#ootvh

By the next night, Aeleanora had stopped pretending the bed was innocent. It had become a collaborator with carved posts, criminal linens, and a canopy that hung above her like a witness too wealthy to bribe. She lay on her side beneath a dark coverlet, one knee drawn high enough to look languid and low enough to avoid starting a civil war between her thighs. Her body had spent the day making its grievances known, the worst of them low, deep, and tender where ambition had been happiest the night before. 

She had answered with a black silk robe, her hair loose over one shoulder, and a book she had no intention of surviving. The book was dreadful in an entirely new way, which was almost refreshing. It was a travel account by some Reachman who believed every hill deserved three pages and every river possessed a moral character. After enduring a paragraph upon moss with the courage of a woman facing torture by herb lore, she turned another page unread and listened beyond the bedchamber. The hidden panel opened, closed with a low click, and gave way to the faint drag of damp wool being unfastened. Then came Baelor’s steps across the solar, measured despite the hour.

He came through the bedchamber arch with sea air still clinging to him, his dark cloak over one arm and his black doublet fastened high at the throat. One cuff had been turned back imperfectly, showing the pale inside of his wrist, as if he had washed ink from his hands in haste and then abandoned the task halfway through. The line between his brows spoke of petitions, harbour tolls, lesser men with large opinions, and perhaps a raven or two that deserved to be plucked. He took in the book, the hair arranged over one shoulder, and the coverlet drawn with studied care across her hips. One corner of his mouth twitched before he mastered it, regarding her like a man who had found the trap and meant to admire the craftsmanship before disarming it.

“Did the Gardeners truly hold the Reach by blood right,” she asked, “or did they master the Mander, dress conquest in flowers, and call it inheritance?”

Baelor glanced at the book before returning to her, and the crease between his brows eased by the breadth of a thought. He crossed to the chair near the bed and laid his cloak across the back of it. “The Mander first. Blood right made it prettier afterward.”

“Of course it did.” She shut the book and set it beside her thigh. “Men discover a river, tax it, marry the nearest myth, and spend the next thousand years calling themselves chosen.”

He unfastened one cuff clasp and placed it on the small table by the chair. Aeleanora’s spine loosened as black wool gave way to wrist. It was humiliating, how much she liked the Hand unmade piece by piece. Cloak, cuff clasp, public severity, each removed thing leaving less office and more man.

Baelor’s thumb paused against the second clasp. The hesitation was slight enough to escape a kinder woman. He glanced from her face to the book beside her thigh. Amusement stirred near his mouth, then vanished as though he had caught it by the scruff before it could embarrass him. “You came armed with river politics.”

“I came armed with boredom. River politics was the first weapon at hand.”

“A poor weapon against moss.”

“Moss is tyranny in miniature.” She pushed herself higher against the pillows, intending to make the movement look idle, all black silk and loose hair and a woman allowing the evening to approach on its knees. Pain caught low beneath the robe, bright enough to close her mouth upon the sound and drive her fingers into the coverlet. Unfortunately, Baelor had built a life of noticing kingdoms before they admitted they were falling.

He set the second clasp beside the first without glancing at the table. The pinched coverlet drew his attention before the sound she had swallowed did. His fingers remained upon the silver clasp a moment after releasing it, and the weariness he had carried into the room vanished beneath a far more personal vigilance.

Aeleanora smiled with enormous patience. “Do not mourn. I expect the moss survives.”

“Sit back,” he said.

“Before you have removed both cuffs? What a barren command.”

His mouth settled into the courteous severity that made unwelcome judgements sound almost civil. “Aeleanora.”

“No. Do not speak my name as though you meant to pass judgement with it. I have done nothing except improve the room by sitting up.”

“You winced.” His attention caught upon the sound she had swallowed and the pulse at her throat.

“I decided against the expression.”

“You’re clutching the coverlet.” He glanced down, and she followed his gaze to find the fabric pinched tight beneath her hand.

“It was wrinkled.”

“It is more wrinkled now.” He crossed the short distance to the bed without haste, the black of him cutting across the firelight while his undone cuff hung loose at one wrist. He stopped near enough for her to smell cold sea-stone beneath wool and ink. “Lie back.”

Aeleanora looked up at him through her lashes. “I dislike being ordered by half-undressed men. It confuses the household gods.”

“Your household gods have endured worse.” His eyes flicked once to the bedposts and returned to her with enough dryness to salt meat.

“Brave little things.” 

She moved to rise despite him. She kept her spine straight by vanity and spite. Baelor’s hand closed around her wrist before her fingers could find the bedpost. He caught her, checked his grip, and laid his thumb over her pulse.

“No,” he said.

For half a second, the word struck bare. No. Small, iron, and wholly unexpected. Something quick and famished inside her took it for rejection before sense came running after with a torch.

Her face changed first. Sweetness arrived like a courtesan with a dagger in her sleeve, all lowered lashes and a mouth arranged for ruin. “I was only coming nearer,” she said. “Must even nearness be forbidden now?”

Baelor looked at her mouth. Good. Let him suffer there a moment. His lower lids tightened, and his thumb pressed once over her pulse. “You are hurt.”

“I am inconvenienced.”

“You are calling one by the other’s name.” Again he looked at her mouth, as though she were hiding more than pain there.

“An accusation from a man who watches mouths too closely.”

“I was looking at your face.”

“How intimate of you.” She leaned forward before he could answer, one hand rising to the front of his doublet, her fingers closing in the severe wool with enough command to satisfy rank and enough urgency to disgrace her self-control. “Come here.”

He stayed close. That was the insult. He gave her no noble retreat to mock. He remained close enough for his heat to pass through the fabric, his undone cuff to brush her knuckles, and his breath to touch the corner of her mouth. Every inch between them recalled what they had spent months refusing and the last week indulging.

“No,” he said again.

Want roughened the second refusal. His grip remained careful beneath the strain, the same hand denying her while every tightened finger betrayed the urge to draw her closer. Principles were vastly more offensive when attached to broad shoulders and a working pulse.

“I was asking for a kiss,” she said, the sweetness still there, though strain had begun to show beneath it. “You have become miserly with courtesies.”

Baelor glanced down at the fist she had closed in his doublet. His chest rose once beneath her knuckles, deeper than the preceding breaths, before he bent his head and regarded her from beneath a lowered brow. He had seen the snare and looked almost insulted by its poor construction.

Then he bent and kissed her. It was spare and closed-mouthed, disciplined enough to insult her, yet the touch sent warmth rushing through her before he withdrew. She followed him for scarcely the breadth of a breath, across so slight a distance that a less attentive man might have missed it and gone on living. Baelor did not miss it. The crease between his brows deepened when he drew back.

“There,” she said. “The realm limps onward.”

“Limping is the concern.” His hand released her wrist only to settle at her waist, high enough to avoid the obvious crime and firm enough to keep her from leaning in again. The black silk of her robe caught under his thumb. “No more tonight.”

Aeleanora stared at him. “You have mistaken yourself for a man with authority.”

“Yes.”

“Cruel. No apology? Not even a poetic regret?” Her lashes lowered again, and she softened her mouth around the complaint in one last attempt to draw him nearer.

“You would only use the embroidery to strangle the apology.” His voice remained even, though another glance at her mouth cost him visible discipline. “And you would deserve better than poetry.”

“Stop being noble at me.” She pushed two fingers against the centre of his chest, not enough to move him, precisely enough to pretend she had meant to.

“I am not being noble.” His thumb moved once against her robe and stopped, the restraint in that halt more indecent than half the things he had done to her in this bed. “I want you badly enough to know that one concession would not remain one. You are sore, and I will not worsen it merely because you know how to tempt me. So I am saying no while I still possess the manners to do it.”

For once, she found nothing in the chamber worth blaming except him. “You make refusal sound proud of itself.”

“I am proud of this one.” The damp mark of her remained upon his lower lip until he pressed his lips together. “You can punish me tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow is crowded.”

“Move someone.”

A laugh threatened her, sharp and unwilling, then died behind her teeth because laughing would have made him victorious in yet another category. She pulled her wrist free because he allowed it, which was offensive enough to become useful. “Fine. Since you have chosen virtue, you may practise it on the divan.”

Baelor’s eyes flicked once toward the bed, then back to her face. “Gladly.”

“Do not sound relieved. The bed has feelings.”

“The bed has survived your opinion of it.”

“The bed is depraved. It enjoys criticism.” She stood before he could offer his hand and crossed to the divan with her chin lifted, the black robe trailing about her ankles as though she led a procession rather than retreated from a battlefield.

Baelor followed at her shoulder without touching her, near enough to intervene and wise enough not to mention it. Aeleanora reached the low table beside the divan and poured herself a cup of wine, too full, before filling another for him. If Baelor meant to deny her the use of his body, he could make himself valuable in another capacity. Divine law, probably, and certainly better than whatever the Reachman had written about moss.

“Sit,” she said, holding his cup out.

Baelor accepted it. “You are giving commands again.”

“I am restoring order.”

Baelor considered the wine, and the corner of his mouth betrayed that he had seen the command coming. Aeleanora settled amongst the dark velvet pillows and furs, then turned sideways and extended her legs across him once he sat near the end. Her calves settled in his lap with the entitlement of occupying soldiers. Baelor set his wine aside after one swallow. 

His free hand settled just below her knee through the black silk, warm and heavy and perfectly aware of what it was doing. The man could turn a refusal into terms of surrender and leave the conquered province grateful for taxes. Aeleanora nearly forgave him before remembering she possessed both standards and a grudge.

He caught her looking at the hand upon her leg. “Am I your prisoner now?”

She took a sip of her wine. “Held at the sovereign’s pleasure.”

“Then name my offence.”

“Making virtue intolerable.” She took another drink, letting the wine sit sharp and dark on her tongue. Fucking him had proved an excellent means of drowning thought. Now Baelor, in a fit of hateful virtue, had withdrawn the water and left every buried thing exposed.

Baelor regarded her over the rim of his cup. “You are thinking too loudly.”

“I am always thinking too loudly. You usually provide a remedy.”

Satisfaction nearly escaped him before his mouth flattened. “You shall have no such remedy tonight.”

“A grievous failure of the Crown.”

“A consequence of royal bruising.”

“Treacherous body.” She drank again, then set the cup against her knee. The divan, unfortunately, had memory. With Baelor beside her and wine within reach, old histories had a habit of opening beneath his voice. Aeleanora chose the first cut. “Before you decided to educate me in pleasure,” she said, “you agreed to tell me truths no maester had written down.”

The hand below her knee became still. “I did.”

“I had several.” Her gaze passed briefly toward the abandoned Reachman upon the bed. “Then the days became unreasonably full. My body began staging treasons. Men offered themselves on parchment, and every lord in the realm discovered an opinion upon my future with the confidence of a cook salting a dish he will never eat.”

Baelor watched her over the rim of his cup. “Ask.”

“You told me once I am always in danger,” she said.

His fingers curved slightly into the silk over her calf. “Yes.”

“And everyone has spent the last fortnight proving you meant it.” She turned the cup once, and the wine climbed toward the rim as if it had developed sense and wished to flee. “The marriage letters. Sealed rooms. Cerry regarding proposals as if another concealed threat hid between its lines, ready to join our promise. Mysaria watching my silences for smoke. Love does not explain all of that,” Aeleanora said.

“No.”

She set her cup on the table with careful fingers, because if it broke now the room would know her hand had done it on purpose. “Then explain what does.”

Baelor did not answer at once. The fire carved his face into lowered brow, compressed mouth, and the old furrow between them. When he looked at her, he did it without the softening people used when they had already decided a woman should be grateful for being spared.

“Love explains why the harder answer was chosen,” he said. “It does not explain why the question was asked.”

Aeleanora’s fingers curled into the fur beneath her palm. “What question?”

“What should be done with you.”

For a moment, she only looked at him. She saw a council table before she saw faces: sealed papers, lowered voices, some careful hand placing her unborn life beside questions of war, succession, and the Veil.

“How flattering,” she said. Her voice came out smooth enough for court. “I had scarcely become a person before someone began debating the proper means of containing me. It seems to be the first quality anyone remarks upon.”

A muscle shifted once beneath Baelor’s cheek. His hand settled more fully around her calf, the heel of his palm warm through the silk. “Because the wrong answer would have torn down the Veil between the mortal realm and the realm of gods.”

The fire broke red across the wine in her abandoned cup. “The gods,” she repeated. “How modest of me.”

“Your danger began before Aemma or Viserys knew of you. Before Dragonstone gave the realm a princess to see instead of the power hidden inside her,” he said. 

Her eyes lifted at the last word. Power pleased some old ill-bred part of her. It was a far better word than cherished or hidden or poor sweet child. “A power for whom?” 

“Anyone with the wit and want for the power of a god and the ruthlessness to use it.” His fingers spread over her calf. “Nyxar most of all.”

The name entered the solar like cold beneath a door, first felt at the ankles and impossible to keep from rising. “Everyone becomes wonderfully vague when he enters the room.”

“For good reason.”

“Cowardly reason?”

“Survival is often mistaken for cowardice by people who have not been hunted properly.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Are you including me among the improperly hunted?”

“I am saying you have been hunted without being told the name of the hound.” Baelor leaned forward and set his cup on the low table. When he settled back, his hand came to her knee. He glanced at the contact before continuing. “The decision was made before you could understand the danger. I upheld it long after you could have understood.”

Aeleanora’s mouth tasted of wine, metal, and irritation. “I adore decisions made over my body. They have such a long tradition of ending well.”

The muscles beneath his palm tightened as her leg went rigid. He did not release her or cover the accusation with an answer made too quickly. “The danger was real. So was the cost of leaving you ignorant. I judged concealment safer. I do not mistake what that judgement cost you.”

Aeleanora’s fingers pressed deeper into the fur. She let the larger horrors wait. “What does Nyxar want from me?”

“Your magic.”

The laugh rose and died before it reached her mouth. “My what?”

“Your power, Aeleanora.”

Her brows lifted. She examined the black silk covering her body as though some mislaid wonder might choose that moment to declare itself beneath it, then faced him again. “I have none,” she said.

“You do,” he said. He drew her calf farther across his lap and cradled its weight along his forearm, his palm resting securely beneath her knee. “You have never been able to reach it.”

