you,” he pokes your side. “That’s how I knew you’d get along, you weirdo.”

The momentary adrenaline this conversation has brought you is mellowing. “Hey, I’m very—very funny,” you mumble through a yawn. 

Luke laughs quietly. “Sure you are.”

He pulls you back to him, arm slung around the dip of your waist. When you make no protest, he seals you against his shoulder again. It’s started to feel a little different, him holding you like this. There’s an uncertainty your body faces about how to respond. His thumb runs over your spine and you decide to relax into him, pressing your face into the crook of his neck. Your chin knocks against his collarbone and you have the urge to curl yourself against his chest, just to feel him breathe. 

“Get some sleep, sailor,” he murmurs, fingers brushing through the roots of your hair. You don’t think he realizes he’s doing it. Your cheeks warm, and you bury yourself even further into the space against his shoulder and his pillow. Gods, there’s something wrong with you, isn’t there?

“Will do, soldier.” The campy voice you do is half hearted at best as you find yourself absorbed in the closest thing to a full home you’ll ever get. In this sleepy hollow with bedsheets and a boy, there is acceptance. 

Well, mostly. You think you dream about Luke brushing a kiss along your hairline in your last bit of consciousness. You think you wish it was real. You think you want him to do it again.   

iii. when you don't know who you are, you fuck around and find out

The last time your cabin lost a game of Capture the Flag, you’d still been taller than Luke. That’s how long your winning streak has felt. There’s no reason you foresee that changing today. Even when Annabeth drags Percy along with her on whatever surely precarious quest to victory she’s created. It’s unlike her, to bring a newbie along. It’s concerning. 

“He’s fine,” Luke drawls to you when your face has been tense for twenty minutes. “Annabeth’s got a plan.” He’s a little winded after clearing out some Ares kids with Chris. You aren’t much use when it comes to weapons—your friends take the lead as you wait from a distance, ready for backup. Thank the Gods they didn’t need it this time. You’re content to just watch, but whenever Luke grins after getting another kid to surrender, veins in his arms raised like rivers on a map, you get a little distracted and you’re not sure why. 

You just huff back at him, totally normal when he wipes a sheen of sweat off his jaw. “Annabeth’s gonna use him as cannon fodder,” you mutter back, and Luke hits your arm with an appalled grin. 

Annabeth did, in fact, have a plan. So you won. Obviously. 

You’re still doubtful Percy wasn’t cannon fodder, though, with how beat up he looks on the shoreline when the rest of your team flocks to the stolen flag to claim victory. He’s slumped down on the rocky shore, a few equally beaten Ares kids straggling away from him. 

“So I was right, huh?” Luke hums in your ear, pulling your eyes to him. 

He’s revelling in newfound glory, and damn it, you get confused when you look at him when he’s like this. You’re not sure when it happened but you want to tear your heart out of its chest because of how sick it makes you. Some of his curls are stuck to his forehead with sweat, his hair suffering a serious case of helmet-head. But it’s the pride oozing off him, the infectious happiness laced through his smile, that makes you fond of him in a way you’re not sure you should be. He’s beloved for a reason—he looks almost prophetic after winning a match, and he knows it. A glaring difference between the gangly boy you met all those summers ago. If you weren’t his best friend, you’d probably be one of his many admirers, watching his teammates fawn over his talent and wishing you were beside him. 

But you are beside him. And you’re his friend. Not an admirer. So everything’s fine. 

“You wouldn’t be saying that if we lost,” you retort, knocking your chestplate against his. It’s meant to be a friendly nudge, but Luke leans into it until you swear you feel his heart beating through the metal. 

He’s grown into his smile, less boyish and more wry. “You know I never lose, sailor.” 

You want to reply, but his eyes are startlingly pretty in the sunlight. That’s normal. Whatever. A heat rises in the apples of your cheeks so you scoff lightly and turn away as soon as possible. You feel Luke’s gaze following as you turn attention elsewhere. Your sternum feels fluttery.

