#dragonslass

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

With little grace, that was when you saw him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You extended a hand. “Come dance.”

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

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

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

“So what?” 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He did neither.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For a moment, neither of you spoke.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You hummed. “Funny that. So was I.”

He looked at you sharply. “You?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It became a rhythm.

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

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

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

He came with his father.

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

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

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

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

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

To you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Valarr had gone because he thought you would be there.

And you were.

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

He could have watched you forever.

Until he saw the lord.

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

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

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

The word cracked through the music like a whip.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your humiliation flared into something incandescent.

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

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

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

“My prince—”

“Now.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

The sentence landed like a blow.

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

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

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

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

“Then why did you treat me like one?”

The question hung between you.

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

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

“I stopped him.”

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

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

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

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

“Then what was it? Hm?”

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

“You nearly kissed him.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

The silence that followed was immediate and devastating.

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

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

You did not follow.

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

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

You had not even been meant to hear it.

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

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

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

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

Valarr Targaryen.

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

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

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

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

You had never been accustomed to competition.

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

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

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

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

Proximity to him, your mind supplied unhelpfully.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You had absolutely no right to it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It disarmed you at once.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You blinked. “Not at all?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Where would he be?

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

“Lady Baratheon?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

You did not yet understand what she meant.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Still—throughout it all—your attention betrayed you.

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

And yet you had not seen him.

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

Still, imagination was a traitor.

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

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

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

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

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

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

And she said nothing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You could not help but admire it all openly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Can it not?” she countered gently.

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

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

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

“Cousin!”

And your world tilted when you looked up.

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

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

Only then did his gaze shift and find you.

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

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

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

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

None of it survived the reality.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You curled your fingers more tightly around your teacup.

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

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

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

“It does.”

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

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

“—is already expected,” Valarr interjected smoothly.

You faltered.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

At last, Valarr rose.

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

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

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

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

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

He inclined his head. “Lady Baratheon.”

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

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

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

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

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

You glanced at her, surprised by the candor.

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

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

But the truth pressed close all the same.

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

A stranger.

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

And yet—even as it hurt—you knew.

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

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

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

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

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

But you did.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So you began there, engineering coincidence.

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

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

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

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

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

All right, then. 

Subtlety, you decided, was overrated.

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

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

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

So you waited.

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

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

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

And Valarr caught you.

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes,” he said shortly. “You should.”

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

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

Not indifference. Not absence. Reaction.

And that was dangerous.

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

You would get him back.

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

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

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

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

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

You did not often ask the princess.

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

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

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

Always.

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

It felt… intimate, remembering that.

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

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

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

You entered as though summoned by chance.

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

Your heart tripped.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dismissed.

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

Another day, another attempt.

You tried conversation next—safe, neutral ground.

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

“No,” he replied without looking up.

You smiled anyway. “Straightforward as ever.”

Silence.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So next came games.

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

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

So you built one.

It was, in hindsight, unhinged.

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

Where dragons once bowed and lions pretended not to notice.

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

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

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

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

You even enlisted the princess.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It was you.

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

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

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

Silence.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“That is precisely the problem.”

The words struck harder than any dismissal before them.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He could not.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You learned her name late. Too late.

Kiera.

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

That stung more than jealousy ever could.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You did not return it.

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

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

You blinked—just once—before smiling.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“As do I, my lady.”

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

And guilt settled into you like a stone.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No matter how much it cost you.

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

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

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

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

And so beauty there was.

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

And the princess herself—

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

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

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

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

“It is appropriate.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They left cheerfully enough.

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

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

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

“Is that what we are calling it?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

You hesitated.

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

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

Or—

Because you loved him.

The thought rose unbidden, unwelcome, undeniable.

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

You swallowed.

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

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

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

Love.

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

You had never been.

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

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

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

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

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

It had always seemed… excessive.

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

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

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

It meant it was something that could break.

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

“You have been quiet for far too long.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The doors swung wide.

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

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

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

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

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

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

A heartbeat later, Prince Maekar stood.

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

They moved together to their seats amid renewed applause. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A murmur of approval rippled outward.

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

Polite laughter followed that, warm and approving.

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

He turned slightly then, smile deepening.

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

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

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

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

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

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

You swallowed the lump rising in your throat.

Alliances are not chains.

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

You forced the thought down and smoothed your expression.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And then there was Valarr.

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

To you.

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

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

The emotional whiplash left you dizzy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That was when you saw Valarr lean toward Prince Daeron.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nothing, you insisted.

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

Then Valarr laughed.

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

Your breath caught.

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

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

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

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

Your fingers tightened around your cup. You barely noticed.

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

Valarr’s hand lifted.

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

Something inside you gave way.

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

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

But you could not stay.

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

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

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

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

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

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

You had stopped there without knowing why.

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

From then on, it became something uniquely yours.

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

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

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

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

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

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

You loved him.

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

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

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

Then, you feel a presence shifted behind you.

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

You flinched.

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

The hand withdrew at once.

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

“I do not know what you mean.”

You turned then, finally, to face him.

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

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

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

“I needed air.”

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

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

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

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

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

“I was,” he said quietly.

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

“That is not fair.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Valarr inhaled sharply at that. “You—”

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

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

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

Silence stretched between you, heavy and electric.

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

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

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

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

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

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

And he was saying nothing.

The silence began to rot inside you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You stiffened but did not turn.

“I was never going to marry Kiera.”

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

You turned slowly.

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

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

You stared at him.

Oh.

Oh.

“W-What?”

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

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

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

The realization landed with quiet, devastating clarity.

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

It had been him.

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

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

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

You closed your mouth.

He stepped closer.

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

He stopped himself, jaw clenching.

“To a man who what?” you whispered.

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

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

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

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

Your breath caught sharply.

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

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

The ache in his voice deepened.

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

You stared at him.

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

The honesty stripped him bare.

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

You flinched.

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

“It wasn’t,” you breathed.

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

His chest rose and fell unevenly.

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

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

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

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

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

Your breath hitched.

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

His voice shook.

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

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

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

The confession settled between you, thick and trembling.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You loved him. 

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

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

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

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

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

“And you are unbearably certain of yourself.”

“Only about you.”

That did it.

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

The kiss was not tentative. It was an impact.

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

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

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

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

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

You had been kissed before. You were not naive.

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

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

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

“You taste like sweetwine,” he murmured softly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The words did not tremble this time. They settled.

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

“Marry me.”

Your eyes widened slightly. “Valarr—”

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

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

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

“Yes.”

“You realize that is terribly improper.”

“I find I no longer care.”

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

“And if I say yes?” you asked softly.

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

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

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

“I adore your sharp tongue—” A kiss.

“—And my pride—”

“—I admire it—” Another.

“—And my tendency toward dramatics.”

“—I expect it.” And another.

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

“Yes,” you said.

The word felt like stepping forward instead of circling endlessly.

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

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

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

Only alignment.

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

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

The Keep had not been quiet about it.

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

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

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

The composure lasted all of three seconds.

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

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

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

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

Prince Baelor had reacted with less subtlety. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Valarr, unfortunately, did not share that philosophy.

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

Valarr noticed, because of course he did.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“It is humiliating.”

“It is romantic,” he corrected softly.

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

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

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

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

But you were still Baratheon.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your breath caught just slightly at that.

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

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

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