Aeleanora went very still against the pillows. She had known that absence all her life: no gift stirring in her blood, no power gathering beneath her skin, none of the instinctive certainty with which Valyrians knew their own natures. She had lived with the hollowness so long that she had mistaken it for part of herself.

“Do not play at kindness with this,” she said. The words came thinner than she liked, and she lowered her chin to make them sharper. “I have been pitied by kinder women and lied to by men who thought my ignorance made them merciful.”

“I am doing neither.” He held her gaze.

“No? You have discovered a third cruelty?”

“I am answering the question you put to me.” He drew the loose fall of silk back over her ankle where it had ridden up, then left his hand resting there, warm and steady against the narrow bone. “Your magic was sealed.”

“Sealed,” she repeated.

“Yes.”

“Like a letter?”

“Like a gate.”

“A gate to what?” She tilted her head.

“To the power that first divided the gods.” Baelor rested his forearm along her shin. “You carry Life through Seraphyra, and Aelorion’s blood gave you rule over law, lineage, and the dead. Those powers have stood apart since before men learned to raise stone walls between kingdoms. In you, they do not.”

Aeleanora turned that over. “You said Voryth extended Life through Seraphyra.” Her fingers resettled around the cup. “You did not say she gave it to her.”

“No.”

“And the septons insist the Seven are one god with seven faces, though they become offended when asked whether that means one god, seven gods, or a divine household incapable of remaining in its proper chambers.” She drew the silk smooth over her knee. “Either some truth survived in the teaching, or the Faith has spent tens of thousands of years defending an error.”

His hand slid from her calf to the narrow bone above her ankle, settling her legs more comfortably across his lap. “Voryth was Life before men gave Life a mother’s face,” he said. “She joined herself to Time, and from that joining came Aelorion, the first god born separate from what made him. She believed anything kept within Life could never be taken from her, so she drew him back inside herself. Seraphyra compared it to swallowing a bead of glass.”

“Swallowed him?” Aeleanora’s lashes lifted, curiosity briefly outrunning offence. “Like a beast eating its own young?”

A faint line appeared beside Baelor’s blue eye, betraying the reluctant appreciation of a man forced to concede that her uglier description had improved his lesson. “Near enough.”

“Life, Time, and Order within one existence.” She looked toward the hearth while memory rummaged through old books with its usual contempt for order. “Three faces. There is an eastern god painted that way. Trios. Three heads sharing one neck, which sounds like a punishment devised by a particularly bitter septa.”

“The oldest images of Trios may preserve some mortal memory of the joined godhead,” Baelor said. “Three faces where later doctrine remembers seven. Maesters have spent centuries disputing whether the resemblance proves anything, which has spared them from reaching an answer.”

“A most convenient arrangement for scholars.” She rolled a fold of silk between her fingers. “And the Ironborn? Do they possess some drowned scrap of Voryth’s wisdom as well? What is taken beneath the water cannot die, only return improved and louder?”

Baelor’s brow drew low enough to shelter the amusement in his eyes. “Their oldest tales are too tangled to separate. Some may preserve lesser gods of sea and storm. Some may carry a piece of Voryth’s belief that whatever is drawn back into its source cannot truly perish.”

“A belief rescued from antiquity and entrusted to men who think bathing is surrender. The gods do enjoy obscurity.”

“They enjoy surviving,” he said. “Truth accepts poor lodging when the alternative is being forgotten.”

That answer deserved a better audience than the Iron Islands. Aeleanora permitted it to live without praise. “And Nyxar?”

“He coveted the joined godhead. Life, Time, Aelorion, and every power that had arisen from their union. If he possessed the whole, nothing born afterward could stand beyond his reach.”

Aeleanora raised her head from the pillows. The movement stirred her hair across her shoulder and pulled one strand beneath the collar of her robe. “Did she eat him too?”

“She drew him inside herself.” Baelor’s answer came with the solemn forbearance of a man obliged to discuss an ancient horror while his princess looked delighted by its table manners. “Voryth answered every danger by consuming it. Once Nyxar entered her, she held every beginning and every ending within one existence.”

“A flawless design. Catastrophe plainly had no place in it.”

“Aelorion agreed with you.” Baelor’s fingers passed once along the outside of her calf, smoothing a narrow crease in the black silk. “He saw that one will now held the power to create life, order it, continue it, judge it, and end it. He tore himself free and dragged the others apart with him. Voryth fought to keep what she had gathered. Nyxar pulled the whole toward destruction.” 

The log upon the hearth split with a dry report. “The breaking divided their powers into seven separate beings,” Baelor continued. “The violence made the joined state impossible. What had once coexisted within Voryth could no longer be gathered into another god by strength alone.”

Aeleanora pictured the painted Seven of the sept torn from one great body, their familiar faces purchased through an ancient act of butchery no hymn had possessed the courage to remember. “The Sevenfold Rupture.”

“Yes.”

“So the Faith remembers the whole and worships the pieces.”

“In part.”

“How obligingly imprecise of it.” She considered him for another moment. “And Nyxar wishes to undo the Rupture? To be eaten again?”

“He wishes the other six drawn into himself.” Baelor’s expression conceded the phrasing. “Aelorion described what would follow should he succeed. Every living creature, every soul already dead, and every power before or beyond the Veil would answer to Nyxar alone. Nothing would possess a will he had not permitted.”

“So existence continues,” Aeleanora said, “provided it first kneels and asks leave.”

“No.” His forefinger pressed once into the silk at the side of her leg, as though to make the correction hold. “Whatever remained would be part of him. There would be no one left to kneel.”

The jest died before she could improve it. Aeleanora set her cup beside his. “I thought you said the Rupture made such joining impossible.”

“It did.”

“Then he cannot succeed.”

“Not by his own power.” He gave her the whole of his regard. “He may destroy the others. He may take what remains after their destruction and bend portions of their offices to his use. He cannot make those powers coexist within himself as they once coexisted within Voryth. The Rupture forbids it.” Aeleanora’s fingers ceased moving against the silk. “Unless he finds something older than the prohibition,” he finished.

He left the exception between them. Aeleanora followed it back through every rule he had given her. “Me?”

“You.”

The fire drew her attention for a moment. “Then Seraphyra. Voryth had already been torn apart. How did she reach through a woman born thousands of years later?”

“Most of Voryth was divided during the Rupture. Life remained hers.” Baelor leaned one shoulder more fully against the carved frame of the divan, though his attention never left Aeleanora’s face. “She no longer held Time, Aelorion, Nyxar, or the powers born when they were joined. She remained one great god where once she had contained several. What men later called the Mother was the surviving part of her.”

“And Seraphyra inherited it.”

Baelor’s free hand rose before he answered and came to rest over the old wound beneath his doublet. The movement was so immediate that it caught Aeleanora’s notice before his answer did. “Seraphyra became strong enough to bear it.” He lowered his hand to his thigh. “She restored Vermithor and me after our souls had passed into Aelorion’s keeping. She had already forced her healing beyond every boundary given to mortal or Valyrian flesh. Voryth found a woman performing the labour of Life with power that should never have sufficed, and fed the greater power through her.”

“Did she have any say?”

“In what first entered her?” His eyes held hers. “I do not believe so. In what she became afterward, yes.”

Aeleanora lowered one hand to the fur. “So Seraphyra remained herself, while Voryth’s essence fed the power she governed.”

“That is the nearest truth I know.”

“And something of that essence passed into me?”

Baelor’s attention settled upon Aemma’s ring on her thumb, remaining there as though the worn silver required study. “More than the Life Seraphyra carried. Voryth preserved one thing the Rupture did not wholly destroy. The ancient power that once allowed divided gods to dwell within one being without devouring one another. That remnant passed through Seraphyra into you.”

She searched his expression. The severe reserve he wore when every word possessed consequences had returned. The brief pauses between them told her only that something in the answer required care.

“Life came to you through Seraphyra,” Baelor said. “Aelorion’s blood gave you law, lineage, and dominion over the dead. That remnant is why the powers inherited from them can dwell together within you despite the Rupture.”

Aeleanora’s fingers pressed into the fur beside her hip. “And Nyxar needs the remnant to join the others within himself.”

“Yes,” Baelor said. “Without you, he might destroy the other six and steal fragments of what they govern. He could never become the single god he intends. He needs what survives in you to make their powers whole within him.”

“So I am the missing piece?”

“Through you, the sundered powers could be made whole again.” Baelor’s voice remained low and exact. “While you remain beyond his grasp, they cannot.”

“And he does not know where I am.”

“He did not know you existed when the choice was made.” Baelor’s eyes stayed fixed upon hers. “Four divine beings joined their power to hide you. Your power was sealed before its full presence could proclaim you across the Veil. Without that power awake inside you, finding you is harder.”

Harder. An ugly little mercy, built once again from absence. The warmth of his hand remained through the silk while she thought of the magic she had spent her whole life failing to find. “How was it sealed?”

Baelor drew one measured breath. “Your cradle egg was used.”

For a moment the words made no sense, and then they made too much. The egg in the guarded chamber. The unhatched thing that had followed her life in guarded silence. Aeleanora’s fingers curled into the fur beside her hip, catching in the dark pelt. “No.”

“Yes.”

“My egg.” The possessive came out sharper than she intended, childish enough to make her furious. “They put my magic into my egg?”

“They bound it there because they needed a living vessel that could grow as your power grew, remain dormant for centuries, and answer only your blood.”

The answer was too plain. It made her teeth ache. “I thought it was dead.”

His fingers closed around the silk above her ankle, then eased when he felt the force of his grip. The severity left his face. What remained suggested that he had understood for years what her mistaken grief had cost and had never found a gentle way to undo it. “It is not dead.”

Aeleanora’s fingers loosened in the fur without her willing them to. She had passed the guarded chamber for years believing its silence belonged to a corpse. Something living had endured beneath the shell all that while.

Relief had scarcely formed before suspicion gathered around it. “Why an egg?”

Baelor shifted his hand beneath her calf and bore its weight in his palm. “Because the vessel could not merely endure the binding at the moment it was made. It had to endure you growing. A sword, a crown, or a carved stone might hold a finished enchantment,” Baelor said. “Your power was bound before you were born. It would increase as you grew, and the vessel had to change under that weight without splitting or betraying what it carried. A dragon egg could remain dormant while the life and magic within it continued to develop.”

Aeleanora’s fingers tightened in the fur until the hairs caught beneath her nails. They had hidden the theft beside her cradle and dressed it in the oldest custom of their house. “And a dragon egg could do that while appearing to be nothing more dangerous than a Targaryen custom.”

“Yes.” A flicker of approval crossed Baelor’s face. “And the egg already belonged to you by blood and custom. No other hand could claim the vessel without first overcoming your right to it.”

“Blood-law,” she said. “How fortunate that I inherited my prison properly.”

Baelor did not correct the word. “It was also the only vessel they believed might open without destroying what it held.”

Her mouth went still. “Open.”

“They would not make the separation irreversible. That is not the same as intending to break it.”

“Do not dress indecision as mercy merely because the truth has become ugly.”

“I am not. They preserved a course they hoped never to need.”

Aeleanora looked down at his hand upon her leg. “A distinction made for the comfort of the thieves.”

“For accuracy,” Baelor said. “Comfort has little claim upon it.”

“And the dragon has borne the sentence with me.”

“Yes.” His fingers settled more firmly around her calf. “Neither of you was permitted to wake the other.”

Her throat tightened once before she could prevent it. She despised it for lacking discipline. “And how does the dragon wake?”

“When the egg hatches, the seal breaks.”

Aeleanora’s eyes lifted to his. Her fingers flexed against the fur, then closed again as though the shell itself lay beneath them. The dragon had not rejected her. Her power had not failed to come. “The egg hatches,” she said, “and I become myself.”

Baelor took care with the distinction. “You become able to reach what was kept from you. You have never ceased being yourself.”

“Such caution.” Aeleanora gave him a thin smile, though her attention had already turned inward. The absence she had carried all her life was not empty after all. Her power had been there, living beyond her reach while she mistook its silence for her own lack. Her fingers pressed into the fur. “If it is alive, and the power is mine, has it been reaching for me?”

Baelor’s hand became still upon her leg. “I cannot know with certainty.”

“Do not give me a maester’s answer.”

“I will not give you certainty I do not possess.” His gaze remained fixed upon her face. “It belongs to you and has been kept from you. I would be surprised if you had felt nothing of that separation.”

The old hunger and yearning stirred at that, as familiar as the way a pulse was always there until fear made one hear it beating in the ears. Gods, she hated that. She hated the quick, treacherous recognition, the part of her that leaned toward the sentence like a starving beast scenting meat beyond its reach. Her lack had always been humiliating. 

She tipped her head back against the pillows. “That would explain certain defects.”

Baelor’s voice lowered. “Choose the next word carefully.”

Recognition tore through her hard enough to hook her nails into the fur. She had spent years treating the feeling as an endless hunger. It was more of a ceaseless inward clamour, a want so vast that pleasure, victory, danger, and flight could only deafen it for a little while. She had poured work into it until her thoughts blurred, pushed Dreamfyre higher until cold split her lips, sought sensation sharp enough to drown herself inside it. Still, the emptiness returned.

“That is what it is,” she said.

Baelor inclined toward her, his grip around her ankle tightening before he checked it. “What?”

Her attention moved inward, following the old restlessness through the habits she had built around it. “Work enough to make the hours shut their mouths. Flight until the air scrapes the inside of my skull clean. Another book, another argument, another task taken from someone slower merely because finishing one thing gives me a moment in which I do not need the next.” The admission left bitterness at the back of her tongue. “Then the moment passes, and I begin again.”

Baelor’s brow drew down. “That does not make the wanting a fault.”

A low laugh escaped her, polished at the edges and feral beneath. “Then enlighten me. What would you call a woman who possesses every comfort, every privilege, a dragon beneath her, and half the court rearranging itself at the lift of her brow, yet still wakes wanting more? Spoiled is the shortest answer. Vain has tradition behind it. Monstrous has rather more grandeur.”

“I would call her a woman denied something that was hers,” he said. “A godling born of magic and compelled to live without any sense or use of her own nature.” Baelor’s hand slid from above her ankle to close around it, giving one brief, almost incredulous squeeze before his thumb passed over the bone in a slow stroke. The gesture carried the fond severity of a man correcting an absurdity he disliked hearing from her mouth. “You told me once that everyone else knew what lived in their blood, while you were left to search every silence for an answer. You have spent your life flying higher, working longer, and taking every pleasure to its limit because lesser things could never reach the hunger beneath them. You were denied your own nature, Aeleanora. Wanting what was taken from you does not make you spoiled.”