Percy catches your attention again. Gods, he looks beat. He’s talking to Annabeth as she helps him up, and you see the gnarly scrape marring his cheek. You should probably check on him, right? 

You’re halfway to the kids when Annabeth shoves Percy backwards into the water. Like, shoves. 

“Annabeth!” You’re scowling at her the same way she scowled at you when you first hit Luke with that oar, rushing over to help Percy. 

“What is wrong with you?” Percy sputters out lying in the lake, but you’re ankles-deep in the water before you know it. He’s glaring daggers at Annabeth, but she looks relatively unimpressed. What happened during this game? 

“Thanks,” Percy mutters as you help him up. 

You say something to shrug it off but you can’t remember what, because your eyes are drawn to the scrape on his cheek. You have to blink a few times to get it, but you’re pretty sure it’s dissolving. Vanishing off his skin. “What the hell?”

Everyone on the shore is watching him now, trying to memorize his injuries before they wash away. Percy’s staring down at himself like he’s just been body-swapped. “I don’t understand.” 

You’ve never seen anything like this before. The strangest feeling fuels you—your bones feel firmer somehow, like the blood inside your body has weight to it. Like something is happening. A fear pierces your gut. 

Annabeth’s eyes have raised, and so have Percy’s. Your mouth goes dry. Right above him is the symbol of a trident, radiating so blue it washes out the sky itself. 

The claiming symbol of Poseidon. 

“Your dad’s calling,” Annabeth says, a smile itching the corners of her mouth. 

Percy looks like he’s going to pass out. You probably do too. “Told you you’d get claimed,” you manage to squeeze the words through the knot in your chest. 

You’re smiling until Percy looks at you, then looks up. His face goes white as a sheet. Or, as white as it can bathed in a pale blue glow. “Uh…” He blinks slowly, and your stomach twists. “I think she was talking to you.”

When you look up and see an identical trident looming over your head, you know something’s wrong. It’s made worse when Chiron rings out your and Percy’s name, branding you as children of Poseidon. 

Poseidon. 

You have a father. And he’s known you all this time. Your ears hollow out like a rush of water in a cavern.

Luke is the first to kneel. The rest of the camp follows. You watch as the entire camp basks in the glory of newcomer Percy Jackson, so quickly claimed by one of the most powerful Gods of Olympus. And you, who has waited five years to earn even a shred of his favour. 

This thing you’ve wanted for so long is suddenly the greatest insult in the world. Your best friend can’t even meet your eyes. 

iv. i remember who i am when i'm with you

You stare at Percy as he unpacks his things. Waiting to see traces of yourself in his face, traces of your father. Anything that could give you an inkling of what he looks like. Of what you look like. Of how this happened in the first place. 

It’s a futile search. Percy’s blue eyes, his freckles, the bridge of his nose, they’re all … nothing. Half of you is half of him, but there’s no indication of which parts. The cabin is cold. You’re not going to sleep well without Luke nearby. You’re not going to sleep well ever again. 

You feel nothing but strife, your throat closing in every time you take even a second to think. You don’t want Percy to see you cry. So you do what you always do. 

This has to be in the running for most overwhelming day of all time ever. Even when submerged in your favourite place on earth, you can’t get away from your dad. Your dumb stupid dad that has made the things you love and has ruined your life. 

You swim hard, and you loathe how good it feels. At least you know why now, but that doesn’t do much to ease you. When you pop up again, the sun has started to sink into the sea. And Gods, you have to give your dad credit. The landscape is so gorgeous you almost forget how long he’s ignored you. 

You wonder if this is the last time you’ll find solace in the lake. If eventually, it’ll be nothing but an extension of your father’s neglect. 

The water ripples around you. You frown, barely having noticed it when someone taps your shoulder. You turn. “Luke?” You swallow, but why are you surprised? 

He’s panting, cheeks splotched with sun as he treads water, droplets worming down his face from his soaking curls. “Been looking for you,” he puffs, “Percy’s worried. Called you from the—from the thingie but don’t think you heard me.”

