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Maekar

The halls of Summerhall were quiet, that much Maekar remembered. The hour was deep, the kind that blurred the boundary between night and morning, and he had worn a groove into the stone floor of the antechamber. His boots scuffed against the same flags, the torchlight casting his shadow long and restless against the walls.

Inside, his wife labored. He was not accustomed to waiting. Maekar Targaryen was a man of action, of swordplay and saddle, of hard leather and harder judgment. He had little patience for courts and ceremonies, for the slow dance of ravens and whispers that his father the king conducted so deftly. But this was a different sort of trial, there was no enemy to face, no tourney to win. Only the muffled sounds beyond the door, and the rhythmic pace of his own feet.

Dawn crept pale through the high windows. The birds of Summerhall began their chorus. And then, at last, a cry.

Thin and furious, a needle of sound piercing the heavy oak. Maekar stopped mid-stride, his hand finding the doorframe before he could think better of it.

The midwife emerged, flushed and smiling. “A daughter, my prince. Born first, and fierce as any dragon, and then a boy, quiet but healthy and strong.” He did not wait for permission. The room was warm, too warm, the fire stoked high against the morning chill. His wife lay propped against pillows, her hair damp at the temples, her smile tired but true. In her arms, a small bundle stirred and squalled.

Maekar approached the bed as though it were a battlefield. He had faced armed men with less trepidation. “She has your temperament,” She murmured, her voice worn soft. “She has not stopped protesting since she entered this world.”

He looked down at his daughter. She was impossibly small. Her face was creased, her fists clenched tight, her cries fierce and unrelenting. Maekar had held infants before but he had never felt this particular weight settle in his chest.

“She does not like me,” he observed. She laughed, a sound like water over stone. “She does not like anyone yet” The cries continued, sharp and insistent. The wet nurse stepped forward, but the babe would not be soothed. She would not take milk, would not be rocked, would not be swaddled tighter or looser or any of the thousand small adjustments the women attempted.

Maekar stood apart, useless. He had fought in wars, rebellions, had earned his spurs and his scars, had proven himself a thousand times over. And yet he could not quiet his own daughter. “Let me,” he said. She lifted the bundle, her arms steady despite their exhaustion, and offered their daughter to her father.

Maekar took her. He was not certain, afterward, what he had expected. Perhaps that she would continue to wail, and he would be forced to return her, confirmed in his suspicion that he was ill-suited to this particular tenderness. Perhaps that the weight of her would shatter him entirely, this small and furious thing that he had somehow helped create.

Instead, she quieted. Not slowly, not reluctantly. The cries ceased as though they had never been. Her face, still creased turned toward his. Her eyes searched for something in his own.

And then her tiny hand found his beard. It was not a gentle touch. Her grip was immediate and absolute, her small fingers curling into the short-cropped hair at his jaw with surprising strength. She held fast, and she did not let go.

Maekar did not move. He scarcely breathed. He stood at his wife’s bedside, his armor shed but his leathers still stiff, his hands callused from sword and saddle, his reputation hard-won and carefully maintained and he was utterly, completely captured by a newborn babe who had seized his beard and would not release it.

His wife watched him. Her smile had deepened. “I think she likes your beard” she said. Maekar looked down at his daughter. She looked back at him, her grip unyielding, her expression—if such a small face could be said to possess expression—one of perfect satisfaction.

“I may have to cut it off,” he said. His voice was rougher than he intended. “To survive her.” But he did not move to free himself. He did not call for shears, did not summon a servant, did not even shift his weight to ease the insistent tug of her fingers. He stood, and he held her, and he let her hold him.

“What will you name her?” Maekar looked at her. His wife had her eyes closed now, her breathing slow and even, one hand resting on the small bundle that was their son. The maesters would attend to him shortly, for now, he slept, unaware of the world he had entered.

“Y/N,” She had said, in the brief moments between the births. If she is a girl, I would call her Y/N. Maekar had agreed without hesitation. “Y/N,” he said now. “Princess Y/N of House Targaryen.”

In the days that followed, the courtiers gossiped. Prince Maekar, they said, had always been the hardest of the king’s sons, the sharpest edge, the least yielding. He had no patience for softness, no time for tenderness. He was his father’s most dutiful son and his least affectionate.

But they watched him walk the halls of Summerhall with his daughter cradled in the crook of his arm, her small fingers tangled in his beard, and they revised their judgments. They watched him sit through council sessions with her asleep against his chest, his hand steady on her back, his attention divided between reports from the marches and the gentle rhythm of her breathing.

They watched him rise in the dark hours to pace the corridors when she would not be soothed by any other, his shadow long and patient, his voice—that voice they had heard only in command and reproach—murmuring quiet words they could not quite catch.

The years turned, as years do, and Summerhall ripened around them. Maekar watched his daughter grow as he had once watched the battle frontier. with vigilance, with attention, with the quiet certainty that something precious was being shaped and he would not let harm find it.

She was small. She would always be small, he suspected; His wife laughed and said her blood ran true in her, that her kind had never been giants. But what she lacked in height she answered in presence. Her step was quick, her gaze quicker, and she had a way of tilting her chin when she considered a question that reminded him of his father the king.

This was not, he reflected, a comfortable comparison. He saw it most clearly on the mornings when he passed the solar where her lady lessons were held. Septa Marcherys had a voice like a rusted hinge and a disposition to match, and through the crack in the door Maekar would hear her reciting the virtues expected of noblewomen: patience, obedience, silence. And he would hear his daughter's voice, perfectly polite, perfectly attentive and perfectly full of questions.

Septa Marcherys did not know how to answer these questions. She knew how to stitch, not how to explain stitching. She knew how to instruct, not how to illuminate. And his daughter, who had been born with her small hand curled in his beard and her eyes searching for something to hold, did not accept instruction without illumination.

She was seven when she first asked to join her brothers' lessons. "They are learning histories," she said. "I have finished my stitching." "Have you." He asked. "The septa said my work was exemplary." She delivered this without pride, as simple fact. "She said I had nothing more to learn from her today." "And the harp?"

"I played until my fingers ached. Mother said I might rest them." Maekar looked at the door. Beyond it, he could hear Maester Vyman's droning voice and the occasional shuffle of his sons—Daeron, eight now, and Aerion, six—attempting to remain attentive. His daughter looked at him with her steady gaze and her patient silence and her absolute certainty that he would find a way to grant her request.

He opened the door. Maester Vyman paused mid-sentence, his wispy eyebrows climbing toward his hairline. Prince Daeron turned in his seat, relief plain on his round face. Prince Aerion's attention sharpened with the particular interest he reserved for disruptions.

"My prince," said Maester Vyman. "Is there—"

"My daughter will join the lessons from now on."

It was not a request. Maester Vyman, who had served House Targaryen long enough to recognize the particular immovability of Prince Maekar's pronouncements, simply nodded and continued his lecture on the Unification of the Seven Kingdoms.

His daughter settled onto the bench beside Daeron, her hands folded, her attention absolute. She did not smile. She did not fidget. She listened as she did everything, completely.

Maester Vyman, to his credit, adjusted his instruction. When he spoke of Aegon the Conqueror, he spoke not only of battles and crowns but of governance, of the weight of rule, of the thousand small decisions that kept kingdoms from fracturing. And when he posed questions, he posed them to all three children alike.

His daughter answered each one correctly.

She was eight when she asked to learn archery. Maekar appointed Ser Gerold Lannister, a master bowman and he arrived with his finest yew bow and his most patient demeanor, prepared to instruct a princess in the gentle art of target shooting.

He left three hours later with a profound respect for Prince Maekar's daughter and a request to be informed if she ever wished to compete in a tourney.

She was nine when she asked to learn the sword. Maekar taught her himself. He cleared the solar of furniture, laid down mats of woven rush, and stood before his daughter with a blunted practice blade in each hand. She was so small. The sword, even the lightest he could find, seemed almost too heavy for her grip.

She was not naturally gifted. Her arms tired quickly, her wrists lacked strength, her height put her at constant disadvantage against any opponent of size. But she listened, and she learned, and she improved. And when she finally managed to land her blunted blade against his guard—not a hit, not truly, but contact enough to count—her smile was the brightest thing in Summerhall.

Maekar did not tell her that he had let her succeed. He did not tell her that he had slowed his parry, had left his guard a fraction lower than necessary, had given her the opening she needed. He simply nodded, and took the practice sword from her tired hands, and sent her to her mother for supper.

He did not tell her, either, that every day he watched her master some new skill—history, archery, the careful mathematics of household accounts—he felt the same sharp twist in his chest.

If only she had been born a boy.

The thought came unbidden, unwelcome, impossible to banish. If she had been born a boy, she would be his heir. She would inherit Summerhall, with its warm halls and its growing libraries and its gardens that she had mapped in such careful detail. She would carry his name forward, would rule with the same quiet competence she brought to everything she touched.

If she had been born a boy, he would not have to give her away. The letters came monthly. Sometimes weekly. From lords great and small, from the Reach and the Stormlands and once, audaciously, from lords of the free cities. Each letter praised Prince Maekar's daughter, her virtue, her beauty, her impeccable blood. Each letter proposed a match. Each letter offered gold and land and alliance.

Each letter received the same reply: Princess Y/N's hand is not presently available for discussion.

His father did not press. King Daeron was many things—patient, shrewd, possessed of a long view that Maekar had never quite mastered—but he was not cruel. He knew what the letters cost his son. He did not add to the weight.

But the letters kept coming. And every time Maekar dictated his refusal to the same long-suffering maester, he felt the same cold certainty settle into his bones.

He could not keep her forever.

She saw the ledgers his stewards brought and found the discrepancy the maesters had missed. She walked the gardens with the head gardener and asked why the western terrace received less sun, and by the following spring the terrace had been replanted with shade-loving varieties. She listened to the petitions Maekar heard as prince of Summerhall and, afterward, recounted each petitioner's name and grievance and the subtle tells that revealed which spoke true and which did not.

She was ten years old. His father, who had made peace with Dorne through marriage and diplomacy. His father, who had bent the realm to his will not through conquest but through patience. His father, who looked at his granddaughter and saw something Maekar was afraid to name.

"A remarkable girl," the king said, when she had been sent to bed. "She has your mother's mind." "She should be fostered," his father continued. "A year or two in a great house would broaden her experience. The Lannisters have daughters near her age. The Tyrells have expressed interest—"

"No." The word was out before Maekar could stop it. His father's pale violet gaze settled on him, patient, waiting.

"She is ten years old," Maekar said. "She is too young to leave home." "She is ten years old. She is not too young to begin preparing for her future." The king's voice was gentle. "You cannot keep her here forever, my son. You know this."

Maekar knew this. He knew that she would one day marry, would leave Summerhall for some other lord's castle, would bear some other house's children and answer to some other name. He knew that the letters would not be refused forever, that his father's patience had limits, that the realm required alliances and the princesses of the blood were currency in that endless negotiation.

He knew all of this. "She is ten years old," he repeated. "We will speak of fostering when she is older."

But the words lingered.You cannot keep her here forever. Maekar went to his daughter's chamber that night. She was asleep, her face peaceful, one hand curled against her pillow as it had once curled in his beard. The fire had burned low; the room was soft with shadow.

He sat beside her bed and watched her breathe. She was so small. She was so fierce. She was so utterly, completely herself, and every day she grew a little more toward a woman he would not recognize, a life he could not share.

She would leave, and the halls of Summerhall would grow quieter, and there would be no small hand reaching for his beard in the morning light. No voice asking why and how and what if. No patient correction of sums, no quiet triumph on the archery range, no chin tilted at that particular angle. She would leave. And he would let her. Because he was a prince of the realm, and his duty was to his house and his king, and fathers did not keep their daughters forever.

But not yet. He reached out and smoothed the hair from her forehead, careful not to wake her. She stirred slightly, murmured something unintelligible, and was still.

Maekar withdrew his hand. He sat in the darkness, watching his daughter sleep, and did not think about the letters on his desk or the weight of his father's words or the future he could not prevent.

He thought about tomorrow morning, when she would wake and find him breaking his fast in the solar. She would ask him about the new shipments from the Reach, or the correspondence with Lord Swann, or the progress of the garden terrace. She would pour his tea without being asked, the way she had done since she was old enough to lift the pot.

And when she passed his chair, she would reach out and tug, once, at his beard. She had not outgrown the habit. He had not encouraged her to. He sat in the darkness, and he waited for morning, and he did not think about the future at all.

YN

You called him Val. You met him when you were six and he was seven, a formal introduction in the great hall of King's Landing while your father stood stiff behind you. Prince Baelor had smiled, broad and warm, and ruffled his son's dark hair. Valarr had stared at his shoes.

"Your cousin," said Baelor. "Princess Y/N of Summerhall." Valarr had looked up, briefly, and then down again. His face had been very red.

You had studied him with the frank assessment of a child who had not yet learned that staring was impolite. He was shorter than you, which you found interesting. He was round in the cheeks and round in the middle, his fine clothes straining slightly at the seams. His hands were small and soft, clasped tightly before him. "Hello," you said.

"Hello," he whispered. And that was that.

Or it was, until you discovered him hiding behind the tapestry in the corridor outside the small council chamber. He had not been difficult to find. The tapestry billowed slightly, betraying his presence, and when you pulled it aside he was pressed against the stone wall with his hands over his face and his breathing quick and shallow.

"What are you doing?" you asked. He did not answer. His shoulders shook. You considered the situation with the same practical attention you brought to your lady lessons. He was hiding. He was sad. He was your cousin, and his face was very red, and his hands were pressed so tightly against his eyes that his knuckles had gone white.

You sat down beside him. "I don't like it here either," you said. "Everyone is very loud. My father says the courtiers talk more than fishwives and have less sense."

A pause. His breathing slowed slightly. "My mother made me wear this tunic," he whispered. "It pinches."

You examined the tunic. It was velvet, deep blue, embroidered with silver thread in the pattern of dragon scales. It did, indeed, look very pinched.

"My mother makes me wear dresses with too many buttons," you said. "I told her buttons are inefficient. She said I would understand when I was older."

"She always says that."

"Who?"

"Mother." His hands lowered slightly, just enough to reveal one watery eye. "She says I will understand when I am older. But I don't think I will. I think I will just be older and still not understand."

You considered this. It seemed, to you, a perfectly reasonable fear.

"Maybe," you said, "we will both be older and neither of us will understand anything, and everyone else will be very confused."

Valarr looked at you. His eyes were different, one blue, a pale shade like the sky on winter mornings, and one a warm chocolate brown. His lashes were wet. "That would be funny," he said.

"It would be very funny."

He smiled. It was a small smile, hesitant, as though he were not entirely certain he was permitted it. But it was there.

He did not hide behind the tapestry again. Not while you were at court, at least.

You teased him. You could not help it. He was so easy to tease, his round cheeks flushing pink at the slightest provocation, his gaze dropping to his shoes whenever someone spoke too directly to him. The courtiers called him solemn, you called him pudding-face, and watched his blush spread from his cheeks to his ears to the very tips of his ears.

"I am not," he protested, but his mouth was already twitching toward a smile.

"You are. You have pudding where your chin should be." You poked the soft curve of his jaw. "And pudding here, and pudding—"

He swatted your hand away, laughing despite himself. "You are very mean."

"I am honest. There is a difference."

"You are mean, and I do not have to listen to you."

"You do not have to listen to me," you agreed. "But you will anyway, because you like me."

His blush deepened. He did not deny it.

He was ten when he informed you, with great solemnity, that he had decided to marry you.

You were nine, which was old enough to know that marriage was something adults arranged and children did not decide. You were also old enough to know that Valarr's mother had been speaking of betrothals, and that he had been listening more carefully than anyone realized.

"You cannot marry me," you said. "You are my cousin."

"So?" His brow furrowed. "Targaryens marry each other all the time. Father says it keeps the blood pure."

You had no argument for this. You had heard the same reasoning yourself, though you found it unconvincing. The Targaryens had been marrying each other for centuries, and they were no less peculiar for it.

"Even so," you said. "You cannot marry me unless you can beat me with a sword."

He blinked. "A sword?"

"Any man who wishes to be my husband must prove himself worthy." You had heard this somewhere—perhaps from Septa Marcherys, perhaps from one of the romances the older ladies whispered about when they thought the children weren't listening. "He must defeat me in honorable combat."

"But you are a girl."

"And I practice with my father every morning. I can already parry a low thrust and execute a basic riposte." You had learned these words yesterday and were very pleased with them. "Can you?"

Valarr could not, his sword lessons consisted primarily of being knocked to the ground by his father's master-at-arms and told to try again. He was not bad, precisely, but he was not good, and he knew it.

"I will learn," he said, with more determination than you had ever heard from him. "I will practice every day. And when I can beat you, you will have to marry me."

"I will have to consider it," you said, with great dignity.

He nodded, satisfied. "That is fair."

He did practice. You watched him from the gallery, his small round form struggling through the same drills your father had taught you. He fell. He rose. He fell again. His master-at-arms shouted, his face grew red, his grip on the practice sword remained clumsy and uncertain.

But he did not stop.

He was eleven when he finally reached you.

It was not dramatic, no sudden spurt, no overnight transformation. But one morning you stood beside him in the corridor and realized, with faint surprise, that you no longer had to look down to meet his eyes.

You were the same height.

"I told you," you said. "I am still taller."

"You are a weed," he muttered, but there was no heat in it. His gaze lingered on the top of your head, measuring the distance. "I will catch up. And get taller."

"Perhaps. Or perhaps you will be short forever, and I will be very tall, and everyone will think you are my little brother."

"I am older than you."

"By a year. That is nothing. When we are old, a year will not matter at all."

He considered this. His face, still round, still prone to blushing, had begun to lose some of its baby softness. His jaw was taking shape; his shoulders were broadening, though slowly. His mother's indulgence had not diminished—she still sent sweetcakes to his chambers and fretted over his health—but he had grown into himself, somewhat.

"When we are old," he said, "I will be a great knight, and you will be my lady wife, and we will live in a castle by the sea."

"What sea?"

"Any sea. All seas. I will conquer one for you."

"That is very impractical. Castles by the sea are difficult to defend and prone to salt damage. Also, I don't like fish."

He laughed. He laughed often, now, when he was with you. It was a soft sound, easily startled into silence, but genuine.

"You are impossible," he said.

"I am practical. There is a difference."

He looked at you for a long moment. His eyes were hypnothising, and there was something in them you could not quite name.

You were twelve when your father took you home.

Summerhall was your home, had always been your home, and you had known this visit to court would end as all visits ended. But the knowledge had been abstract, distant, a fact without weight. You had not felt it in your chest, pressing against your ribs, until your father stood before you in the Red Keep's solar and told you to pack your things.

"Your mother misses you," he said. "Summerhall misses you. It is time to come home."

You nodded. You were a princess of the realm; you knew how to nod at commands you did not wish to obey.

Valarr found you in the library. He simply sat beside you, close enough that your shoulders nearly touched, and waited.

"My father is taking me home," you said.

"I know."

"Summerhall. Not court. Not—" Your voice caught. You had not expected it to catch. You were not a child who cried easily, had not cried since you were very small and your father had taken you into his arms and quieted you with his presence alone. "Not here."

"I know," he said again.

"I do not want to go," you whispered.

"I know."

You turned to look at him. His face was very still, very pale, his jaw set in a line you had never seen before. His eyes were bright, though he did not let them spill over.

"You will write to me," you said. It was not a question.

"Every week."

"And you will visit."

"When I can. Father says—" He stopped. Swallowed. "He says I am old enough to accompany him on progress. Perhaps we will come to Summerhall."

"Perhaps."

Silence. The library was dim, the afternoon light filtered through high windows, dust motes drifting lazily in the golden shafts.

"I am still going to marry you," he said.

His voice was steady. His gaze was steady. His hands, clasped tightly in his lap, were not steady at all.

"I have not forgotten," he said. "I practice every day. Master Arlan says my footwork has improved. I can parry a low thrust and execute a basic riposte." His voice trembled slightly on the words, the ones you had taught him three years ago. "I am not good enough yet. But I will be. I will be good enough, and I will come to Summerhall, and I will beat you, and you will have to marry me."

You looked at him. His round face, his chocolate-sky eyes, his soft hands that were slowly growing callused from the sword. His earnestness, his determination, his absolute certainty that if he only tried hard enough, he could shape the world to match his wanting.

You had taught him that. You had pulled him out from behind his tapestries and taught him that wanting was not weakness, that reaching for things was not shameful, that the world might sometimes yield to those who asked it properly.

You had taught him, and now you were leaving.

"All right," you said.

He blinked. "All right?"

"All right. I will wait." Your voice was very small. "I will wait, and you will practice, and when you are good enough you will come to Summerhall and beat me. And then I will consider marrying you."

His smile was slow, hesitant, as though he were not entirely certain he was permitted it. But it was there.

"All right," he said. "It is a promise."

"It is a promise."

You left at dawn.

Your father's hand was warm on your shoulder, steadying you as the carriage lurched into motion. You did not look back. You had learned, from years of watching courtiers come and go, that looking back only made the parting harder.

But you felt it, all the same. The weight of the Red Keep receding behind you, the distance growing between your heart and the boy with winter-sky eyes. You felt it settle into your chest, heavy and cold, and you did not know what name to give it.

Your father did not speak. His hand remained on your shoulder, his grip sure, his silence more eloquent than words.

You were twelve years old. You were going home.

And somewhere, in the castle behind you, a boy was standing at a window, watching your carriage grow smaller and smaller until it vanished into the morning mist.

The years between were letters.

They came weekly, as promised. Valarr's script was careful, precise, each word formed with the same earnest attention he brought to everything. He wrote of his lessons—swordwork improving, history mastered, sums still troublesome. He wrote of his brothers, Matarys growing like a weed and just as wild, of his father's travels and his mother's health and the small, daily rhythms of life at court.

You wrote back. Your own hand was quicker, less polished, sprawling across the page in your haste to capture everything before it escaped you. You wrote of Summerhall's gardens and the new terrace that flourished in the shade. You wrote of your father's ledgers and the discrepancies you had found, of your mother's laughter and your brother Daeron's dreams. You wrote of Aerion's sharp edges and Aemon's quietness, of the twins Daella and Rhae who had just begun to talk.

You did not write that you missed him. You did not need to.

He visited when he could.

Twelve, and he came to Summerhall with his father for the autumn progress. He was taller—you noticed immediately, with a strange twist in your chest—taller than you now, as he had always promised he would be. His face had lost its roundness, his jaw sharpening into the shape of a young man's. He was still soft, still gentle, still prone to blushing when you looked at him too long.

But his shoulders were broader. His hands, when he helped you down from the garden wall you had climbed for old times' sake, were stronger.

"You grew," you said.

"You shrank."

"I did not. You are just taller now. It is very inconvenient."

He smiled, that same hesitant smile, as though he were still not certain he was permitted it. "I told you I would catch up."

"You took long enough."

You walked the gardens together. He told you about King's Landing, about the small intrigues and daily dramas you had missed. You told him about Summerhall, about the changes your father had made at your suggestion, about the satisfaction of seeing your ideas take root and flourish.

He listened. He always listened, his attention absolute, his gaze steady on your face as though you were the most important person in any room.

You had missed that. You had not known you missed it until it was there again.

Thirteen, and you came to court for your nameday.

The Red Keep was the same—loud, crowded, full of whispers and glances and people who wanted things you could not name. But Valarr was different. He moved through it with more ease than you remembered, his shyness faded into something quieter, more controlled. He still blushed when courtiers addressed him directly, but he no longer hid behind tapestries.

He showed you the places only he knew: a hidden balcony overlooking the bay, a corner of the library where the light fell golden in the afternoons, a spot in the godswood where the heart tree's leaves whispered secrets to anyone quiet enough to listen.

"Do you remember," he said, "when you found me behind the tapestry?"

"You were very small."

"I was six. You were five and very bossy."

"I was practical. There is a difference."

He laughed. The sound was deeper now, but still soft, still easily startled into silence. "You always say that."

"Because it is always true."

He looked at you for a long moment. His eyes were still that pale winter blue, but there was something new in them, something you could not quite name.

"You have changed," he said.

"So have you."

"Have I? I do not feel changed. I feel like the same person, only—" He gestured vaguely, helplessly. "Only more."

You understood. You felt it too—the strange sensation of growing into oneself, of becoming more fully the person one had always been. It was disorienting, sometimes, to look in the mirror and see the same face, only sharper, older, more defined.

"More is good," you said. "I think."

"I think so too."

Fourteen, and he came to Summerhall again.

You met him in the courtyard, and for a moment you did not recognize him. He had grown again, taller still, his frame filling out in ways that spoke of hours in the training yard. His dark hair was longer, brushing his collar, and there was a new confidence in the way he held himself.

But his smile was the same. Hesitant, hopeful, as though he were still afraid you might turn away.

"Val," you said, and something in your chest eased at the way his name felt in your mouth.

"Y/N." He said it softly, like a prayer. "You look—" He stopped, color rising in his cheeks. "You look well."

"Summerhall suits me."

"It does." His gaze lingered on your face a moment too long. "It always has."

That night, you sat together on the battlements, watching the stars wheel slowly overhead. The stones were warm from the day's sun, the air soft with the promise of summer. His shoulder was warm against yours, and you did not move away.

"I missed you," he said quietly. "More than I thought I would."

"I missed you too."

"I know. Your letters—" He stopped. Started again. "They help. They help more than you know."

You turned to look at him. The starlight caught his features, softening them, making him look younger than his fifteen years. "Then I will keep writing."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

Fifteen, and you returned to court for his nameday.

He was sixteen now, officially a man grown, though he still carried himself with that same quiet hesitance. The tourney in his honor had been grand—his father's doing, you suspected, Baelor's quiet pride in his eldest son manifesting in silver and silk and the finest knights in the Seven Kingdoms.

Valarr had not won. He had never been a great warrior, and you knew he never would be. But he had held his own, had lasted three rounds against knights twice his age, and you had cheered louder than anyone when he finally yielded.

Afterward, he found you in the gardens.

"You embarrassed me," he said, but he was smiling.

"I did not. I was supportive."

"Supportive is quiet encouragement. You were—" He laughed, shaking his head. "You were very loud."