Her laugh came quietly, its polish worn thin at the centre. “Do not make it sound so innocent. It wakes before I do and waits beneath everything. I can sit perfectly still and feel my own skin grow unbearable around me. There are days I want the sky so badly that even Dreamfyre cannot carry me high enough, and days I grow cruel merely to feel the room answer when I touch it.” Her fingers pressed deeper into the fur. “I take pleasure until pleasure becomes excess, then call the excess taste. I want, and want, and make an art of behaving as though the wanting were chosen.”

“Listen to me.” Baelor’s grip closed around her ankle. Anger scored a line between his brows and drew his mouth tight, though none of it was directed at her.

She nearly looked away on principle. “Commanding.”

“Yes.” His eyes held hers. “Listen.” Aeleanora hated that she did. Baelor’s other hand came to her opposite ankle, covering the narrow bone with his palm before she could fold herself farther into the furs. The austere care of it proved harder to resist than force.

“You spoke as though the hatching would complete you,” he said. “It will restore your access to power you should always have possessed. It may quiet some part of the hunger that separation left in you. Neither truth makes you some half-made likeness of yourself.”

“That is almost flattering.”

“It is not flattery.” His palm moved over her calf again, slower this time. The gesture possessed neither the softness of consolation nor the distance of ceremony. “You learned every law that governed the realm while unable to feel the laws written into your own blood. You made yourself useful in council because usefulness gave the wanting somewhere to go. You climbed onto Dreamfyre because the ground could never hold enough of you, and you sharpened every appetite into taste because you would sooner be called excessive than let anyone see you reaching blindly.” His fingers closed gently around her calf. “The sealed power may explain what drove you. It does not lessen the wit, nerve, or will with which you chose your course.”

“No,” she murmured. “It merely left the creature hungry.”

Baelor’s eyes narrowed with fond severity. His hand gave her ankle another small squeeze, the rebuke almost intimate enough to be playful. “You insist upon becoming a creature whenever you mean to insult yourself.”

“Perhaps because creatures are permitted appetites without writing defences of them afterward.”

“Then keep the appetite. Leave the insult.”

Aeleanora studied him. “That sounds suspiciously simple.”

“It is.”

“And if I prefer myself dangerous?”

“I have made no argument against dangerous. Dangerous is not the same as damned.”

His thumb made another slow pass across her ankle, and the faint sternness near his eyes eased. Aeleanora let the touch remain while her thoughts settled. Dangerous she could bear. Hungry, perhaps, she could bear as well. The seal explained the depth of the appetite. It did not acquit her of every choice she had made while feeding it, nor did it claim every want she had ever felt as its own. Some desires belonged to the power beyond her reach. Others belonged entirely to Aeleanora, and she had no wish to surrender them merely because they frightened lesser people.

The old judgement she had passed upon herself no longer held in its simplest form. She was neither a blameless vessel made ravenous by theft nor some bottomless defect wearing a woman’s face. A living part of her had been kept near enough to be felt and forever beyond her grasp. She had answered that deprivation with choices. Some brilliant, some vain, some cruel, and those answers remained hers. The dragon had suffered the same imposed silence, and Aeleanora had mistaken that silence for a tomb. 

Her attention dropped to Baelor’s hand and then wandered beyond him, toward the guarded chamber she could picture more readily than she could bear to visit. She remembered shortening her steps whenever duty carried her near its passage and dismissing every question about her cradle egg before anyone could soften their voice. Each careless jest had made the dead thing small enough to endure. Baelor’s palm gave one soft stroke along her calf as though he had followed where the thought had gone and would not drag her back from it.

“I mourned it,” she said. She had thought it barren. Worse, she had thought it had judged her and found her lacking, as dragons and gods and beautiful mothers all seemed very skilled at doing from a distance.

Baelor’s fingers tightened around her ankle.

She regretted the sentence at once. It had come out too plainly, with no lace on it, naked little disaster. She lifted her chin and added, colder, “Briefly, of course. One cannot devote a whole childhood to sulking over an egg. There are books to steal and cousins to torment.”

“I remember.” A rasp had entered his voice, and his eyes had gone darker under the lowered brow. “You sat outside the hatchery door for three nights when you were six.”

She turned sharply toward him. “I did not.”

“You told the guards you were inspecting their discipline.”

“They were poorly stationed.”

“You brought a blanket.”

“It was cold.”

“You fell asleep with your hand against the door.”

Her mouth closed. The memory came at her sideways: black stone under her cheek, the smell of smoke, a blanket slipping from one shoulder, her small palm flattened against old wood because the chamber beyond held the one thing that had been promised to answer her and had chosen silence instead. She had forgotten the cold stone against her cheek and the mark the hatchery door had left across her palm. She had not forgotten waking before the guards and pretending she had meant to be there.

His grip eased before he spoke. “You grieved for something everyone had taught you was dead, and believed its silence some failure of your own.”

Aeleanora swallowed. “Do not make me pitiable.”

“I am making you correct.”

“That is worse.”

“Yes,” he said, and there was the faintest trace of dry cruelty in it, a mercy dry enough to let her breathe again. “The egg was alive. Its silence was imposed. You have no cause to make its silence a judgement upon you.”

The nerve under that went bright. Aeleanora held herself motionless until the sting behind her eyes had passed. Only then did one corner of her mouth lift, stripped of every trace of amusement. “How ambitious of you. Do you mean to rob me of all my little pleasures tonight?”

“Only those built upon false evidence.”

“Possessive.”

“Selective.”

The old humiliation survived, though it no longer belonged to the egg. Someone had chosen that long quiet for them both. Aeleanora turned Aemma’s ring once upon her thumb. “Who performed the binding?”

“The binding required several hands.”

Aeleanora narrowed her eyes. “Names.”

“Seraphyra. Aelorion. Vaelora.” He offered each name without evasion. “Lysara as well. Others concealed what had been done afterward.”

“A crowded cradle.” Aeleanora gathered a fold of black silk between her fingers, rubbing the fabric slowly against her thumb. “What did each give to it?”

“It was one rite,” Baelor said. “Seraphyra and Aelorion gave their blood. Vaelora laid the binding upon the egg. Lysara joined her power to theirs. Lysara lent the power she had used to bring you into existence. Their blood joined your power to the dragon within the shell, and Vaelora fixed the joining there.”

Aemma’s ring stopped beneath her fingers. “So fate put her hands in my cradle.”

“Not upon you directly.” Baelor’s brow lowered as he chose the distinction. “You were conceived beyond the laws Vaelora governs. She could see the futures changed by your existence and every consequence gathering about you, but she could not seize your thread or weave it. You possessed no lawful place in fate for her to take hold of.”

Aeleanora leaned a little farther into the pillows. Something cold and pleased moved beneath her discomfort, too mean to call pride and too familiar to deny it. “What? And she still completed the binding?”

Baelor leaned forward, and the movement brought his face into sharper firelight, blue eye bright, brown eye grave, the old scar of thought between his brows. “Through the egg. It had already been given to you beneath Old Valyrian custom and answered your blood. Fate recognised it as lawfully yours even when it could not recognise you.”

Aeleanora closed her fingers around Aemma’s ring. “So she could not bind me, so she bound what belonged to me?”

“She bound the others’ blood and power about the egg,” Baelor said. “The egg gave her a lawful hold. Your own thread remained beyond her reach.”

“And once my power was sealed, Nyxar could no longer find me so easily.”

“Yes.”

“And Seraphyra agreed to this?”

Baelor’s attention dropped to his loosened cuff. He pressed the black wool flat beneath two fingers, then did so again, though no crease remained for the second correction. “Seraphyra accepted the egg because it preserved a future for you. I know she refused every course that required your death, and I know she would not permit your power to be destroyed merely because others feared what it might become. What passed between her and Aelorion before they consented, I was not there to hear.”

“How merciful,” she said. “She left me a future with a locked throat.”

Baelor’s face barely changed. He shifted his weight against the carved end of the divan, setting both feet squarely upon the floor before he answered. She had seen him prepare for unwelcome arguments in much the same fashion, though never for one concerning a woman long absent beyond the Veil. “She left you the future she could still keep open. I will not pretend to know whether she called that mercy.”

Aeleanora’s fingers found her ring and turned it once, hard enough for the setting to bite. “What were the other answers?”

“They could seal your power, hide you in the mortal realm, and leave you with Aemma and Viserys beneath a name Nyxar did not know to seek,” Baelor said. “They could keep you beyond the Veil and raise you themselves. Your power would eventually betray your presence, and from that day onward they would be waiting for Nyxar to find you.”

Aeleanora pictured the child that might have grown beneath a sky she had never seen, surrounded by gods and guarded as the first stroke of a coming war. No Aemma fastening ribbons into her hair, no Viserys lifting her onto his shoulder, no Jacaerys loving his little sister loudly enough to make the lie into a life. Take them away and Aeleanora could imagine a girl with her face and blood, though she could not imagine herself. “And the third?” she asked.

Baelor drew her calf deeper into the crook of his arm until he carried its full weight. His tongue pressed once behind his lower lip before he forced the answer out. “Kill you before Nyxar could use you,” he said. “Seraphyra and Aelorion refused it.”

Aeleanora did not move. Even the hunger seemed to stop pacing. The room narrowed to his hands upon her legs and the unadorned horror of the answer. For one awful breath, she saw the dangerous child extinguished before Nyxar could find what lived within her.

“Is that what Lysara meant for her curse?”

“At first,” he said. “She meant to give Seraphyra and Aelorion a child they could not safely keep.” A wave struck the rocks below, hard enough to shudder faintly through the floor. Aeleanora glanced toward the shuttered terrace doors. “Lysara intended them to choose it themselves and live with what they had done.”

“Then why did she help hide me?” she asked.

“She had done what Vaelora believed impossible. She had taken power, eluded fate, and made a divine child the laws of creation had forbidden.” Baelor’s fingers shifted slightly around her ankle. “Once you existed, Lysara became proud of you.”

“Of me?”

“Of what she had wrought in making you.”

Aeleanora gave a soft, incredulous laugh. “How touching.”

“Her pride would not let her finest transgression be destroyed, and her fear of death gave her another reason to preserve you.”

“Pride and self-preservation.” Aeleanora settled more heavily against the pillows. “At last, motives fit for a god.”

“For Lysara,” Baelor said.

Aeleanora returned to the choice itself. “Seraphyra and Aelorion could have remained beyond the Veil and left the danger to die here. That would have preserved them. They could have killed me before Nyxar learned I existed. That would have preserved the world.”

Baelor’s hand remained around her ankle. “They chose neither.”

“They chose the answer in which everyone paid, provided the child lived long enough to inherit the debt.”

“They chose the one in which you lived,” Baelor said. “They could not give you an untouched life. Whether that justifies what followed is yours to judge.”

“Because I was precious,” she mocked.

“Because you were theirs.” The hand beneath Aeleanora’s calf withdrew to Baelor’s own knee. His fingers closed there once, hard enough to whiten across the knuckles, before opening again. “Seraphyra had held you. Aelorion refused to turn his own daughter into a weapon against Nyxar. Aemma and Viserys were ready to claim you, and Jacaerys was already in love with the idea of a sister before you were placed in his arms.” He waited for her answer with careful severity. “Precious is too small a word for the child they were willing to ruin themselves to save.”

Somewhere beyond the shuttered terrace doors, the sea struck the cliff and withdrew. Within the chamber remained only the whisper of silk and the muted sea beyond the shutters. Aeleanora remained turned toward the hearth. Understanding had not made the answer gentler. Love, it seemed, could demand sacrifices from those who were never permitted to refuse them.

Baelor waited. His fingers smoothed the crease she had worked into the silk. “You will fray that.”

“I am considering whether the gods have ever solved a problem without leaving a woman to wear the solution.”

His gaze dropped to the fold trapped between her fingers. The line beside his blue eye deepened, and his jaw shifted once before he answered, as though the words had struck an old grievance still lodged there. “Not often enough.”

The old line between his brows had deepened. She nudged the outside of his thigh with her foot. “Why are you looking like that?”

“There is one other thing.” Baelor’s eyes met hers. “While they were deciding how to preserve your life, Vaelora demanded one further price.”

“Required.”

“Seraphyra and Aelorion were given no true choice in it.” Baelor drew the loosened edge of her robe over her exposed shin. His fingers caught briefly in the silk before he freed them and withdrew his hand. “They had already rejected your death. They were trying to keep Nyxar from finding you and leave you some manner of life in the mortal realm. Vaelora would grant them neither unless they accepted her condition.”

Aeleanora’s eyes narrowed. “What is it?”

Baelor shifted her calf more securely into the crook of his arm. His other hand flattened against the silk above her ankle. He began once, stopped, and tried again.

“Your line ends with you,” he said. The words made sense one at a time. Together, they refused to settle into anything her mind recognised as belonging to her. She stared at him while strain gathered around his eyes. “Vaelora would not allow whatever you carry to pass into children of your own.”

The fire gave a soft collapse behind her, one charred piece of wood settling inward. Her attention fell to her own body. For years, she had thought it late, strange, immortal, governed by some slow divine season that had not yet turned. Briony had spoken of Valyrian women whose courses came years apart. Healers had answered her questions with careful uncertainty, each of them citing immortal blood and time enough for anything to change. None had seemed to know more than that.

“You mean I cannot bear a child?” Her fingers loosened from the fold of silk. “That is why I have never—”

Heat rose beneath her skin before the words could finish themselves. Aeleanora looked down at the robe gathered over her legs, furious with her own mouth for carrying the question into the room. Her moon blood. The event Briony had promised might come next year, or ten years hence, or whenever immortal blood finally remembered the customs of women. The healers’ careful uncertainty. The vague assurances that her body would begin when it pleased, as though it had merely grown proud and slow.

“Yes.” Baelor’s thumb pressed once into the silk at her calf. “That is what Vaelora made certain.”

“Made certain.”