You assume he means the docks, but you don’t say anything as he takes a deep, grounding breath. “You’ve been out here for hours. Hours. For a second I thought you drowned.”

“Now we know that can’t fucking happen,” you mutter a touch too bitterly, staring down at your legs warped beneath the water. 

Luke’s silent as he watches you. “…Have you been crying?”

When you don’t reply, Luke tugs on your wrist. “C’mon, sailor, let’s go.”

“Not tired,” you say, frozen by the hot tears brimming on your lashes. 

“I’m not leaving you out here. Come on.” He frowns when you yank your hand away as he tries pulling you again. “You’re gonna get heatstroke.”

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.”

He reaches for you again and you try to reject it for a moment, but he’s stronger than you, and he loves you better than even the water could. The second he has you close your resolve falters. He holds you against his shoulder, knees knocking against yours as you tread. 

“It’s okay,” he croons when you involuntarily start to cry. For a Poseidon kid, you can’t seem to control your waterworks. “It’s okay, I know.”

His hand cards through your scalp and you relish in the warmth of his bare skin on your cheek. He smells like comfort. You cling to it with all you have, until your nails start to dig into his skin and your eyesight blurs. 

“Come back with me and I’ll dry you off, okay?” He kisses the top of your head, the way you dreamed it last night. “I’ll take care of it.”

You’re not sure which it he’s referring to, because it could honestly apply to anything. When you both set off for shore, you’re so distracted by your own misery that Luke’s actually able to keep up with you. He’s up on the dock before you so he can pull you out. 

The second you’re out of the water you feel like you’ve been gutted with a lead pipe. All the energy it gave you leaves, and you realize just how right Luke was about spending too much time out there. You can’t feel your legs. 

You buckle over almost instantly, but Luke holds you before you can even think of falling. “I’ve got you,” he assures, guiding you down to sit on the dock. Your eyes are too weak to even admire the sunset. Luke drapes a towel over your shoulders, rubbing it over your arms, a welcome familiarity. He takes his time, wringing your hair and drying your back as you gaze blankly ahead. There’s a tenderness to it now. Luke’s ruthless when it comes to a lot of things. When it comes to how he loves, too. But there’s nothing demanding here. He lets your tears fall in silence, undisturbed, the touch of his hands through the cloth a silent promise. 

When you’re fairly dry, he fetches something then quickly comes back. “Here.”

It’s his shirt. You only notice you’ve been shivering as he pulls it over your head, lets you fill in the sleeves, gently gathers your hair back. “Thanks,” you say. His fingertips brush your neck as he hooks them around your necklace to rest it over the shirt. You think he does it to remind you you’re still the same. You’ve had five years together. It doesn’t have to end now. 

“Why did it take him so long?” You struggle to say, eyes glossed like sea glass. “Why—why now? What did I do?”

Luke puts an arm around you. “I don’t know,” he mumbles honestly. 

You sink into his warmth like a wave meets the shore. “Five years, Luke. He ignored me for five years. And he takes Percy right—right away.” It’s hard not to choke between every word. “I just thought I’d never get claimed, and I was fine with that, and now I’m … this!”

Its hard to tell if the dampness of your cheeks are the remnants of saltwater or your tears. “I don’t want this,” you sniffle. “I waited so long … and I just don’t want it.”

Luke rubs your shoulder, lips pursed against your head. He murmurs into your hair, “I know, sailor. It’ll be okay. Promise.”

His voice is reserved. You look up at him. His jaw is resolute, his eyes red-rimmed in a way you hadn’t noticed before. “You’re upset too,” you comment quietly. 

He laughs listlessly. “Yeah, of course I am. I’m losing my favourite cabin mate.”

You sniff and try to smile. “Percy?”

He rolls his eyes fondly, and it feels like all you want. He squeezes your shoulders tight and you long desperately to be closer. “I just don’t know what I did wrong,” you whisper, pressing your cheek into him. “Why didn’t he see me until he saw Percy? Am I just … unremarkable or something?”