"You deserved loud. You fought well."

His smile softened. "You think so?"

"I know so. I watched every moment."

He looked at you for a long moment. The garden was quiet, the sounds of the feast distant and muffled. His hand found yours, tentative, questioning.

You did not pull away.

"Y/N," he said, and his voice was different. Thicker, somehow. "I—"

"Val." You squeezed his hand. "I know."

You did know. You had known for years, in the way that you knew the shape of your own thoughts. He loved you. He had always loved you, from the moment you pulled him out from behind that tapestry and sat beside him in the dust.

And you—you loved him too. Not the way you loved your father, or your brothers, or Summerhall. Different. Deeper. A thing that had grown so slowly you had not noticed it until it was too large to ignore.

He did not say the words. He did not need to. He simply stood there, in the quiet garden, holding your hand as though it were the most precious thing in the world.

And you stood with him.

Now you are seventeen, and it is his eighteenth nameday.

The celebrations have been ongoing for three days. Tourneys and feasts and dances, endless dances where you have been partnered with lordlings and heirs and one very persistent Tyrell who does not seem to understand that your smiles are merely polite. Your feet ache. Your head aches. Your patience has long since fled.

Valarr finds you in the corridor outside the great hall, where you have escaped for air.

"You look like you are planning someone's murder," he observes.

"I am planning many murders. The Tyrell boy is first."

He laughs. It is a good sound, warm and genuine, and it eases something in your chest. "He is harmless."

"He is tiresome. There is a difference."

"There always is with you." He glances around, lowers his voice. "Come with me."

"Where?"

"Away." He holds out his hand, that same tentative gesture, as though he still fears you might refuse. "I want to show you something."

You take his hand without hesitation.

He leads you through passages you do not know, past kitchens and storage rooms and up a winding stair that seems to go on forever. The air grows cooler, the sounds of the castle fading behind you. Finally, he pushes open a door, and you step out onto the roof.

The night sky opens above you, vast and brilliant, more stars than you have ever seen. The city sprawls below, a thousand tiny lights flickering in the darkness. The wind is sharp up here, carrying the salt scent of the bay.

"What is this place?" you breathe.

"My secret. I found it years ago, when I needed to hide." He gestures at the sky. "No one comes here. No one knows it exists. Just me."

"And now me."

"And now you." He looks at you, and his eyes are very blue in the starlight. "Happy nameday to me."

You laugh. "You brought me a gift for your nameday?"

"The best gift. You, alone, with no Tyrells." He pauses. "I have something else, actually. But it can wait."

"What is it?"

He shakes his head, smiling. "Later. First—" He draws something from his belt, and you recognize it with a start. A practice sword, blunted but familiar. "I have not forgotten."

"Val—"

"When I can beat you with a sword, you said. You would marry me." His voice is light, teasing, but there is something underneath it. Something serious. "I am eighteen now. A man grown. It seems past time I collected on that promise."

"You cannot be serious."

"Deadly serious." He tosses the sword lightly from hand to hand. "One bout. Right here. No one to see but the stars."

You stare at him. He stares back, that hesitant smile playing at his lips, his eyes bright with something you cannot quite name.

"You will lose," you say.

"Probably." He shrugs. "But I have been practicing."

You have no sword. You have no intention of fighting him on a rooftop in your feast clothes. You have every intention of telling him exactly how foolish this is.

Instead, you laugh. "You are impossible."

"I learned from the best."

You find a length of wood near the door—an old broom handle, discarded and forgotten. It is not a sword, but it will serve. You settle into your stance, the same stance your father taught you years ago, and face him across the moonlit roof.

"Rules?" you ask.

"First to disarm."

"First to disarm," you agree. "Begin."

He is better than you expected. Not good—not truly good, not the way your father is good, not the way a warrior is good—but better. His footwork is solid, his guard consistent, his attacks measured and careful. He has been practicing. He has been practicing a great deal.

You circle each other on the rooftop, the city spread below, the stars wheeling overhead. Your broom handle meets his practice sword again and again, the sound sharp in the night air. He presses forward; you yield ground, testing him. He follows; you parry, riposte, force him back.

"You have improved," you admit.

"I told you." He is breathing hard, but smiling. "I always keep my promises."

You press your advantage. He is stronger than he was, but you are faster, more skilled, more experienced. Your father taught you well, and you have not let those lessons rust. You drive him back toward the edge of the roof, your broom handle a blur of motion.

He is going to lose. He knows he is going to lose. You can see it in his eyes, the acceptance, the determination to fight on anyway.

And then—

He moves forward instead of back.

It is unexpected, bold, utterly foolish. He steps inside your guard, inside the reach of your broom handle, and for a moment you are too surprised to react. His free hand comes up, not to strike, but to cup your face.

His lips meet yours.

The kiss is soft, tentative, exactly like him. His mouth is warm against yours, and for one breathless moment you forget everything—the sword, the rooftop, the city below, the stars above. You forget your name, your training, your father's voice in your head. There is only him, only Valarr, only the impossible sweetness of his mouth on yours.

Your broom handle drops from nerveless fingers.

He pulls back, just slightly, his forehead resting against yours. His eyes are very blue, very close, very bright. His breath is warm on your lips.

"I win," he whispers.

You look down. His practice sword is pressed gently against your wrist, not hard enough to hurt, but enough to count. Your broom handle lies forgotten at your feet.

He disarmed you.

You should be angry. You should call him a cheat, a trickster, a dishonorable wretch who would rather steal a victory than earn it fairly. You should—

You kiss him again.

This time it is not soft. This time it is not tentative. This time you put into it everything you have not said, everything you have not admitted, everything you have been too afraid to name. You kiss him like the years of letters, like the stolen moments in gardens, like the weight of his hand in yours and the warmth of his shoulder against your own.

He makes a sound against your mouth—surprise, pleasure, something deeper—and his arms come around you, pulling you close. The practice sword clatters to the roof, forgotten. His hands find your waist, your back, your hair. He kisses you like he has been waiting his whole life for this moment.

Perhaps he has.

When you finally break apart, you are both breathless. The stars spin overhead. The city glitters below. His face is very close, very flushed, very beautiful in the moonlight.

"That was—" he starts.

"A cheat," you say, but you are smiling. "A trick. Dishonorable."

"I won."

"You cheated."

"The rules did not say I could not kiss you." His voice is soft, wondering. "I checked. Very carefully. Many times."

You laugh. You cannot help it. The sound echoes across the rooftop, bright and free, and he watches you with an expression you have never seen before. Tenderness, yes. Love, certainly. But something else—something like triumph, like wonder, like he cannot quite believe you are real.

"I have loved you," he says quietly, "since I was six years old and you sat beside me behind that tapestry. I have loved you every day since. I will love you every day until I die."

"Val—"

"You do not have to say it back. I know—I know you care for me, I know you—but you do not have to—"

You kiss him again, just to stop his rambling.

When you pull back, his eyes are very bright. "I love you too," you say. "You impossible, ridiculous, wonderful man. I have loved you for years. I was just waiting for you to catch up."

He laughs. It is a wet sound, a little broken, absolutely joyful. "I caught up."

"You did." You touch his face, trace the line of his jaw. "Eventually."

"I won."

"You cheated."

"I won, and now you have to marry me."

You consider this. The stars wheel overhead. The city glitters below. His arms are warm around you, his heart beating against your chest, his eyes the blue of winter sky.

"I suppose," you say slowly, "I did make a promise."

"You did."

"And I always keep my promises."

"I know." He kisses your forehead, your nose, the corner of your mouth. "I know you do."

"Then I suppose—" You smile, and it feels like coming home. "I suppose you had better speak to my father."

He groans, dropping his head to your shoulder. "Your father. The man who sharpens his sword every morning while glaring at anyone who looks at you too long."

"He likes you."

"He tolerates me. There is a difference."

"There always is." You run your fingers through his hair, and he sighs against your shoulder. "But he will say yes. He knows—he knows you make me happy."

"He does?"

"He notices everything. It is very inconvenient." You pause. "Also, you are a prince of the realm, grandson of the king, heir to Dragonstone after your father. There are worse matches."

He lifts his head, mock-offended. "You are marrying me for my title?"

"I am marrying you despite your title. There is a difference."

He laughs, and kisses you again, and the stars spin on.

The weeks blur into something golden.

Three weeks of Valarr's nameday celebrations—feasts and hunts and tourneys and balls, each one grander than the last. Three weeks of smiling at the right moments, dancing with the right partners, saying the right things to the right people. Three weeks of pretending that everything is exactly as it should be.

And three weeks of stealing moments.

The gardens at dawn, when the rest of the castle sleeps. A hidden alcove behind the tapestry in the library. The abandoned tower room where the maesters once stored their books, now empty and forgotten. These become your sanctuaries, your secret kingdom, the only places where you can stop being princess and prince and simply be yourselves.

You meet him whenever you can.

In the mornings, before anyone thinks to look for you. In the afternoons, when the court naps through the heat. At night, when the feasts finally end and the corridors grow quiet and the guards know better than to question the prince's late-night walks.

He is always waiting.

His arms open. His smile private. His eyes warming the moment they find you.

"You're late," he says one afternoon, pulling you into the alcove behind the tapestry.

"I'm not late. You're early."

"I've been waiting for an hour."

"You have not."

"I have. I counted every heartbeat." His arms circle your waist, drawing you against him. "Seven thousand, two hundred and forty-three."

"You're ridiculous."

"I'm in love. There's a difference."

You kiss him. It is the only reasonable response.

The alcove is small, barely large enough for two, but you have grown to love its cramped intimacy. The stone wall at your back. His warmth at your front. The muffled sounds of the library beyond the tapestry, scholars and scribes going about their business unaware that the heir to the Iron Throne is three feet away with his hands in your hair.

"I have to go back soon," you murmur against his lips.

"Not yet."

"Your mother will notice."

"My mother has noticed everything since i was eight. She's just waiting to see what happens next."

"And what is happening next?"

He pulls back just enough to meet your eyes. His expression has shifted, the playfulness fading into something deeper, more serious.

"I'm telling my father in the morrow."

Your heart stops. "It's been three weeks. The celebrations end tomorrow. If I wait any longer, you'll go back to Summerhall and I'll—" He stops. Swallows. "I'll lose you again."

"You won't lose me."

"You know what I mean." His hand cups your face. "I want to do this properly. I want to ask for your hand. I want your father's blessing and my father's approval and the king's consent. I want to marry you in the light, in front of everyone, with no more hiding and no more secrets."

"Valarr—"

"I know it's fast. I know we've only had three weeks. But I've loved you for ten years. I've waited for you for ten years. I'm not waiting anymore."

You look at him—this man who was once a shy boy hiding behind tapestries, who grew tall and strong and sure, who kept his promise to practice every day and wrote you a hundred letters he never sent. This man who held you in a tent and kissed you like you were the answer to every question he had ever asked.

"You're sure?" you whisper.

"I've never been more sure of anything."

You kiss him again. Deeper this time, slower, pouring ten years of waiting into a single moment.

His hands roam your back, your waist, your hips. Yours tangle in his hair, pull him closer, hold him there. The tapestry muffles your soft sounds. The library continues its quiet business. The world spins on, oblivious.

Your hand drifts lower.

He catches your wrist. Gently. His forehead rests against yours, his breath coming quick.

"Not yet," he says.

"I want to."

"I know." His thumb traces slow circles on your palm. "But not like this. Not in a hidden alcove, stealing moments between duties. Not when I have to let you go in an hour and pretend nothing happened."

"I don't care about—"

"I care." His voice is soft but firm. "I won't take your maidenhood like this. After the celebration, I'll tell my father. I'll propose to you properly. I'll do this right."

You want to argue. You want to tell him that you don't need proposals or permissions, that you have waited long enough, that the only thing that matters is him.

But you look at his face—the sincerity in his eyes, the steadiness of his gaze—and you understand.

"Only our wedding bed," he says slowly, "will have the honor of our first love. I promise."

"You and your promises."

"You and your waiting." He pulls you close, tucking your head beneath his chin. "We're quite a pair."

"We are." Your arms circle his waist. "A pair of fools in love."

"The best kind of fools."

---

The morning light falls soft through the windows of Prince Baelor's solar.

Valarr stands before his father's desk, his heart full, his intentions clear. He has rehearsed this conversation a hundred times—in the garden, in the alcove, in the quiet hours of the night when sleep would not come. He knows exactly what he will say.

Father, I want to marry Y/N. This is not an infatuation. I have loved her since we were children. I want to spend the rest of my life with her. I want your blessing.

Baelor looks up from the papers on his desk. His expression is unreadable, it has always been unreadable, the face of a man who has spent his life learning to hide his thoughts. But there is something in his eyes today. Something Valarr cannot name.

"Valarr." His voice is gentle. "Sit down."

"I'd rather stand." A pause. "Father, I need to speak with you about something important."

"And I need to speak with you." Baelor sets down his quill. He gestures to the chair across from his desk. "Please. Sit."

Something cold settles in Valarr's stomach. He sits.

Baelor is quiet for a long moment. When he speaks, his voice is careful—too careful, the voice of a man delivering news he knows will wound.

"I have been in discussions with the Archon of Tyrosh," he says. "For several months now. Trade agreements, military alliances—the usual dance." He pauses. "And a marriage."

Valarr goes very still.

"The Archon's daughter, Kiera. She is of an age with you. Well-educated, well-mannered, well-connected. The match would strengthen our ties with the Free Cities, secure our southern trade routes, and provide a counterbalance to the growing power of—"

"No."

Baelor stops. His eyes meet his son's.

"No," Valarr repeats. "I won't marry her."

"You haven't even met her."

"I don't need to meet her." His voice is rising, though he fights to keep it steady. "I am going to marry Y/N. That is what I came here to tell you. I want your blessing to propose to her."

Baelor's face shifts, something flickering across his features that might be regret, might be understanding, might be the echo of his own youth.

"Y/N," he says. "Maekar's daughter."

"Yes."

Baelor is quiet for a moment. When he speaks again, his voice is softer.

"I understand what you feel. I do. Young love is powerful—I remember what it was like to be your age, to look at someone and think they were the only person in the world who mattered." He leans forward. "But you are not just any young man, Valarr. You are my heir. You will be king after your grandfather. The realm needs more than love—it needs alliances, treaties, bonds that cannot be broken."

"I don't care."

"Valarr—"

"I don't care about Tyrosh. I don't care about trade routes or military alliances or any of it." He is on his feet now, though he does not remember standing. "I have done everything you asked. Every lesson, every duty, every expectation. I have been the perfect son, the perfect heir, the perfect prince. I have never asked for anything."

Baelor rises too. His expression is pained. "I know."

"Then give me this." His voice cracks. "Give me Y/N. She is the only thing I have ever wanted. The only thing."

"Valarr—"

"Father, please." He is begging now, and he does not care. "I love her. I have loved her since I was eight years old. I waited for her for five years while she was in Summerhall. I wrote her a hundred letters I never sent because I was afraid. And now she is here, and she loves me, and you cannot ask me to give her up."

Baelor's jaw tightens. "The negotiations with Tyrosh are nearly complete. The Archon expects—"

"Then marry Matarys to her."

"Matarys is fourteen."

"Then Daeron. I don't care. Marry her to Daeron. Marry her to anyone. Just let me have Y/N."

"You are not thinking clearly."

"I am thinking more clearly than I have ever thought." He steps closer to his father, his voice dropping. "I will marry Y/N. Whether you want it or not. Whether the king wants it or not. Whether the whole realm wants it or not."

Baelor's eyes widen slightly. "You cannot—"

"I can." His voice is quiet now. Steady. Absolute. "I can, Father. If you refuse me, I will elope with her. We will find a septon somewhere, some village no one has heard of, and we will marry in secret and spend the rest of our lives paying for it."

"You would throw away everything?"

"I would throw away everything for her." He meets his father's eyes without flinching. "The succession. The throne. My name. Everything. I don't care about any of it without her."

Silence stretches between them.

Baelor stares at his son. At this boy who was once shy and round-cheeked, who hid behind tapestries and blushed at every teasing word. This boy who has grown into a man, a knight, a prince—and who stands before him now, trembling with the force of his conviction.

"If you refuse me," Valarr says, "I will abdicate. Matarys can be heir. He would make a fine king—better than me, probably. He has the charm I lack, the ease with people, the—"

"Stop." Baelor's voice is rough. "Stop."

Valarr stops.

His father looks at him for a long moment. Then, slowly, he sits back down. He presses his palms to his eyes and rubs, hard.

"Your mother is going to kill me," he mutters.

Valarr blinks. "What?"

"The Tyroshi negotiations." Baelor drops his hands. "I am going to have to undo months of work. The Archon will be furious. Your grandfather will be disappointed. The entire court will talk."

"Father—"

"She is Maekar's daughter." Baelor is not looking at him. He is looking at the papers on his desk, the careful lists of alliances and agreements. "Maekar. My brother. Who will probably also want to kill me, for an entirely different set of reasons."

Valarr's heart is pounding. "Are you saying—"

"I am saying that I have never seen you like this." Baelor looks up. His eyes are tired, but there is something else there—something that might be pride. "I have never seen you fight for anything. You have always accepted what you were given, done what you were told, followed the path laid out for you."

"I—"

"Today, you fought." He almost smiles. "Today, you told me what you wanted. What you were willing to sacrifice for. What you would burn down rather than lose."

Valarr says nothing. He cannot speak.

"If this is what you want," Baelor says slowly, "if she is truly the one—then I will not stand in your way."

The words take a moment to register. When they do, Valarr's knees nearly buckle.

"I will need to speak with Maekar. With your grandfather. With the Archon, who will be furious, and with your mother, who will have opinions." Baelor shakes his head. "But if you are certain—if you are absolutely certain—then I will support you."

"I am certain." His voice is barely a whisper. "I have never been more certain of anything."

Baelor nods. He looks older suddenly, wearier, as though the weight of the conversation has settled into his bones.

"Then go," he says. "Go find her. Tell her. Before I change my mind."

Valarr does not need to be told twice.

He is out the door before his father finishes speaking, running through the corridors of the Red Keep with his heart soaring and his future bright before him.

He is going to marry Y/N.

Nothing else matters.

---

Four years.

You count them sometimes, in the quiet hours before dawn, when your husband's arm is heavy across your waist and the world has not yet remembered to demand anything of either of you. Four years of marriage. Four years of waking beside him, of falling asleep beside him, of learning the shape of his days and the weight of his silences and the thousand small ways he shows you he loves you.

Three years of moon tea.

You had not expected it. Had not even considered it, in those giddy weeks before the wedding, when everything was light and promise and the future stretched before you like an unrolled map. Children, of course. There would be children. You were Targaryens, heirs to a dynasty, and children were the currency of your bloodline.

But Valarr had asked.

Not commanded. Not demanded. Asked, in that quiet way of his, his hands cupping your face, his eyes searching yours for understanding.

Not yet, he had said. Please. Not yet.

He had waited ten years for you. Ten years of wanting, of longing, of building you into something almost mythical in his mind. And now you were his—finally his, truly his, in every way that mattered—and he could not bear to share you.

Not yet.

You had agreed. It seemed a small thing, at the time. A year or two, to have him to yourself, to be young and in love and unburdened by the weight of motherhood. The maester had provided the tea without question—it was common enough, for noble ladies who wished to space their children, to control the timing of their fertility. No one thought anything of it.

A year became two. Two became three.

The court began to talk.

The Princess Y/N has been married four years and still no child. Perhaps she is barren. Perhaps the blood runs thin. Perhaps the gods have cursed her for some slight, some sin, some—

You heard the whispers. You could not help but hear them. They followed you through corridors, through gardens, through the great hall where you sat beside your husband at feasts and pretended not to notice the speculative glances.

Valarr heard them too. His jaw would tighten. His hand would find yours beneath the table. But he did not suggest stopping the tea.

He was greedy. You knew this about him—had always known it, from the first moment he told you he had waited ten years and would wait ten more. He wanted you. All of you. Every moment, every thought, every breath. He wanted to make up for lost time, for the years when you were only letters he never sent, only a face he tried to remember, only a promise he was not certain you had kept.

And you had let him. Because you were greedy too. Because you had waited just as long, wanted just as fiercely, needed just as desperately. Because the thought of sharing him—of pushing your body through the transformations of pregnancy, of dividing your attention between husband and child—felt like a loss you were not ready to face.

But the talks grew louder.

And your body, independent of your wishes, began to ache for something more.

Now you sit in the window seat of your chambers, the afternoon light warm on your face, your hand resting on the curve of your belly. Eight months. Ten months since you stopped taking the tea, since you told Valarr it was time, since you watched his face cycle through fear and joy and fear again.

He had not argued. He had kissed your belly instead, reverent and terrified, and promised to love this child as fiercely as he loved you.

The child kicks. Strong and insistent, a reminder that you are no longer alone in your own body. You smile, though your back aches and your feet have swollen and you cannot remember the last time you slept through the night.

Valarr will be back soon. He has been gone all afternoon, attending to some matter with his father, some duty of the heir that cannot wait. He hates leaving you. He tells you every time, pressing kisses to your forehead, your cheeks, your lips, promising to return as quickly as he can.

Stay, he always whispers. Wait for me. I'll be fast.

You always wait.

The door opens. His footsteps cross the room. His hands settle on your shoulders, warm and familiar, before he circles the bench to kneel before you.

His face. You never tire of looking at his face. Four years, and it still makes your heart stutter.

His hands find your belly. His lips follow, pressing soft kisses to the swell, to the place where his child grows.

"Hello," he murmurs against your skin. "Hello in there. Your father is home."

The child kicks. Right where his mouth is. He laughs, startled, and looks up at you with eyes that are still the same winter sky you remember from a library, from a promise, from a lifetime ago.

"She knows me," he says.

"It could be a boy."

"It's a girl. She knows me." He presses another kiss to your belly. "She's impatient. Like her mother."

"You have no proof of that."

"I have four years of proof." He settles more comfortably, his cheek resting against your belly, his arms wrapping around your hips. "Four years of you being impatient for everything except the one thing I asked you to wait for."

You run your fingers through his hair. The silver streak is still there, bright against the dark. You have always loved that streak.

"Are you glad?" you ask quietly. "That we waited?"

He is silent for a moment. When he speaks, his voice is muffled against your belly.

"I'm glad we had the time. Just us. Four years of just us." He lifts his head to look at you. "But I'm glad we stopped waiting too. I'm glad—" His hand presses more firmly against your belly. "I'm glad for this."

You pull him up. You kiss him. Soft and slow and full of everything four years has taught you about loving him.

The child kicks again.

Valarr laughs against your mouth.

"Eager," he says. "Definitely your daughter."

"Definitely yours."

He kisses you again. The afternoon light fades. The whispers of the court drift away, unimportant, irrelevant.

There is only this. Only him. Only the life growing between you, the future you built from waiting and wanting and four years of greedy, selfish love.

The argument starts quietly.

It always does, with you. You have never been one for shouting, for dramatics, for the kind of fights that echo through corridors and become court gossip. You state your position. You wait for his response. You counter. You wait again.

But this time, his response does not come.

Instead, he stares at you. His face has gone very still, very pale, in a way you have learned to recognize over four years of marriage. It is the face he wears when he is trying very hard not to show how deeply something has affected him.

"You cannot be serious," he says.

"I am completely serious." You keep your voice steady, reasonable. "The Ashford tourney is two weeks away. The journey is not long—four days at most, with proper accommodations. The maester said travel in the later months is possible, as long as one is careful."

"Possible." He repeats the word as though it tastes strange. "Possible is not safe. Possible is not—" He stops. Runs a hand through his hair. "Y/N. You are eight months pregnant."

He steps closer, his hands reaching for yours. "You are heavily pregnant. The maesters said—"

"The maesters said many things. They also said I might have difficulty conceiving, and we both know how wrong they were." You let him take your hands, but you do not soften. "I want to be there. The whole family is going—your father, your brothers, my father, everyone. I don't want to sit alone at King's Landing while you all ride off to Ashford."

"You would not be alone. You would be safe. Here. In our chambers. With maesters and midwives and—"

"Valarr."

"Y/N." His grip on your hands tightens. "Please. Please do not ask me to watch you ride off on some tourney progress when you are this close to your time. I cannot—" His voice cracks. He stops. Swallows. "I cannot."

You have seen your husband afraid before. You have seen him face his father, face the king, face the weight of his name and his duty and all the expectations that come with being heir to the Iron Throne. You have never seen him look like this.

"I would be careful," you say, softer now. "I would take every precaution. The roads are good this time of year, and—"

"Please."

The word is barely a whisper. He drops to his knees.

You stare at him. Valarr—your husband, the heir of the heir to the Iron Throne, the man who has never begged for anything in his life—is on his knees before you, his hands still gripping yours, his face tilted up to meet your eyes.

"My love." His voice is rough, scraped clean of all pretense. "My soul. I am begging you."

"Valarr, get up—"

"No." He shakes his head, his grip tightening. "No, I will stay here until you agree. I will stay here all night if I have to. I will—" He stops. Takes a breath. "You are everything to me. You and this child. Everything. If something happened on the road, if something happened at Ashford, if you were hurt and I was not there—"

"You would be there. You would be right beside me."

"And if I could not reach you in time? If something went wrong and I was on the other side of the tourney grounds, or in the middle of a tilt, or—" His voice breaks again. "I cannot. I cannot lose you. I cannot lose either of you. Please."

You look down at him. At his mismatched eyes, bright with unshed tears. At his hands, white-knuckled around yours. At his knees, pressed against the cold stone floor because he refused to wait for a cushion, refused to wait for anything except your answer.

Four years of marriage. Four years of greedy, selfish love, of moon tea and whispered promises and a jealousy so fierce it sometimes stole your breath. You had thought you understood the depth of his need for you.

You had not understood this.

"You are ridiculous," you whisper.

"I know." His voice is hoarse. "I am ridiculous. I am pathetic. I am on my knees begging my wife not to leave me, and I do not care who knows it. Please, Y/N. Please stay."

The child kicks. Hard. Right against your ribs, as though agreeing with its father.

You close your eyes.