“I know what Vaelora meant to prevent. I do not know what she altered within you or by what means.” His voice roughened slightly around the admission. “No healer was permitted to keep enough knowledge to answer it honestly. They believed what they were allowed to remember.” His thumb moved once against her ankle and stopped. “I can tell you that Vaelora made conception impossible. No one who knew the truth expected that to change.”

Aeleanora lifted her eyes from the silk. “Who knew?”

“Seraphyra and Aelorion accepted Vaelora’s condition because she would grant them no other course that left you alive and concealed in the mortal realm. Aemma and Viserys knew what had been done.”

“And Jacaerys?”

“He knew before he named you heir.”

“The healers? Briony? Laena?”

“Any healer who learned too much had the knowledge clouded afterward. Briony believed what Mysaria gave her to believe about immortal blood.” His hand remained beneath her calf. “Laena does not know.”

Laena, at least, had never watched her from behind the lie. Aeleanora fixed upon that clean edge before returning to the others. “And everyone else permitted me to wait.”

“They gave you the lie least likely to expose the truth.”

She had spent years waiting for her own body to explain itself: watching for blood that never came, submitting to healers who spoke in careful circles, accepting Briony’s assurances while wondering what every other woman understood by instinct that she had somehow failed to learn. Healers had touched her, questioned her, and carried their findings elsewhere. Briony had soothed fears built upon a lie. Everyone entrusted with her body had been given some approved answer except the woman living inside it.

Aeleanora’s hand flattened over the black silk at her middle. Beneath her palm, warmth rose and fell with each breath from a body she had mistaken for a mystery of its own making.

“The egg?” she asked, the word scarcely carrying above the sea beyond the shutters.

“Has no part in this,” Baelor answered before the word could become hope. “Its hatching may return your power. What Vaelora did to your body remains.”

Aeleanora’s fingers returned to worrying the black silk of her robe. “So they saved the child and ended whatever might have come after her.”

Baelor considered her before answering. “That was the condition Vaelora imposed. Your life in the mortal realm, concealed from Nyxar, in exchange for ending your line.”

Aeleanora had never dreamed herself tender over a cradle. Marriage had always seemed a dreary surrender dressed in jewels and witnessed by septons. Children belonged to the same distant province of duty: heirs produced at some future hour because crowns demanded continuance and kingdoms grew frightened when a woman’s body offered them no assurance.

Every lord who praised a queen’s wisdom still counted the years between her wedding and her first son. She might fill granaries, break rebellions, keep dragons above the realm, and hold the peace for a thousand years. They would measure her reign against an empty cradle and call the emptiness failure.

Aeleanora drew one leg from Baelor’s lap and planted her foot upon the floor. She sat upright, gathering the loose silk across her knees as her thoughts moved from the body beneath her hand to the crown waiting somewhere ahead of it.

“You knew,” she said. Her voice had grown very calm. “All of you knew I could never continue the royal line.”

Baelor watched the change come over her and made no attempt to soften what followed. “Yes.”

“And you made me heir.”

Baelor received the charge without retreating from it. He looked at her as he might look upon a map after someone had placed a finger upon the true point of danger: with attention sharpened, every lesser consideration set aside. “Nearly nine years lay between those decisions,” he said. “Vaelora made certain you could never conceive before you were born. Jacaerys named you heir shortly before your ninth nameday, after Aemma and Viserys died and the succession had to be settled anew.”

Aeleanora gathered the silk more closely over her knees. “The son before the daughter. A sound enough arrangement, provided the king and queen possess the courtesy to survive.”

The jest left a tenderness behind it she had not intended. Aemma and Viserys had been meant to outlive kingdoms, dynasties, perhaps even the names men gave the seas. Instead they had left two children beneath crowns and mourning veils, with every adult around them hurriedly deciding what shape the rest of their lives must take.

“The people deciding your place in the succession did not stand over your cradle,” Baelor said. His tone remained level, though something in his posture had drawn taut beneath the black wool. “Aelorion, Seraphyra, Vaelora, and Lysara were deciding whether you would live long enough to possess a future. Aemma and Viserys expected to reign for thousands of years. Jacaerys already stood before you in the line. No one involved in the binding believed they were shaping a queen.”

“So when death made nonsense of their expectations, someone shaped one after all.”

“Yes. Aemma and Viserys were gone. Jacaerys was sixteen, newly crowned, and surrounded by lords who had begun measuring every weakness in his household before the funeral fires had cooled.” His next breath left him slowly through his nose, and for a moment the years showed plainly in the deepened lines beside his eyes. “You were eight years old. The question had changed.”

“What question replaced it?”

“Who would stand after Jacaerys. Who could be trusted near the throne. Which name would gather factions before the king had learned which men bowed from loyalty and which bowed to count the guards behind him.” His gaze stayed upon hers. “And what place within that order would keep you safest.”

“Seven Hells, Baelor.” Aeleanora rested one forearm across her raised knee, her voice dropping into its lower register, smooth and clear. “I am a bastard claimant to the Iron Throne, a barren one at that.” She let out an incredulous laugh. “You all knew that, and you thought Crown Princess suited me?”

His fingers locked around her calf. The pressure came hard enough to pull the silk against her skin before he seemed to feel what he was doing and loosened his hold. His nostrils flared. His jaw worked once, and he looked away from her for the span of a breath toward the hearth with his mouth pressed flat. When he faced her again, his composure had returned by force alone. The muscles along his jaw remained drawn, and his hand stayed braced beneath her calf.

“Do not call yourself that.” Each word came low and distinct. “Every royal record names you the daughter of Viserys and Aemma. Every proclamation, every rite performed in your name, and the king himself—your father—affirm it.” He leaned nearer, his eyes fixed upon hers without yielding the breadth of a hair. “While that truth remains concealed, you are trueborn before the law. And were every record in the realm burned tomorrow, Viserys would remain your father. Aemma would remain your mother. No revelation of blood can unmake the life they gave you or the love with which they claimed you.”

For one unguarded beat, grief caught beneath her ribs. She had half expected him to correct her in another direction, to speak of Seraphyra and Aelorion as though blood had granted them the right to displace the parents who had raised her. The ache remained, but he had left Aemma and Viserys where Aeleanora had always known them to stand.

Aeleanora lowered her gaze to Aemma’s ring and turned it once upon her thumb. “The realm’s ignorance bears a heroic share of my legitimacy,” she said, the sharpness returning more slowly this time. Her eyes lifted to his. “Very well. The lie is lawful. That still leaves the barren crown princess standing between the realm and its next king. Did the law make that problem disappear as well?”

“No. It meant the succession could never depend upon children of your body.”

The plainness of his answer brought forward the question she had hidden for years beneath council duties, precedence, and every show of gratitude demanded from a girl crowned before she understood why. “I have always thought it an absurd succession,” she said.

Baelor gave no sign of surprise. His palm stayed open against the silk, bearing the weight of her leg without drawing her nearer. “Have you?”

“Of course I have.” Her brows rose. “I was eight. Jacaerys was sixteen and barely crowned. You were already the Hand, already Viserys’s heir before Jacaerys was born, already governing half the realm whenever Father tired of petitions. You had Vermithor, two sons, an adult man’s reputation, and the singular advantage of knowing what taxes were.” Her mouth curved faintly, though the humour found little strength. “Then the king named his little sister, and everyone was expected to behave as though the choice required no explanation.”

“The choice required many.”

“And no one gave them to me.” Aeleanora ran one finger along the edge of Aemma’s ring. “The court whispered that Jacaerys had named the sister he loved because he could not bear to place anyone above her. Lords who smiled at me over supper went home and wrote one another that a grieving boy had placed a child above the man already holding his kingdom together. I agreed with them.”

He did not look away. “They believed I should remain heir.”

“They were right.” The admission came easily once begun, which irritated her nearly as much as the years she had spent swallowing it. “You were the sound choice. Everyone knew it. I knew it. I merely possessed enough sense to understand what would follow if I said so.” She tipped her head, lending her next words the polished sweetness court had taught her to use whenever truth required armour. “‘Princess Aeleanora finds duty tiresome. Princess Aeleanora would surrender her place rather than earn it. Princess Aeleanora has been granted the highest honour in the realm and complains of its weight.’”

The line between his brows deepened at the imagined voices. “Anyone who called you idle had never watched you work.”

“They would have called me a menace instead.” Her gaze held his. 

The corner of Baelor’s mouth moved. “That, at least, they would have said with some justice.”

The trace of humour endured upon his face. “I proposed that Jacaerys name you his heir.”

Aeleanora’s amusement faded. Nothing in his expression suggested hesitation. “You.”

“Yes.”

“Jacaerys agreed because he loved me.”

“He agreed because the reasons were sound. His love made him willing to hear the reasons before fear or pride answered for him.”

“And the others? How did anyone agree to this?”

“Rhaenys understood first. Mysaria understood before I had finished speaking. The rest required longer.”

Aeleanora considered the men and women who had stood around a newly crowned boy and decided that the realm’s sensible succession should be overturned in favour of an eight-year-old menace with an unhatched egg and no knowledge of taxes. “Then explain the reasons they found so persuasive.”

“Without the title, you remained an unmarried princess.”

“I remain one now.”

“You remain the Crown Princess.” Baelor gave the distinction its full weight. “An ordinary princess is an alliance waiting to be made. Her brother may refuse one match, then another. He cannot refuse every great house in the realm for centuries without giving the court cause to ask what defect, danger, or secret makes every husband unsuitable.” Aeleanora’s fingers stopped upon her ring.

“Sooner or later,” he continued, “Jacaerys would have been pressed to name a man. Once the marriage was made, custom would place you within your husband’s household. His seat would become your residence. His guards would stand outside your chambers, his servants would control who reached you, and he could claim a husband’s rights over your company, your bed, your movements, and the allegiance you showed before the realm.”

“And I would possess a dragon.”

“You would.” His voice remained level. “You could refuse him. You could defy him. You could make his life brief and extremely memorable. The realm would still take it for granted that a husband was entitled to what you denied him, and every refusal would become a quarrel between two lawful powers.”

Baelor’s eyes remained upon hers. “Even a decent man might expect you to spend part of each year upon his lands and admit his people into your household. A less decent one could carry you beyond Dragonstone and make every attempt to reach you pass through his hall.”

Away from Jacaerys. Away from Rhaenys and Mysaria, from Laena, away from Baelor and the Order, from the guarded chamber where her egg slept. Perhaps even away from Dreamfyre, if some fool wished to discover how quickly a dragon could turn a marriage dispute into a funeral custom.

“And the crown prevents this,” she said.

“It reverses it.” Baelor’s hand settled fully beneath her calf. “Your husband comes to your court. He enters your household and lives beneath your guards, within reach of your king. Your dragon, your attendants, and work remain yours. No man may carry the realm’s heir to another castle and pretend he has merely taken his wife home.”

She gathered the silk more closely across her knees. The title had fixed her to Dragonstone by law rather than affection. “And if a husband tried?”

“He would be carrying the king’s heir away from the royal court.” Baelor’s voice lowered. “If he confined you, isolated you, denied the Crown access to you, or arranged your death, he would not be mistreating a wife behind his own walls. He would be acting against the succession.”

“And therefore against Jacaerys.”

“Against the Crown.”

Aeleanora lifted her eyes. “So that is why all of you have been behaving like men possessed over the promise Jacaerys made me.”

Baelor’s brow lowered. “It was one reason.”

“One?” She studied him. “If he forces me to marry before I ascend the throne, he breaks a promise made beneath my power. Fate will require payment.”

“Yes.”

“And I thought that was what frightened all of you.” The answer rearranged itself even as she spoke. “Whatever price fate might exact from Jacaerys when his word was broken.”

“It frightened us. The marriage pressure itself frightened us more.”

Aeleanora breathed out slowly. Her thumb moved once across Aemma’s ring while the promise, the sealed rooms, her absent blood, and the guarded egg settled into one design. “He would come here,” she said. “With his family, his sworn men, his servants, his healers. People with reason to watch where I go, whom I meet, why my chambers are guarded, why Mysaria controls who reaches me, why my cradle egg remains sealed away.” Her fingers closed around Aemma’s ring. “They would ask why I never bleed. Why no child comes. Why Jacaerys will not permit me to leave Dragonstone even after marriage.”

“Yes.”

“And if one of them learned enough, my husband’s house would possess a secret worth a crown.”

“Or worth selling to someone who wanted one,” he said.

Aeleanora felt the cold spreading beneath her ribs as each stranger acquired a face and purpose. A mother searching for signs of fertility. A healer insisting upon examinations. A steward counting guarded doors. A husband learning which questions made the king refuse him. Fate would demand payment once. Marriage would place strangers within reach of the lie every day thereafter.

Aeleanora drew her knee nearer beneath the silk. “You kept me from becoming another house’s concern,” she said. “By making me the concern of every house in the realm.”

“Yes.” Baelor’s forearm rested along her shin. “Your title ensures that any husband must enter the household already sworn to guard you. It cannot ensure that everyone he brings with him remains blind.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Do better than that.”

A small breath passed through his nose. “The title denied any husband the right to carry you away. It also ensured that men who might have ignored an ordinary princess would watch your marriage and count every barren month that followed.”

“There.” Aeleanora set one finger against Aemma’s ring. “That is the part your excellent protection neglected to make pleasant.”

“It was never meant to be pleasant.”

“No, only useful. Men do adore that distinction when the usefulness belongs to them and the unpleasantness belongs to a woman.” Her gaze remained upon him. “Every year I remain unwed becomes a question of state. Every husband considered becomes a faction. Once I am wed, half the realm begins counting moons beneath my gowns.”

Baelor’s forearm remained along her shin. “I knew the realm would expect heirs.”

“They already had an heir with heirs.” Her voice remained low and beautifully controlled. “A king may empty his treasury, lose three wars, and father a son before supper, and some lord will call the succession secure. I might fill every granary from here to the Wall, keep dragons over the narrow sea, settle quarrels that have outlived the men who began them, and reign well for a thousand years. They would still look at my belly and ask when I meant to begin serving the realm in earnest.”

“They would.”

“And you knew I never could.”

“I did.” His hand closed beneath her calf, steady under the silk.

Aeleanora’s palm pressed flat against the silk over her knee. “Yet you wagered that it need not be faced while I was still a child.”

“I argued that the realm might change before the crown came to you,” Baelor said. “Jacaerys might have children. The danger beyond the Veil might be ended. Your power might alter what could safely be revealed. None of us knew what you would become, how you would age, or what realm you would one day inherit.”