“No, no. Absolutely not—c’mere.” Luke loops an arm around your waist and manoeuvres you into his arms, cradled on his lap so you can bury your face in his neck. You can’t stop fucking crying, but his patience for you is infinite. “You are by far the most remarkable person I know.” He seals you against his chest, scratching your scalp the way he knows you like. “None of this is you, okay? Your dad’s an idiot. You are—you’re everything. They’re all mindless up there, they don’t know how to love you. They don’t deserve to.”

An edge seeps into his timbre that gives you pause. You feel weak, discarded. It sounds like he’s talking about a different person. But he’s right. He has to be, because he knows you better than you know yourself.

Luke keeps going. You peek at his face when he speaks. Stubborn as ever. “He doesn’t have any fucking right to you. If he wanted that he should’ve claimed you when you got here. You have a life. You … you had a home. And now just because he’s got another kid he kills two birds with one stone? He pretends like this is some Godly intervention? Like he didn’t ignore you the whole time you’ve been here because he couldn’t stand how much you didn’t need him? How much better you are? You’re my …” He struggles, brows furrowed, the sun melting in his eyes. “You’re my best friend, and we’re supposed to be together. He’s not allowed to take that from you.”

Your heart stirs. “Sounds like you’re jealous,” you try to tease.

Luke heaves a sigh, his muscles rippling against your chest. You’re suddenly aware of the fact that he’s got no shirt on. And that he’s pressed against you in a way that makes you question if you should be this close. Beads of water cling to the divots in his skin, and you linger a little too long on one nestled in his collarbone. You swear you think this every time he goes swimming with you: when did he get so … hot? And every time you think it, you want to gouge your heart out with a spoon. 

“Can you blame me?” A melancholy smile plays on his face. “I liked having you all to myself.”

Tears spring to your eyes all over again. “I liked that too.”

It’s a whisper that sends you forward, Luke bringing his forehead to your own, and you want to live in the warmth that coils through you. His nose catches against yours when he laughs, but he doesn’t move. You take a moment to savour it. You think he does too.

He wipes a tear off your face as you say, “I’m still yours.”

“Yeah?” Luke hums a bit, his hand sliding up your waist in a most unfriendly manner. “How?” 

You catch the glimmer in his eyes, that plucky smile he’s had since fourteen. Something shifts.

“What are you asking me, Luke?” You can’t fight the smile. 

“What do you want me to ask you?”

“I dunno, what do you want me to want you to ask you—”

“My Gods, you’re a pain in the ass.”

He groans, throws his head back, and kisses you like you aren’t the most annoying person in the world. 

It’s so cliché, but for a brief moment your strife is well worth it. You yank him closer before he pulls away. It’s a little unsure, the two of you so used to toeing the line, but soon you’ve given in and your hands are in his hair, mouths parting, and it’s messy and wanting and everything you need. 

Luke slips his hands beneath the hem of your shirt, palms flattening against your sun-beaten skin. It feels so good, better because the shirt is already his, a whine scratching your throat as he moves up so his thumbs graze the skin beneath the tie in your bathing suit. 

“Oh, sailor,” he coos against your mouth. You want to retaliate but it’s lost when he squeezes your thighs, warming you in all the right places. It’s hard to understand this is even happening—it feels like you’re underwater, a blissful fuzziness growing in your head entirely at his mercy. 

He razes kisses down your still-damp neck, catching pearls of water on his tongue. You cling to his shoulders, raking your hands down his back just so you can feel more of him. Luke’s dropped down to your collarbone at this point, tugging the neck of your shirt down as his teeth graze the bone. “You’re my best friend,” he mutters over your skin. “Still mine. Always mine.”

“Mmhm,” is all you can say back, the husk in his voice making your eyes screw shut. He teases a spot so sensitive you groan and laugh at the same time. The regret is immediate, but you feel a chuckle pass his lips, too. “Luke,” you purse a smile. He dots kisses back up your neck until you start returning the favour. 

You kiss his jaw, a few spots on his neck, feeling the flex of his muscle all around you as he squeezes the fat of your hips. You finally sweep up the water in the hollow of his collarbones, and his grunt of your name makes you, frankly, delirious. 