You think about Ashford. The tourney. The chance to see your family, to be part of something larger than these quiet chambers and the endless waiting. You think about four days on the road, about the jostling of the carriage, about the crowds and the noise and the thousand small dangers you had convinced yourself were negligible.

You open your eyes.

Valarr is still there. Still on his knees. Still waiting.

"I will stay," you say.

The breath leaves him in a rush. His forehead drops to your belly, pressing against the swell, against the child who kicks in response.

"Thank you," he whispers. "Thank you. Thank you."

You run your fingers through his hair. The silver streak. The dark strands. The familiar shape of his head beneath your hands.

"Get up," you say gently. "You are going to ruin your knees."

"I do not care about my knees."

"Get up anyway."

He rises. Slowly. His hands find your face, cupping it with the same reverence he has shown you since the first moment he held you in that tent four years ago.

"I love you," he says. "I love you more than anything. More than the throne. More than my name. More than—"

"I know." You cover his hands with your own. "I know."

He kisses you. Soft and desperate and full of everything he cannot say.

You kiss him back.

The child kicks again, and you laugh against his mouth, and the argument is over.

The letter arrives a week before they return.

You know something is wrong the moment you see the maester's face. He is pale, paler than you have ever seen him, and his hands tremble slightly as he holds out the folded parchment.

"A raven from Ashford, my princess," he says. His voice is not steady. "You should sit down."

You do not sit. You take the letter. You read it.

Baelor Targaryen, Prince of Dragonstone, is dead. Killed by a blow to the head during a trial of the seven. The king has been informed. The party will return within the week.

That is all. Official words, carefully chosen, stripped of emotion. A prince is dead. Your uncle is dead. The man who smiled at you when you arrived at court, who clapped your brother's shoulder with easy affection, who raised the boy you married to be the man he is—

Dead.

You read the words again. They do not change.

Your father's hand. Your father, who taught you to ride, who held you when you cried, who told you that you would have made a better prince than any son in the kingdom.

Your father killed his brother.

You do not remember sitting down. You do not remember the maester leaving. You only know that suddenly you are on the floor, the letter crumpled in your hands, and the child is kicking and kicking and kicking as though trying to remind you that life continues even when the world has ended.

They return on a grey morning.

You stand in the courtyard of the Red Keep, wrapped in a cloak that does not quite keep out the chill. The child shifts within you, restless, as though sensing your tension. Around you, the court gathers in somber silence. No music. No banners. No celebration.

The gates open.

They ride in slowly, a procession of mourners rather than victors. Black banners hang from lances. Horses walk at a funereal pace. Faces are drawn, pale, marked by grief.

You see Valarr first.

He is at the front, as befits his new station—heir to the Iron Throne now, though the title tastes like ash in your mouth. His face is grey. His eyes are empty. He looks at you as though you are the only solid thing in a world that has turned to water.

your gaze searches the procession for your father.

You find him near the back.

He is alone. The other riders have given him space, a wide berth as though his grief might be contagious. His horse moves mechanically, responding to cues he probably does not remember giving. His face—

You have never seen your father's face like this.

He looks old. Broken. Hollowed out by something worse than grief—by guilt, by knowledge, by the unbearable weight of having killed his own brother with his own hand.

His eyes find yours.

For a moment, neither of you moves. The procession continues around you, horses and riders and mourners flowing past like a river around stones. But you and your father are still, frozen in each other's gaze.

Then he looks away. His horse carries him forward, toward the stables, toward whatever solitude he can find in a castle full of people.

You want to follow him. You want to hold him. You want to tell him that it was an accident, that no one blames him, that Baelor would not want him to carry this weight alone.

But the child kicks. Valarr is approaching, his grey face breaking into something almost like relief at the sight of you. The court watches. The world continues its terrible turning.

You stay where you are.

And you wait for your husband to reach you.

Three weeks pass.

The sickness spreads like fire through dry grass. Servants first, then guards, then nobles. The maesters work day and night, their faces growing more grim with each report. The Red Keep becomes a labyrinth of quarantined chambers and forbidden corridors, of doors that open only one way and close forever.

Valarr has you locked in your room before the first noble falls ill.

You do not argue. You cannot argue—he is already gone, standing in the doorway with his hand on the frame and his eyes fixed on you like a man saying goodbye.

"I will not risk you," he says. "I will not risk either of you. Only the maids I trust. No one else. Do you understand?"

"I understand."

He wants to cross to you. You see it in the way his fingers curl against the wood, in the way his weight shifts forward before he forces it back. He wants to hold you, kiss you, press his face to your belly and feel the child move.

He does not.

"I love you," he says. "Stay safe."

The door closes.

You do not see him again for twelve days.

He uses other chambers. You know this because Lyra tells you, her voice carefully neutral as she brings your meals and changes your linens and checks that you are still breathing. The prince sleeps in the Tower of the Hand now, in rooms far from yours. He sends messages—short notes in his familiar hand, I am well, I miss you, Stay safe—but he does not come.

You understand. You hate it, but you understand.

The child grows heavier. The days grow longer. The sickness takes more names each morning, each evening, each hour between.

One morrow you wake to Lyra's face.

It is wrong. You know it immediately, the way you know things are wrong in that moment between sleep and waking. Lyra never comes this early. Lyra never looks like this.

"What?" You are already sitting up, your heart pounding, your hand flying to your belly. "What is it?"

"It's Prince Valarr."

The world stops.

"He's sick." Lyra's eyes are bright, too bright. "The fever took him last night. He's in his chambers. The maesters are with him but—" She stops again. "They don't know if he'll—"

You are already moving.

"My lady, you cannot—" Lyra reaches for you, but you are faster, stronger than you have any right to be. "The sickness, the baby, you cannot risk—"

You do not hear her. You are already through the door.

The corridors blur past you.

You do not remember walking. You do not remember the guards who step aside, their faces shocked, their protests dying unspoken. You do not remember the stairs, the turns, the doors that should be locked but are not, because someone has forgotten in the chaos of the night.

You remember only him.

Valarr. Your husband. Your heart. The boy who waited ten years, who begged you to stay, who cried in your arms each night since his father died. The man who locked you away to keep you safe, who used other chambers so he would not breathe the same air as you, who wrote you notes each day saying I am well when he must have known, must have felt the sickness creeping toward him even as his pen touched the paper.

The door to his chambers is open.

You step through.

He is alone.

This is the first thing you notice, the thing that cuts deepest. He is alone. The heir to the Iron Throne, the Prince of Dragonstone, the Hand of the King—and he lies in his bed with no one beside him, no hand to hold, no voice to comfort.

The maesters have been here. You see the evidence—the bowls of water, the cloths, the half-empty cups of potions that have not worked. But they are gone now. Called away to other patients, other crises, other lives that might still be saved.

Valarr lies in the center of the vast bed, drowning in sheets, drowning in fever.

His face is flushed. His hair is plastered to his forehead with sweat. His breath comes in short, shallow gasps, each one a struggle. His lips move, forming words you cannot hear.

You cross to him.

Your body protests. The child kicks hard, fierce, angry at being jostled. You ignore it. You ignore everything except the man on the bed, the man who is everything to you, the man who might be dying while you stand here doing nothing.

You climb onto the bed.

The sheets are damp. His skin is burning. You settle beside him, fitting yourself against his side the way you have done a thousand nights, a thousand times. Your arm crosses his chest. Your head rests on his shoulder. Your belly presses against his hip, and the child kicks again, and you do not care.

"I'm here," you whisper. "I'm here, my love. I'm here."

He stirs. His eyes open—just slightly, just enough to show the fever-bright blue beneath. His lips move.

"Y/N?"

"I'm here."

"You can't—" His voice cracks, barely a whisper. "Sickness. The baby. You have to—"

"I'm not going anywhere."

He tries to push you away. His hands are weak, useless, falling against you like leaves. You catch one of them, press it to your chest, hold it there.

"I love you," you say. "I love you, and I am not leaving you alone."

"Y/N—"

"Stop." Your voice is fierce. "Stop trying to protect me. Stop trying to send me away. I am your wife. I am carrying your child. And I will be here, with you, no matter what happens."

He stares at you. His eyes are glassy, unfocused, but something in them shifts. Something like understanding. Something like relief.

"I was so scared," he whispers. "Not of dying. Of leaving you alone."

"You're not leaving me."

"But if I—"

"You're not." You press your lips to his burning forehead. "You cannot sleep."

Your voice is firm, though it trembles at the edges. You are propped beside him in the bed, your hand still wrapped around his, your body pressed against his side. The fever burns through him like a fire, but his eyes are open now, cloudy, exhausted, but open.

"I'm so tired," he whispers.

"I know." You squeeze his hand. "But you cannot sleep. Not yet. Just a little longer."

He smiles. It is a weak thing, barely there, but it is a smile. "You're bossy."

"I'm your wife. It's my job."

"Mm." His eyes drift closed. You shake his shoulder gently.

"Valarr. Look at me."

He forces his eyes open. They find yours. Even now, even burning with fever, they hold you like you are the only thing worth seeing.

"Tell me something," you say. "Anything. Tell me about the first time you saw me."

"You were six." His voice is a rasp, barely audible. "You walked into the great hall like you owned it. Looked at me like I was furniture."

"I did not."

"You did." A ghost of a laugh. "I was hiding behind my mother's skirts. You came right up to me and told me hi, i was too shy back then"

You kiss his forehead again. His skin is too warm, too dry. You try not to think about it.

"Tell me more," you say.

"I wrote you letters." His eyes drift again, and you let him keep them open this time—he is still looking at you, still present. "Hundreds of them. After you left. I never sent any."

"Why not?"

"I was afraid." His voice cracks. "Afraid you would reject me."

"Foolish boy."

"Foolish man." He smiles again. "Still foolish. Still yours."

"Always mine."

You kiss him. You do not care about the fever, the sickness, the risk. You kiss him because he is here, because he is breathing, because you do not know how much longer you will have either.

He kisses back. Weakly. Desperately. His hand cups your face, and you feel the heat of his skin, and you do not care.

When you break apart, his eyes are brighter. Not just from fever.

"We never chose names," he says.

"What?"

"For the baby." His hand moves to your belly, resting on the swell. "We never chose names."

You laugh. It is a wet sound, half sob. "You want to name our baby now?"

"Now is all we have." He looks at you. "Tell me names."

You think. The child kicks beneath his hand, strong and insistent.

"If it's a girl," you say slowly, "I thought—perhaps—"

"Baela." He says it quietly, reverently. "For my father."

Your throat tightens. "Valarr—"

"She will be a pretty girl." His voice is soft, dreamy. "I know that already. A brave girl, like her mother. She will have your courage and my—" He stops. Smiles. "My complete inability to say no to her."

"She will have you wrapped around her finger."

"Good. That's how it should be." His hand presses gently against your belly. "Baela. Our daughter. Baela Targaryen."

"And if it's a boy?"

He is quiet for a moment. His eyes drift, and you shake him gently again.

"Valarr."

"Sorry. Thinking." He focuses on you. "If it's a boy—you choose."

"Me?"

"I chose the girl. You choose the boy." His thumb traces circles on your belly. "But it's a girl. I can feel it."

"You cannot feel it."

"I can." His smile is stubborn, even through the fever. "She kicks like you argue. Constant and insistent."

You laugh. You cannot help it.

"What about Baelor?" you ask quietly.

Something flickers across his face. Pain. Loss. Love.

"No." His voice is soft but firm. "No, that would bring me too much grief. I don't want our child born into sadness. I don't want to look at him and see—" He stops. Swallows. "I don't want that."

You understand. You squeeze his hand.

"Then you choose," you say. "When he's born. If he's born. You choose."

"If he's born." He looks at you. "But it's a girl."

"You are impossible."

"I am correct." His eyes are closing again. You let them close this time, just for a moment. "Baela. Our daughter. She will be beautiful."

"She will be stubborn."

"Like her mother."

"Like her father."

He smiles. It is peaceful, that smile, even through the fever and the fear and the uncertain hours ahead.

You hold his hand. You watch his face. You wait.

The child kicks.

You wait.

He falls asleep.

You feel it happen, the slow slackening of his grip, the evening of his breath, the way his body sinks deeper into the mattress. Your heart seizes. Your hand tightens around his.

"Valarr." Your voice is sharp, too loud in the quiet room. "Valarr, wake up."

He does not move.

"Valarr!" You shake his shoulder, harder than you should, desperate and afraid. "Wake up. Please. Please wake up."

His eyes open.

Slowly. Blinking against the light. But open.

"You're so loud," he whispers. His voice is weak, but it is there. He is there.

You collapse against him, your face pressed to his chest, your body shaking with relief. His hand rises slowly, heavily, to rest on your head.

"I had a dream," he says. His voice is dreamy, distant, still half-lost in whatever world he visited. "A beautiful short dream."

You lift your head. His eyes are glassy but focused on you, and you need him to stay awake, need him to keep talking, need anything that will keep him here with you.

"Tell me," you say. "Tell me about the dream."

He smiles. It is a soft thing, peaceful, untouched by the fever that burns through him.

"I was a dragon."

You almost laugh. It bubbles up, unexpected, breaking through the fear. "Did Aerion infect you with his delusions?"

He chuckles. It is a weak sound, barely there, but it is a laugh. "No, no. I was a dragon. A big dragon. I was—" He pauses, brow furrowing. "Green. I was green."

"You dislike green."

"I still looked good." His smile turns teasing, even through the exhaustion. "Very handsome. Very intimidating. All the other dragons were jealous."

"I'm sure they were."

"And you were also a dragon." His hand moves from your head to your face, cupping your cheek. "You were beautiful. Cream and gold at the same time, like—" He pauses, his gaze drifting to the wall.

You follow his eyes.

The painting hangs there, commissioned in the first year of your marriage, capturing your wedding day in oil and pigment. You stand at the center, your cream and gold dress catching the light, Valarr beside you in black and red. The artist captured your expression perfectly—the joy, the love, the absolute certainty that you were exactly where you belonged.

"Like our wedding day," he whispers. "You looked so beautiful. You were so strong."

"Valarr—"

"But even though you were strong, I was still your protector." His eyes return to you, bright with fever and love. "I flew beside you. Above you. Around you. I kept you safe. You had eggs—you were pregnant with our children, like now. And I loved you." His voice cracks. "I love you. I love you so much."

You cannot speak. Your throat is too tight, your eyes too full. You lean forward and press your lips to his, soft and desperate and full of everything you cannot say.

He kisses you back. Weakly, but he kisses you back.

When you break apart, his eyes are closing again.

"No." You shake him gently. "No, stay with me. Tell me more about the dream."

"Tired."

"I know. But stay with me. Please."

He forces his eyes open. He looks at you—his wife, his heart, the cream and gold dragon who carries his child—and he smiles.

"Beautiful," he whispers. "So beautiful."

Then his eyes close, and this time, when you shake him, he does not wake.

But his chest still rises and falls. His hand still holds yours. He is still here.

You settle beside him, your face against his chest, listening to his heart. The child kicks. The fever burns. The world waits.

You wait with it.

You do not know how long you lie there.

Time has lost meaning. The candles burn lower, gutter, die. New ones are lit by hands you do not see. The window darkens, lightens, darkens again. Hours or minutes or days—you cannot tell.

All you know is him.

His chest rising and falling beneath your cheek. His hand limp in yours. The heat of his skin, the rattle of his breath, the terrifying stillness between each inhale and the next.

You hold him. You do not let go.

The child kicks. You barely feel it.

Something is wrong. You know this distantly, the way you know the sun rises and sets, the way you know winter follows autumn. Something is wrong with your body. Pain, low and constant, building like a wave. But you cannot move. You cannot leave him.

You hold him. You do not let go.

The pain grows.

It starts as a ache, a pressure, something easy to ignore when all your attention is fixed on the man in your arms. But it grows. Deepens. Becomes something sharp and insistent, demanding attention you cannot give.

You ignore it.

You hold him. You do not let go.

The scream tears from you without warning.

It is not a sound you recognize. It is raw and desperate and animal, ripped from somewhere deep in your chest. Your body convulses, arching against him, and your grip on his hand tightens until your knuckles go white.

The pain. Gods, the pain.

But you do not let go.

You curl around him, pressing your face to his chest, breathing him in. The fever, the sweat, the familiar scent of him beneath the sickness. You hold him and you scream and you do not let go.

More screams. Yours. You cannot stop them. They come with each wave, each contraction, each terrible pulse of your body trying to do what bodies do even when the world is ending.

You hold him. You do not let go.

Time passes. You do not know how much.

The door opens.

You do not look up. You cannot look up. All your focus is on him, on the rise and fall of his chest, on the heartbeat you can still feel beneath your cheek.

Hands on you. Gentle at first, then firm.

"Y/N."

A voice you know. A voice from childhood, from Summerhall, from a thousand memories you cannot reach right now.

"Y/N, you need to let go."

You shake your head. Your face presses harder against Valarr's chest. Your arms tighten around him.

"No."

"Y/N—"

"No. I won't leave him. I won't."

The hands try to pull you away. You fight them. You scream—not from pain now, but from fury, from desperation, from the absolute certainty that if you let go he will die.

"Y/N, please. You're hurt. The baby—"

You do not care about the baby. You do not care about anything except him.

The hands stop pulling. Instead, they touch your leg. Your thigh. Your—

They freeze.

You feel it too, distantly. Wetness. Warmth. Blood.

"Gods." Your father's voice, rough with fear. "Y/N, you're bleeding. You're in labor. The baby is coming."

No. No, it is too early. Weeks too early. The baby cannot come now, cannot come while Valarr is dying, cannot—

Another wave of pain tears through you. You scream again. Your body curls, convulses, presses you harder against Valarr's unmoving form.

"I won't leave him." The words are broken, gasped between contractions. "I won't. He'll die. He'll die alone."

"Y/N." Hands grip your shoulders. You are lifted, pulled, torn away from the warmth of him. You fight—kicking, screaming, clawing—but your father is stronger, and the pain is overwhelming, and you cannot—

"NO!"

You are in his arms. Cradled against his chest like when you were small, like when you fell and scraped your knees, like when the world was too big and he was the only safe place.

But he is not safe. He is taking you away from him.

"Put me down! Put me DOWN!"

He does not put you down. He carries you through the doorway, into the corridor, away from Valarr's room, away from Valarr's body, away from—

"MAESTERS!" His voice roars, filling the corridor. "MIDWIVES! NOW!"

You are still screaming when he carries you into another room. Still screaming when they lay you on a bed. Still screaming when hands begin to pull at your clothes, check your body, prepare you for something you cannot face.

Still screaming.

Because he is alone.

Because you left him.

The pain takes you. The screaming stops. And there is only the dark.

The labor takes hours.

You are aware of it only in fragmentspa, in, then darkness, then pain again. Voices shouting. Hands pressing. Your father's face, close to yours, his voice rough with an emotion you have never heard from him.

"Stay with me. Stay with me, daughter. You're strong. You're so strong."

You want to tell him that you are not strong. That you left Valarr. That you are nothing without him.

But the pain takes you again, and you cannot speak.

She comes at last.

A cry. Small and fierce, cutting through the chaos. You hear it distantly, like a sound from another room, another life.

"A girl," someone says. "A healthy girl."

They place her on your chest.

She is tiny. Perfect. Her skin wrinkled, her fists clenched, her mouth open in a wail that already sounds like a demand. Her hair—what little there is—is dark. So dark. Just like his.

You touch her face with trembling fingers. She turns toward your touch, instinctive, seeking.

"Baela," you whisper. "Your name is Baela."

Your father's hand rests on your shoulder. Warm. Steady. You had forgotten he was there.

"She's beautiful," he says. His voice is thick. "She looks just like him."

"She does." You cannot stop looking at her. At the shape of her face, the curve of her cheeks, the dark hair that matches his exactly. "When Valarr wakes up, he'll be so glad. He'll be so happy. He wanted a girl. He said he could feel it."

Silence.

You do not notice it. You are too focused on Baela, on her tiny fingers, on the way her cries are quieting as she settles against your skin.

"He'll be so glad," you repeat. "He'll wake up and I'll show her to him and he'll—"

"Y/N." Your father's voice is careful. Too careful. "Y/N, love, Valarr is—"

"He's sleeping. He was so tired. The fever—" You look up, searching his face. "But he'll wake up. He always wakes up. I just have to wait. I just have to—"

Something is wrong.

The room is too quiet. Everyone is looking at you with the same expression—careful, pitying, afraid. Your father's face is grey. The maesters exchange glances. The midwives have stopped moving.

You look down at Baela. She has not opened her eyes yet. They are still closed, those tiny lids, hiding whatever color lies beneath.

"I don't feel well," you say.

The maester steps forward. He is old, experienced, his face weathered by decades of delivering babies and pronouncing deaths. He presses a hand to your forehead, checks your pulse, nods to himself.

"It is normal, Your Highness," he says. "The body has been through great strain. You are distressed. Rest will help."

"No." The word comes out sharper than you intended. "No, there is something wrong. I can feel it. Something is—"

"Princess." His voice is gentle, the voice one uses with frightened children. "You have just given birth. Your body is exhausted. Your mind is overwhelmed by grief. It is natural to feel unwell. Rest, and it will pass."

Grief.

The word hits you like a blow.

"What grief?" You look at your father. "Father, what grief? Why did he say grief?"

Your father's face crumbles.

"Y/N—"

"Where is Valarr?" You try to sit up, but your body will not cooperate. "Why isn't he here? He should be here. He should be—"

"Y/N, please—"

"Valarr!" You are shouting now, your voice raw. "Valarr! Someone get Valarr! He needs to see her! He needs to see Baela!"

Hands hold you down. Gentle but firm. The maester's face appears above you, and in his hand is a small cup.

"Drink this, Princess. It will help you rest."

"No. No, I don't want to rest. I want Valarr. I want—"

The cup presses to your lips. Liquid slides down your throat. Poppy, honey, something to dull the edges of the world.

"No," you whisper. But it is too late. The darkness is already creeping in.

You look at Baela one last time. Her eyes are still closed. Her dark hair. Her tiny fists.

"She looks so much like him," you murmur. "When he wakes up, he'll be so glad."

Your father takes Baela from your arms. You try to hold on, but your hands will not obey.

"Rest," he whispers. "Rest, my love."

The darkness takes you.

You do not wake up.

Hours pass. The maesters check on you, nod, leave. The midwives tend to Baela, who sleeps in a cradle nearby, her dark hair soft against the white linen. Your father sits beside you, holding your hand, waiting for you to open your eyes.

You do not.

The sun sets. The candles are lit. Your mother comes, her face wet, and sits on your other side. They hold your hands together, these two people who have loved you longest, and they wait.

You do not wake up.

Your father's hand tightens around yours.

"No," he says. "No, she's strong. She's always been strong. She'll wake up. She has to wake up."

Baela cries in her cradle. Someone picks her up, soothes her, feeds her. The sound fades. The room grows quiet.

Your father does not leave your side.

During the night your heart stops beating.

The pyre burns for two days.

Their bodies lie together, entwined as they were in life. Their hands are clasped. Their faces are peaceful.

Maekar stands at the front of the mourners and does not weep.

He cannot weep. The tears are frozen somewhere inside him, locked behind a wall of ice that will never fully thaw. He watches the flames consume his daughter, her husband, the future they should have had. He watches and he does not move.

In his pocket, his fingers close around a ring.

Gold, with a red ruby. The one Valarr placed on her finger during their wedding ceremony. The one she loved so much, that she touched absently when she was thinking, that she spun around her finger when she was nervous. The one they removed before the pyre, because Maekar could not bear to see it burn.

He remembers when Valarr came to him.

Months before the wedding. The boy had sought him out in the training yard, nervous and formal, asking for a private word. Maekar had expected a discussion of alliances, of dowries, of the endless practicalities that accompanied royal marriages.

Instead, Valarr had asked: What kind of rings does she like? What would she love?

Not what was traditional. Not what would impress the court. What she would love.

Maekar had told him. And Valarr had listened.

The ring in his pocket is proof of that.

Baela came to him after the funeral.

She is small. So small. Wrapped in blankets, held by a wet nurse who looks terrified to be anywhere near the grieving prince. But Maekar takes her. He holds her against his chest, this tiny creature who has his daughter's face and his daughter's husband's coloring.

She opens her eyes.

Blue and brown. Just like Valarr.

But her face,the shape of her cheeks, the curve of her chin, the way her brow furrows in thought,that is Y/N. That is his daughter, looking at him from the face of her child.

"Baela," he whispers. "Hello, little one."

She blinks. Her tiny hand escapes the blanket, reaching up, finding his beard.

Just like her mother used to do.

Maekar does not weep. But something cracks, deep inside.

He raises her as his own.

---

maekar

The hour is late.

Summerhall sleeps around him, quiet and still, but Maekar cannot rest. He sits in the nursery. The fire burns low in the hearth, casting long shadows across the walls. In her cradle, Baela sleeps. She is so small. So perfect. So terribly like her mother.

A goblet rests in his hand. Wine—Arbor gold, the same vintage he shared with Y/N on her sixteenth nameday, when she had laughed and told him it was too sweet and he had pretended to be offended. He drinks. The wine does nothing.

Baela stirs. A small sound, a shift of blankets. He sets down the goblet and rises, crossing to the cradle before he is fully aware of moving.

She looks up at him.

Her eyes are open, Valarr's eyes, the eyes that looked at his daughter with so much love it had sometimes made Maekar uncomfortable to witness. But her face. The shape of her cheeks. The curve of her chin. The way her brow furrows slightly, studying him.

That is Y/N.

That is his daughter.

"Y/N," he whispers.

The name falls from him without thought, without control. He is tired. He has had too much wine. The firelight is low and treacherous, painting shadows that lie.

"Y/N, I'm sorry." He reaches into the cradle, his big, scarred hand gentle as it ever was with her. His fingers brush her cheek. "I should have been there. I should have protected you. I should have—"

Baela makes a sound. Not a cry—something softer, questioning. Her tiny hand escapes the blanket and finds his fingers, gripping with that same fierce hold her mother had, the hold she had used since the moment she was born.

He freezes.

For a moment—just a moment—he lets himself believe.

"You used to hold my beard," he murmurs. "When you were small. You would grab it and not let go. I told your mother I would have to cut it off to survive you." A sound escapes him, something between a laugh and a sob. "I never did. You loved it too much."