“And the cost to me?”

“You remained here,” Baelor said. “Eight years old, newly orphaned, beneath your brother’s protection and beyond the lawful reach of any house that wished to claim you through marriage.”

Aeleanora considered the shape he had given the choice. “You make it sound as though the choices were a husband’s keep or the Iron Throne.”

“They were the two fates the realm was most likely to choose for you,” he said. “I chose the one that kept your household, your dragon, and those sworn to protect you in reach.”

“And placed every question about my body beneath a crown where all could see.”

“Yes.” His eyes stayed upon hers. “I knew some of what it would cost you. I judged those dangers lesser than placing you beneath another house’s lawful power. I would make that judgement again.”

The answer demanded no gratitude. That made it harder to dismiss. Aeleanora drew her raised knee a little nearer and rested her wrist across it. “There is another cost.”

“I know.”

“You know there are several. Choose the one I mean.”

He considered the possibilities. “Your birth.”

“If the truth remained buried, I would merely be the barren daughter of Viserys and Aemma, a queen unable to continue their line.” Her thumb moved over the worn edge of Aemma’s ring. “If it escaped, I would become a child of different blood whom the royal house passed off as the king’s daughter and then raised above every lawful claimant who followed.”

“Your blood would be disputed,” Baelor said. “So would Viserys’s right to acknowledge you as his daughter, Aemma’s right to claim you as hers, and Jacaerys’s right to place you after him.”

“The Crown did more than acknowledge me. It constructed a succession around the lie,” Aeleanora said. “What survives when the lie is known?”

“Whichever judgement the stronger side can make the realm accept,” Baelor said. “Some would insist that Viserys’s acknowledgment, Aemma’s claim, Jacaerys’s proclamation, and the years you have served as Crown Princess possess the force of law. They would say the royal family named you, raised you, and placed you in the succession openly before gods and men.” He spread his fingers and lightly squeezed her calf. “Others would declare every one of those acts corrupted from the beginning. They would call you an unlawful child placed above lawful kin and every oath sworn to you the fruit of deception.”

Aeleanora gave a quiet, humourless laugh. “So every decision I made would be pulled apart according to whether the man judging it wished to preserve my reign or destroy it.”

“Every man who profited beneath your rule would discover a learned devotion to the sanctity of royal acknowledgment,” Baelor said. “Every man who resented you would discover that blood had become the only law he ever honoured.”

“And once both sides had found a principle suited to their ambition?”

“The judgement would not be made by law alone.” His hand closed beneath her calf. “Your dragon, the claim of two kings, the oaths already sworn to you, the strength of the rival claimants, and the houses that believed their fortunes safer beneath your reign would decide which claim became law.”

Aeleanora held his gaze across the narrow space between them. There was no clean victory in the answer. The hidden truth of her birth was bound to the peace of the realm. If the truth escaped, every act that had protected her could be turned against her. Jacaerys’s love would become conspiracy, Viserys’s acknowledgment fraud. Worst of all, men who had never heard Aemma laugh, never watched her plait Aeleanora’s hair would call her motherhood another lie. They would strip Aemma from her with a question of blood and expect Aeleanora to accept the theft as truth.

“You knew the title made the secret more dangerous.”

“I knew discovery would imperil more than you alone,” he said. “I also knew that discovery while you remained here would leave you beside your king, beneath your own banners, with Dreamfyre below the castle and every claimant forced to come against you openly.”

“A splendid piece of armour,” Aeleanora said. “Heavy enough to pin the wearer beneath it.”

“Yes,” Baelor said. “It burdened you. It also ensured that any man who meant to take you or the realm had to declare himself before both.”

“And if half the realm answers him?”

The faint softness remaining beside Baelor’s eyes disappeared. His shoulders squared against the divan. “Then law will have reached its limit, and dragons, armies, and allegiance will answer in its place.”

Both factions would find law enough to bless themselves. “You placed me where the secret could destroy more.”

“I placed you where its discovery would not leave you alone.”

He had chosen the danger in which she possessed banners, dragons, and a king beside her. Whether that justified fastening the danger to the realm remained another question. “And how long did you imagine I would wear it?” Aeleanora asked.

Baelor’s chin lifted slightly. This was the uncertainty he had expected her to reach. “No one dared put a number to it.”

“Convenient.” She shifted her wrist upon her raised knee. “Jacaerys may reign for another thousand years. Ten thousand, if the gods remain determined to punish him with councils and me. Suppose he does not. Suppose the crown comes to me while I still possess this face. What am I in five centuries?”

“I do not know,” Baelor said.

“You call yourselves immortal,” she said. “You, Jacaerys, every Valyrian who expects to see a thousand namedays and complain through most of them. Yet there is an ending written somewhere in all of you. Age may take centuries to find it. A blade may arrive first. The blood may thin, the gift may fail, the body may finally decide it has endured enough.” Her thumb ceased moving over the ring. “There is no such ending waiting for me unless someone makes one.”

The tendons in Baelor’s wrist drew taut beneath her calf. His eyes remained fixed upon hers, though the blue eye turned pale as winter glass in the firelight. “So far as we understand what you are, age should not take you.”

“So far as you understand,” she repeated, her voice remaining low. “I may remain unchanged while every lord who swore to me becomes an ancestor painted badly in his grandson’s hall.” Her attention strayed to the dying fire. “A queen who never ages,” Aeleanora said. “Who has no visible gift. Who never bears a child, never gives the realm the ordinary comfort of believing she will eventually yield the realm to another. Did no one consider what men would make of that?”

“We considered it.”

“And?”

“We had no answer that would make it ordinary,” he said. Aeleanora pressed the edge of the ring deeper into her thumb until the sting steadied her. “Some would call it divine favour. Others would call it a curse.” Baelor’s forearm remained against her shin, his posture quiet while his attention held fast upon her. “Then there are those who would prefer an unchanging sovereign to the uncertainty of succession. Men will endure many wonders when their lands and honours prosper beneath them.”

“How heartening. I might purchase acceptance by remaining profitable.”

“That is how most rulers purchase it.”

A faint smile touched her mouth and vanished. “And if I tire of ruling before the realm tires of being ruled?”

“A sovereign may abdicate.”

“May she?” Her eyes narrowed. “A king may take the black, enter a sept, or grow obligingly dead. What does a god queen do after laying down a crown? Retire to a pleasant tower while every faction in the realm waits to see whether she changes her mind?”

Baelor readjusted the weight of her calf across his lap. “Abdication from you would require more than a proclamation. So long as you lived, rode Dreamfyre, and remained more powerful than the successor upon your throne, every claimant would continue to measure himself against your favour.”

“So abdication might surrender the throne without freeing either of us from the other.”

“It might strip you of lawful authority. It could not strip your name and power from the realm.”

“Then I might surrender the crown and remain its greatest danger.”

“Power seldom allows anyone to leave it quietly.”

The hearth had sunk low enough to leave the farther reaches of the chamber in shadow, though the light still held Baelor’s face clearly. “And ascension?”

At the word ascension, his fingertips pressed into the hollow beneath her calf. He released her at once and set that hand flat upon the divan before he answered. “Aelorion and Seraphyra believed they could ascend you without dying, if the need arose,” he said. “They never told me what the act would require. They also believed a wound that ought to kill you might force the change instead. Your power could preserve you by making you something death could no longer claim in the same manner.”

“Could?”

“Or the wound might kill you. They did not know.” His voice remained exact. “If Nyxar reached you, he might attempt it himself. Ascension might break the seal by force and join you fully to the power within the egg.”

“So he could make me into a full god merely to get to what he cannot presently reach?”

“He might try.” The words came lower. “Whether he could succeed, what the change would do to you, or whether you would remain beyond his control afterward—none of them knew. Nothing like you has ever existed, even among the gods. None of them knew what your ascension would make of you.”

Aeleanora studied him. “And if I were to ascend without leaving the mortal realm? If I remain capable of ruling, yet no age can diminish me and no natural death waits to end my reign, what then?” Her fingers pressed into Aemma’s ring. “A single immortal power standing above this realm without equal, successor, or certainty of departure begins to resemble Nyxar’s desires.”

His hand closed hard enough to pull the silk taut beneath her knee. The answer came before he had eased his grip. “You would not seek what Nyxar seeks.”

“Intent does not settle the structure of power. I said an undying sovereign may become a tyrant without ever acting as one.” Her voice stayed calm. “How long before stability becomes the reason I must never abdicate? How long before the realm decides one undying will is safer than succession?”

His answer came slowly. “You are right to fear it,” he said.

“And if whatever I become cannot remain here?”

“Then the realm would require another sovereign.”

“Then my absence would settle nothing unless the law first decided what I had become.” Her thumb pressed against the ring. “Would ascension count as death, leaving the throne empty?”

His brow drew lower. “No law yet written answers it. If you could still return, speak, command your dragon, and give lawful orders, some would insist you still reigned. Others would call your departure an abdication. Others would declare you dead the moment you crossed beyond mortal reach, because a vacant throne profits men who wish to sit upon it.”

“And the Faith?”

“Would divide according to which answer granted it the greater power. Some septons would call you blessed. Others would call you an abomination who deceived the realm. A wiser few might admit that no septon’s teaching has made allowance for a crown princess who is also a god.”

“There is the Faith I know,” she said. She drew in a slow breath, but the next question had already risen beneath it. “What am I meant to do when I outlive all of you?” Baelor’s fingers ceased their hold beneath her calf. The fire gave one small sound behind him, and still he offered her nothing. 

“You,” she continued, because stopping now would only make the silence worse. “Jacaerys. Laena. Rhaenys. Your sons. Their children, and their children after them.” The setting of Aemma’s ring pressed painfully into her palm. “What am I meant to do when every person who remembers why I was loved before I was useful has gone?”

Baelor did not answer. Firelight moved across his blue eye, though his attention had gone somewhere beyond the chamber. For one breath, she had the uneasy impression that her imagined future was not wholly unfamiliar to him.

“I do not know,” he said, his voice roughened at its lowest edge. Aeleanora turned away. She had wanted an answer large enough to stand against eternity. Three words left her nowhere to hide the terror except within herself. He made no attempt to fill the silence with a promise. “I know only that you need not begin mourning them while they yet live.”

Aeleanora swallowed. The answer offered no defence against eternity, only a command not to surrender the living before death had claimed them. She resented its good sense and kept it anyway. “Who would be my successor, should I die before one is named?”

“The throne would pass by whatever law and royal decree then stood.”

“Which leaves the realm several arguments and no certain sovereign.” 

“We left several lawful paths beyond you,” Baelor said. “We did not name a particular successor.”

The reason came to her before he could give it. “A name would have become a court. Lords would have brought gifts, marriage contracts, quiet promises, and grievances too delicate to lay before Jacaerys. Before I was tall enough to see over the council table, they would have been purchasing favour from the reign meant to follow mine.”

“Yes,” Baelor said. “Men could whisper my name because I refused to answer them. A successor raised with the Crown’s blessing would have given them a living banner.”

“So you left them no such banner to raise against me.”

“Not one raised by us.”

The empty place behind her had been guarded as deliberately as her own. A breath escaped her, perilously near a laugh and wholly without amusement. “You named an infertile godling the child heir to a sixteen-year-old king, with no certainty that I would age, no law governing my possible ascension, no settled successor, and no means of explaining why my body would never answer the realm’s demands.”

“I proposed you because the title gave the Crown lawful cause to keep you here and deny another house possession of you,” Baelor said. “Jacaerys named his sister because the argument was sound and because he trusted himself to defend it. Afterward, we refused the realm another claimant it could raise against you.”

She regarded him over her raised knee. “How did any of you sleep?”

His brow furrowed, and the hard set of his features gave way to a brief, weary grimace. “Poorly.”

A short sound escaped her before she could decide whether it was a laugh. It carried no true amusement, though it loosened something in her chest all the same. “And you would make the same decision again?”

“Yes,” he said immediately. “The crown exposed you to scrutiny, factions, and demands upon a body that could never answer them. Leaving you an ordinary princess would have given some husband lawful claim to your household, movement, bed, and person. I judged the first danger preferable. I judge it so still.”

Aeleanora’s grip eased around the ring. “You secured the child,” she said, “and left the woman to discover whether she would become an undying queen, an absent god, or a war of succession with excellent hair.”

“A formidable quantity of it.” Her eyes narrowed at him, and Baelor endured the look for a beat before adding with perfect gravity, “The rest was accurate.”

“Then tell me what paths you left.”

“Jacaerys’s descendants first, should he have them,” Baelor said. “If his line failed, the claim would pass sideways through the house, to Valarr or Matarys, their descendants, or another acknowledged Targaryen branch with a lawful blood claim and the strength to hold the realm.”

Aeleanora’s brows rose. “A remarkably generous field of claimants. Did you mean to lay them all upon a table and allow me to choose whichever had acquired the fewest defects?”

“The choice would be yours while you wore the crown,” he said. “You could name an heir from among the lawful branches, proclaim the choice before the realm, and bind the great houses to it by oath while you still possessed the power to punish refusal.”

“And if I named no one?”

“The nearest blood would press the strongest claim, aided by whatever proclamations came before and whatever peace the great houses could be compelled to swear. That does not mean the realm would agree upon whose blood lay nearest.” Baelor’s voice remained level.

“No. Agreement would deprive everyone of banners.”

A brief laugh escaped Baelor, low and unwilling, and he rubbed one knuckle against the corner of his mouth as though the sound had betrayed him. “And of the pleasure of discovering some ancient kinship to the throne.”

“So my body was never required to continue the succession.”

“No,” Baelor said. “Crowns have passed from brother to brother, uncle to nephew, cousin to cousin, and from one branch of a house into another. Jacaerys has declared that this one shall pass from brother to sister. The sovereign’s child is the clearest heir. It is not the only lawful one.”

“And you expected me to select some distant cousin after centuries of being watched for a child I could never bear.”

“The design was that, if the need ever came, you would choose from the house as it then stood, not as it stood when you were eight.” He spoke without haste, refusing both defence and embellishment. “Jacaerys might have had ten children by then. Valarr and Matarys might have founded branches of their own. Another dragonline might have joined the royal house through marriage or stood nearer after elder branches failed. Service might make one claimant more trusted than another, though it could not alter the blood between them. Naming a distant successor while you were eight would have created the rival court we had already refused to permit.”