He brings your mouth back to his, skin sticking to each other. It’s harder to kiss as fervently when you’re both giggling against each other’s tongues, running fingers along the planes of each other’s bodies trying to see which places feel new and which are known from memory. It’s a fifty-fifty split, and you love it. 

Somewhere along the way he peeled off your shirt because it was clinging in places you knew he wanted, but now you’re panting and giggling into his hair, his nose pressed into your neck, both of you melded together with salt and sun. “You really know how to cheer a girl up, mailman,” you grin. 

His lips fix to your skin. “Really? You’re still gonna call me that right now?”

“Yeah.”

“Like it better when you call me captain,” he murmurs, nose grazing along your pulse. 

You swallow, “That doesn’t work unless we’re doing the whole sailor-ship bit.”

“We’re always doing the sailor-ship bit.”

“I seriously can’t believe I’m in love with you.”

He sighs warmly at the words. “You have no idea how much I’ve been dying for you to say that. Even though I knew you would.”

You roll your eyes as he presses his forehead to yours, and you’re more glad than ever that his face is the one you love so much. It’s a pretty great face. 

“You’re gonna be okay,” he says tenderly. “You’re too incredible for Poseidon. You’re worth more than that.”

He still looks gorgeous blurred by your tears. You listen to the beat of his heart and the waves rolling. “More than any water anywhere?”

“More than the fucking Styx, sailor. I’ll promise you that.”

That night, Luke stays with you and Percy in your cold chapel of a cabin. You exchange stories until Percy falls asleep in his bed, curled up like a sea otter. “He’s a drooler,” Luke notes fondly, eyes flicking to yours. “Like you.”

You shove his chest playfully until he wraps his arms around you and anchors you to sleep, like every night before. This time, as you drift off, he kisses your forehead again. Once because he loves you, and twice to make sure you know it’s real. 

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When you first got to camp you were terrified. Luke remembers that much. He can still picture you in Chiron’s towering shadow as he led you up to Hermes cabin. He gave you the usual spiel about the cabin, the land of the unclaimed, but it clearly hadn’t quelled your nerves. You were wringing your fingers together when Luke first spotted you, your eyes blown wide in what he knew as shock and a sort of . . . grief. For a life you’d left for what Luke knows as a life you’d never really have. He’d seen it in so many campers before you. He’d see it many times after.

“This is Luke, Hermes’ head counsellor and one of Camp Half-Blood’s finest,” Chiron pointed him out to you at the entrance. After Chiron introduced you, Luke held your name in his memory. Not because there was anything particularly intriguing about you at first, to be honest, because he’d seen a lot of people like you that needed help settling in (although maybe not many his age). It was harder for some people to adjust than most. He knew that better than anyone.

“Nice to meet you,” he stuck out his hand for you to shake after Chiron left. “I’m Luke.”

You sniffed, shaking it without looking at him. You were so, so embarrassed. This whole time you’d been too stupidly overwhelmed to process anything. Why was this so hard for you? Was it this hard for everyone? “Hi,” you managed, and that was it.

Now, weeks after your first meeting, you’ve concluded that it was not, in fact, this hard for everyone. The camp is crowded but full of life. You’ve never seen more happy kids in your life. There’s a sense of community on the wind.

So why can’t you feel it? Why is it so hard to connect with people? To participate in the fun? Everywhere you look there’s people but it’s all just so . . . lonely. You don’t fit. You’re lost.

Luke wakes up at night when the cabin door creaks open. He’s already tossing, so it’s no surprise he catches it. Unfortunately, he’s supposed to be a good counsellor—sneaking out at night is against the rules, and you’ve gotta reign the strays back in before they cause a ruckus. Sure, Luke’s not exactly a stickler for the law, but the least he owes is to make sure everyone’s safe.

Groaning, he draws himself out of the comfort of his bunk but doesn’t get far when he spots a familiar silhouette slipping out the door. He knows it’s you. He’s been hearing crying at night, and this is confirming his suspicions. It makes him ache in a million different places. Every time he thought about approaching you he shut himself down almost instantly, because who the hell wants some random guy coming up to them in the middle of the night and drawing attention?