Baela blinks up at him. Her grip on his finger does not loosen.

"You grew so beautiful," he continues. "So smart. So fierce. I watched you become everything I could have hoped for, and I was so proud, and I never told you enough." His voice cracks. "I never told you enough."

The door opens.

Daeron stands in the threshold, his face soft with sleep and sorrow. Daeron looks at him—his father, bent over the cradle, speaking to his granddaughter, as though she were Y/N—and something in his face breaks.

"Father." his voice is gentle. "Father, that's Baela."

He does not move.

"I know." His voice is rough. "I know. I just—for a moment—"

"I know, Come to bed."

"Daeron—"

"Go to bed." He tugs gently. "Baela will be here in the morning. She will always be here."

He lets Daeron lead him away. At the door, he looks back.

Baela's eyes are still open. Still watching him. Still so like her mother.

"Goodnight, little one," he whispers. "Goodnight, Y/N."

In the nursery, Baela sleeps.

She will not remember this night. She will not remember the way her grandfather looked at her and saw someone else, the way his voice broke on a name that was not hers, the way her grandmother led him away like a wounded animal.

But she will grow up knowing she was loved.

By both of them.

Always.

300 A.C

The Meereenese sun hangs heavy in the sky, thick and golden through the open arches of the pyramid. Daenerys Targaryen sits on her cushions, a bowl of grapes beside her, her silver-gold hair loose around her shoulders. She has been listening for hours.

Ser Barristan Selmy stands before her, his heavy armor pristine despite the heat, his weathered face marked by the weight of the story he has just finished telling.

Silence stretches between them.

Daenerys plucks a grape from the bowl. She looks at it for a long moment—small, purple, perfect. Then she throws it at him.

It bounces off his white breastplate and falls to the floor.

"I asked you for a love story," she says. Her voice is light, but there is something beneath it. "A funny story. Something to pass the time before the next round of petitions."

Barristan does not flinch. He has served too many Targaryens to flinch at a thrown grape.

"I told you the story you asked for, Your Grace."

"I asked for a love story. You told me a tragedy." She gestures vaguely, encompassing the pyramid, the city, the whole of Meereen. "They died. Both of them. On the same day. Before they could even see their daughter's face."

"Yes, Your Grace."

"And then her father—my great-great—" She stops, counting on her fingers. "Maekar. He raised the girl. He wore the ring. He died feeling guilty for something that wasn't his fault."

"Yes, Your Grace."

"And the girl—Baela—she lived happily. That part was nice." Daenerys reaches for another grape. "But everyone else died."

"That is often the way with Targaryen love stories, Your Grace."

Daenerys laughs. It is a surprised sound, pulled from her against her will. "You have a dark sense of humor, Ser Barristan."

"I have served your house for a very long time, Your Grace. One develops certain… perspectives."

She pops the grape into her mouth. Chews. Swallows.

She is quiet for a moment. Then she looks past him, through the open arches, toward the top of the pyramid where her dragons rest.

Viserion lies sprawled across the warm stone, his cream-and-gold scales gleaming in the sun. He is comfortable, relaxed, one wing draped carelessly over the edge of the platform. Asleep, perhaps, or simply basking in the heat he loves.

But it is Rhaegal who catches her attention.

The green dragon is not resting. He is curled around Viserion, his long neck wrapped protectively across his brother's back, his head resting against Viserion's neck. His eyes are half-closed, but every few moments they open, scanning, checking, ensuring that Viserion is still there, still safe, still his.

It is not unusual for dragons to cluster together. They are siblings, littermates, bonded in ways even she does not fully understand.

Rhaegal has always been the wild one. The angry one. The one who snaps and bites and seems to carry some ancient fury in his green scales. He does not cuddle. He does not curl protectively around anyone.

Except for Viserion.

Always Viserion.

The cream-and-gold dragon who is gentle where Rhaegal is fierce, calm where Rhaegal is storm, the only living creature who can approach Rhaegal without drawing blood.

Daenerys watches them. The green wrapped around the gold. The protective curl of his body. The way he shifts whenever Viserion stirs, making sure his brother settles back into comfort.

They look like they have been doing this forever.

Daenerys smiles. It is a small thing, soft, nothing like the commanding expression she wears for petitioners and ambassadors.

"Thank you, Ser Barristan," she says. "For the story. Even if it was a tragedy."

"It was a love story, Your Grace. The two are often the same."

They look peaceful.

Daenerys watches them for a long time.

A long wooden table stood before the hearth, broad enough to hold the scattered tools of three healers at once. Mortars and pestles rested beside shallow bowls filled with ground powders. Strips of linen cloth had been cut and stacked into careful piles beside small knives and iron tongs. Several small braziers waited cold beside bundles of herbs meant for burning, while a few copper pots hung from hooks near the fire, ready to be set over the flames when needed. It was not unlike a maester’s chamber—though far less orderly, as though everything had been gathered quickly in the hope that somewhere among the tools and remedies would be the thing that could hold death back a little longer.

It should have been the sort of room that held your full attention. A healer could have spent hours studying its contents.

But it was difficult to focus on the shelves or the table when the man standing near the hearth seemed to draw the eye without effort.

He wore no armour, though the quality of his clothing marked him plainly enough. A dark doublet, clasped with small silver fastenings, fit neatly across his shoulders, the fabric thick and well-cut. The sleeves had been rolled slightly at the wrists as though he had been working or waiting too long to bother with appearances. Dust clung faintly to the edges of his boots and the hem of his cloak, suggesting he had come and gone through the castle more than once that day while others hurried around him.

Yet it was not the clothing that first caught your attention.

It was his hair.

Shorter than most noblemen wore it, cropped close around his ears in a way that made him seem less like a courtly prince and more like a man accustomed to movement and travel. Its colour was a deep brown, the shade of wet bark after rain—but running through it, catching the firelight as he shifted slightly, was a pale streak of silver-gold that glimmered like a thread of sunlight tangled in darker strands. The mark was unmistakable.

The blood of old Valyria.

The fire brightened briefly, and in that flicker of light his face became clearer.

He was younger than you had expected when the rider first spoke of a prince—perhaps only a few years older than yourself. His features were sharp, cleanly cut in a way that would have looked almost severe if not for the quiet steadiness in his expression. A straight nose, high cheekbones, and a jaw that seemed too tense for someone his age. The sort of face that would have been easy to carve into marble or stamp onto a silver coin.

And before you could stop the thought from forming, you realised something else.

He was handsome.

Not in the bright, easy way of young knights who passed through villages boasting of tourneys and victories, their laughter loud and careless as though the world had never given them reason to doubt themselves. There was none of that careless brightness here.

Something about him felt quieter than that. More restrained.

The firelight revealed it clearly now—the faint shadows beneath his eyes, darker than the rest of his skin, as though sleep had not come easily to him in some time. There was tension in the set of his shoulders too, a stiffness that spoke of long hours spent waiting and worrying in equal measure.

He did not look like a prince enjoying the safety of a castle.

He looked like a man who had been standing beside sickbeds for far too many nights.

His gaze found you as soon as you moved, raking over you in quiet assessment, though strangely it did not make you feel small like the king’s guard had.

You felt like a flower losing the warmth of the sun when his gaze moved to the rider who stood next to you, “thank you,” he said, his voice was quiet, low, and terribly normal, not like the booming voice of authority that you imagined all royals possessed.

The rider bowed once again and then, without warning, he spun on his heel and strode out of the room, the door clicking shut behind him. You felt naked then, exposed like a rabbit in an open field.

The room had fallen quiet again.

For a moment, the only sound you could hear was the steady thrum of your own heartbeat in your ears and the soft crackle of the fire shifting in the hearth. The prince lowered his gaze briefly, as though collecting his thoughts, and then moved around the table so that he stood closer to you, no longer separated by the clutter of jars and tools.

“You came,” he said after a moment, his head tilting slightly as he studied you.

“I was summoned.”

The words slipped out before you had time to soften them. The bluntness of the reply hung between you, the same curt edge that people had often complained about all your life, settling plainly into your tone.

For a heartbeat, you wondered if you had overstepped.

But something in your answer seemed to amuse him instead. A faint flicker of a smile touched his mouth before disappearing again, as quickly as it had come.

“The Grand Maester nearly fainted when I told him I had sent for a woodswitch.”

That did not surprise you in the least.

Maesters had never cared for women like you. Part of it came from the remedies you used—old charms, herbs gathered under certain moons, small rituals that they dismissed as superstition. But far more of their disdain seemed to come from a far simpler fact.

You were a woman.

As if the absence of a cock somehow made your hands less capable of healing a fever.

“Maesters believe they are the cleverest men in the world,” you said simply. It was something the old woman who raised you had often said, usually with a snort and a shake of her head.

The prince watched you for a moment longer, and when it became clear you were not about to bolt for the door, he took a small step closer. The movement was careful, almost deliberate, the sort of cautious approach someone might use when dealing with a nervous animal that might startle if handled too quickly.

“I am Prince Valarr Targaryen,” he said quietly. “And I thank you for coming. The realm owes you its gratitude.”

A crooked smile tugged briefly at your lips.

“I’ve done nothing yet,” you scoffed lightly, the words leaving your mouth before you remembered where you stood. “…my prince,” you added a moment later, more quietly.

Titles had never come naturally to you. There had been no need for them in the forest or the scattered villages where most people spoke plainly to one another.

Silence settled again, though this time it felt less tense.

You watched him more carefully now, studying him the way the healer who raised you had taught you to study anyone who might soon become a patient.

The colour of his skin.

The steadiness of his breathing.

The way he carried his shoulders, whether there was stiffness in the muscles that fever sometimes left behind.

But he did not look ill.

At least not yet.

He seemed to notice the scrutiny. “You’re looking for signs,” he said.

You did not bother denying it. “If I am to treat the sick, someone in this castle must still be well enough to guide me to them,” you replied simply.

The corner of his mouth lifted faintly. “That is fortunate for me.”

Your gaze drifted past him toward the shelves of herbs lining the wall. “You’ve gathered quite a collection.”

“Everything the maesters thought might help.”

“And you believe it might not?”

His expression shifted slightly at that.

“The maesters believe many things,” he said after a moment.

He moved toward the table then, resting one hand lightly against the wood, his fingers brushing absentmindedly against one of the glass jars. “They have been treating the sickness for weeks now.”

“And?”

He did not answer.

He did not need to.

The silence between you said enough.

Your attention returned to him.

“How many are ill?”

Valarr did not respond immediately.

Instead, he turned his head slightly toward the fire, watching the flames as they shifted in the hearth. The orange glow reflected faintly in his eyes, sharpening the exhaustion that lingered there.

“My brother,” he said at last.

Prince Matarys.

You remembered the name faintly—heard once from a travelling merchant who had passed through your village some years ago, speaking of the celebrations planned for the prince’s nameday.

“And my grandparents.”

King Daeron. Queen Myriah.

You had heard their names all your life. To hear them spoken so quietly, in a room that smelled of herbs and smoke, as though they were simply more patients waiting for treatment, felt strangely unreal.

“They began with fever,” Valarr continued. “The coughing came two days later.”

You listened carefully, turning the information over in your mind. “Any rash?”

“No.”

“Bleeding?”

His jaw tightened. “Yes.”

You exhaled slowly. “How long?”

“Six days for my brother.”

Your head lifted sharply. “Six?”

Few lasted that long once the fever worsened.

Valarr noticed the shift in your expression immediately. “You see why we sent for you.”

You moved toward the table, examining the jars more closely now. Dried mint, Feverfew, Willow bark. The maesters had gathered many of the right herbs, though the preparation looked hurried. Some bundles were poorly dried, others too coarse.

You would need better cuttings from the gardens tomorrow.

“They’ve done what they can,” you murmured.

“They always do.” There was no bitterness in his voice. Only fatigue. How many days had he spent listening to the counsel of grey-robed men weighed down by chains of silver and brass?

“I should see them,” you said, turning back toward him.

“Not tonight.” The answer came immediately.

You frowned slightly. “My prince, if the sickness has already—”

“You have been riding for days.”

“I can still work.”

“I do not doubt it.” Valarr stepped closer to the table, resting both hands against the wood now. “But if you collapse tomorrow,” he said quietly, “you will be of little use to anyone.”

You opened your mouth to protest. You had treated a worse sickness with less rest. But standing this close to him now, you noticed something you had missed before. The strain in his face, not just exhaustion but pressure; The kind that settled slowly onto a person’s shoulders and refused to lift.

Your thoughts drifted briefly to what little you knew of the royal family. Even those far from courts heard certain news eventually. His father had died less than a year ago, Prince Baelor—honourable, beloved, the man many believed would have been the greatest king the realm had ever known. Dead for the sake of a hedge knight.

The title of heir had passed to his eldest son.

Which meant the quiet weight of the realm must now rest on the shoulders of this young man while the king himself lay ill somewhere above them.

No wonder he looked as though sleep had abandoned him.

“How long have you been awake?” you asked quietly.

He blinked, clearly surprised by the question. “That is not important.”

“It is if you expect me to work tomorrow.”

A soft breath escaped him.

“Three nights,” he admitted.

You studied him again. Now that you knew to look for them, the signs were obvious.

The tension around his eyes.

The stiffness in the way he held his shoulders.

“You should sleep as well.”

He huffed quietly at that. “If the healer begins giving orders already, the maesters will revolt.”

“Then they may,” you said simply. You cared very little for the opinions of maesters.

A brief smile crossed his face, though it faded quickly. His gaze drifted again toward the shelves. “You were recommended by Lord Harroway,” he said, not turning.

“Yes.”

“You cured him.”

“I treated him.”

“He says you saved his life.”

“Men say many things when they survive a fever.”

Valarr studied you thoughtfully. “You do not boast.”

You shrugged, returning your attention to the herbs resting in the mortar. “There is little point,” you said. “The body either heals… or it does not, I only coax it in the right direction.”

He seemed to consider that, then after a brief pause, he straightened. “You will be given a chamber nearby,” he said. “Close enough that you can be summoned if anything changes.”

“I would rather begin now.”

“I know.” He rubbed a hand across his face, exhaustion finally slipping through the gesture. “But you will rest tonight.”

Your frustration must have been obvious, because he added quietly, “That is not a command meant to slow you.”

“It feels like one.” You were unable to stop yourself from arguing.

“It is meant to keep you alive long enough to help them.”

The room fell silent again.

Outside the windows, the sky had darkened completely, the last of the evening light swallowed by night. The fire cracked softly behind you.

At last, you exhaled. “Very well.”

Relief flickered across his face, though he masked it quickly. “Good.” He moved toward the door and paused with one hand resting against the wood. “Tomorrow morning,” he said, “you will see my brother first.”

Your gaze sharpened. “Is he the worst?”

Valarr hesitated, for just a moment, and pain flashed across his face. “Yes.”

The door opened.

A servant waited quietly beyond it, ready to guide you to your chambers.

Valarr glanced back at you once more before you stepped through. “Rest,” he said. “We begin tomorrow.”

And despite the urgency still burning in your chest, you knew from the firmness in his voice that he would not be moved from that decision tonight.

You woke before the servant came.

For a few brief moments, you did not remember where you were.

The bed beneath you was softer than any you had slept in for months, the blankets heavy and warm, a big contrast to the worn old ones of your cottage. Pale morning light filtered through tall windows across the chamber walls, unobserved by tree branches like you were accustomed to.

Then the memory of the previous evening returned all at once.

The Red Keep, the plague in the city, Prince Valarr’s tired eyes crossing the firelit chamber, and the patients that were waiting somewhere deeper in the castle.

You were already sitting up when a quiet knock sounded at the door.

“Enter,” you called, though the command felt unfamiliar on your tongue.

The same young servant from the night before stepped inside carrying a small tray. Steam rose from a cup set beside a loaf of bread and a dish of honey.

“For you, my lady.”

You thanked her and dressed quickly after she left, pulling on the same travel-worn clothes you had arrived in. Your satchel of herbs and tools rested where you had left it beside the bed.

You checked its contents out of habit.

Mortar.

Small knife.

Needles.

Wrapped herbs.

Two carved wooden charms tied with thread.

Everything you had brought with you from the road.

By the time you stepped into the corridor, the castle was already awake. Servants moved quietly through the halls carrying fresh linens and trays of steaming water. The scent of herbs drifted faintly through the passageways. A man in grey maester’s robes crossed your path near the first stairwell. He glanced at you briefly before continuing on without a word.

You had only taken a few turns down the unfamiliar corridors when a voice spoke behind you.

“You are awake early.” Prince Valarr stood a few paces down the hallway.

He had changed clothes since the night before. His doublet today was simpler, dark red with only a narrow silver clasp at the collar. The morning light from the high windows caught faintly in his streak of pale hair.

But the exhaustion you had noticed the night before had not disappeared.

If anything, it seemed deeper.

“Good morning, my prince,” you said.

He inclined his head slightly. “You slept?”

“Well enough.” If by well he means having the best sleep of your entire life.

His gaze flicked briefly toward the satchel at your side. “Ready to begin?”

“Yes.”

Valarr nodded once. “Come with me.”

He led the way through the winding corridors of the castle, walking quickly but not so fast that you struggled to follow. Guards stationed at several doors straightened as he passed.

No one stopped him.

You climbed one narrow stairwell, then another. The air seemed quieter in this part of the castle. Thicker.

Not many were allowed into Maegor’s holdfast at all, so the fact that you were being led by a prince through these halls filled you with a weird sensation, look at me now, you thought as your gaze slid over tapestries taller than yourself.

They depicted great battles, dragons soaring the skies, their flames melting keeps and pale-haired kings on thrones.

After a while of silent walking, Valarr seemed somewhere else in his mind, focused on moving forward instead of small talk; you supposed that was because of the location you were approaching.

Two king's guards stood outside the chamber.

“How is he?” Valarr stopped before them.

The older of the two men shifted uneasily. “The fever worsened in the night, my prince.”

Valarr’s jaw tightened slightly. “Has he woken?”

“Briefly, the maester is inside.”

Valarr nodded and pushed open the door.

The chamber beyond was dim despite the morning light. Heavy curtains had been drawn partly across the windows, leaving only narrow slivers of pale sunlight across the floor. Several braziers burned quietly around the room, filling the air with sharp herbal smoke.

You stepped inside behind the prince, and the smell of illness struck you immediately. Fever, sweat, and the bitter edge of medicines.

A young man lay in the bed at the centre of the room.

He could not have been much younger than Valarr—perhaps sixteen or seventeen—but sickness had reduced him to a shadow of that age. His skin glistened with sweat, his chestnut hair damp against the pillows.

A wet cloth rested across his forehead.

His breathing came in shallow, uneven pulls.

Beside the bed stood a maester you had not yet met, his chain glinting faintly in the dim light as he adjusted a small glass vial, though you could tell by the length of his chain that he was not the grand maester; he must be with the king.

He turned when you entered, bowing as much as his old frame would allow. “Your Highness,” he said reverently, tone heavy and full of sorrow.

Valarr stepped forward. “How is he?”

“The fever holds,” the maester replied carefully.

“And the coughing?”

“Worse.”

The prince’s gaze moved to his brother, briefly, and something softened in his expression. Then he stepped aside slightly, allowing you closer to the bed.

“Your Grace,” the maester said with thinly disguised irritation. “This is hardly the time—”

Valarr raised a hand. “This is the healer I sent for.”

The maester’s expression tightened. “That woman?” he said it with such indignation that it made you want to scrunch your face up.

“I did not ask for your opinion,” Valarr said again, this time his tone flat and full of irritation; it seemed to do the trick at making the old man back off at least for now.

You stepped past him without answering. Illness mattered more than your pride. Carefully, you set your satchel on the small table beside the bed and leaned closer to the patient.

Prince Matarys.

Up close, the signs were unmistakable; His lips had gone slightly pale, dark shadows pooled beneath his eyes, and the fever radiated from his skin even before you touched him.

You rested your fingers lightly against his wrist; his pulse raced beneath your touch.

Too fast.

Too strained.

“How long since the coughing worsened?” you asked quietly.

“During the night,” the maester replied.

You lifted Matarys’s eyelid gently. The whites of his eyes were tinged faintly red.

Another sign.

Behind you, Valarr watched in silence. You could feel his attention as strongly as the heat of the braziers in the room, his gaze boring into the back of your head.

You reached into your satchel for a small bundle of herbs.

The maester spoke suddenly, sputtering, as though you were a fool. “We have already administered willow bark and mint for the fever.”

You crushed the herbs gently in your palm, taking the irritation you felt out on the plant rather than letting it show; you would not give him the satisfaction. “This is for the lungs.”

He watched but did not interrupt again.

You leaned closer to the young prince. “Matarys,” you said quietly.

His eyelids fluttered, and for a moment, you were not sure he had heard you. Then his eyes opened slightly; they were glassy with fever. But aware.

“Brother?” he murmured weakly.

“I’m here.” Valarr stepped forward instantly, and you could feel his body heat from his chest pressing into your back as he leaned over you.

“…who…?” Matarys’s gaze drifted past him toward you.

“The woodswitch,” Valarr said, letting out a strained noise, perhaps an attempt at a laugh. “Just like I told you.”

The younger prince smiled faintly at that. “The maester will throw a fit…” his words were strained and hard to understand, but it warmed you to see that he still had some spirit left.

You offered the crushed herbs in a small cup of water.

“Drink.”

Matarys tried to sit up but lacked the strength.

Valarr reached forward immediately, supporting him carefully. The motion was practised; he had done this before. And you imagined him suddenly sitting at his little brother’s bedside throughout the night, helping to give him water and medicine.

Matarys swallowed the mixture slowly, coughing weakly once before sinking back against the pillows. His eyes closed again almost immediately.

The room fell quiet.

You listened to his breathing, still shallow, still strained; the herbs would take time to show any effects.

Behind you, Valarr spoke softly. “Can he recover?” he had stepped back now.

You did not answer right away. Instead, you reached once more for Matarys’s wrist, counting the rapid beats beneath his skin.

Then you looked up at the prince. “I won’t know yet.”

Valarr held your gaze for a moment, expression unreadable as his brown and blue eyes bore into you. Then he nodded once. “Do whatever you must.”

The maester could not stay quiet any longer; perhaps the idea of a woman being allowed free rein greatly offended him. “Y-your grace—”

“Enough! Nothing you have given him has weakened the sickness, now, unless you would like to leave. I suggest you hold your tongue. ” The sharp barb almost made you turn and flick your gaze to the two men behind you. Valarr had not shown any overt authority so far, but the way the maester cowered like a scared dog reminded you that he was blood of the dragon.

The young prince’s breathing continued in shallow, uneven pulls, his chest rising and falling with visible effort beneath the blankets. Sweat gathered along his temples despite the damp cloth resting across his forehead, and the heat of his fever seemed to radiate through the air itself.

You rested your fingers once more against his wrist.

His pulse still raced beneath your touch—quick and strained—, but it had not worsened since you first checked it.

That was something.

Not improvement, but not decline.

You moved back toward the small table beside the bed and opened your satchel fully now, laying out several cloth-wrapped bundles across the wood. The tools inside were simple—nothing like the glass instruments and polished metals the Citadel preferred.

Prince Valarr had not moved; he still stood near the head of the bed, one hand resting against the carved bedpost, his gaze fixed on his brother’s face as though watching for every small change in his breathing.

“You should sit,” you said without looking up.

“I’m fine.”

“You haven’t slept.”

“I said I’m fine.”

You glanced at him briefly.

He did not look fine. The firelight revealed the deepening shadows beneath his eyes and the faint tension in his shoulders that had not eased since he entered the room.

But you did not argue further. If he needed to stand there, to remain close enough to his brother to hear every breath, you would not waste time fighting it.

Instead, you turned back to your work.

You selected several dried leaves from one of the bundles and dropped them into the small stone mortar you carried in your satchel. The pestle ground them slowly into powder beneath your hand.

The maester watched you closely, as though you were about to brazenly poison a member of the royal family in front of another. “You carry your own preparations.”

You didnt stop.“Yes.” The pestle continued its steady rhythm against the stone.

That answer earned a small frown, though he said nothing more. You added a few drops of water to the powdered herbs and stirred them slowly into a thick paste.

“What is that for?” he asked after a moment.

“The lungs.”

He frowned again. “You intend to apply it externally?”

“Yes.”

He folded his hands into the sleeves of his robe, clearly unconvinced, but he did not stop you; after all, you were here at the request of the crown prince.

You stepped closer to the bed. “Valarr.” He looked up immediately. “I’ll need him turned slightly.”

Valarr nodded without hesitation. He slid one arm behind his brother’s shoulders, lifting him carefully so that you could reach the upper part of Matarys’s chest.

The heat of it rose from his skin like warmth from a fire. You gently pulled the linen shirt he wore aside, exposing pale skin. You spread the herbal paste across the centre of his chest, pressing the mixture gently against the skin before covering it with a strip of clean linen. The scent of the herbs rose immediately—sharp and bitter.

Matarys stirred weakly. “…hurts…”

“I know,” Valarr murmured quietly, his thumb rubbing soothingly against the shoulder he held. Everyone you had spoken to said that nobles did not feel love like smallfolk did, but right now, you could tell that the princes shared a strong bond.

You finished tying the linen in place and stepped back.

“Lay him down.”

Valarr eased him slowly back against the pillows. The coughing did not come immediately this time; that alone was a small victory.

You turned again to your satchel, rifling around in it. From within it, you removed one of the carved charms.

The piece of wood was small and worn smooth with age. Simple markings had been carved along its surface—circles and lines the woman who raised you had once called breath-wards.

The maester noticed at once. “What is that?”

“A breathing charm.”

“That is superstition,” he sounded utterly aghast that you dared produce such a thing.

“Perhaps,” you said softly, ignoring him.

You tied the thin cord loosely around the bedpost near Matarys’s head. The charm hung there, swaying slightly in the warm air. “It will do no harm,” you said calmly.

Valarr had been watching quietly, a flicker of concern resting at the sight.

“Does it help?” he sounded desperate, like a different man to the one you had watched command the guards and yell at the maester.

“Does praying at the sept help?” you said honestly, gaze meeting his own. “If one believes it helps, then it does.”