Aeleanora ran the edge of Aemma’s ring beneath her thumbnail. “You preserved the law and declined to supply it with a body.”

“Several lawful lines remained open. Naming one person before we knew who remained, whom you trusted, and whom the realm would follow would have created the rival court we meant to prevent.”

“And if I outlive every branch?”

“Then the house must be renewed through whatever lawful dragonline remains, or the realm will face a succession no Targaryen king has yet been required to settle.”

Aeleanora let out a quiet breath. “You left the Crown heirs,” she said.

“Yes.”

“That is not the same as leaving me a successor.”

“No,” Baelor said. “A successor would have been another claimant standing behind an eight-year-old girl. We chose to leave you the right to name one when the choice no longer endangered the child.”

Aemma’s ring caught the low firelight upon her thumb. Jacaerys had been sixteen when they placed a crown upon him and asked him to guard a succession whose deepest danger no lord kneeling before him could be permitted to know. He had known enough to keep her near, enough to agree when Baelor offered him a means of doing it, and too little to understand every future that agreement laid before her. Yet before the crown, before the vows and concealed blood and gods beyond the Veil, he had simply wanted a sister. Aemma had tied ribbons into her hair. Viserys had carried her through the halls when she grew tired and declared herself incapable of walking another step.

“Was any part of me allowed to be simple?”

Baelor’s hand closed around her ankle. His gaze settled upon her face, and for one moment the years seemed to gather behind what he saw there. Aeleanora could not tell whether he remembered the child she had been or some history that had begun before her birth.

“You were,” he said. “To Aemma and Viserys. To Jacaerys. You were hungry, troublesome, loud when you wished to be carried and louder when anyone attempted to put you down. You wanted stories, sugared fruit, warmer blankets, another hour with your books. They knew what surrounded you. They also knew you were their child.”

Aeleanora’s thumb rested against the worn edge of the ring. For once, she let both truths stand: child and princess, heir and godling, each name drawing another duty around her before she had learned enough to refuse it. Yet one question remained beneath all the others.

“Did any of them know what I was meant to become?”

Baelor’s attention shifted past her and fixed upon some point within the darkened bedchamber. Nothing moved there. When he answered, the lowest edge of his voice sounded farther away than the man seated beside her. “Only Voryth knew the whole of her design. Seraphyra and Aelorion understood why Nyxar required what survived in you. Neither knew whether denying him was the whole purpose of your birth. There were centuries between Seraphyra’s ascension and your conception.”

Aeleanora let the ring turn beneath her thumb. “So they preserved an answer none of them could read.”

“They preserved their daughter.” His gaze returned to Aeleanora. One forefinger traced once along the worn seam of the divan cushion, a small, exact movement wholly at odds with the scale of what he had said. She could not tell whether the gesture steadied memory, temper, or merely his choice of words. “Whatever answer lies beyond that belonged to Voryth, and she left no complete account of it.”

“Then I presume someone means to hatch the egg and discover what Voryth neglected to explain.”

“No.” The speed of it caught her attention. “The egg was left capable of hatching because every other vessel would have made the separation permanent,” Baelor said. “That does not mean I wish it hatched. While the seal holds, Nyxar has greater difficulty finding you, and whatever power lies within the egg remains beyond use.”

“So they preserved the chance merely to spend centuries praying it is never used.”

“They preserved a last course. I would choose it only when every other course had become worse.”

Aeleanora studied him. “And if it hatches despite your prayers?”

“Then we learn what has returned to you, what you can command, and what has been awakened alongside it. I will not call that desirable. I will not leave you to face it alone.”

The fire had sunk to a red hollow beneath the ash, leaving the farther corners of the chamber dim and indistinct. Her thoughts remained viciously awake. They returned to every unfinished answer in turn, worrying at the gaps as though persistence might force the dead, the absent, and the gods themselves to testify.

“What else?” she asked.

Baelor took in the hand closed around Aemma’s ring, the rigid line of her shoulders, and the lashes she had to force open again. “That is the end of what I know,” he said.

Aeleanora’s fingers stopped against the ring. “An uncharacteristically modest conclusion.”

“It is an exact one,” he said. He drew back the loosened cuff that had fallen over his wrist and refolded it against his forearm, pressing the black wool flat beneath two fingers. “I can tell you what I witnessed, what Seraphyra and Aelorion told me, and what was decided in councils I attended. I cannot tell you what they feared in private or what Vaelora never chose to explain.”

“You have offered opinions before.”

“When I had cause to hold them.”

“How scrupulous of you to discover restraint when the answers become worth having.”

His brow lowered. “They were worth having from the first. I have reached the edge of what I can answer truthfully.”

Aeleanora opened her mouth, another question already pressing forward, and found she could no longer decide which ought to come first. She had scarcely arranged two before the rest crowded across them. Seraphyra’s agreement led back to Vaelora; Vaelora led to the egg; the egg returned her to the body beneath the robe.

Baelor waited through the silence. “You are exhausted.”

“I am considering.”

“You have been considering with your eyes closed between blinks.”

Her lashes lifted at once, offended by the accusation and by the likelihood that it was true. “Perhaps I find your face easier to endure in portions.”

“Then spare yourself the whole of it until morning.”

“That sounds perilously like dismissal.”

“No.” He adjusted the loose edge of her robe where it had gathered beneath his hand, drawing the silk smooth over her shin. “The matter will still be here in the morning. Ask me a hundred times tonight and I shall know no more than I know now.”

Aeleanora held herself upright for another breath before her shoulders met the furs. The setting of Aemma’s ring had left a red crescent on her thumb, and she rubbed it once against the heel of her palm. “I dislike endings that fail to conclude anything,” she mumbled.

“So do I.”

“And yet you appear determined to keep this one.”

“I have told you everything I can answer honestly.”

Her thumb rested upon the worn silver. She drew breath to ask what Seraphyra had feared most, but the question faltered before she gave it voice. “Mysaria may know what Seraphyra told her in confidence,” Baelor said. “She cannot answer for councils she did not attend, but she may possess fears and intentions Seraphyra never entrusted to me.”

Aeleanora narrowed her eyes at him. “May?”

“Yes. She cannot bear witness to counsels she did not attend.” His gaze held hers. “For those, you have Seraphyra’s letters.”

Aeleanora’s shoulders drew back against the furs. The letters had waited since Baelor first told her of them, sealed away with a woman she had not yet wished to know more intimately. Seraphyra had remained easier to endure as history: a healer who had crossed the Veil, a mother who had surrendered her child, a god whose absence had governed half Aeleanora’s life. The letters threatened to make Seraphyra particular: to give her a temper, private fears, and a hand Aeleanora could recognise upon the page. Perhaps some account of what it felt like when mortal flesh first became large enough to contain Life. Aeleanora was no more certain she wished to meet that woman upon parchment than she had been before.

“Do they answer all of this?”

“I do not know.” Baelor’s free hand lifted from his thigh. It closed before the movement found any purpose and returned to rest. “They were written for you. I have never read them.” Whatever had passed across him vanished before Aeleanora could seize it. Seraphyra did something peculiar to his composure, often enough that chance no longer satisfied. Resurrection, obligation, or some ancient failure, Aeleanora possessed evidence for each and proof of none. She was too tired to prise at another history tonight. “There may be answers that died with those who possessed them.” 

Aeleanora disliked the conclusion enough to believe it. She released the breath through her nose and eased back into the furs, resenting how readily her exhausted body yielded. The ache low in her hips had endured gods, bloodlines, and succession like a slighted courtier, waiting until her attention weakened before demanding audience again. “I suppose you mean to order me to bed next.”

“I do.”

“Choose the word carefully. I am likely to bite it.”

Baelor’s gaze lowered to her mouth. His fingers flexed once beneath her calf, pressing warmth through the silk before becoming still again. “Then I shall choose one that has survived you before.” His mouth took on a slow, insufferable satisfaction. “Sleep.”

Aeleanora summoned the stare that typically silenced their king, but Baelor endured it without blinking. Her mouth betrayed her first, pulling upward at one corner before she could press it flat again. “That was your careful choice?”

“It was.”

“And what preserves you from being bitten?”

“My patience.” The confidence behind it belonged to a man who had survived her temper long before either of them entered this bed.

Her smile widened despite her. “An arrogant defence.”

One brow rose, and his smile acquired a touch more provocation. “You have tested it for years.”

“You presume it has never failed.”

“I presume you are too tired to test it properly.”

Several replies arrived together, tangled themselves, and perished behind her teeth. Baelor possessed just enough wisdom not to let his smile broaden. His hand remained beneath her calf, warm through the silk. The choices remained ugly. Wanting him near had not become less true for that. 

Aeleanora regarded the cuff he had refolded with such unnecessary precision, then slipped two fingers beneath the black wool and tugged. Reaching for him had become instinctive with indecent speed. He considered the fingers beneath his cuff before meeting her eyes. The pause lasted scarcely a breath, though it belonged to none of the weariness she had seen in him earlier. 

Then he yielded enough for the pull to bring his shoulder nearer hers. A pale strand of hair lay across her cheek. He noticed it, though he made no move to free it yet. Aeleanora tugged his cuff once more, smaller this time. “You are very demanding for someone half asleep.”

“You made no complaint when I was demanding last night.”

His tongue pressed briefly against the inside of his lower lip. “You were rather more specific then.”

Aeleanora tugged his cuff with measured impatience. “Must I always do all the work?”

One corner of his mouth lifted higher. “And what would Your Grace prefer?”

Aeleanora tipped her chin, presenting him with the hair still lying against her cheek. “Surely the Hand of the King can interpret so modest a command.”

Baelor made her wait another moment before catching the fallen strand between two fingers and drawing it slowly behind her ear. The backs of his knuckles lingered against the delicate skin there before his hand settled beneath her jaw. Aeleanora yielded her weight into his palm. The provocation in his smile gentled.

“Do not look at me like that,” she said. 

“Like what?”

“With that intolerable fondness.”

His palm remained beneath her jaw. “You have accused my face of worse offences.”

“None so smug.”

“I have said nothing.”

“Your face has become indiscreet,” she said.

“Then you should cease encouraging it.”

Aeleanora’s fingers tightened beneath his cuff. “I have encouraged nothing.”

“No?” He glanced at the hand keeping him near. “Then I have been grievously misled.”

The smile at his mouth deepened. His hand slipped from her cheek into the loose weight of her hair at the nape of her neck, careful not to catch it beneath his fingers. He bent toward her, and Aeleanora lifted her chin before he could ask, releasing his cuff only to slide her hands upwards, over the severe black wool of his shoulders and around the back of his neck. His mouth met hers with deceptive softness, his hand holding her jaw while the other remained planted beside her hip. She drew him nearer and parted her lips for him.

Baelor answered with one slow, thorough stroke of his tongue, his fingers spreading through her hair as pleasure spilled through her belly and pooled lower. Then he stopped. His lips remained against hers, barely touching, while his breath came warm over her mouth. The hand at her nape kept her close while his thumb settled beneath her jaw. When she tried to claim the scant distance he had left between them, the light pressure of his thumb checked her pursuit. The warning lived in the pressure: enough. His self-command had begun to fray.

“You are cruel,” she murmured against his lips. 

“Yes.” He kissed the corner of her mouth, light enough to make her chase it. “Tonight, I am.” She tightened both arms around his neck and pulled him back. He allowed her one more brief, deep kiss before turning his mouth to her cheek. “Greedy,” he whispered against her skin.

His lips brushed the place beneath her cheekbone, then the corner of her mouth again. Aeleanora turned after each retreat, refusing to let him decide the whole distance between them. “Then stop tempting me.”

“I am doing considerably less than I should like.”

“You mistake confession for a defence.”

“My restraint is all that leaves you strength enough to complain,” he said. Aeleanora turned her face, seeking his mouth. He evaded her by scarcely an inch and kissed beneath her ear instead. Heat coiled along her spine, startlingly clean after the weight of gods, crowns, and barren futures. “Rest tonight.”

She drew back far enough to look at him. “You spoil perfectly good kisses with conversation.”

“And tomorrow.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Careful.”

“The following night as well, if you lie to me poorly.” His thumb paused at her cheekbone, and his eyes narrowed with the grim amusement of a man already expecting the attempt.

Aeleanora stared at him. “Three nights?” she said, with the hushed horror of a princess told there would be no lemons until spring. “Shall I take vows? Cut off all my hair? Learn to love needlework for its own sake?”

A short laugh left him before he could bury it, quiet and warm enough to make his severity look briefly undressed. “You may keep your hair.” His thumb crossed her cheek again, and his eyes followed the movement as if the path mattered. “The needlework is beyond my power.”

“Then someone has been spreading extravagant lies about your authority.”

Aeleanora prepared a second charge and found a yawn attempting to seize the same breath. She smothered it with as much dignity as could be saved, though her eyes had already watered faintly at the corners. Baelor received her most forbidding stare with a smile, then glanced at the legs stretched across his lap.

“I shall have you killed.”

“Have the headsman come on the fourth morning,” he said. “I should hate to die before completing my sentence.” The laugh broke from her before she could prevent it, soft at first, then bright enough to escape all dignity when his own amusement answered. Aeleanora hid the worst of it against his shoulder. He kissed her hair. “Come. You are going back to bed.”

“The bed betrayed me earlier,” Aeleanora said, laughter still lingering beneath the accusation.

“The bed is innocent.”

“It has hosted many crimes.”

“It will host sleep now.”

The low amusement in his voice nearly made her laugh again. “A bold rise in station.”

Baelor eased her arms from around his neck, though he kept one of her hands in his. He rose without disturbing her legs, supporting them until she could draw them from his lap, then placed his other hand at her waist as she stood. Aeleanora stood with her chin lifted and immediately regretted belonging to a body. The ache low in her hips sharpened as soon as her feet met the floor, and her fingers locked around his wrist. He stopped with her, and his free hand spread across her waist before the pain could take her balance.

“Do not say anything,” she warned.

“I was going to say walk slowly.”

“That is saying something.”

His brows lifted by the smallest useful degree, sternness arranged so neatly over humour that she wanted to ruin both. “Walk slowly anyway.”

“Despot,” she grumbled.

“Limping sovereign.” His voice stayed grave, which made the fondness beneath it far more offensive.