This time, though, he’s a little worried.

It’s chilly tonight but not too bad, especially when you’re huddled up in a ball on a hill in front of the lake, grass tickling your ankles. Your tears keep you warm.

It’s a sorrow that feels bottomless. You don’t know what’s gotten into you. You don’t know why everything’s so hard.

There’s a scuffling of shoes, and your name is carried to you on the heels of a breeze. Oh God. There’s someone else here.

You sniff and smear your tears on the palms of your hands the best you can but a little part of you only wants to cry more now that you’re all anxious, and you only have a few seconds to collect yourself before you turn around and see Luke, your cabin leader, with furrowed brows. “Oh, h-hi, Luke.” It’s hard to ignore the splinter in your voice. You curse yourself a thousand times.

“Hey,” he says hesitantly, eyeing you in a way that makes you feel entirely exposed. “You, uh, you know you’re not technically supposed to be out here, right?”

You start to scramble to your feet with an apology on your tongue but surprisingly he laughs, a gentle sound, and beckons you to sit back down. “No, no, I’m not gonna get you in trouble or anything, just . . . letting you know.”

It’s uncertain if you should keep sitting, but you decide to because well, you’re already down here, and things can’t go lower than this. Luke comes to sit next to you and you stare out into the sea like your life depends on it. “Wanna talk about why you’re out here?”

“Wh-what do you mean?”

“I mean,” Luke sighs, scooting a little closer to you. “Most people don’t up and leave in the middle of the night because they’re having a great time.”

The answer is too hard to say so you don’t reply.

Again, Luke sighs, and you try not to look at the shadow the moon casts on his admittedly handsome face. “It’s hard settling in, I know. It happens to a lot of people. I’ve . . . I’ve seen a lot of them, and it doesn’t get any easier.”

“Well it sure seems easier,” you snap, and your self-control flies away before you can stop it. “I have no idea why I can’t just suck it up and fit in here. Everyone seems so happy and it’s driving me nuts because I’m just so confused on why I can’t—why I can’t—process any of it.” Tears burn your eyes. “I’m just miserable. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

In the corner of your view, Luke’s face falls. “I’m your guide, you know that, right? I can help you.”

You sniff, embarrassingly pathetic. “I know.”

He comes even closer. “So why didn’t you ask?”

“Because I—I don’t know, you’re busy all the time with all the people in there, so I’m sure your job’s already stressful as is, so—”

“My job is to help you,” he says, a hand on your shoulder. “That’s what I signed up for. If you need something, I’m the one to ask.”

“I’m not sure you signed up for me crying like a baby,” you swallow, the ripples of the lake blurring together. “I mean, I’m like, older than half the kids here, and they’re all so much better than me. I’m not good at a—anything, and I’ve tried it all, and nobody’s claimed me yet, and I feel so weird and old and alone and . . .” It’s too much to think about so you dig the heels of your palms into your eyes, hoping the sting wards off the thoughts. “What if I’m nothing? Why am I here?”

You’re crying again, hiccuping into your hands. Shame sears into you. Luke’s arm curls around your shoulders and you realize how cold you are when he’s warm, so warm, and you want to cry even harder. You don’t even know him, but it’s the most tenderness you’ve received in what feels like years. “Hey, deep breaths,” he murmurs, rubbing your arm with his other hand. “It’s okay. Look at me.”

It takes a ridiculous amount of strength to heed him. His hand catches your cheek and you can’t bear to pull away. Something strange rustles in your stomach.

Luke’s taught instinct when faced with situations like these is to reassure that the Gods always have a plan. But he doesn’t feel like much of a liar tonight. Both his hands steady your face towards his, your skin damp and cold beneath his thumb. “It's not your fault. It always takes a little bit of time for people to get claimed, it’s never . . . well, you can never tell.”

“What if I don’t get claimed?” You say it so quiet you can pretend it was imaginary.