The days inside the Red Keep began to blur together.

At first, you tried to count them. The first morning after meeting Prince Valarr, the second day when Prince Matarys coughed blood again, the third day when the fever seemed to lessen for a few hours.

But after that, the rhythm of the castle changed in a way that made time difficult to follow. The sun still rose beyond the tall windows and set behind the towers of the keep, yet the work inside the sickrooms rarely stopped long enough for you to notice.

Morning and night became the same long stretch of effort.

The corridors of the castle had begun to smell constantly of vinegar and herbs.

Servants moved through the halls carrying bowls of steaming water, bundles of cloth, or baskets filled with fresh linen. Many walked with slow, heavy steps now—the careful movement of people who had not slept properly in days.

Some had begun tying cloths across their mouths and noses; others simply worked until their hands trembled.

You spent most of your time moving between chambers. Each room where the sick were kept had been darkened. Heavy curtains were drawn across the tall windows to soften the light, leaving the chambers dim and warm from the braziers that burned herbs through the day and night.

The air in those rooms always carried the same layered scents.

sweat, vinegar and the faint bitter edge of sickness that no amount of herbs could quite erase.

Yet despite the many sick within the castle, your attention always returned to one chamber first.

Prince Matarys remained the first patient you checked each morning—and the one you spent the most time with.

By the time you reached his chamber, the braziers were already burning boiling basins of water with herbs, filling the air with pale steam meant to ease breathing. The servants assigned to him had begun preparing before you arrived—fresh cloths folded neatly beside the bed, bowls of cooled water waiting for compresses, herbs already steeping near the fire.

The young prince still lay deep within the grip of fever.

Some mornings, his breathing seemed a little easier. On other mornings, the coughing returned with such violence that the servants had to support him upright while he struggled for breath, his body shaking with the effort.

You worked beside the bed for long stretches of time.

Compresses were changed again and again. Clean linen soaked in cooled herbal infusions was pressed against his chest and throat, the mixture of mint, willow bark, and crushed feverfew drawing some of the heat from his skin.

Sometimes he stirred faintly when the cloth touched him, whispering of his mother or father, but most of all asking for his brother.

Sometimes he remained lost in fevered dreams, eyes twitching under his eyelids.

You kept the breathing charm tied to the bedpost where you had first hung it. The small carved piece of wood swayed softly whenever the window was opened to allow fresh air into the room.

Prince Valarr noticed it the first morning it remained there. “You still believe it helps,” he said quietly.

“Belief is a strong thing,” you answered.

He studied the charm for a moment longer before turning his attention back to his brother.

Valarr remained present through most of the treatments.

He rarely spoke while you worked, but you often felt his gaze following your hands—the grinding of herbs, the measuring of infusions, the careful way you listened to Matarys’s breathing.

After Matarys, you were sometimes summoned to the king.

King Daeron’s chambers were larger but no less heavy with sickness. Thick curtains dimmed the daylight, leaving the room lit mostly by braziers and candles placed along the walls.

You had ordered the servants to open the windows despite the maesters’ initial objections, allowing fresh air to push through the stale atmosphere.

Even so, the room remained thick with heat.

The king lay beneath layered blankets despite the warmth. The fever had taken much from him already. His once powerful frame had grown thin beneath the illness, and the lines of his face had deepened with exhaustion.

But here you were not the one directing the treatment.

Three maesters moved around the bed in quiet coordination, their chains glinting softly in the dim light. Shelves of their prepared medicines lined the walls—vials, powders, and carefully labelled jars.

They acknowledged your presence when you entered, reluctantly.

At first, they had asked questions about your herbs and infusions. Their curiosity had been cautious but genuine. Now their interest had cooled into something more guarded.

You still helped where you could, you prepared compresses when the servants fell behind, you mixed cooling infusions to ease the fever when the maesters permitted it, but your role in the room was clearly secondary.

When you suggested once that the windows remain open longer to thin the air, one maester merely nodded without looking at you.

Another quietly closed them again, not an hour later.

On another morning, you mentioned a breathing infusion that had eased Matarys’s coughing the night before.

The response came quickly.

“We are already treating His Grace appropriately.” The words were polite, but dismissive.

After that, you spoke less in the king’s chamber.

You assisted the servants when you could, replaced cloths when no one else was near enough to do it, and watched the king’s breathing from the edge of the room.

From the king’s chambers, you were often sent to the queen.

Queen Myriah’s rooms were darker still; someone seemed intent on shrouding them in shade rather than sun, fitting for men holled up in a tower.

The curtains had been drawn nearly closed, leaving only a thin line of daylight along their edges. The air felt cooler there, though the same braziers burned softly along the walls.

The queen looked small beneath the blankets.

Her illness had not taken hold of her lungs as fiercely as it had the others, but the fever lingered stubbornly. It drained her strength day by day, leaving her drifting between long stretches of sleep and brief moments of waking.

Your treatments here were gentler, pastes rubbed on her chest, soft compresses against her temples and wrists, bowls of steamed herbs placed beneath her nose to clear her breathing, you'd often spend hours massaging pressure points meant to relieve tension, your fingers always ached afterwards.

You tied another charm near the headboard on the second day—a small spiral carving meant to steady breath and calm restless sleep.

The maesters noticed, one opened his mouth to question it, but decided better than to argue, the next time you would enter the charm would be gone. The only room that remained the way you had ordered was the prince’s, curtains opened for the light, charms still up, and instructions followed.

While you had only been summoned for the royal family, you could not say no to the maid who approached you in the gardens while you gathered herbs. She was crying about how her friend was sick, and no maester would see her because she was just a maid.

That was when you began treating other people in the Red Keep.

Some of the patients you treated had begun to improve, not dramatically, not in ways that brought immediate relief, but small changes appeared. The fever might break for several hours during the night. A coughing fit might weaken enough for a patient to sleep afterwards. A kitchen servant who had been too weak to stand began walking again after three days of treatment. Another guard’s fever broke completely on the fifth morning.

Word moved through the castle quickly, servants whispered about it in the corridors, Maesters began watching the herbs you prepared with quiet attention, and even the guards stationed outside the sickrooms began studying you as you passed.

But not every patient improved.

Two stablehands worsened despite every infusion and compress you tried. Their coughing deepened until blood stained the cloths they held to their mouths. One died before morning, the other before the following sunset.

Hope inside the Red Keep had become a fragile thing. It appeared in small moments—when a fever eased for a few hours, or when a patient finally slept through the night.

Then it cracked again without warning.

The court watched all of it. The lords and ladies who had not fled the city lingered along the corridors now. They stood near doorways or gathered in quiet corners, their eyes following you as you passed with your satchel.

Some watched with hope.

Others with doubt.

One lady clutched her seven-pointed star as you passed, as if merely laying eyes on you would offend the gods.

Prince Valarr remained the one constant presence through all of it. He appeared in Matarys’s chamber every morning. Often, he remained long after the treatments ended, standing beside the bed while you moved on to the other sickrooms.

Sometimes you caught him counting the rhythm of his brother’s breathing, he simply watched the slow rise and fall of the blankets.

Waiting.

Hope stretched through the Red Keep as a thin thread pulled tight between every sickroom.

Between every bowl of herbal infusion, every clean cloth pressed against burning skin, every whispered prayer spoken in the halls.

Sometimes that thread held, sometimes it snapped without warning.

And each morning you rose again to see which it would be.

The chamber was quieter than it had been in days.

Prince Matarys slept.

Not the shallow, fever-tossed drifting that had haunted him through most of the week, but something deeper—something that almost resembled true rest. His breathing still carried a faint rasp, the sound rough where the sickness had clawed at his lungs, yet the rhythm had steadied enough that the servants no longer hovered anxiously at the bedside. They had retreated to the far side of the room, speaking only in murmurs, their voices barely louder than the low crackle of the brazier burning near the hearth.

You had taken advantage of the calm.

The small table beside the bed had gradually become your workspace over the past several days. What had once been a polished piece of furniture was now cluttered with the quiet chaos of healing—bundles of herbs tied with thin cord, small jars of crushed powders, folded linen, and the satchel you carried everywhere. Some leaves had been set aside to dry in the warmth of the room, while others lay freshly ground into paste. A shallow bowl of cooled infusion sat near the edge of the table, its surface releasing the faintest curl of steam in the dim light.

You worked slowly, methodically, stripping the last leaves from a brittle stem and setting them aside before grinding them between your fingers. The scent of bitter mint and crushed bark clung to the air.

Across from you, Prince Valarr remained in the chair near the foot of the bed.

He had been there most of the morning—as he often was.

At first, in those early days when the fever had been at its worst, he had refused to sit at all. He would stand beside the bed through every treatment, tense and restless, as though stepping away might somehow worsen his brother’s condition. But exhaustion had eventually forced him into the chair.

Now he leaned forward slightly, forearms resting on his knees, his hands loosely clasped together as he watched his brother sleep.

You had grown used to that look.

The slight crease that always lingered between his brows. The hard focus in his gaze, as though he might somehow will Matarys back to health if he stared long enough. You had seen many people sit beside the beds of those they loved—wives, mothers, brothers, children—but rarely with such quiet, relentless devotion.

He counted Matarys’s breaths without realising it.

You could see it in the subtle movement of his eyes as they followed the rise of the blankets… and the slow fall again.

The fever had eased during the night. Not gone—certainly not yet—but weaker now. The body had a little more strength to fight.

You finished tying the last knot in the thin cord you had been working with and lifted the small wooden charm from the table.

The wood was pale and smooth from handling, its surface etched with looping marks that curled and crossed one another in simple patterns. They were not elaborate symbols, but they had been carved carefully, each line placed with quiet intention.

You tied it gently to the bedpost beside the other.

Valarr noticed the movement immediately. “You’ve added another,” he said.

“The first was for breath,” you replied quietly.

His gaze drifted toward the earlier charm swaying faintly against the bedpost. “And the second?”

“For sleep.”

His eyes moved back to his brother. “He hasn’t slept like this in days.”

“That’s why I made it.”

You returned to the table and unrolled a small piece of linen beside your satchel. Inside lay several thin needles—polished metal, narrow and flexible, glinting faintly in the brazier light.

Valarr straightened slightly. “What are those?” There was a note of alarm in his voice that made you glance up.

“Another remedy.”

His brows drew together faintly. He leaned forward in his chair, curiosity beginning to replace the tension in his expression. “You intend to stab him?”

You couldn’t help the small smile that touched your mouth. “Not quite.”

You knelt beside the bed and gently pushed the blanket aside near Matarys’s wrist. The prince stirred faintly at the movement, his fingers twitching once, but he did not wake.

Carefully, you pressed your fingertips against his arm, searching for the small points beneath the skin that the old woodswitch had taught you to find. When you found the first one, you slid a needle into place with slow precision.

Valarr leaned closer. “He didn’t even move.”

“It shouldn’t hurt.” You placed another needle along Matarys’s forearm, then a third just below his collarbone, each one set carefully where the old healer had once shown you.

“And it helps?” Valarr asked.

“These points encourage the breath to move more freely,” you said quietly.

“I’ve never seen the maesters do that.” He studied the needles with thoughtful interest.

“They weren’t the ones who taught me.” You adjusted the final needle, your fingers brushing lightly against Matarys’s skin to steady it.

“Where did you learn all this?” Valarr asked.

“From the woman who raised me.”

“Another healer?”

You could feel his gaze resting on you. “Another woodswitch.”

The word lingered briefly in the warm air of the chamber.

Valarr’s brow lifted slightly, though there was no mockery in his expression. “The maesters seem uncertain what to make of that.”

“They think I rely on superstition.”

“You carve charms and stick needles in princes.”

“And yet his fever dropped last night.” Despite yourself, the faintest teasing note slipped into your voice.

Valarr blinked once, then let out a quiet breath that might almost have been a laugh. “That it did.”

The sound surprised you.

You realised, suddenly, that you had rarely heard him laugh since arriving at the castle. The smile that tugged at your lips grew before you could stop it. You found yourself wondering, briefly, whether he had once laughed often—before sickness had filled these halls—or if he had always carried this quiet seriousness.

You returned to the table and began preparing another mixture, crushing dried leaves in the mortar. The scent of mint and bitter bark rose stronger into the air.

Across the room, Valarr watched your hands. “You move slowly,” he said after a moment.

You glanced up, a quizical look on your face. “Slowly?”

“The maesters rush.” His gaze flicked toward the door briefly, as if he could imagine them there already. “There’s always someone fetching powders or arguing over which remedy should be tried next.”

You stirred the herbs into warm water.

“But you…” He paused slightly. “You take your time.”

“Sick bodies don’t like being rushed.”

He nodded slowly, as if the thought made sense to him.

For a while, neither of you spoke. The quiet grinding of the mortar filled the chamber, steady and rhythmic. Across the bed, Matarys shifted faintly, his breathing catching before settling again. The needles remained steady where you had placed them.

Valarr’s gaze followed the movement instantly. “Do you think he’s improving?”

“A little.”

“That sounds cautious.”

“It is.”

He rubbed a hand across his face, fatigue showing through the gesture again. “I keep waiting for someone to tell me he’s going to recover.” There was something unexpectedly open in his voice, as though he had forgotten for a moment that you were still little more than a stranger.

“I can’t promise that,” you said gently.

“I know.” His eyes drifted back to his brother. “But I can see he’s breathing easier than yesterday.”

“That’s true.” You nodded.

Silence settled again, softer this time. The castle beyond the walls carried on with distant life—footsteps in corridors, the faint echo of voices somewhere far away—but here the world had narrowed to this small room.

At last, Valarr spoke again, his voice quieter. “You’re calmer than the rest of us.”

You looked up at him. “I’m not calm.”

His brows lifted slightly. “You look it.”

“That’s different.”

He considered that for a moment before nodding. “I suppose it is.”

You checked the needles one last time before stepping back from the bed. “Let him sleep,” you murmured.

Valarr leaned back into the chair again, his gaze fixed on the steady rise and fall of Matarys’s chest.

After a moment, he said quietly, “I’m glad you’re here.”

The words caught you off guard.

You didn’t answer immediately.

Instead, you returned to the table, picking up the mortar once more and grinding the next measure of herbs. The slow rhythm filled the quiet room again while Prince Matarys slept between you.

You kept your head bent over your work, hoping the prince would not notice the sudden warmth spreading across your cheeks.

Evening had settled quietly over the Red Keep.

Your workroom—once a small storage chamber tucked into a quiet corridor—had slowly transformed over the past week into something far more familiar. The stone walls were now lined with even more wooden shelves borrowed from nearby rooms, each one crowded with jars, bundles of herbs tied with twine, small clay bowls, and carefully labelled vials of tinctures. A narrow table near the window served as your workspace, its surface dusted with dried leaves and faint rings left behind by cooling infusions.

The window itself stood half open, letting in the faint chill of the night air along with the distant sounds of the castle settling into the evening. Somewhere far below, a gate creaked closed. Voices echoed faintly along the courtyard before fading again.

Inside the room, the only steady sound was the soft scrape of your knife against wood.

You worked with slow patience, shaving thin curls from a small piece of pale ash wood that rested in your palm. The beginnings of a charm were already visible beneath the blade—simple looping lines meant to calm restless breath and quiet troubled dreams.

The castle had not yet begun to sleep, but your work for the day was nearly finished.

You reached for a small clay jar beside the table, dipping your fingers into a thick mixture of beeswax and crushed lavender before carefully sealing the lid. The salve would be ready by morning.

You had just set it aside when a knock sounded at the door.

It was soft, not the hurried pounding of a servant or the brisk authority of a maester. Whoever stood on the other side hesitated before knocking again, a little firmer this time.

You didn’t look up from the charm. “Come in.”

Prince Valarr stepped inside, closing the door quietly behind him as though reluctant to disturb the stillness of the room.

He looked… tired.

Not the sharp exhaustion you had first seen when you arrived, when worry had hollowed his face and tightened every movement, but a deeper weariness that seemed to cling to him now that the worst of the fever had passed. His shoulders still held the weight of too many sleepless nights.

You set the knife down and brushed the wood shavings from your fingers. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” He blinked slightly, clearly caught off guard. Whether that was because of the lack of titles you used or because he had been caught out, you couldn't decide.

Your brow lifted. “People rarely come to find the healer at this hour when nothing is wrong.”

A faint smile touched the corner of his mouth, though it faded quickly. “Matarys is sleeping,” he said. “Your needles seem to have convinced his lungs to behave.”

“That’s good.”

“And the king’s fever has broken.”

You nodded once, satisfied. “That’s better.”

Valarr leaned one shoulder lightly against the closed door, watching you for a moment as though trying to decide whether to continue.

You waited, expecting him to continue with whatever the real reason he had come here for, it was actually the first time he had been here since you had met him.

After several seconds had passed, you spoke again. “So what is it?”

He exhaled softly through his nose, rubbing the back of his neck in a gesture that seemed unusually uncertain for a prince. “I was told you made a charm for Ser Donnel…”

Your eyes flicked toward the half-carved piece of wood in your hand. “I did,” you confirmed easily. “Why? Was I not allowed?”

“N-no, you are allowed to do whatever”, he assured quickly.

You studied him more carefully now. “You want one?”

He hesitated. For a long moment, it seemed as though he might dismiss the idea entirely and retreat behind the calm composure he wore so easily in the council chambers.

But then he sighed. “Yes.”

The answer was quiet.

“Sit.” You gestured toward the chair beside the table.

He obeyed without argument, lowering himself into the wooden chair across from you. For a prince who spent most of his days surrounded by courtiers and advisors, he looked oddly relieved simply to sit in the small, cluttered room.

You picked up the knife again and turned the piece of wood in your fingers.

“You can sleep now,” you said casually, shaving another thin curl from the edge. “Your brother is improving. The worst has passed.”

“That’s what everyone keeps telling me,” he sighed, and you could see him watching the flames in the hearth out of the corner of your eye.

“But?”

He leaned back slightly in the chair, resting his head briefly against the stone wall behind him. “But every time I close my eyes,” he said slowly, “I hear the coughing.”

Your knife slowed.

“In my dreams,” he continued, his voice quieter now, “the fever returns. I wake up expecting someone to be pounding on the door.”

The room was silent for a breath as you considered his words. Then you resumed carving, the blade slid smoothly through the wood, shaping the small charm with careful, deliberate movements. “Sleep will come,” you said.

“Eventually,” he echoed.

“But not tonight?”

A faint, tired smile tugged at his mouth. “Not without help.”

You turned the wood slightly and began carving the first of the looping symbols, tiny, intricate details, each one different from the one before.

Valarr watched your hands as you worked. The steady rhythm of the knife against the wood filled the room, soft and unhurried. You brushed another curl of wood aside, gently blowing at the dust. The quiet stretched comfortably between you, broken only by the soft scrape of the blade and the distant sounds of the castle beyond the walls.

Eventually, Valarr leaned forward slightly, resting his elbows on his knees. “Does it actually work?” he asked.

“The charm?” you glanced at him.

“Yes.”

You considered the question before finally answering. “It helps.”

“That sounds suspiciously vague.” The tone of his voice this evening was light, a dash of teasing in it, as if the two of you were long-time companions. Though he was the person you had spent the most time with since arriving at the keep, he and Matarys, that is.

You glanced up at him, a hint of amusement in your eyes. “The charm reminds the mind to be still.”

“And if the mind refuses?”

“Then the lavender tea you’re about to drink will do the rest.”

His brows lifted. “You planned that already?”

“You looked like you needed it.”

Something in his expression softened at that.

You returned your attention to the charm, carving the final line carefully before turning the piece of wood over in your palm.

When you looked up again, you found him watching you—not with the distant focus he usually directed toward his brother’s sickbed, but with quiet curiosity.

“What?” you asked.

“Nothing.”

“That’s not true.”

He hesitated, then said, “You’re very calm.”

“You already told me that.” You snorted softly.

“It’s still true.”

You set the knife down and reached for a thin cord beside the table. “I’ve just had more practice with sick people than you have,” you answered with a shrug.

“That’s not what I mean.”

Your fingers stilled slightly as you threaded the cord through the charm. “What do you mean?”

Valarr watched you for a moment before answering. “When I’m here,” he said slowly, “everything seems… quieter.”

The words hung between you. You weren’t entirely sure what to do with them, so you finished tying the cord and held the charm out to him. “Here.”

The charm was spiralled and neatly decorated with the symbols you'd carved. The thread you had picked was a soft leather strip, neatly braided and secured.

He took it from your hand like you were handing him something precious.

For a brief moment, your fingers brushed. The contact was light—barely more than a graze—, but it sent an unexpected warmth up your arm. Valarr seemed to feel it too. His hand lingered for a second before he pulled it back.

He studied the small carved symbol resting in his palm. “What do I do with it?”

“Hang it near your bed.”

“And it will make me sleep?”

You began pouring the tea you had made to aid yourself with sleep into two cups. The steam curled lazily upward as the liquid settled.

“It might.”

“And if it doesn’t?” he asked, looking up again, that faint smile returning.

“Then you can come back tomorrow and complain.”

He chuckled softly, shaking his head. “I might do that.”

The candlelight flickered gently across the room, catching in the pale strands of the silver streak in his hair and casting shifting shadows along the stone walls.

Carefully, you brought both cups over and handed him one before lowering yourself into the chair across from him. Your fingers curled around the warm clay as you breathed in the scent—lavender and honey with the faint bitterness of crushed bark beneath it.

For a moment, neither of you drank.

Valarr turned the cup slowly in his hands, studying the thin curls of steam rising from the surface as though they might hold the answer to something. “What’s in it?” he asked.

“Lavender. Honey. A little valerian root.”

“That sounds like it might taste terrible.”

“It does.”

That earned another quiet laugh from him, softer this time. Still, he raised the cup and took a cautious sip. His brow twitched almost immediately.

You tried—and failed—not to smile. “I warned you.”

He swallowed with some effort, glancing down at the cup again as if reconsidering his life choices. “You did.”

“But you’ll finish it anyway.”

He looked back up at you then, something amused flickering in his eyes. “You sound very certain.”

“I think a prince of the realm can manage a cup of tea.”

His smile widened slightly. “Perhaps you know me too well already.”

The words slipped easily into the quiet space between you, and for a moment, you were aware of how small the room suddenly felt. You lowered your gaze to your cup, taking a slow sip. The warmth spread through your chest almost immediately, easing some of the tension you hadn’t realised you were carrying.

Across from you, Valarr had leaned back in the chair, the long line of his legs stretching slightly in front of him. The earlier tension in his shoulders seemed to have eased now that he had stopped standing guard outside a sickbed.

For the first time since you had arrived at the Red Keep, he looked almost… ordinary.

Not the prince everyone watched so carefully. Not the heir burdened with the weight of a kingdom. Just a tired young man sitting in a quiet room, drinking tea beside someone who wasn’t asking anything of him.

He noticed you watching. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“That never means nothing.”

You hesitated, then said honestly, “You look different when you’re not worrying.”

His mouth curved faintly. “I’m still worrying.”

“Okay, less loudly then.”

He considered that, rolling the cup lightly between his hands. “That might be the tea,” he smirked.

His gaze drifted around the small chamber—the shelves crowded with jars, the bundles of herbs hanging from the rafters, the cluttered table where curls of pale wood still rested from the charm you had carved. “It doesn’t feel like the rest of the castle,” he said quietly, clearly referring to the room.

“That’s because it isn’t.”

“How did you manage that?”

You shrugged slightly. “Rooms become what people do inside them.” It was something that the old woman always used to tell you.

“And what do you do in here?”

“Work.”

He gave you a flat look.

“And sometimes,” you admitted, lifting your cup slightly, “drink terrible tea.”

Valarr huffed softly. “That explains it.”

The quiet that followed was comfortable.

Outside, the sounds of the castle had faded further as night deepened. The corridor beyond your door had fallen silent, and the only movement in the room now was the slow flicker of candlelight and the drifting steam from your cups.

Valarr took another sip of the tea—bravely, you thought.

For a moment, he simply watched the candle flame sway. Then he finally said, “It's peaceful.”

You glanced at him. “Peaceful is not usually a word people use for rooms full of medicine.”

“It is tonight.” His gaze lifted to meet yours. There was something there that you could not place. “And I think,” he continued, “you have something to do with that.”

The words caught you slightly off guard, your fingers tightening a little around the warm cup. It is only natural, you told yourself, you are a healer after all, healers bring calm.

“You’ve had a long week,” you said lightly. “Anyone who lets you sit down and drink tea would seem calming.”

“Maybe.” But he didn’t look convinced.

The silence that followed stretched just long enough for the warmth in your cheeks to begin creeping upward. You lowered your gaze again, pretending to study the tea.

Across from you, Valarr finished the last of his cup. When he set it down on the table between you, his movements were slower than before, the edge of his exhaustion finally beginning to catch up with him.

“Perhaps it will work,” he murmured.

“The tea?”

“The charm.”

You tilted your head slightly. “You’re already sounding more hopeful.”

He leaned back in the chair, his expression softer now than when he had first knocked on your door. “Perhaps,” he said quietly, “I just needed to sit here for a while.”

And something about the way he said it made your heart beat just a little faster than it should have.

At last, he stood. “Thank you,” he said quietly.

You nodded once, shaking away the dizzy feeling his words had given you. “Sleep well, my prince.”

He moved toward the door, then paused with his hand on the latch. When he glanced back at you, something softer lingered in his expression.

“I think,” he said slowly, “I will.”

And when he slipped out into the corridor, the small charm still resting in his hand, the room felt strangely quieter than before.

part iii.

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Near the door, two servants hovered uneasily.

“Should he be sweating like that?” one whispered, glancing nervously toward the bed.

“Seven save him,” the other murmured back. “He’s been like this for three days.”

Neither of them dared step closer.

You ignored them.

Kneeling beside the hearth, you worked slowly with the stone mortar resting in your lap, grinding dried willow bark and mint together beneath the steady pressure of the pestle. The brittle leaves cracked and crumbled with each turn of your wrist, breaking down into a coarse, pale powder.

The rhythm was steady. Familiar.

Grind. Turn. Grind again.

The sound had always calmed you.

The old woman who had raised you used to say that the rhythm itself could settle a healer’s nerves. “Your hands must be steady,” she would tell you, her voice thin with age but sharp with certainty. “If the healer trembles, the patient will follow.”