She looked up at him, offended clean through. “You take a dangerous pleasure in provoking women who cannot presently chase you.”

His hand moved from her waist to the small of her back, drawing her against him until the front of his doublet brushed her robe. He bent near enough that his beard grazed her temple. “Rest,” he said, his mouth close to her ear, “and I shall permit the chase.”

His palm slid once over the curve above her hip before returning to the middle of her back. The brief caress sent heat flaring beneath her skin. “That,” she said, once her voice agreed to return, “was improper encouragement.”

“It was meant to be.”

“Bold confession.”

His laugh stirred against her hair, low and quiet in his chest. She felt it where their bodies met, which seemed an indecent place for amusement to reside. He walked her back to the bed with the patience of a man escorting a queen through a hostile corridor, though the enemy in this case was distance, soreness, and her own refusal to move like someone who had been thoroughly undone multiple times in the last week. Aeleanora permitted him to help her sit upon the edge.

When the mattress took her weight, relief escaped in a slow breath through her nose. Baelor offered no sign of triumph as he drew the dark coverlet across her legs and arranged it with the austere competence of a man putting a disorderly kingdom to rights. His fingers paused at her hip beneath the wool, the pressure light but lingering. Aeleanora settled back against the pillows and watched him retrieve the dreadful Reachman’s book from beside her thigh. 

“Do not bring that near me. I have suffered enough tonight.”

He considered the cover. “The moss?”

“The moss knows what it did.”

He set the volume beside his cuff clasps, safely beyond her reach, and returned to the bed. He sat beside her, one hip turned toward hers. The mattress dipped beneath him and drew her a little closer.

Aeleanora’s fingers rose toward his wrists before she had decided to lift them. That her body had learned the path in a single week was an indignity she would examine later. She stopped halfway, accepting comfort was one thing, and clinging to it was how ballads became smug. He watched the arrested motion, lowered his brow a fraction, and brought her hands the rest of the way himself, laying them around his wrists with the severity that made refusal look childish before returning his hands to her face.

“Tyrannical,” she whispered.

“You have mentioned it.”

“Insufficiently,” she grumbled. He kissed her before she could improve the charge. This kiss came slowly, his mouth moving over hers with patient heat until warmth gathered low in her belly. His tongue touched hers once, a measured taste that left her leaning after him when he withdrew. His forehead rested against hers. “And after this tyrannical interval?” she asked.

Baelor’s hands slid from her face into her hair. He gathered its heavy length behind her neck and wound it once about his fist. Her breath caught at what the gesture recalled. “After,” he said, “I come back and take care of you properly.”

Aeleanora’s fingers tightened around his wrists. She could feel his pulse under one thumb now, a small betrayal from a man otherwise determined upon control. Her belly gave a sudden, hollow swoop, and heat unfurled beneath the soreness between her thighs. Promise was not touch, but her body had always been greedy enough to demand payment in advance. “Properly,” she repeated.

His fist remained buried in her hair. “Very.”

“What a dutiful word for such indecent intention.”

His thumb passed over her lower lip, pressing it lightly against her teeth. Then he kissed her, a soft, almost chaste touch placed directly upon the mouth he had just promised to ruin. His lips lingered for scarcely a breath. “I find it suits both,” he said.

A shiver rippled visibly through her. For one suspended moment, the look he gave her suggested that he might abandon prudence and kiss her until neither of them remembered why he had stopped. Instead, he unwound her hair slowly from his fist, letting each strand slide over his knuckles. Aeleanora despised his cursed self-command with renewed fervour. Her mind set those hands to work with an enthusiasm her body was presently in no condition to reward. Two nights stretched suddenly before her in all their useless length. 

“And when these two wretched nights have passed,” she asked, watching the last strand of hair slip free of his fingers, “how do you intend to take care of me?”

Baelor bent and kissed her once, deep enough to answer and brief enough that she followed when he withdrew. His lips remained against hers when he spoke. “Slowly,” he murmured. “Until you have forgotten every complaint except the one I am giving you.”

Aeleanora’s breath snagged against his mouth. Heat spread beneath the lingering tenderness between her thighs as memory supplied what his promise had omitted: his weight holding her open, his mouth patient upon every place that made her lose command of herself, his hands refusing to hurry even when she begged him to.

“That may require considerable effort.”

“I am prepared to be diligent.” The quiet certainty in his voice made diligence sound indecent.

Aeleanora regarded him beneath lowered lashes. “See that your labour justifies the delay.”

Baelor went very quiet. Intent patience settled over his face, the expression she had learned much too quickly to distrust. “You may judge me when I am finished.”

The answer sent another slow contraction low in her belly. She tightened her fingers once around his wrists, both warning and acceptance, before exhaustion dragged at her limbs again. Baelor remained beside her while it began to claim her. His hand passed through her hair, freeing the strands caught beneath her shoulder and spreading them across the pillow. Aeleanora kept one hand curled around his loosened cuff, her hold growing lazier without wholly releasing him.

“You have not gone,” she murmured.

“No.”

“Is that patience again?”

His fingers traced the curve behind her ear. “Something like it.”

“An evasive answer.”

“You are too tired to bring a proper charge against me.”

Her lashes lifted. “Coward.”

Baelor bent until his mouth hovered beside her ear. “Keep calling me that,” he murmured, “and I shall remember every insolence when I have you beneath my hands again.”

Warmth from his breath moved over her skin. The words sent a tight pulse through her belly and a deeper throb beneath it, making her press her thighs together before she could think better of it. His attention dropped to the movement. A slow exhale touched her temple. He kissed her there, lingering there while she burned with the knowledge of having been read so easily.

Then he rose and the mattress lifted beside her with the loss of his weight. He gathered the silver cuff clasps from the table and took up his cloak, leaving it unfastened over one arm. At the bedchamber arch, he paused and looked back.

Aeleanora lay amongst the dark linens with her hair spread over the pillow and one hand resting where his wrist had been. Weariness weighed upon her lashes, though the rest of her had become inconveniently awake.

“Good night, Your Grace.”

She smiled at him. “Good night, my lord Hand.”

By the morning of Prince Baelor Targaryen’s nameday, six weeks had made Aeleanora dangerously well-informed and left her with absolutely nothing useful to wear. She knew the left side of his throat betrayed him first, just above the collar, where a single tendon drew tight when discipline began losing ground. She knew which praise he gave because he meant to steady her and which praise escaped when she had caught him unprepared. She knew he could argue harbour tariffs with one hand beneath her skirts if sufficiently provoked. She knew he preferred the darker Dornish red to the sweet Arbor vintage Jacaerys inflicted upon visiting lords, and that he endured nameday fussing with the grave patience of a man trapped kneeling beneath a septon’s longest blessing. None of this helped her choose a gown.

The gowns had arranged themselves upon the bed in a manner that suggested conspiracy. Crimson silk lay nearest the footboard with its bodice cut too close through the ribs, a violent little thing with gold thread worked into the sleeves like flame caught under wire. Beside it, deep blue samite waited with irritating dignity, heavy and severe, fit to make every lesser woman in the hall look underfed by comparison. Black was also there, because black understood public events better than colour did, though the silver stitching along the skirts had begun to look smug under the torchlight. The bed had become a council of fabrics, and like most councils, it had produced quantity before wisdom.

Aeleanora stood before it in her shift with her hair loose down her back, turning the ring on her thumb while Daisy waited with a ribbon and a tray of pins. Months ago, she would have chosen the crimson and dared the room to survive her. A few weeks ago, she might have chosen the blue because Baelor had once looked at that colour on her one beat too long before forcing himself back to a trade complaint from Gulltown. Now every choice had acquired witnesses. Cloth had no business keeping account of which laces he had learned to undo quickly and which ones made him pause, as though even a bodice deserved better manners than most men.

“Not the crimson,” she said. 

Daisy held the pins with the solemn dread of a girl entrusted with battlefield instruments and glanced from the gown to her. “No, Princess?”

“It looks as though it expects applause.”

Daisy lowered her eyes quickly, though a smile threatened her. That was dangerous. Servants who began finding their princesses funny were a threat to discipline and would have to be rewarded or destroyed, depending upon available time. Aeleanora took the black sleeve between two fingers, rubbed the samite once, and scowled at it when the fabric behaved beautifully. 

“His Grace requested the hall be lit early,” Daisy said after a moment, careful as she sorted pearl-headed pins from silver. “There are many guests lodged in the western apartments.”

“Guests,” Aeleanora said, tasting the word for poison and finding plenty. “How generous of the castle to keep them all indoors.”

“For Prince Baelor’s nameday.”

“Yes, I had gathered the realm had survived another year of him.” She released the black sleeve and took the blue instead, then immediately disliked how much she liked it. “Astonishing fortitude on everyone’s part.”

The secret door had lost the thrill of discovery and become another thing in her rooms with habits of its own. Some nights the wall opened, other nights it remained stone with the self-importance of a septa guarding a sweetmeat cupboard. On the nights it did, books lost their purpose, cups appeared in pairs through a series of accidents too orderly to be believed, and the hour before sleep began behaving like an accomplice with poor morals. Aeleanora had grown accustomed, which was vile. Worse, she had grown skilled, which was an entirely separate offence and one she intended to lay at Baelor’s feet at the first convenient hour, preferably while wearing nothing and therefore beyond the reach of sober argument.

They drank, argued, kissed, touched, fucked, and rose alone the next day with straightened clothes and no trace left for anyone clever enough to count. It was clearly a vice, but she had decided vices became troublesome only when dragged into daylight. So long as it remained wine, heat, argument, breath, and the occasional dismantling of her pride under cover of night, order could limp along. 

She asked more easily now, if the request concerned pressure, slower, again, there, or any of the increasingly criminal uses to which praise could be put. He had made her beg once, only a little, scarcely enough to trouble the archives, though she would still prefer the histories burned and the Seven struck blind in advance. In return, she had caught him in his solar in broad daylight and extracted a lapse from him over a stack of shipping ledgers, after which he informed her that the incident was regrettable while refastening her gown with hands so steady they insulted remorse itself. Since then, royal duties had improved considerably. Once, a raven from Gulltown had been read aloud in a voice of such grave suffering that Baelor laughed against her throat and ruined the entire complaint and nearly the chair beneath her. She had nearly bitten him for that alone. She still might. Some hungers only improved with delay.

Daisy held up a length of silver gauze for the black gown. “This one would catch the torchlight, Princess.”

“Of course it would,” Aeleanora said. “It has ambitions.”

“It is very fine.”

“So are daggers.”

“Yes, Princess.” Daisy’s eyes flicked up, decided survival lay elsewhere, and returned to the pins. “Shall I set aside the blue?”

“No.” Aeleanora looked at the bed again, then at the glass above the vanity. The woman in the mirror stood barefoot on black stone, hair spilling loose and white around her shoulders, shift clinging at hip and thigh, face arranged into the lazy, heavy-lidded contempt the court had mistaken for breeding before it learned to call it danger. Tonight she would enter the hall as Princess of Dragonstone, heir to Jacaerys, cherished niece, obedient kin, and dutiful ornament. Baelor would be there as Hand, prince, husband, father, uncle, honoured guest, and watched man. They would toast him, praise him, remember him, fuss over him, and lay lawful little claims at his feet in the name of affection. She would have to stand among them with all her forbidden knowledge tucked beneath her teeth.

Aeleanora reached for the black gown. It was beautiful, severe, and perfectly willing to punish admiration for lingering. The bodice was cut low across the shoulders in a clean, dangerous sweep, leaving the collarbones bare while the black lace rose in thorned edges along the upper curve of her breasts. The waist narrowed with merciless precision, with silver boning worked beneath the silk. The sleeves sat just off the shoulder, lace clinging down her arms in long black vines, and the skirt fell heavy from the hips before opening in a long front panel where darker lace showed beneath, sheer enough to imply a leg when she walked and clever enough to deny every man the satisfaction of certainty. Silver embroidery climbed from the bodice in thin Valyrian coils, curling around black leaves and small red stones sewn so sparingly that each one looked like a gleaming drop of blood.

The jewels were both practical and exquisite. Daisy lifted the headpiece from its velvet-lined tray with careful reverence, and the delicate silver chains shivered once in the torchlight. It was old Valyrian work, narrow as spider silk and less forgiving, made to rest across the crown of her head and dip over her brow with three rubies suspended like small, obedient wounds. Matching stones waited at the throat in a silver necklace fashioned close enough to look like a collar if one had a wicked mind, which Aeleanora unfortunately did. The centre ruby would sit in the hollow beneath her throat, exactly where a man might look before remembering that skulls could be opened.

“It will not be too much?” Daisy asked, though her tone suggested she had already chosen life and would not argue with divinity dressed in black lace.

“It will be precisely enough,” Aeleanora said. “Any less would be charity.”

Daisy set the pin tray down and came forward at once. The gown was cool when it slid over Aeleanora’s arms, the inner lining whispering down her sides before settling against her skin. The weight of it changed her posture first, drawing her spine tall, setting her shoulders, making the woman in the glass look like judgement already passed. Good. If she must attend Baelor’s nameday with the memory of his touch still living privately beneath her ribs, then the court could have the version of her best suited to surviving witnesses.

Daisy fastened the back carefully. Aeleanora watched the reflection of each button disappearing into its loop and thought, with profound irritation, that none of this was enough. No jewel could provide a lawful place for the part of her that had learned his breath in the dark and now had to watch other people say his name as though they had any right to spend it. She turned back to the gowns abandoned on the bed, the crimson sulking beautifully, the blue pretending to be above insult, the silver gauze lying defeated across Daisy’s arm. None of them would have solved the matter. The hall would see the king’s heir in black silk and rubies. It could not have the woman who knew what his hands felt like.

Even the corridor in the inner keep had decided to become a road. Servants went by in quick pairs with wine ewers, spare candles, folded cloth, covered dishes, wreaths of dark laurel and silver ribbon, and the harried faces of people forced to make joy for someone safely removed from the labour of it. Somewhere below, a bell rang twice and was answered by a shout that lost its patience before it reached the second syllable. For almost a week, visiting houses had filled the western apartments, and Dragonstone had taken on their smell: wet cloaks, over-perfumed sleeves, horses left too close to stone, and old blood forced to remember it still travelled in bodies. Aeleanora stepped into it in black silk and silver, and three passing maids flattened themselves against the wall so quickly that one nearly sacrificed a basket of rushes to fear.