His eyes crinkle at the sides when he says, “Well, Hermes’ll always have a place for you.”

I’ll, Luke wants to say, I’ll. His father is not responsible for his cabin’s kindness.

“No one really prepares you for how overwhelming this is,” he continues, thumb rubbing the apple of your cheek. Your vision is clearer now, and Gods, he is handsome, isn’t he? Even when his eyes are forlorn. “It’s harder in a way when you’re older. More to leave behind. Less to look forward to. It’s easier when you have a friend. Or a great cabin head.” He tilts his head with a faint smile, “Lucky for you, I’m both.”

It almost makes you laugh, and that’s enough. “It’ll get easier,” he promises softly. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

Your cheeks burn. It’s hard to keep his gaze, so you blot at your eyes with your hands as Luke gently slides his off your face. “Thank you. Sorry for, um, all that. And the crying.”

He chuckles, “Don’t even worry about it.” You watch him rise in the throes of starlight. He offers you a hand. “Aren’t you cold?” He asks after pulling you up, and you sheepishly nod your head. He tosses you a sweater he’s been wearing, and it smells like firewood. Nostalgic, in a way. “I’m gonna poke around for some tea. Wait for me back at the cabin.”

Before he leaves, he squeezes your arm and that thing happens again in your stomach. “No need to be embarrassed, by the way. You can come to me anytime. I’m probably less busy than I look.” As he walked away, he added, “And don’t worry about the crying. You’re pretty either way.”

Either way. The tea doesn’t seem important anymore because your face is on fire.

Time reveals that Luke is right. He is a great cabin leader and a friend, and it’s hard to tell which he’s better at. You fall in with him right away. Soon enough, you’re drawn into your new life, so slowly you barely realize it’s happening. The days get shorter and you start wishing they were longer. The nights get easier. And when they’re not, Luke tucks you into his bunk and folds you in his arms until you drift off. You pick up a bow. A sword. Luke tells you to straighten your shoulders with a hand on the small of your back, and you swear it always lingers. You braid garlands of carnations for your cabin mates and they wear them with pride. It’s warm, your cheeks hurt from smiling, and things start to feel like home.

Until you’re claimed.

Now you’re a ghost in Hermes cabin, another empty bunk to be filled, and Luke stares at it until he can remember every last detail of what it looked like when it was yours. A beautiful, gentle daughter of Demeter, no longer in arms’ reach. He should’ve seen it coming.

He sees you with your siblings all the time. You’re so happy and he envies it. You belong there, he knows that, the way your face lights up at the dinner table and how you giggle when your half-sister presents you a flower. But sometimes your eyes wander, and something inside them dulls, until you look at him, too.

Luke’s place at camp is to be nothing but a funnel for lost campers to find their home. He’s a temporary stop in everybody’s journey. He’d made peace with it a long time ago. But here you are, messing it all up, because you still don’t leave him.

You beg him to give you another sword-fighting lesson. You sit next to him at bonfires. You pick him for partner camp activities. It doesn’t matter how many younger boys want to latch onto him for guidance—he sees you heading towards him, and he can’t imagine choosing anyone else.

But you’re always whisked away by your siblings, separated at meals and in sleep and in activities so it’s never, ever enough. Why did he delude himself into thinking you’d stay forever?

After weeks of distance from you, he’s elated when you have even a fraction of a conversation. “Hey, Luke!” You call out to him, and he finds you instantly. You’ve broken away from your siblings to get to him.

“Hey,” he smiles, and hopes he doesn’t look too pleased.

You lean a little towards his ear, and you smell like every wonderful thing in the world. “Can we hang out tonight? On the hill?” You’re a little bashful when you say it and it’s entirely endearing. Even now, you’re still so unsure. “I miss you.”

“I miss you too,” he says almost instantly, and it makes you look less nervous. “Yes. Absolutely. But don’t get caught breaking curfew now, you hooligan.”

Someone calls your name and you give a curt, playful nod. “Yes sir, camp counsellor sir!” He carries your laugh close to his heart until night falls.