You tipped the crushed herbs carefully into the pot hanging over the fire and stirred.

The liquid inside had already darkened into a cloudy amber from the earlier mixtures. As the powder touched it's surface, a sharper scent rose into the air—bitter enough that one of the servants coughed softly into his sleeve.

Behind you, the lord groaned.

You turned at once.

Lord Smallwood’s hand clawed weakly at the blanket as another wave of fever rolled through him. His breathing had grown ragged now, each inhale scraping from his chest like dry leaves dragged across stone.

You rose and crossed the small room in two quiet steps.

Pressing your palm lightly against his forehead, you felt the heat immediately. Still burning, but no worse than before. That mattered.

“Help me sit him up,” you said.

The servants hesitated.

“He’s very weak, my lady,” one said uncertainly.

“So lift gently,” you replied.

After a moment’s pause, they moved forward, carefully sliding their arms beneath the lord’s shoulders. You slipped one arm behind his back to steady him as they raised him upright against the pillows.

His body radiated heat even through the thin linen of his shirt.

You lifted the wooden cup from the bedside table and held it carefully to his lips.

“Drink.”

His eyes fluttered open at the sound of your voice, unfocused and glassy with fever. “Bitter…” he rasped weakly.

“It is meant to be.”

He managed a weak swallow, then another. A little of the liquid spilt down his chin, and you wiped it away with a cloth. When the cup was empty, you eased him back against the pillows.

The servants watched the entire process as though witnessing something sacred, and in a way, perhaps they were.

You dipped a cloth into the bowl of cool water beside the bed and wrung it out before laying it across the lord’s neck. His overheated skin steamed faintly beneath the touch. The fever had been climbing steadily all day. If it rose much higher, there would be little left to try.

“They said you brought Lord Harroway back from death,” one of the servants said quietly, as if speaking too loudly might disturb whatever fragile balance held the fever at bay.

You did not look up from the cloth in your hands, wringing and laying it again across the lord’s brow.

“People say many things when a man survives,” you replied.

The servant hesitated, glancing toward the bed. “But… It’s true, isn’t it?”

You did not answer immediately.

The fire cracked softly in the hearth, sending a brief flare of sparks up the chimney. Outside, the wind moved through the tall pines that surrounded the cottage, their branches whispering together in the darkness like distant voices.

At last, you said, “Lord Harroway lived because his body chose to fight.”

The servant frowned slightly. “And you?”

You adjusted the blanket around Lord Smallwood’s shoulders, tucking the wool carefully beneath his arms.

“I asked it to try.”

Silence settled once more over the small cottage.

The fevered man shifted restlessly beneath the covers, his breath quickening again as another surge of heat moved through him. You watched the change carefully, studying the rhythm of it.

Every illness had its own pattern. A rise. A fall.

Sometimes the body found its way back from the brink, sometimes it did not.

You reached for the small leather pouch tied at your belt and loosened the cord. Inside were carefully wrapped bundles of dried herbs—lavender, sage, and several others gathered from the forest hills.

You selected a few brittle lavender buds and crushed them gently between your fingers. Their soft scent drifted into the warm air beside the bed. It would not cure the fever, but it might help the body rest, and sometimes, rest was the first step toward survival.

Then, almost without thinking, you murmured the old spell. Your voice was low enough that the servants barely heard it. “Root and leaf, draw the heat. Bone and blood, remember sleep. Fever passes, and breath grows slow, Let the quiet body know.”

The old woman had insisted the words mattered less than the intention.

“People trust rituals,” she used to say. “And trust is medicine too.”

Lord Smallwood’s breathing stuttered, then steadied.

You sat beside the bed and waited; time seemed to stretch slowly in the dim light of the hearth. The servants eventually stopped whispering, busying themselves by replacing the cold cloth that lay on their lord’s head every time it warmed.

The fever burned for what felt like hours, rising and falling like a tide. Several times, the lord stirred violently, muttering half-formed words, his hands clutching at invisible things. Each time you cooled his skin and spoke softly until he quieted. Eventually, the trembling eased. His breath slowed. Then, gradually, the tight lines of pain in his face began to soften.

One servant leaned closer. “He’s sleeping.”

You waited a beat to confirm. “Yes.”

“But… he hasn’t slept in two days.”

You leaned back slightly, though your eyes never left the patient. Sleep was a good sign.

Not a victory, but a beginning.

“You saved him.” The second servant looked at you as though seeing something extraordinary.

You shook your head gently. “No.”

“But he was dying.”

“Perhaps.”

The fire popped loudly, sending a shower of sparks up the chimney. Outside, the wind had begun to calm. You rose and moved back to the hearth, setting another bundle of herbs beside the pot.

Behind you, Lord Smallwood slept on; the servants watched him as if afraid he might vanish if they blinked. After a moment, one of them whispered, almost reverently, “A miracle.”

You stirred the simmering brew, the bitter scent filling the room again. “No,” you said quietly. “Only patience.”

You sat down on the low stool near the hearth and stretched your tired fingers toward the warmth of the flames. The long hours of tending had left your shoulders stiff and your eyes heavy. Outside, the forest had grown quiet. The wind whispered softly through the trees, rustling the branches like distant voices.

Sitting again, you started to clean your tools; any moment of peace was best used and not wasted. You cleaned them slowly, more out of habit than necessity.

The mortar still carried the faint scent of crushed willow bark—sharp and bitter beneath the softer sweetness of mint—and the smell lingered stubbornly in the stone no matter how often you rinsed it. Fine green dust clung to the inside of the stone bowl, caught in the tiny scratches carved by years of grinding.

You poured a little warm water into it and rubbed the inside with a cloth, turning the bowl carefully as you worked. The sound of stone against cloth was soft and steady, almost meditative.

Every movement was practised and measured.

The old woman had insisted on that.

Clean tools meant clean work. Clean work meant fewer mistakes. And in healing, mistakes could not always be undone.

When the mortar was smooth again, you wiped it dry and set it beside the window where the cool night air could reach it.

Your hands paused for a moment over the pouch at your belt.

The leather was worn soft from years of handling, the drawstring darkened where your fingers had tied and untied it countless times. When you loosened the cord and opened the pouch, the smell of dried plants rose at once—earthy, bitter, comforting in its familiarity.

Inside were small bundles wrapped carefully in scraps of cloth.

Lavender for calming sleep.

Sage for cleansing.

Bitterroot for stubborn fevers.

Thyme for the lungs.

Each bundle was tied with a thin thread and marked with small knots that the old woman had taught you to recognise even in the dark.

You checked them one by one. The habit was older than you could remember. Healing began long before the patient arrived. A healer who did not know what she carried in her pouch was no healer at all.

The memory came to you then, the way many scents did—quietly, without warning.

One moment, you were standing beside the narrow bed in the cottage, listening to the restless breathing of a fevered lord. The next, the faint smell of crushed thyme lingering on your fingers had carried your thoughts years backwards, to a morning deep in the forest.

You had been younger then—small enough that the dew-soaked grass reached nearly to your knees. Every step soaked the hem of your dress and chilled your ankles, but you had not minded.

The forest had always felt alive in the early hours, as though the world itself were waking slowly around you.

It had been quiet that morning.

Not silent—never truly silent—but filled with the soft, living sounds of a place that had not yet been disturbed by the day. Birds called somewhere high in the branches above, their voices echoing faintly between the tall pines. A breeze moved through the needles overhead, carrying with it the cool scent of damp earth and pine resin.

Several paces ahead, the old woman walked slowly along the trail.

Her back had already begun to bend with age, though she moved with a steady patience that never seemed to falter. She leaned heavily on her crooked walking stick, which had been carved from a twisted length of ash wood so old the grain had turned nearly silver with age. Her hair had been the colour of frost—long and thin, gathered loosely at the back of her neck with a faded strip of red cloth.

She noticed everything.

Every few steps, she would pause beside the path, not because she was tired but to crouch carefully beside some small plant growing half-hidden among the roots of the trees.

That morning, she stopped beside a patch of pale green leaves. “Come here,” she called without turning.

You hurried forward, nearly slipping on the wet stones beneath your feet.

When you reached her side, she gestured toward the plant growing low against the ground, brushing aside the surrounding grass so it could be seen clearly.

“Well?” she asked.

You crouched beside her.

The leaves were thin and slightly curled, their edges jagged like tiny teeth. Small white flowers had begun to bloom at the centre of the cluster.

You studied them carefully before answering. “Feverfew.”

The old woman nodded once. “And what does it do?”

“It cools the blood,” you said, recalling the lessons she had repeated countless times before. “It helps break fever and ease aching joints.”

She plucked a single leaf from the plant and held it up between her fingers, turning it slowly so the morning light caught the faint veins running through the surface.

“And what does it not do?”

You hesitated; the question had always struck you as strange. “It does not cure death,” you said at last.

A faint smile touched the corners of her mouth. “Good.”

She placed the leaf carefully into the woven basket hanging at her hip before straightening slowly with the help of her walking stick. For a few moments, she said nothing, simply continuing along the path as though the lesson had already ended.

You followed behind her.

After a while, she spoke again. “People will say many things about healing,” she said, her voice quiet beneath the whisper of the wind moving through the trees.

You had heard this lesson before.

“They will call you wise,” she continued. “Some will call you blessed.”

She glanced back over her shoulder. “And some will call you a witch.”

You frowned slightly. “Are you a witch?”

The old woman snorted softly at that. “If I were, do you think my knees would ache this much?” That made you laugh, which only made her smile.

She walked a few more steps before stopping again, this time beside a narrow stream that cut across the forest path. The water ran clear and cold over smooth stones, its quiet rushing sound filling the space between the trees.

She crouched beside the bank and dipped her fingers into the water. “Listen carefully,” she said.

You knelt beside her, watching intently.

“The body knows how to mend itself,” she said slowly, her walking stick tapped lightly against one of the stones beside the stream. “We only remind it how.”

You studied the moving water. “But what if it doesn’t?” you asked.

The old woman did not answer immediately.

For a long time, she simply watched the current moving past the stones, the expression on her lined face thoughtful.

At last, she turned her pale grey eyes toward you, “Then it was never ours to mend.”

You frowned again. “But that means people will still die.”

“Yes.”

The word came easily; there was no cruelty in it, only truth.

She pushed herself slowly back to her feet, leaning heavily on the stick once more. “That is the hardest lesson a healer must learn,” she said quietly. “You will help many people. More than you think possible.”

Her gaze softened slightly. “But you will not save them all.”

You walked beside her again as the forest path wound deeper between the trees. “How do you know when to stop trying?” you asked.

She smiled faintly at that.

“You do not.”

She tapped the walking stick against the path again as she walked. “You try,” she said. “And when the body chooses to fight, you help it.”

The wind stirred gently through the branches above.

“And when it doesn’t?” you asked.

The old woman did not look back this time. “Then you make certain the patient does not face the end alone.”

The memory faded slowly.

The crackling sound of the cottage hearth returned, along with the smell of simmering herbs and the soft breathing of the sleeping lord in the bed behind you.

The old woman had been gone three winters now, yet sometimes—especially on long nights spent beside the beds of the sick—you could still hear her voice as clearly as if she stood beside you.

Correcting the way you tied a bundle of sage. Reminding you to watch the patient, not just the sickness. Or scolding you gently when you forgot to eat.

The cottage where she had lived still stood at the edge of the forest, though you rarely returned except to gather herbs from the familiar hills. The roof sagged more each year without her careful hands to mend it, and the garden had begun creeping slowly back into wildness. Foxglove had overtaken the old herb beds, and the mint had spread across half the yard.

It had felt wrong to stay there without her; you kept expecting to find her around the corner or to wake with her humming softly as she cleaned herbs. So you had moved, not far but somewhere else, somewhere your own.

A faint smile touched your lips. She would have liked this cottage; it had good soil, plenty of water, and hills thick with wild herbs. The mornings carried a clear light she would have appreciated.

For a while, you simply sat and listened: to the quiet breathing of the sleeping lord, to the steady crackle of the fire, to the distant rustle of the forest beyond the walls.

Healing often required nothing more than waiting; your mentor had always insisted on that.

“Patience first,” she would say.

You reached for another cloth and began drying the mortar again, though it was already clean. Your hands needed something to do while the night stretched slowly onward. Somewhere far beyond the cottage walls, a dog barked once in the distance, the sound carried faintly through the trees before fading again into silence.

Dawn would come soon enough, you thought, and when it did, the villagers would begin to arrive; they always did.

Someone with a cough, a twisted ankle, or a child burning with fever. Illness did not rest simply because one patient had begun to recover.

You set the mortar back on it’s shelf and rose quietly.

Across the room, Lord Smallwood slept on. His breath was slow now, even. For tonight, at least, the body had chosen to fight.

And that, in the end, was all a healer could ever ask for.

Morning came slowly through the forest.

At first, it was only a faint paling of the darkness beyond the cottage windows, a thin grey light filtering between the tall pines that surrounded the clearing. Mist clung low to the ground, drifting lazily between the tree trunks like pale smoke.

Inside the cottage, the fire in the hearth had burned low.

A few stubborn embers still glowed beneath the ash, casting a faint reddish light across the wooden floor. The smell of last night’s herbs lingered heavily in the warm air, mingling with the faint scent of damp earth drifting in through the open window.

Lord Smallwood still slept.

You stood beside the bed, studying him carefully.

The fever had not vanished during the night, but it had weakened. The flushed heat had not left him entirely, but it no longer burned with the same savage intensity it had hours before. His breathing had deepened, each rise and fall of his chest slower than before. The harsh rasp of fever had softened into something steadier, though his skin still shone faintly with sweat in the glow of the fire.

A cloth rested across his brow, cool from the basin of water beside the bed. He seemed content at last, and you felt safe enough to leave him alone to rest.

The servants had withdrawn to the outer room after the lord finally settled, their anxious whispering fading into the soft murmur of the wind outside. Once or twice, you could hear the creak of the bench as one shifted or the faint clink of a cup, but they kept their distance now, unwilling to disturb the fragile peace that had settled.

You stepped outside the cottage quietly, pulling the door closed behind you so the hinges would not creak.

The morning air struck your skin with welcome coolness. Dew clung to the tall grass in the clearing, soaking the hem of your boots as you crossed to the wooden basin beside the door. It held water gathered from the nearby stream, it’s surface smooth and dark in the morning shade.

You plunged your hands into the cold water.

The chill bit instantly at your skin, sharp enough to make you suck in a breath. You scrubbed the faint stain of herbs from your fingers. The water stung where small nicks lined your knuckles—tiny cuts from knives, thorns, and bone needles gathered over years of work. You hardly notice them anymore.

Morning air filled your lungs as you straightened. It smelled of wet soil, pine sap, and the faint sweetness of crushed grass beneath your boots. After the thick herbal smoke and heat of the cottage, the forest air felt startlingly clean.

For a while, you simply stood there, letting the cool air wake the last heaviness from your bones. Your shoulders ached from hours spent leaning over the bed. The dull fatigue behind your eyes lingered stubbornly, but the forest had a way of easing it, as though the quiet itself could steady a weary mind.

Somewhere in the distance, a crow called harshly from the branches overhead. A breeze stirred the tall pines, sending a soft whisper of needles through the air.

Peaceful.

Familiar.

The sound of hurried footsteps broke the calm.

You looked up.

A boy from the nearby village came running across the clearing, his boots slipping slightly in the damp grass. His chest heaved with effort, and his hair stuck wildly to his forehead where sweat had gathered.

You had treated him during the last harvest when he had broken his arm falling from an apple tree. When he saw you watching, he waved both arms frantically. “Someone’s coming!”

You frowned slightly. “Who?”

The boy skidded to a halt beside the basin, bending over with his hands braced against his knees as he tried to catch his breath.

“A rider,” he managed between gasps. “From the road.”

Visitors were not uncommon; farmers sometimes arrived with injured animals. Villagers occasionally came seeking remedies for coughs or broken bones.

But riders were rare.

And they almost never arrived alone.

“Did he say what he wanted?” you asked.

The boy shook his head quickly, still breathing hard, his breath coming out in little white clouds. “He asked for the healer.”

You wiped your hands against the edge of your sleeve, the rough cloth absorbing the last of the cold water.

Before you could ask anything further, the sound of hooves reached the clearing. Slow at first, a distant, hollow rhythm echoing between the trees—Then louder, like thunder over a dark sky.

The boy turned toward the narrow path leading through the trees, his eyes widening with excitement. “He’s coming!”

A moment later, the rider emerged from the forest.

The horse stepped into the clearing first, its dark coat streaked with dust from the long road. Sweat darkened its flanks, and its breath steamed faintly in the cool morning air. Foam gathered along the edges of the bit where it worked its jaw restlessly.

The man astride the horse looked little better than the exhausted animal beneath him. Travel dust coated his cloak and boots, and the deep lines around his eyes spoke of many days spent riding without proper rest.

When he reached the clearing, he pulled the reins sharply, bringing the horse to a halt. The animal let out an indignant noise and pawed at the ground sharply, it’s tail flicking like a whip.

His eyes moved quickly across the cottage, the herb garden beside it, and the two of you standing in the grass.

Then he swung down from the saddle. His cloak shifted as he moved, revealing the dark doublet beneath. Even before he approached, you noticed the emblem fastened to his clothes.

Deep red on a field of black, a three-headed dragon.

The sigil of House Targaryen.

The boy beside you sucked in a quiet breath of awe.

The rider approached with careful, deliberate steps, his boots crunching softly against the gravel path. His gaze moved across the clearing, lingering briefly on the hanging herbs near the door, the drying racks beneath the eaves, and the open window where the scent of willow bark drifted faintly outward.

“Where is the woodswitch?” he asked, stepping forward, expression serious. His voice was formal, but you could tell he was tired.

You stepped forward. “Here.”

His gaze settled fully on you then, not rudely, but with the careful scrutiny of someone who had travelled a long distance in search of something very specific—and was quietly wondering whether he had truly found it.

“You are the one who treated Lord Harroway?” he asked.

“I treated him.”

“And he lives.”

“Until the gods decide it is his time, yes.” You regarded simply.

The rider’s brow creased faintly at the answer.

Then he reached into the leather pouch at his belt and withdrew a folded parchment sealed with deep red wax.

“The crown sends for you.” He held the letter out.

The wax seal bore the three-headed dragon clearly, the imprint sharp and unmistakable.

The boy beside you gasped.

You took the parchment slowly, feeling the thickness of the fine paper beneath your fingers. It was far finer than anything used in the villages.

You broke the seal hesitantly, trying not to show the slight tremble in your fingers. The parchment inside was smooth and heavy, the ink dark and precise.

You read the message slowly.

To the healer reputed to have cured Lord Harroway,

Word of your skill has reached the Red Keep. The royal family is afflicted by the spring sickness, and the maesters have not yet halted its spread.

I ask that you come to King’s Landing with all possible haste.

Prince Valarr Targaryen.

The forest seemed suddenly very quiet, like nature had held its breath along with you. Even the crow that liked to squawk in the early hours of the morning had fallen silent.

Beside you, the boy stared up with wide eyes. “What does it say? What does it say?”

You had almost forgotten he was standing beside you, but the small tug he gave your sleeve made you jolt in surprise. You gave him a small sideways glance— then your gaze shifted to the rider who was regarding the boy sharply.

Then you read the letter again.

Spring sickness.

The words carried a weight you knew too well. You had seen it before, or well, a similar affliction, it had broken out during the late autumn when all the trees turned orange.

Years ago, in a river village where the houses stood too close together, and the wells ran shallow in summer. The sickness had begun with a single fever.

By the time anyone understood what it was, half the village had taken ill.

Children first.

Then the old.

Then anyone who dared tend the sick without care.

It had spread like fire through dry brush. When the fevers finally broke, the burial mounds outside the village had doubled.

The ache of many sleepless nights assisting the old woman, treating people, crawled back violently as if it had never ceased; the feeling made you shudder. That was when you had doubted your ability to be a healer; you had cried after losing so many people you had poured all your efforts into saving.

If the old woman had not been there to pick you up, you surely would not have survived the ordeal yourself.

You folded the letter carefully, the smooth parchment sliding between your fingers easily.

“How long has it been in the city?” you asked. While you had heard of some cases of sickness in more populated areas, it had not yet leaked into the countryside, where you preferred to spend your time.

The rider shook his head, a grim expression settling over his face. “Several weeks.”

“And the maesters cannot stop it?”

“No.” He hesitated before adding quietly, “Many have already died.”

The boy’s excitement faded at once, and his gaze dropped toward the ground. Whatever he thought might happen, it was clear it was not this; to talk of such grief in front of a child… it was not savoury. The itch to send him away grew, but before you could say anything, the rider spoke.

“You are requested at once.” his tone was firm, as though he feared you might refuse.

You looked past him toward the road disappearing between the trees. King’s Landing lay many days south—farther than you had ever travelled, farther than the old woodswitch had ever allowed you to go.

Treating farmers and minor lords was one thing, but treating the royal family was something else entirely. What if they did not improve? Would they have your head for it? The thought made you shudder.

The boy tugged your sleeve again. “You have to go,” he insisted. “If anyone can help them, it’s you!”

You almost laughed.

People always said such things after someone survived an illness, as though healing were certain, as though herbs and patience could command life itself.

Your gaze drifted toward the cottage behind you.

Your gaze drifted toward the cottage behind you. Inside, Lord Smallwood still slept. If the fever returned stronger tonight, he might yet die despite everything you had done.

Healing was never promised, only attempted.

The rider waited patiently.

At last, you asked, “Why me?”

The rider blinked once, clearly surprised by the question.

“Your name was recommended,” he replied after a moment.

“By whom?”

“By those who claim you have saved lives others could not.” The words carried more belief than you were comfortable with.

You studied the letter once more, mind spinning.

Prince Valarr Targaryen.

A man you had never met. A prince you had never even seen. Yet somehow he had heard your name in a distant village and believed it worth sending a rider across half the realm.

The wind stirred gently through the clearing, and for a moment, you imagined the old woodswitch standing beside you again, leaning on her crooked stick.

“A healer listens. If someone is ill, you go. Even when you know you might fail.”

You let out a long breath, emptying your lungs completely before lifting your gaze back to the rider. For a moment, you said nothing, weighing the words of the letter against the quiet life you had built here, against the forest and the patients who came to your door each morning. When you finally spoke, your voice was calm, though the decision behind it felt heavier than you expected. “All right,” you said. “I will come.”

Relief spread across the rider’s face so quickly he made no effort to hide it. Beside you, the boy stared in open amazement before breaking into a grin so wide it seemed to light his whole face. “You’re really going?” he blurted. “To the Red Keep?” The excitement in his voice made the journey sound like some grand adventure rather than a desperate summons from a prince.

You turned back toward the cottage, already thinking through what would be needed. “If I’m to travel that far, I’ll need time to prepare,” you said, brushing the dampness from your hands onto your sleeve. “There are medicines to gather, and I’ll have to make certain the villagers are looked after while I’m gone. Illness doesn’t wait simply because its healer has ridden south.”

“That won’t be a problem,” the rider replied quickly, stepping forward as though eager to remove every possible obstacle. “If you need help making arrangements, I can see to it.”

You nodded absently, though your attention had drifted back toward the clearing. Pausing at the doorway, you glanced once more at the forest stretching beyond the small patch of open ground. It looked exactly as it always had—quiet and unchanged beneath the pale morning light. The tall pines swayed gently in the wind, their shadows moving slowly across the grass, and the familiar scent of damp earth and sap hung in the air.

It was peaceful here.

Familiar.

Safe.

For a moment, it was difficult to believe that somewhere beyond those endless trees a city was choking on sickness, and that a prince you had never met believed you might be able to save the people he loved.

You pushed the cottage door open and stepped inside, already reaching for the worn leather pouch that held your herbs. “Give me an hour,” you said over your shoulder, your voice carrying out into the clearing where the rider and the boy still waited. Then, more quietly, almost as if speaking the thought aloud made it real, you added, “Once I’m ready… we ride.”

The mule moved at a steady, tireless pace along the winding road.

When the farmer had first pressed the reins into your hands years ago—insisting you take the animal as payment for healing his wife—you had expected something slower. The mule had looked ordinary enough then: broad-backed, thick-necked, with a stubborn tilt to her ears that suggested she might refuse to move whenever it suited her. But she had proven stronger than she appeared. Sure-footed on uneven ground and patient with long distances, she walked with a quiet determination that rarely faltered once she had set her mind to the road.

“She carried sacks heavier than you through half my fields,” the farmer had said proudly, patting the mule’s neck as though the animal understood every word. “She’ll see you where you’re going.”

Now, as the road wound south through the low hills, you found yourself grateful for the gift. The mule’s hooves struck the packed earth in a steady rhythm, unhurried but relentless, her ears flicking now and then as the wind stirred the tall grasses along the roadside.

Beside you, the royal rider kept an easy seat on his horse. The animal beneath him was leaner and finer-boned, bred for speed rather than endurance, but the rider had slowed his pace without complaint to match the mule’s steady gait. Dust clung to both horse and rider from the miles already behind them, dulling the shine of leather and cloak alike.

The countryside had begun to change as you travelled.

The tall pine forests surrounding your home had gradually thinned, giving way to open hills and wide fields where golden grass rippled beneath the wind like the surface of a quiet sea. Small farms dotted the valleys below, their roofs pale against the dark soil of half-harvested fields.

Ordinarily, the road between villages would have been busy this time of year. Farmers would be hauling grain in creaking carts, neighbours walking between fields to trade news or tools, children running along the roadside until called back by impatient parents.

Today, the road was strangely quiet.

You noticed the silence first when the path carried you past a small cluster of cottages beside a narrow stream. The fields nearby lay untouched, though the harvest should have been well underway. No one worked among the rows of grain, and the doors of several houses stood closed despite the mild warmth of the morning.

A thin column of smoke curled upward from a shallow iron pan set in the middle of one yard.

The smell reached you as you rode past.

Vinegar.

You slowed the mule instinctively, studying the cottages more carefully now. One house had a cloth draped loosely across its doorway. Another had its shutters nailed shut from the outside, the boards hammered crookedly across the window frame.

From somewhere inside the cluster of buildings came the faint, ragged sound of coughing.

Your hand tightened slightly on the reins.

“We should stop,” you said quietly.

The rider glanced toward the cottages without turning his head fully, his expression unreadable beneath the shadow of his hood. The mule had nearly slowed to a halt when the rider spoke again, his voice cutting cleanly through the quiet morning air. “No.”

You looked at him. “If the sickness has reached this village already—”

“We ride.” He shook his head once, the gesture small but final.

Your gaze drifted back toward the cottages. Something moved behind one of the shuttered windows—a faint shape shifting in the dimness beyond the glass. For a moment, you thought you saw a hand press weakly against the pane.

“I could at least look,” you said. “It would only take a few minutes.”

The rider guided his horse slightly sideways, placing the animal squarely across the road ahead of the mule. The movement was calm, deliberate, leaving no space for you to pass.

His voice, when he spoke again, was not harsh. But there was a firmness to it that suggested he was accustomed to being obeyed. “The prince sent for you.”

“And they’re dying.”

“They are already dead.”

The words struck harder than you expected.

“You don’t know that,” you said, staring at him.

His gaze met yours steadily. “I know the sickness.”

The wind shifted across the road then, carrying the sour smell of vinegar and illness from the silent cottages behind you. Somewhere above the fields, a crow cried sharply, its voice echoing across the empty hills.

The rider spoke again, more quietly now. “If we stop at every village that coughs along this road, we will never reach King’s Landing.”

You did not answer.

Your eyes lingered on the cottages, on the shuttered windows and silent yards. The coughing had stopped, or perhaps the wind had simply carried the sound away.

Either way, the village looked still now. Too still.

You knew what the rider meant. You had seen sickness move like this before—swift and merciless, leaving little behind but empty beds and grieving families. Often, by the time a healer arrived, there was little left to do but comfort the living.

And you had been summoned somewhere far worse.

Slowly, you loosened your grip on the reins.

The rider let out a breath you had not realised he had been holding and nudged his horse forward again. The mule followed without hesitation, stepping back into her steady rhythm as though she had never intended to stop.

The cottages disappeared behind you as the road curved southward through the hills.

For a long while, neither of you spoke.

The mule’s hooves beat a quiet rhythm against the earth while the pale sky stretched wide above the empty countryside. The wind moved softly through the tall grass, whispering across the fields like distant water.

Far ahead, beyond the rolling hills and winding rivers, waited King’s Landing.

And somewhere within its crowded walls, a prince believed you might still save someone.

You had never seen King’s Landing before. But even as the city came into view from the road, you knew it could not look the way it did now.

Every traveller you had ever met who had passed through the capital described the same things: crowds thick as river reeds, shouting merchants, markets overflowing into the streets, carts rattling past one another in endless noise and motion. A city too large to ever truly fall quiet.

But the place spread beneath you now felt wrong even from a distance.

The towers of the Red Keep still rose high above the hills, catching the dull grey light of the afternoon. Ships clustered in the river below, their masts packed tightly together like a forest of bare trees.

Yet the roads leading toward the gates carried far more people leaving than arriving.

Families walked north with bundles tied to their backs. A farmer urged two thin oxen along a cart piled with sacks and blankets. A pair of septons moved barefoot along the roadside, heads bowed in prayer as they passed travellers without looking up.

All of them moving away.

You reached the city gates near midday.

Long before the walls themselves came fully into view, you could smell the city.

The wind carried it across the road in heavy waves—coal smoke, cooking fires, animal waste, and the sour odour of too many people crowded too tightly together. Beneath it all lingered another scent, sharper and more unsettling.

Sickness.

You had smelled it before in villages struck by fever.

It clung to the air in the same way smoke did, invisible yet unmistakable once you learned to recognise it.

The road climbed steadily toward the massive walls of King’s Landing. Their red-streaked stone towers loomed higher with every step the mule took, casting long shadows over the crowded approach to the gate.

Dozens of people waited there: Merchants with loaded wagons, travellers carrying bundles of belongings, a handful of farmers leading livestock.

Yet the mood was not the bustling impatience you might have expected from the capital of the Seven Kingdoms.

Most of the faces you saw looked tired, worried.

A man near the front of the line doubled over suddenly, coughing into his sleeve with such force that the sound echoed harshly against the stone walls. Those standing closest to him stepped away quickly.

The rider moved past them with a practised calm, using his horse to force them to move from his path. The guards at the gate wore golden armour that glinted in the setting afternoon sun.

One stepped forward, raising a hand. “State your business.”

The rider lifted a small token bearing the dragon crest. “Royal summons.”

The guard studied the seal briefly before nodding and waving two others closer. “Escort them through,” he instructed gruffly.

Two guards on horseback appeared, one carried a long spear, the other rested a hand on the hilt of his sword as he gestured toward the street beyond the gate. “This way.”

The moment you crossed beneath the stone archway, the sound struck you like a wave.

Voices, shouting, carts rattling over uneven cobblestones and the distant clang of hammer on metal somewhere deeper within the city.

King’s Landing was enormous.

Buildings crowded so tightly together that the streets between them seemed carved from stone and shadow. Wooden balconies leaned precariously overhead, their supports creaking beneath the weight of years.

The road beyond the gate stretched wide between rows of tall buildings, but half the shutters had been nailed closed. Others hung open like broken teeth. A market square lay just beyond the gate—but the stalls stood abandoned, their canvas awnings sagging where no one had taken them down.

Someone coughed nearby—deep, ragged, uncontrollable. The sound echoed hollowly through the narrow street. In an alley, a septon knelt beside a man lying against the wall, whispering prayers as the man trembled beneath a thin blanket.

You watched a woman stagger from a doorway, clutching a cloth to her mouth as she leaned heavily against the wall. Her skin looked pale beneath the grime of the street, and sweat darkened the loose strands of hair clinging to her temples.

No one stopped to help her.

The rider guided his horse closer to your mule. “It wasn’t like this a month ago,” he said quietly.

You believed him.

Illness had a way of changing places quickly.

The Gold Cloaks led the way through the winding streets, pushing aside the few pedestrians who wandered too close.

“Make way!” Out of the road!” they barked harshly.

People stepped aside reluctantly and ducked their gazes while you passed, some stared openly though, and you worked to keep from meeting anyone’s desperate eyes, nausea welling inside you.

You could see the signs everywhere now.

At the edge of the empty market square, a cart rolled slowly across the stones. Two men pushed it together, swatting at the flies that buzzed around them like a thick cloud. A rough blanket covered the long shapes piled inside; the cloth shifted as the cart lurched over a rut.

A pale hand slipped briefly into view before one of the men hurried to pull the blanket back down.

You looked away.

Farther along, a doorway had been marked with a crude smear of white chalk.

A warning. Sick inside, do not enter.

You tightened your grip on the mule’s reins.

One of the Gold Cloaks muttered under his breath. “Seven save us.”

The rider beside you said nothing, only kept his gaze forward, expression unreadable.

The smoke thickened again as you passed a small square where several makeshift bonfires burned brightly, fueled by flesh instead of kindling.

“Nowhere to bury ‘em,” one of the Gold Cloaks said when he noticed you watching.

Behind you, another cart rattled slowly over the stones, heading toward the square with the fires. You did not turn to look this time, afraid of what or who you may see it carrying.

Even without ever having seen the city before, you could feel it. A place this large should have been chaotic with energy. Instead, the streets felt strained.

As if the entire population were holding its breath.

The road began to climb again as you approached the hill where the Red Keep stood.

The castle rose high above the city, its massive red walls glowing faintly in the late afternoon sun. From below, it looked less like a home and more like a fortress watching over the sprawling chaos beneath it. The closer you came, the quieter the streets became. The poorest districts gave way to wider roads lined with sturdier stone buildings. Fewer people lingered outside.

More guards appeared.

The mule’s hooves rang loudly against the cobblestones as you crossed the final bridge leading toward the castle gates.

Then the buildings parted dramatically, dropping away to nothing.

The Red Keep stood before you.

You had heard the name all your life—spoken with awe by travellers who had glimpsed it from the harbour or the city below.

But hearing of it was not the same as seeing it.

The fortress rose in layers of deep red stone, vast and uneven, its towers climbing into the dimming sky like jagged teeth. The walls were higher than anything you had ever seen, their surfaces worn smooth in places by centuries of wind from the sea. Banners bearing the three-headed dragon hung from the battlements. Even in the fading light, the scarlet dragons seemed to coil and twist as the cloth stirred slowly in the evening breeze.

The gates were large and heavily guarded.

Armoured men stood on either side of the entrance beneath the towering archway, their polished breastplates catching the last pale light of the sinking sun. Spears rested upright in their hands, and their eyes followed every movement in the yard beyond.

Unlike the guards at the city gate, these men did not wear cloth across their faces. Perhaps the sickness had not reached the castle, or perhaps they believed the stone walls protected them.

One of the guards stepped forward as your small group approached. “State your business.”

The rider lifted the dragon-marked token once more. “Royal summons. The healer requested by Prince Valarr.”

The guard stepped aside, with a small bow of his head. “Go on.”

The gates of the Red Keep swallowed you. Inside, the courtyard opened wide beneath the darkening sky.

For a moment, you forgot the sickness in the city below.

The yard bustled with movement. Stable boys hurried across the packed earth, leading restless horses toward the stables. A group of servants crossed the courtyard carrying heavy baskets between them. Somewhere near the far wall, a hammer struck metal in sharp, ringing blows. The noise felt strange after the hollow streets outside. Yet even here something felt… strained. The movements were too quick. Voices were too quiet. No one lingered to talk. Everyone seemed to be hurrying somewhere.

Your mule slowed uncertainly as you rode into the yard, ears flicking at the unfamiliar sounds.

Two servants passed carrying armfuls of fresh linens stacked so high you could barely see their faces. Another man hurried past with a wooden crate filled with glass bottles that clinked softly together as he walked. A pair of maesters crossed the courtyard near the far tower, their grey robes billowing slightly in the wind. One of them spoke quickly to the other, gesturing with a scroll clutched in his hand.

You caught the faint smell of herbs drifting across the yard.

Sage, Mint, something sharper you did not recognise.

The rider dismounted beside you at last. “Come.”

A stable boy hurried forward to take the horses. He reached for the mule’s reins cautiously, eyeing the sturdy animal with open curiosity.

You slid down easily from the saddle. After hours on the road, the ground felt strangely unsteady beneath your feet. But you could not afford to dally and quickly pulled the saddle bags from your mule, herbs you had brought from home poked out of them.

The rider handed the boy the reins without ceremony. “See, they’re watered.”

“Yes, ser.” The boy nodded quickly and led both animals away, casting another glance back at the mule as though surprised anyone had ridden such a creature into the Red Keep.

You followed the rider toward a broad doorway set into the castle wall. The doors stood open, revealing a dim stone corridor beyond.

The moment you stepped inside, the air changed.

Cooler, still.

Your footsteps echoed faintly along the floor.

Torches burned in iron brackets along the walls, their flames flickering gently in the draft from the open doorway behind you. The light threw shifting shadows across the vaulted ceiling above.

Servants passed through the corridor now and then, most of them carrying trays, cloths, or small bundles of herbs.

One girl hurried past with an armful of lavender tied in thick bunches. The scent followed her down the hall. Another servant carried a basin of steaming water that smelled faintly of vinegar. You glanced at it instinctively, following her form as she hurried away.

The rider continued without slowing, guiding you deeper into the keep. The corridors twisted and branched in confusing directions, passing beneath narrow archways and along staircases that climbed steeply toward unseen towers. The stone walls seemed to close in around you the further you went.

You realised quickly that you would never find your way through this place alone.

At one turning, a pair of maesters stood arguing quietly beside a table stacked with glass jars. “…the fever worsens after the second day,” one of them said.

“And the coughing?” the other replied, but they fell silent as you passed, watching you with harsh gazes.

The rider did not pause, striding with determination.

The castle felt larger the deeper you went. Passageways branched into more passageways. Stairwells spiralled upward or vanished downward into shadow. The air carried the scent of herbs everywhere now: mint, Rosemary, Something bitter, something spicy.

At last, the rider slowed before a tall wooden door set between two narrow windows. Two guards stood there, instead of the black and red of House Targaryen, they wore pearly white armour that almost glowed against their surroundings; they were members of the Kingsguard.

They straightened as you approached, and you felt small under their gaze; you could practically feel the sweep they did of you, assessing for danger, perhaps even signs of illness.

The rider muttered something to one of them, and he nodded, gesturing to the door briefly. The raider didnt hesitate and knocked once. It rang out against the thick wood, echoing around the corridor they stood in.

A voice came from within that made your skin prickle with anxiety. The king's guard didnt just guard any old rooms for fun, only when a royal lay inside. With a click, the rider pushed the massive door open and stepped inside curtly.

“The healer, your grace”, he announced with a bow.

part ii.

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Baelor Targaryen says no to you like it's the simplest thing in the world. Not coldly, he's never cold about it. He just says it the same way he says most things, quietly and without any indication that he expects it to go differently, and then he waits for you to finish responding to it with the patience of a man who has genuinely nowhere else to be.

In the beginning you didn't believe he meant it. You'd assumed, reasonably enough, that his nos were like anyone else's nos, a starting position rather than a final answer. You'd tried waiting him out. You'd tried rephrasing. You'd tried the look, the one that had worked on your father without fail since you were old enough to know you had it, where you look up through your lashes and say nothing and let the silence do the work.

Baelor had looked back at you with those mismatched eyes of his and said, "No, my love," and that had been that.

It took you most of the first year to truly believe he meant it every time. A few months after that to stop trying anyway, mostly because the habit was so deeply set you did it without thinking. You still try sometimes. It's less about winning now and more about the shape of the thing, the back and forth of it, and somewhere along the way you'd stopped minding as much as you thought you would–because Baelor's nos always come with something else. He listens. He takes you seriously. And then he finds another way, always, and he delivers on it, and there is something in that you hadn't been expecting and have never quite gotten over.

This particular morning you’d found him in his solar after breakfast, sitting at his writing table with the focused stillness of a man who had a great deal to do and intended to do all of it. He looked up when you came in, giving you a small smile. 

“I want a thing,” you say, because the preamble with Baelor is pointless. He sees through it before you’ve finished building it. 

“Of course you do,” he says, and sets his quill down.

You come and sit on the edge of his writing table, which he allows from you and nobody else, and he looks up at you with a patient expression, knowing something is coming.

“There’s a market in the lower city today,” 

“Is there?”

“A travelling one. From the Reach.” You fold your hands in your lap. “One of the kitchen girls said they’ve brought silks.”

"Mm," he says, which is not a yes but is not yet a no either, and you take it as encouragement.

"I want to go."

He sets his quill down. "Alone."

"With a guard."

"One guard is not a proper escort."

"Two guards, then."

"No."

"Baelor, it's a silk market—"

"Two guards is still no." He says it the same way he always does, no particular weight on it, just the word sitting there. "You're not going into the lower city today."

"Other women go into the lower city all the time."

"Other women aren't you."

"That isn't a reason."

"It's my reason," he says, with the perfect untroubled calm that you find both deeply reassuring and deeply maddening depending entirely on the day. "When the market comes through the city again I'll take you myself."

You kiss your teeth, rolling your eyes. "You say that every time."

"I took you to a market three months ago."

"That was three months ago." You look at him. He looks back at you. This is the part where your father would start to soften — you could always see it happening, the way his shoulders would drop a little, the way he'd look away first and when he looked back his face would have changed. Baelor doesn't soften. He just sits there. "The silks will be gone by the time you find a free afternoon," you say.

"Then I'll send someone down to buy them for you."

"It isn't the same."

"No," he agrees, pleasantly. "It isn't."

You make a sound that's somewhere between a sigh and a groan and slide off the table. He watches you with what you're fairly certain is amusement, though he keeps it mostly off his face. "Fine," you say.

"Thank you," he says, and picks his quill back up.

You stop at the door. "You'll actually send someone today. Not next week."

"Today," he says. "Tell me what you're looking for."

So you tell him. In considerable detail. The colour, a specific dark green, not just any dark green, the weight of the fabric, roughly how much you'll need. He listens to all of it without looking like he finds it tedious, writes something down, and nods. You go back to your morning.

The silk arrives before supper. It's exactly right. You don't tell him it's exactly right–he'd only be unbearably calm about it,  but it is.

The puppet show had been the talk of the keep for nearly a week.

It had started with the kitchen girls, then spread to the stable boys, then somehow made its way up through the household until even some of the younger knights had mentioned it in passing, the way people mentioned things they assumed you already knew about and could simply go and see if you wanted. A travelling group from Lys, apparently, setting up in the square just beyond the main gate every evening after dark. Elaborate puppets, someone said. A full retelling of the Tragedy of Florian and Jonquil, with music.

You had mentioned it to Baelor on the second day, at supper.

"There's a puppet company in the square," you'd said.

"Mm," he'd said, reading something.

"From Lys. They're doing Florian and Jonquil every evening after dark." You'd reached for your wine. "I'd like to go."

He'd looked up then. "Outside the gate."

"Just to the square."

"At night."

"It's just beyond the gate, Baelor, it isn't—"

"No," he'd said, and looked back down at whatever he was reading, and that had been the end of it. You'd sat across the table from him and finished your supper in silence and felt the frustration of it sit in your chest like a stone.

That had been four days ago.

That had been four days ago. The group was leaving at the end of the week.

You'd thought about it every day since.

The thing was, you weren't asking for anything unreasonable. It was a puppet show. It was just beyond the gate. Half the keep had already been, freely, without anyone telling them they couldn't, and you had sat inside the walls every single evening watching the candles burn down and listening to people talk about it the next morning and thought about how unbearably unfair it was to be the only person in all of King's Landing who wasn't allowed to simply go and see a thing.

Baelor was in council meetings all day. He was always in council meetings all day. You'd had breakfast alone, which you did most mornings, and then sat with your embroidery for two hours, which you did most mornings, and then walked the same stretch of garden you always walked, and then sat in your chambers and stared at the ceiling for a while, and then it was supper and Baelor came back tired and preoccupied and you had an hour together before he fell asleep.

That was most days. That was nearly every day. Yes he always did make time for you, but you always thought it was merely never enough time.

You'd put on a plain dark cloak, the one with the deep hood that you used in winter, and told yourself you'd be back before the last bell.

The square was everything everyone had said it was.

The puppets were extraordinary, large and intricate, moved by six puppeteers in dark clothing who seemed to disappear into the shadows behind them so that the figures appeared to move on their own. The music was live, a lutist and a woman with a small drum, and the crowd was thick and warm and pressed in close around the low stage, and you'd stood at the edge of it with your hood up and felt, for the first time in what felt like a very long time, like a person who was simply somewhere, watching something, with nobody expecting anything from her.

Florian was wonderful. Jonquil made you cry a little, which you would deny if anyone asked.

You were back at the keep gate before the last bell, which felt like a technicality worth holding onto. Your cheeks were cold and your slippers were damp from the cobblestones and you were in a better mood than you'd been in all week, and you were very nearly back to your chambers with your plan of a hot bath and immediate sleep fully intact when one of the younger serving girls appeared in the corridor looking deeply uncomfortable.

"My lady," she said, not quite meeting your eyes. "His Grace has asked for you in his study."

You stopped walking.

"Has he," you said.

"Yes, my lady." She was very pointedly not looking at the cloak or the damp slippers or your windswept hair. "He said–he said as soon as you returned."

As soon as you returned.

You stood in the corridor for a moment and thought about the very small possibility that this was about something else entirely and knew, with the deep certainty of someone who had been married long enough to know things, that it was not about something else entirely.

"Thank you," you said, and turned around.

His study was lit when you got there, many candles flickering in the room, and Baelor was standing with his back to the door looking out the window when you came in. He didn't turn around immediately. You came to a stop just inside the doorway and waited, which was not something you were naturally good at, and the silence sat there between you and stretched.

"Close the door," he said.

You closed it.

He turned then. His expression was not the one you were used to, the patient one, the one that waited you out with perfect equanimity. This was something else. His jaw was set. His eyes were very steady and very still in a way that made something small and cold settle in the pit of your stomach, because in all the time you'd been married you had never quite seen this particular version of his face before.

"Where have you been," he said.

"I went for a walk," you said, which was technically true in the way that most things you said were technically true.

Baelor looked at you.

"Outside the keep," you amended.

"To the square," he said.

You said nothing.

"Three separate people have told me they saw a woman in a dark cloak in the crowd tonight who looked very much like my wife," he said. "Would you like to tell me they were mistaken."

You looked at him. He looked back at you with that still face and those serious eyes and you thought very briefly about saying yes, they were mistaken, and decided against it because Baelor always knew and lying would only make it worse.

"No," you said. "They weren't mistaken."

He was quiet for a moment. "You walked out of the keep alone," he said, slowly, like he was making sure you understood each word. "At night. Into a crowd of strangers. Without telling anyone where you were going."

"I had my cloak."

"You had your cloak," he repeated, as if it were the stupidest thing he has ever heard.

"Nobody knew it was me."

"Three people knew it was you."

"Three people thought it might be me," you said, "which is different—"

"It is not different." His voice was still low but there was something in it now that you had not heard before, something tight underneath the surface of it. "Do you understand what could have happened? Do you understand—" He stopped. Pressed his lips together. Looked away for a moment and then back at you. "You are the Princess of Dragonstone. You walked into a crowd of strangers at night, alone, and you didn't tell a single soul where you were going."

"I was back before the last bell," you said, which came out smaller than you intended.

"That is not the point."

"I know," you said, even smaller.

He looked at you for a long moment. You looked back at him and felt your eyes go wet, which you hadn't been expecting, the sting of it catching you off guard, and you blinked hard because you weren't going to cry about this, it was a puppet show, you were not going to stand here and cry about a puppet show.

"It was Florian and Jonquil," you said. Your voice came out very quiet. "Everyone in the keep has seen it except me and I just — I only wanted to see it. That's all. It was just a puppet show."

Baelor was still looking at you. The tight thing in his jaw hadn't entirely gone.

"I know that I'm not supposed to go outside without an escort," you say. "I know that. I've always known that. But Baelor—" You stop, and the words that come out next are not the ones you'd planned on saying, are not really about the puppet show at all. "You're in council from morning until supper every single day. I have breakfast alone and I sit with my embroidery alone and I walk the garden alone and then supper comes and I have an hour with you before you're asleep, and that's–that's every day. That is every day." Your voice is doing the thing again, tightening somewhere in the middle. "I'm not asking you to change everything. I know you have duties. I know the kingdom doesn't stop because your wife is bored. But I've asked you for things, small things, just to have somewhere to go or something to see, and the answer is always no, and I understand why, I do, but sometimes I just–" You stop. Press the back of your hand against your mouth for a second. "I just needed to go somewhere."

The study is very quiet.

Baelor looks at you for a long moment. Something has shifted in his expression, the tight thing in his jaw less rigid than it was a moment ago, and he crosses the room and stops in front of you and looks at your face in that way of his, reading all of it.

He's quiet for a moment, the anger in his face settling into something heavier. Then he reaches out and takes your face in his hands, tilts it up toward him. Your eyes are very wet and you're fairly certain at least one tear has escaped, which is embarrassing for reasons you can't entirely articulate. His thumb moves across your cheek.

"I didn't know," he says. "That it was like that for you."

"I didn't say," you admit.

"No," he says. "You didn't." He's quiet for a moment, his eyes on yours. "I'm not going to pretend I'm not angry about tonight. I am. What you did was dangerous and foolish and you know that."

"I know," you say.

"But I hear you," he says. "The rest of it. I hear it."

You look at him and feel the thing in your chest that had been tight since the corridor loosen, just slightly, not all the way, but enough. "Are you very angry," you say.

"Yes," he says, plainly.

"How angry."

He looks at you for a moment. His thumb is still against your cheek but his eyes are serious, no warmth in them yet, not the usual kind. "You had no reason to do what you did tonight," he says. "I understand that you're lonely. I hear that. But when I say no it is not a suggestion and it is not a starting point and you do not get to decide that it doesn't apply to you because you want something badly enough." His voice is low and even. "That is not how this works."

You look at him and say nothing.

"Go and have your bath," he says. He drops his hands from your face and steps back and the warmth of them goes with him. "We'll speak in the morning."

You nod and go.

In the morning he is up before you, which he always is, but he doesn't talk to you the way he usually does. He answers when you speak to him. He isn't cruel about it. But the easy back and forth of it, the morning stories, the complaints about Daeron, the small warm ordinary thing that is your favourite part of the day–none of that comes, and you sit across from him at breakfast and feel the absence of it like a bruise.

You don't push. For once in your life you don't push.

You take your embroidery to the garden instead and sit with it and say nothing and wait for it to pass.

You're in the garden some days later with some embroidery you're not making much progress on when one of the serving girls finds you, a letter in hand.

You see your father's seal before you take it. The rose of Rowan, pressed with the same signet ring he's worn your entire life. You break it and read it.

It's short. Much shorter than his letters usually are. His handwriting is shakier than you remember, the lines uneven in a way they never usually are, and you read it once and then read it again because the first time doesn't seem possible.

He's ill. He's been ill for some time, he says– in that careful way that means longer than some time but he's chosen not to say so. The maester is doing what he can. He wants to see you, if it can be arranged.

If it can be arranged.

Your father, who had rearranged the entire world on a regular basis to make sure you had whatever you wanted, is asking if it can be arranged.

You sit in the garden for a long time without moving. The sun moves. The letter stays in your hands. The embroidery sits forgotten beside you.

When you finally go inside you go straight to Baelor's solar. He's at the window with a cup of wine, a small frown creasing his brow, and he turns when the door opens. Whatever he sees in your face makes him set the cup down immediately.

"What's happened?"

You hold the letter out. He crosses the room and takes it from your hand and reads it, and you watch his face the whole time. The way his eyes move down the page slowly. The way his jaw tightens. The way a stillness settles over him, the particular controlled kind that means he's keeping something off his face on purpose.

He looks up and meets your eyes and you already know what he's going to say.

"I need to go to Goldengrove," you say.

"I know."

"Then I can go."

"No."