You’re already there when he arrives, a vision in the moonlight before he even sees your face. “Hey, angel.”

When you turn around you look flustered. He won’t pretend like it doesn’t flatter him. “H—hi, uh, hello.”

There’s a moment where the world is still. The two of you, alone, for the first time in ages.

He sits down next to you, and it’s like the first time all over again. You get to talking, about your days, your anecdotes, your cabins. The strangeness of it all. “It’s so weird waking up in the morning and not having you yapping in my ear,” you remark, and he teasingly pushes your shoulder.

“Well, one of us has to be the talker, and it’s clearly not you,” he retorts.

You fiddle with blades of grass between your fingertips, weaving them together. “I’ll have you know I had a cabin-wide conversation about Capture The Flag yesterday, and I contributed greatly.”

“Oh, really?” He grins, knocking your elbow to steal your attention. “Look at you, coming out of your shell. I’m so proud.”

It’s hard to hold his gaze for more than a second. You’re afraid you’ll do something stupid if he keeps looking at you like that, but you almost want to. “Oh, shut up.”

He puts a hand on your shoulder. “No, I’m serious. I’m proud.” His eyes rake over your face. “You’re flourishing. You found your place.”

You can’t stop yourself from saying, “I kind of miss my old one.”

There’s a way he studies your expression that makes you feel utterly helpless. You wish you could dish it back to him, but you know you just look awestruck whenever you stare at him for so long. He’s quieter when he replies, “I miss it, too. A lot. Sometimes, I—” His face scrunches up like he just tasted something sour. “Nevermind.”

Frowning, you prod, “What? What is it?”

He sighs and turns to the horizon. This is the first time you’ve ever seen him struggle. “Sometimes, I wish you hadn’t been claimed. Sorry, that’s . . . that’s awful, I know.”

His surprise is evident when you say, “Sometimes I wish I wasn’t either.”

He turns back to you. “Really?”

“Really,” you nod, staring at the beads on his necklace. “You’re the only reason I’ve adjusted here at all.”

“Don’t sell yourself short.”

“It’s true. And I miss you.” A few months ago you would’ve kicked yourself for saying this. But Luke has a way of inspiring confidence in people.

“I miss you, too. So much.” He gently prys the grass you’ve been weaving out of your hands, now a small necklace. “But look at how talented you are. I’ll tell you, I’m lucky you’re still sticking around. For most people, Hermes is touch-and-go.”

Luke leans forward to tie the garland around your neck, and your pulse picks up. “This isn’t about Hermes, Luke,” you try to be firm but it comes out soft. “It’s about you.”

His hands stop fiddling and rest on your neck. When he speaks, you can feel his breath on you. And you have no idea that he’s been waiting to hear that his whole life. “What’s about me?”

It’s not fair, your inability to string sentences together only worsens right when a beautiful boy is this close to you. “Hermes isn’t—it’s not special because of your father, it’s special because of you.”

There is nothing else you can possibly think of saying with the way his fingers trace up your neck and hold your jaw. “Yeah, well,” he murmurs, “The only reason anything in my life is special is because of you.”

You don’t know if it’s a lie or not; you don’t care. His nose nudges yours. There’s a moment where you wonder if this is as close to Elysium you’ll ever get. Then he slips a hand to the back of your neck and pulls you to his mouth.

He kisses you in a near fury, then when he knows you’re not going anywhere, it’s the gentlest thing you know. It’s hard to believe this is even happening. Your hands weave through his curls but he holds you steady, and thank the Gods for that because you’re pretty sure you’re melting. You kiss again, and again, and again, until you genuinely think you’re going to pass out and you have to pull away.

“Aw, look at you,” he murmurs when you can’t meet his eyes, a playful lilt in his voice. “Still so nervous.”

“Would you shut up?” You press your face into the crook of his neck with a huge smile.

He kisses the top of your head. “Love to, angel.”

Luke Castellan is the son of a messenger. He’s supposed to believe he’s bringing the best of humanity to the Gods and glory above.