It lands differently than it ever has before. Every other no had been the silk, the market, the puppet show–small things, things you'd pushed back on out of habit more than anything. This is not that. This is your father's shaky handwriting on a short letter asking if it can be arranged, and Baelor is standing there saying no and looking at you like he's braced for what comes next.

"Baelor." Your voice is low and tight.

"No, my love."

"He is ill." You take a step toward him. "He is asking for me. Do you understand that? He has never in his life asked me to come home, not once, and he is asking now, and you are standing there–"

"I understand."

"Then act like it." Your voice cracks on the last word and you push past it. "He could be dying. He could be dying and you're telling me no like it's the same as everything else, like this is the silk market, like this is–"

"It isn't the same."

"Then why is the answer still no?" You're in front of him now, close, your eyes burning. "Give me a reason. A real one. Not the roads, not the timing, not whatever careful thing you're about to say–give me something real or get out of my way."

Something flickers across his face. His jaw is tight and his eyes are steady and he says, quietly, "The roads are not—"

"I don't care." The words come out before you've decided on them and you mean every one. "I don't care about the roads. Send fifty men with me, send a hundred, come yourself if you have to, I don't give a damn how it's arranged–but you do not get to tell me no on this." Your voice is rising and your hands have curled into fists at your sides and you're aware distantly that this is not how a woman of court is meant to speak to her husband and you cannot bring yourself to care about that either. "This isn't a silk market. This isn't a puppet show outside the gate. This is my father."

Baelor looks at you for a long moment. He doesn't flinch at the volume of it, doesn't step back, just stands there and takes it with that infuriating stillness of his, and the muscle in his jaw works once.

"I know," he says. His voice is very quiet. "I know what it is."

"Then tell me why." Your eyes are filling now and you hate it, hate standing here crying when you're trying to be furious, but you can't stop it and you're not going to look away. "Because I have trusted you every time. Every single time you've said no I have found a way to accept it because I trust you and I love you and I know you don't do things without reason. But you have to give me something, Baelor. You have to give me something to hold onto right now or I swear to you I will walk out of this keep tonight and you will not stop me."

A beat of silence.

Baelor's eyes move over your face. He's reading you the way he always reads you, carefully and completely, and whatever he finds there makes something shift in his expression. The tight set of it loosens, just slightly. He exhales through his nose.

"Sit down," he says.

"I don't want to sit down."

"Please." The word comes out differently than his usual pleases, less patient, more like it costs him something. "Sit down and let me tell you."

You look at him. Your chest is heaving and your eyes are wet and you're still furious but there's something in his face now that wasn't there before, something heavy and careful, and it makes you go still.

You sit.

He pulls a chair across and sits facing you, close, his elbows on his knees, and is quiet for a moment like he's deciding where to begin.

"Your father has debts," he says. "Significant ones. He has been carrying them for years, managing them carefully, and then about eighteen months ago he stopped being able to manage them."

You look at him. "What does that mean?"

"It means he borrowed from men who are not patient about repayment." He holds your gaze. "When the payments slowed, they started taking an interest in Goldengrove itself."

Something cold moves through you. "What kind of interest?"

"The kind that comes with threats." His voice is even, giving you the facts without wrapping them in anything softer. "Specific ones. Against the estate, against your brothers." A pause. "I became aware of it some months ago. I have had men watching the roads to Goldengrove since. That is why I cannot send you there alone–not because of the roads themselves, but because of who is on them."

The room is very quiet.

"Months ago," you say slowly.

"Yes."

"You've known for months."

"Yes."

You stare at him. "And you didn't tell me."

"Your father asked me not to." He says it plainly, without apology, but his eyes don't leave yours. "He came to me himself. He asked me to handle it quietly and to keep it from you. He didn't want you to know he was in difficulty." A beat. "He was very clear about that."

You open your mouth and close it again.

"I should have told you regardless," Baelor says. "That is on me. But I want you to understand that he asked me not to, and I thought I was honouring that." His jaw tightens slightly. "I was wrong to keep it from you this long."

You sit there and let it all settle into shape. The cheerful letters. The shaky handwriting on this one. Your father at the door when you left, holding on a beat too long.

"He's been carrying all of this," you say quietly. "This whole time."

"Yes."

"Alone."

"He had me," Baelor says. "For what that's worth."

You look at him and feel something complicated move through your chest that isn't quite anger anymore and isn't quite grief and sits somewhere between the two.

"The debts," you say. "Are they–can they be–"

"They're already being settled." He says it without any weight on it, like it's already done, which it nearly is. "Within the fortnight Goldengrove will be safe. The men watching the roads will be gone." His eyes are steady on yours. "And then I will take you there myself."

You look at your hands in your lap.

The room is very quiet when he finishes.

You look at your hands in your lap. You think about your father's letters, the cheerful ones, the ones about the estate and your brothers and whatever small ordinary thing had happened at Goldengrove that week. You think about the shaky handwriting on the letter in your hands. You think about how long he must have been carrying all of it alone, smiling in ink across the distance, not wanting you to worry.

"He didn't want me to know," you say. Your voice comes out very small.

"No." Baelor's mouth presses together briefly. "He didn't want you to worry."

You look up at him. "Is he dying?"

"I don't know." He holds your gaze and doesn't look away from it. "I think he's more ill than the letter says. I think he wanted to see you and didn't know how to ask for it plainly." A pause. "The debts are already being settled. Within the fortnight Goldengrove will be safe. When it is, I will take you there myself and we will stay as long as you need to stay."

"The fortnight," you say.

"The fortnight." He holds your gaze. "I give you my word."

You look at him for a long time. This man with the grey in his beard and the careful eyes and the particular way he says I give you my word, like it is the most serious thing a person can say.

"I'm angry at you," you say quietly. "For not telling me sooner."

"I know."

"And at him."

"That's fair."

"I'm angrier at you."

"Also fair," he says, without moving.

You look away, at the wall, at your hands. Your eyes are still wet and the anger has gone somewhere quieter now, turned into something heavier that sits low in your chest and doesn't have a clean name.

"I said I would walk out tonight," you say. "I meant it."

"I know you did."

"I still might."

"I know that too." He reaches out and covers your hands with one of his, warm and unhurried. "But you won't."

You look down at his hand over yours. "You're very sure of yourself."

"I'm sure of you," he says simply.

You sit there with his hand over yours in the quiet of the solar and feel the last of the fight go out of you, not cleanly, not all at once, but slowly, like something that had been held at full stretch finally being allowed to rest.

"The fortnight," you say again, more quietly.

"The fortnight," he says. "I promise."

You lean forward and press your face into his shoulder and his arms come around you and he holds you there, and you cry properly, the slow exhausted kind, and he says nothing and lets you.

You believe him. You always believe him eventually, even when you'd rather not, even when it would feel better not to. He has never once said something he didn't mean.

Ashford Meadow looked different when something had gone wrong and everyone was pretending it hadn’t. The tents were still bright in the morning light, banners still snapping in the wind, cooks still shouting at boys to stop stealing bread, but the mood under it all had shifted into something tighter. People spoke a little lower. Laughter didn’t carry as far. You could feel the way news had moved through the camp like smoke, curling into every corner and leaving a scent behind even when no one named it out loud. A prince had bled in a pavilion. A prince had been restrained by white cloaks. A ribbon had been tied to a lance and the whole meadow had watched a dragon decide she would not be silent.

You sat with your ladies beneath the shade of your family’s smaller awning, the one Maekar preferred because it kept you out of the central flow of gawking lords. It was not a prison, but it had bars made of duty and your father’s iron insistence on safety. The ground beneath the rugs was still hard, and the air still smelled of grass that had been trampled too many times. A servant brought watered wine and little pastries dusted with sugar that tasted faintly of ash from nearby cookfires. Your ladies tried to entertain you with small talk, with gossip about which knights had fallen and which ladies had cried prettily about it, but their voices kept snagging on the same thread: Aegon and Daeron had not yet come.

By morning, the absence had turned from casual delay into something that made the adults’ faces tighten. By noon, Maekar had stopped pretending patience was an option and had begun gathering men with the clipped efficiency of someone preparing for trouble. You hadn’t been allowed close enough to hear the full arguments, but you’d caught fragments. Aegon and Daeron were late. No one had seen them on the road. Someone swore they’d ridden toward the woods. Someone else muttered about bandits. A knight said perhaps they’d found a tavern and forgotten the time. Maekar’s expression had suggested he would rather face a dozen bandits than one more excuse.

He rode out not long after, armored but not dressed for spectacle, taking a small force with him as if he refused to gamble with the lives of two sons, even if one of them was an inconvenience and the other was a question mark. You’d watched from the edge of the pavilion as he mounted, jaw set, and for a moment you’d felt a sting of something almost childish in your chest. Maekar could be cruel in his discipline, harsh in his expectations, but there was no doubt in him when it came to action. He would ride into a storm for his children. He just didn’t always know how to soften his hands after.

Aerion had not ridden with him.

Aerion had been left behind.

That, more than anything, told you how little your father trusted him when things turned real.

You had only heard about the pavilion fight two nights ago in the way women always heard about men’s violence: through careful whispers that tried to make it less ugly than it was. A lady’s maid had said Aerion was “unwell” and had been “put to bed.” One of your ladies had heard from a squire that Valarr’s cheek was bruised and Aerion’s mouth had bled. Another had said the Kingsguard had stepped in. No one would say why. No one would say what was spoken. The details were treated like something indecent, even though it had happened in a royal pavilion and half the realm’s nobility was already licking their lips to repeat it.

You hadn’t asked, not in the open. Asking invited answers that could be twisted. You had only listened, stored it away, and watched the camp for signs of who moved differently afterward.

Ser Donnel moved differently.

He had been assigned to you the morning after, not announced as an assignment because Maekar did not announce protections like they were gifts. Ser Donnel simply appeared more often at the edge of your space, close enough to be noticed by anyone with bad intentions, far enough not to suffocate you. He was just a knight sworn to your family, older, weathered, with the kind of eyes that had seen enough to understand that danger didn’t always come with swords. He did not smile much. He did not speak unless needed. When he did, it was in plain, blunt statements that made your ladies go quiet.

And Aerion… Aerion had stayed away, at least physically. You could still feel him, though. You could feel the way his absence was not peace but pause, like the moment a snake coils before it strikes.

You were thinking about that when your ladies’ voices faltered and you sensed the shift at the edge of the awning.

Valarr approached without ceremony, dressed simply, no armor, no bright prince’s costume. The bruise on his cheek was still there, a dull shadow against his skin, not grotesque but unmistakable. He looked tired in a controlled way, as if he hadn’t slept much and had forced himself into steadiness anyway. He did not smile when he reached you. His expression was serious, almost careful, like he was entering a room that mattered.

Your ladies rose, immediately, too quickly. They had been trained for this sort of moment. Also, they were curious and didn’t want to be the ones caught lingering when princes wanted privacy.

“My prince,” one of them murmured, dipping into a courtesy.

Valarr nodded politely. “Ladies.”

You didn’t stand. Not because you were disrespectful, but because you refused to leap up every time a man arrived, even a man you didn’t mind. You held his gaze instead, letting him see you as you were: awake, contained, watching.

He glanced once toward Ser Donnel at the edge of the space. Donnel did not move, did not bow, only watched. Valarr looked back to your ladies. “Could we have a moment?” He asked, and it was phrased as a request, but it carried the quiet authority of someone who rarely had to repeat himself.

Your ladies didn’t hesitate. They curtsied again and withdrew, skirts whispering as they retreated toward the main pavilion with the eager speed of women who wanted to gossip later. Within seconds, the awning felt larger and emptier, the air around you suddenly too present.

Valarr remained standing for a beat, as if deciding how to begin without making it worse. Then he stepped closer, stopping at a respectful distance. Close enough that you could speak softly. Not close enough to claim space.

“You look…” he started, then stopped. He seemed to decide against whatever polite word he’d been about to use. “You look like you haven’t relaxed since you arrived here.”

You almost laughed, but it would have come out harsh. “Do people relax around our family?”

His mouth twitched, quick. “Fair.”

You studied the bruise on his cheek, the faint cut at the corner of his mouth that had healed but still marked him. “You were hurt.”

“It’s nothing,” he said automatically.

“You say that like you think it makes it true,” you replied.

Valarr’s gaze held yours. “It isn’t nothing,” he admitted. “But it’s not what matters.”

You leaned back slightly against the cushion behind you, the movement deliberate. “Then why are you here?”

He hesitated, and in that hesitation you saw something you hadn’t expected: nerves. Not fear. Not uncertainty about what he wanted. Nerves about how you would receive it. It made him more human. It also made your chest tighten in a way you did not like, because softness could become a weapon in someone else’s hands. You did not want to associate softness with safety. You had learned that too young.

Valarr spoke carefully. “Your father rode out this morning.”

“Yes.”

“Aegon and Daeron still haven’t returned.”

“No,” you said, and your voice stayed flat even though worry lived under it like a heartbeat. “They’re late.”

Valarr’s eyes narrowed slightly, reading you. “You’re worried.”

“I’m not blind,” you replied.

He nodded once, then shifted, as if turning away from the topic because it wasn’t his to dissect. “I heard you weren’t at the pavilion two nights ago.”

You didn’t answer immediately. You watched him, watched how his fingers flexed once at his side, then went still. He looked like a man who had replayed a moment too many times.

“No,” you said finally. “My father sent me to bed.”

Valarr’s jaw tightened. “Good.”

That surprised you. “Good?”

He met your eyes. “You didn’t need to see it,” he said, and there was something hard under his calm. “You’ve seen enough of Aerion’s… performances.”

There it was, the name spoken like a bitter taste.

You kept your expression smooth. “People talk,” you said.

Valarr’s gaze sharpened. “What have you heard?”

You considered lying. It would have been easy. But Valarr had asked for your favor in public. He had put himself into your life loudly. Now he was here, alone with you, asking quietly. That deserved honesty, at least the kind that didn’t expose you.

“I heard you struck him,” you said. “I heard the Kingsguard separated you. I heard Aerion bled.”

Valarr’s mouth tightened, and the shame in him flickered again, quick and contained. “Yes.”

“Why,” you asked, and you kept it simple, because you didn’t want him to hide behind noble excuses. “What did he say?”

Valarr’s eyes held yours. For a heartbeat you thought he might refuse, might decide it was too ugly to repeat. Then he spoke, voice low. “He spoke about you like you were his,” he said. “Like you were owed to him. Like your fear was entertaining.” His jaw flexed. “He wanted me to react. I did.”

You didn’t move. You didn’t let your face show anything. Inside, something twisted, familiar and cold. Aerion didn’t need to be present to make you feel watched. He lived in the spaces he had carved.

Valarr took a breath. “That’s not why I came,” he said, as if he could sense where your mind wanted to go and didn’t want you trapped in it.

“Then why?” You asked again, softer this time.

Valarr looked at you like he’d decided there was no point circling it. “Because I need to know if he’s come near you since,” he said.

The question landed heavier than anything else he’d said. Not because it was dramatic, but because it was practical. It acknowledged what you lived with. It acknowledged that Aerion did not stop just because someone told him to. It acknowledged that your safety was not an assumption.

You held Valarr’s gaze for a moment, then glanced toward Ser Donnel at the edge of the awning. Donnel’s face was unreadable, but you saw how his stance angled slightly, like a man listening without appearing to listen.

“If he tried,” you said, voice even, “Ser Donnel probably warned him off.”

Valarr’s eyes narrowed. “Probably?”

You shrugged, small. “Aerion hasn’t spoken to me directly since the lists. Not close. Not where he can’t pretend it’s accidental.” You paused, then added, because truth deserved more than half answers, “But I’ve felt him. Watching. Waiting. He enjoys making people anticipate him.”

Valarr’s mouth tightened. “He won’t be able to enjoy that much longer.”

You looked at him abruptly. “What does that mean?”

Valarr hesitated, and you felt the shape of something large behind his restraint. Something already decided by men in tents while you slept. Your pulse thudded once, hard, because you knew what it felt like to be discussed like strategy.

He didn’t answer the question directly. Instead he asked, quietly, “Do you want him gone?”

The bluntness shocked you for a moment. Not because the desire was strange. Because hearing it offered in words felt like someone had opened a door you’d been told was locked.

“I want him to stop,” you said, and you hated that it sounded like compromise. “I want him to forget me.”

Valarr’s gaze softened, just a little. “He won’t,” he said simply. “Not on his own.”

Your throat tightened, and for a heartbeat you wanted to tell him to leave, because it was easier to be alone with your own defenses than to let someone name your reality out loud. But Valarr didn’t look like he was here to pity you. He looked like he was here to stand in something with you.

You kept your voice steady. “Why are you really here?”

Valarr exhaled slowly. “Because I asked for your favor,” he said. “And I meant it. And because I don’t want to be the kind of man who makes a public gesture and then disappears when it becomes inconvenient.” He paused, then added, quieter, “And because I wanted to see you without a crowd watching us.”

That made heat creep into your face, irritating and unwelcome. You’d been watched your entire life. Being seen privately felt almost indecent.

“You have a bruise because of me,” you said, not accusing, just stating.

Valarr shook his head. “No. I have a bruise because of Aerion.”

“And because you chose to react.”

“Yes,” he admitted. “And I regret the way I did it. Not the reason.”

You studied him. The bruise. The restraint. The way he didn’t posture. He could have come here grinning like a victor, convinced your favor entitled him to your attention. He hadn’t. He’d come careful, like he was aware you could say no and he would have to live with it.

“What do you want from me?” You asked, and you kept it plain.

Valarr’s gaze held yours, steady enough to be a promise if you let it. “I want you to know you have a choice,” he said. “Not just in public. Here. Now. With me.”

Your mouth tightened. “Choice is expensive in our house.”

“I know,” he replied. “But you still have it.”

Silence stretched between you. The camp noises drifted in: a horse snorting, a distant shout, the clink of metal. Ser Donnel remained at the edge, a quiet statue, giving you privacy without abandoning you.

Valarr stepped closer by a careful fraction, slow enough that you could stop him simply by shifting away. You didn’t shift. You didn’t move at all. You watched him like you were trying to decide if you could trust a man who had just admitted he’d lost control.

His voice dropped. “May I sit?”

You nodded once.

He sat on the edge of the cushion opposite you, not relaxed, posture still upright, like he didn’t want to take too much space. His hands rested on his knees, bare, not reaching.

“You’ve been looking at my face,” he said quietly.

“It’s hard not to,” you replied.

Valarr’s mouth twitched faintly. “Does it bother you?”

“It reminds me that Aerion can still make other people bleed,” you said, and then you added, because honesty was less dangerous than pretending, “And it reminds me someone hit him back.”

Valarr’s gaze focused on you, and for a moment the controlled prince looked like a man who wanted to say something fierce. Instead he said, softer, “I don’t want you to need that.”

You laughed once, short and dry. “I’ve needed it for years.”

Valarr’s eyes didn’t leave yours. “Not forever.”

The words were simple. They were also bold enough that your breath caught. You didn’t know if it was hope or irritation or something worse.

“You’re speaking like you can change things,” you said.

Valarr’s voice was steady. “I’m speaking like I intend to try.”

You stared at him for a moment, then asked the question you hadn’t wanted to ask because you didn’t want the answer to make your life real. “Did my father speak to you?”

Valarr didn’t pretend. “Yes.”

Your stomach tightened. “About what?”

Valarr held your gaze. “About you,” he said. “About Aerion. About what has been done. About what must stop.” He swallowed once. “And about… a future.”

You felt the air shift, as if the world had stepped closer. “A future,” you repeated.

Valarr nodded. “I don’t want to spring it on you,” he said quickly, and there was that carefulness again, like he was determined not to become another man making choices over your head. “I came first because I wanted to speak to you as you. Not as an arrangement.”

You didn’t answer, because your mind had started stacking possibilities like stones. Betrothal. Marriage. Protection that came with a new cage. Aerion’s rage. Your father’s strictness. Baelor’s calm. Valarr’s bruised cheek and steady eyes.

“What do you want?” You asked again, but this time your voice was quieter.

Valarr leaned forward slightly, not enough to invade, just enough to make it intimate. “I want you to look at me,” he said, and his tone made it sound like more than a request. Like an invitation.

You were already looking at him.

He lifted a hand slowly, palm open, giving you all the time in the world to pull away. His fingers brushed a loose strand of your hair near your temple, gentle, almost tentative. It wasn’t possessive. It didn’t feel like Aerion. It felt like someone touching you as if you were a person and not a claim.

Your breath hitched, irritatingly. You hated that your body reacted when your mind wanted to be careful.

Valarr’s voice was low. “May I?”

You should have asked what he meant. You should have made him say it plainly. But you knew. And you were tired of always making men work for permission while they still took what they wanted anyway.

So you nodded.

Valarr’s hand slid from your hair to your cheek, thumb resting lightly just below your cheekbone, warm against your skin. He leaned in slowly. You didn’t move away. You didn’t freeze either. You met him halfway, because if you were going to choose anything, you wanted it to be your movement and not someone else’s push.

His mouth brushed yours, careful at first, like he was testing the idea rather than taking it. Then the kiss deepened, not rough, not urgent, but real, the kind that made the rest of the camp sound distant. You tasted faint wine and morning air, and something steadier beneath it, something like intention. His hand stayed at your cheek, not gripping, not demanding, just holding you there as if you mattered.

For a moment you forgot banners and pavilions and missing brothers and Aerion’s waiting eyes.

Then you kissed him back, and the world narrowed to that simple, dangerous fact.

You were the one who broke the kiss first, not because you wanted to, but because breathing had become necessary again and the world had begun to press back in around you. The meadow was still there beyond the awning. Horses snorted somewhere nearby. A group of squires shouted over a dropped shield. Life had continued while you had forgotten it for a moment.

Valarr did not pull away quickly when the kiss ended. His forehead rested lightly against yours, his hand still warm against your cheek, his thumb barely moving along your skin as if confirming that you were real and not something imagined in the chaos of the last days.

When you finally leaned back, the space between you felt charged in a way that had nothing to do with scandal and everything to do with choice.

You looked toward the edge of the awning where Ser Donnel still stood.

He had not moved. He had not looked directly at the two of you either, but there was no doubt he knew what had just happened. A man like Donnel noticed everything.

“Ser Donnel,” you said quietly.

He stepped closer immediately, respectful but alert.

“Yes, princess?”

You held his gaze for a moment. He was loyal to your father before anyone else, but he had also watched Aerion circle you for years with a knight’s helpless frustration. You had seen the anger in him when he thought you had not noticed.

“I would like a moment,” you said.

Donnel’s eyes flicked briefly toward Valarr, then back to you. He measured the request with the careful seriousness of a man deciding whether he was allowing something dangerous or protecting something necessary.

Valarr said nothing. He did not assert rank. He did not speak over you.

That mattered.

Donnel exhaled once through his nose.

“As you wish, princess,” he said.

He stepped away from the awning, not far, but far enough that voices lowered inside would not reach him. His presence still existed at the edge of your awareness, a barrier against the rest of the camp. But the space beneath the awning now belonged to you.

Silence settled between you and Valarr again.

It was different this time.

He looked at you with a mixture of restraint and something deeper that had been building since the moment he had tied your ribbon to his lance. Not hunger exactly. Not possession. Something steadier.

Something chosen.

“You did not have to send him away,” Valarr said softly.

“I know,” you replied.

You watched his face as you spoke next.

“I wanted to.”

That answer changed something in his eyes.

The careful distance he had been holding like a shield eased slightly.

“You’re certain?” He asked quietly.

“Yes.”

The word came without hesitation.

Valarr studied you for a moment longer. Not as a prince assessing a princess. Not as a man claiming a woman because the world expected it.

He was looking for doubt.

You held his gaze without flinching.

Finally he nodded.

His voice lowered, gentle in a way that contrasted with the bruise still darkening his cheek.

“Then come here.”

You did not rush toward him.

You shifted closer slowly, aware of your heartbeat, aware of the way the air beneath the awning had grown warmer. Your skirts rustled softly as you moved across the cushions.

When you reached him, Valarr lifted his hand again, the same slow motion he had used before, offering contact rather than taking it.

His fingers brushed your hair away from your face.

“You are shaking,” he said quietly.

You huffed a faint breath. “I am not.”

“You are,” he replied, though there was no mockery in his voice.

You were. Only slightly. Not from fear.

From the weight of what you were choosing.

Valarr’s hand slid down to rest along the side of your neck, warm and steady.

“You can stop at any moment,” he said.

“I know.”

“I mean it.”

“I know,” you repeated.

Your hand lifted almost without thought and settled against his chest. His tunic was simple cloth, not armor, and beneath it you could feel the steady rhythm of his heart.

He was not calm either.

That realization steadied you in an unexpected way.

“You look like you are about to ride into battle,” you murmured.

Valarr’s mouth curved slightly.

“That might be easier.”

You leaned forward again and kissed him.

This time there was no hesitation.

His hand slid to the back of your head, fingers threading through your hair as he returned the kiss with a deeper certainty. The careful prince who had asked permission did not disappear. He simply allowed himself to meet you fully now that the answer had been given.

Your other hand moved to his shoulder, gripping lightly as the kiss deepened.

It was slower than the stories ladies whispered about. Slower than the hurried embraces that happened behind pavilions and taverns when people thought no one was watching.

Valarr kissed you like he intended to remember it.

Your breath warmed against his mouth. His thumb traced your jaw, then the line of your throat, a touch that was reverent rather than claiming.

When he finally drew back, it was only far enough to look at you.

“Tell me if I do something you do not like,” he said.

“You won’t.”

He raised an eyebrow faintly.

“You sound very certain.”

You reached up and brushed your fingers lightly along the bruise on his cheek.

“You fought Aerion for speaking about me like I was an object,” you said. “I do not think you are about to treat me like one.”

Valarr’s expression softened.

He leaned forward and kissed your forehead.

The gesture was unexpectedly tender.

Then his hands slid to your waist, slow, giving you time to move away if you wanted. You did not.

He lifted you easily and shifted you onto the thicker cushion beneath the awning, settling beside you rather than over you at first.

“You have too many layers,” he murmured.

“You are the one who asked for quiet propriety,” you replied.

“That was before you sent the knight away.”

You laughed softly.

The sound felt strange in your chest. Light.