“Good,” Aeleanora said, drawing her sleeves down her wrist. “The rushes have been warned.”

Daisy followed two steps behind, mouth held straight, still too bright from surviving the dressing chamber. “Shall I send for a cloak, Princess?”

“No. Let the cold earn its keep.”

Daisy made no answer, which proved she had a future. Aeleanora dismissed her at the turn toward the great stair with one small gesture, then continued alone because arriving with an attendant would have made the evening look too arranged, and arriving unattended would make at least seven people wonder whether she had done it to insult them. Both were tolerable outcomes. The black stone stair curved down toward the hall, worn smooth at the centre by centuries of Targaryen feet. Torches burned in iron sconces shaped like dragon claws, and the flames threw red along the silverwork of her own gown until the embroidery seemed to stir when she moved. Very good. If the dress meant to behave like a weapon, it might as well enjoy employment.

At the lower landing, Jacaerys waited with Valarr beside him, both of them turned toward the sound of some lord’s voice drifting up from the hall below. Her brother wore black and red in the old royal severity, though he had chosen a narrow circlet in place of the crown, as if Baelor’s nameday deserved a king’s presence and not the full iron weight of one. Formal endurance had already gathered around his face. Beside him, Valarr had chosen darker grey worked with silver, because he had inherited enough sense to look beautiful at another man’s nameday without appearing to compete with the man the hall had come to honour. At Aeleanora’s approach, Jacaerys noticed her first. His look moved over the gown, the rubies at her brow, the necklace at her throat, and then her face, where his mouth pressed flat for one dangerous second before amusement threatened him.

“Must you arrive looking as though the feast has offended you before it has begun?” he asked.

Aeleanora descended the last three steps without hurrying. “It invited guests.”

“A grievous fault in a feast.”

“An elementary one. I am astonished no one warned the kitchens.”

Valarr turned fully then, and his brows rose with frank appreciation, wise enough to remain on safe ground. “You look like a widow who has already chosen the next husband’s matter of death.”

“Thank you,” she said with a smile. “I hoped for festive.”

Jacaerys offered his arm. His sleeve was warm beneath her fingers, the familiar weight of him steady in a way that belonged to childhood before it belonged to rule. That helped. It irritated her that it helped, but she allowed the help to continue breathing. Valarr fell in on her other side, indolent and handsome enough to make any hall forgive him before he offended it.

“There will be songs,” Jacaerys said, guiding her down the next turn of the stair. “Several. Endure them with the face of a princess and not an executioner.”

“That depends entirely upon the crimes committed.”

“The first harpist has a clean record.”

“For now.”

Valarr leaned closer as though passing treason. “The musicians have been practising since mid-afternoon. One of them has a pipe with ambitions against the living.”

“Have him watched,” Aeleanora said. “Men who abuse pipes often proceed to poetry.”

Jacaerys gave a low laugh, brief and genuine, and one of the guards at the archway looked straight ahead with violent dedication. Aeleanora felt her own mouth answer before she could stop it, small and sharp at the edge, and was absurdly grateful for them both. The great doors stood open below, and the sound from the hall rolled outward in layers: cups being set down, chairs dragged into place, women’s voices brightened by public listening, men laughing too loudly at jests whose only virtue was inheritance. Heat moved through the doorway with the smell of wax, wine, roasted meat, and crushed herbs underfoot. Dragonstone’s great hall had been dressed for celebration, which meant someone had hung so many silver-threaded black and red banners that the walls looked as though they had been instructed to mourn tastefully. At the far end, above the high table, the great carved dragons caught the torchlight along their teeth. They looked hungry. Aeleanora approved of them at once. 

“Daeron is already inside,” Valarr said. “He has been speaking to a cup of wine for the last quarter hour. I believe the cup is losing.”

“Then he is improving,” Jacaerys said. “Last nameday, he spent half the meal insisting the roast had a mournful aspect.”

Aeleanora looked toward the hall. “Did it?”

“By the end,” Jacaerys said, “yes.”

Valarr’s grin came quick and bright. “You see? This is why I asked to sit near you. You ask the right questions.”

“You asked because I am excellent cover for your poor behaviour.”

“I asked because your poor behaviour makes mine look like courtly ease.”

“Both of you,” Jacaerys said, though he sounded nothing like displeased. He paused before the threshold, and his forearm flexed beneath Aeleanora’s hand. “Try to enjoy one hour of it.”

“A whole hour?” she said. “You grow tyrannical with age.”

“I grow tired.”

“That also.”

His look found her face, dark and knowing in the torchlight, and for one narrow moment he seemed less like the king who had filled the hall below and more like her brother trying to decide how much of her mood belonged to vanity, how much to the feast and its imminent suitors. Aeleanora gave him the smallest smile she owned, a little blade of a thing, and looked back toward the hall before he could ask for the hand that held it.

A lord in Baratheon black and gold crossed the lower end of the hall just as they reached the threshold, broad-shouldered, laughing at something a dark-haired man said beside him, already lifting a greeting to another knot of guests. She knew who it was at once. Lyonel Baratheon moved as though the hall had been built a little too small for him and he had decided, generously, to forgive the stone. He caught sight of her, stopped mid-laugh, and swept into a bow so cheerful that the stormlord beside him looked offended by the amount of good humour spent before wine. When he straightened, Lyonel set his cup aside and pointed one finger toward the open floor, reminding her, across half a hall and too many witnesses, that she still owed him a dance.

Aeleanora answered with a small lift of her fingers and the kind of grin that promised poor decisions later. Valarr noticed, naturally, because Valarr noticed everything that might become entertaining.

“You have acquired a Stormlander,” he said.

“Briefly,” Aeleanora replied. “They are loud and difficult to store.”

“He seems willing enough to stand where men can see him,” Jacaerys said.

“He is useful there,” she said, watching Lyonel turn back to his companions with his grin still intact. “Few men dare drool too close to a laughing Baratheon. They fear being invited into the noise.”

“Good,” Jacaerys said.

“Do not sound so pleased. It gives your plots colour.”

“I am the king. My plots are richly dressed.”

Mysaria had already named tonight’s safer dangers, and Jacaerys had repeated them with less silk and more brother. The Lannister disgrace would keep fools from grabbing, not from smiling. Jacaerys bent his head slightly toward her. “Stay near Valarr or me if the room grows tedious,” he said low.

“The room was born tedious.”

“Then stay near Val because it pleases me.”

Aeleanora looked at Valarr. “Do you hear that? You have been promoted to royal furniture.”

Valarr touched his heart. “At last, a station suited to my talents.”

“Try not to creak.”

“I make no promises.”

Jacaerys’s mouth nearly gave him away again. He led her through the doors before either of them could become worse, and the hall turned toward them in waves. The notice began near the threshold, spread across the nearest tables, and then moved outward in little turns of head and lifted brows. Conversations thinned without fully dying. No courtier wished to be caught staring, which meant the staring became more careful and more insulting. Aeleanora felt the notice pass over her gown, linger at her throat, and return to her face with all the innocence men always found when no one had accused them yet.

She lifted her chin. The room could have the princess. It could have the heir, the sister, the dangerous little ornament in black silk, the woman whose suitors had learned caution at another man’s expense. Let them make a feast of that. The rest was none of theirs.

Somewhere near the high table, he had not yet turned. Good, Aeleanora thought, with immediate and unjust irritation. Then he did. She had survived suppers with lords who smiled like locks, prophecies that behaved badly indoors, and Baelor Targaryen murmuring praise against her inner thigh as though the realm had any right to continue existing afterward. Surely one man turning his head at a feast could be endured. A modest trial. A child’s trial, really.

Baelor stood near the high table in dark red, broad-shouldered and severe, the black embroidery at his sleeves showing only when the torchlight found it. Maekar had his ear, while one of Baelor’s hands rested loose at his side and the other held a cup in a manner that said some hopeful fool had passed him sweet wine and expected gratitude. When the room turned toward Jacaerys, he followed with everyone else, formal and measured, and then found her. The distance could excuse anything. A glance across a hall could be made innocent by furniture, blood, banners, dozens of witnesses, or a wife standing near the table. 

He held one beat too long anyway. His gaze moved to the rubies at her brow first, then the necklace at her throat, then the bare line of her shoulders above the black lace. By the time he returned to her face, the left side of his throat had already given him away. Aeleanora saw it and immediately wished to accuse him of public indecency, because honestly, if men were going to stand beneath banners with their wives at the table and betray themselves by throat, perhaps the Faith ought to invent a punishment for it.

Jacaerys led her forward, and Baelor inclined his head to her brother first, as was proper, which was extremely rude of him. He greeted Aeleanora afterward with the exact measure due a niece and a young woman he had absolutely not had pressed beneath him three nights earlier with one of her legs hooked around his hip while she informed him, with considerable dignity, that his manners had become ungovernable. He stood with his shoulders squared, cup steady, mouth grave, every inch of him returned to the room before anyone could prove he had ever left it.

“My Princess,” he said.

“My Prince,” she returned with a nod of her head, and left him to greet Valarr. It was perfectly lawful and entirely bloodless, except for the small matter of wanting to drag the word princess out of his mouth and replace it with something no one in the hall could survive hearing. 

Aeleanora had just released her brother’s arm when Jena came through the shuffle with Matarys at her shoulder and a small smile already waiting. She looked well tonight, pale gold silk beneath a mantle of purple, her ginger hair braided with seed pearls, already marking Matarys’s cup, Lord Redwyne’s approach, and the servant angling too near with the wrong ewer. She kissed Jacaerys’s cheek as he passed, touched Valarr’s sleeve in greeting, then took Aeleanora’s hands and squeezed once. “You look beautiful, sweetling.”

Aeleanora loved Jena. That was the problem. Jena had once sat through an entire supper with Aeleanora under the table because the princess had declared the chairs tyrannical and no one, not even Jacaerys, had been able to argue her out of it without making the matter worse. She corrected servants gently before anyone could be blamed, and had the rare gift of making kindness look practical instead of soft-headed. If she had been cruel, vain, foolish, spiteful, or anything less inconvenient than beloved, Aeleanora could have known how to feel.

“You have grown charitable,” Aeleanora said, letting Jena keep hold of her for one extra moment because refusing would have been strange and accepting was somehow worse.

“I have always been charitable. You were simply too busy making enemies of your lessons to notice.”

“They began it.”

“I have no doubt.”

Jena glanced toward the high table, where Baelor stood with Lord Mooton half-bowed before him. Her face changed by the smallest measure, fond and dry at once, the look of a woman watching a well-trained hound endure children tying ribbons round its neck. “He has been escaping praise since the first cup was poured.”

“Poor Prince Baelor,” Aeleanora said. “Hunted by gratitude. Songs shall be made.”

“They already have been. That is why he is suffering.”

“You will rescue him?” Jena asked, with a glance.

Aeleanora looked over. Lord Mooton’s hands had begun conducting an invisible tide before Baelor’s face. Baelor’s head was bent in court-trained attention, though his cup remained untouched and his thumb rested along the rim instead of the stem. He looked fit for histories and bored near to murder. Excellent. She could work with murder.

“I should let him perish,” Aeleanora said. “It may teach him to stand farther from men with damp opinions.”

Jena laughed, soft and delighted, and squeezed once more before letting go. “Sit near Valarr. He has promised to be entertaining, which means he will either succeed or require apology. Both should occupy you.”

“Your faith in my restraint grows reckless.”

“My faith is in Valarr’s survival. He has endured worse.”

Jena went the other way, toward a knot of Reachmen who brightened at the sight of her and made space before she reached them. Of course they did. Jena had places everywhere tonight: at Baelor’s side, at Matarys’s shoulder, among Reach cousins, inside old household memories where chairs had been tyrants and sugared plums had been terms of surrender. Aeleanora sat between Valarr and Daeron with a crown’s worth of titles and no useful place to put her irritation over Baelor’s untouched cup.

Daeron leaned toward her as she took her seat. “You missed Lord Mooton’s description of the tide.”

“Did I.”

“It had three parts. None were merciful.”

“Then I am glad I missed the shore.” Aeleanora drew her cup closer with two fingers and glanced down the table, where Mooton was still bowing over his own importance.

Valarr slid a cup toward her before she could reach for the wrong one. “This one is yours. Sweet without declaring war on one’s teeth.”

“A dangerous amount of attention.”

“I am a dangerous man,” he said with a raised brow. He took his own cup, found it empty, and immediately traded it with Daeron’s and tipped it to her before drinking from it.

Aeleanora surveyed him from jewelled collar to offending grin. “You are handsome and overindulged. People mistake that for peril because they enjoy being deceived.”

“I forgive them.” 

“Magnanimous. I shall alert the singers.”

Daeron’s smile appeared slowly, as though it had wandered in from a dream and found the feast a poor country. He had dressed properly and still looked half-haunted. “Lord Mooton will spill wine on his left sleeve before the roast is cut.”

Valarr leaned around Aeleanora. “Is that prophecy or hope?”

“Observation.”

Aeleanora followed Daeron’s gaze. Mooton’s sleeve did, in fact, hover at the edge of disaster, wide and fur-trimmed and ignorant of mortality. “I withdraw my earlier complaint. This feast has acquired stakes.”

Valarr snorted into his cup, and the laugh pulled Baelor’s attention before Aeleanora could decide whether to want it. Baelor was still listening to Lord Mooton’s tide with the discipline of a septa, yet his attention cut once toward their end of the table. It caught Daeron’s stolen cup, then her face, and vanished before the room could count it. Aeleanora felt robbed anyway.

The first course came in a tide of steam, platters of river fish in green sauce, small pies glossed with butter, bowls of black olives, bread split open beneath herb oil, and a dish of pale crab dressed with sharp vinegar that made Daeron lean away as if it had spoken too loudly. For a merciful quarter hour, ceremony became chewing. Aeleanora nearly managed to keep her knife gentle against the fish. Then Matarys said something to the other side of the high table, too low for her to hear, and Baelor laughed.

Not much. Baelor did not throw his head back like Jacaerys did or let mirth spill out of him like Valarr. The laugh softened the severity around his eyes before amusement broke through. Then he lowered his face toward his cup as if the wine had betrayed him into indulgence. Matarys grinned like he had stolen a jewel in daylight. Aeleanora cut into her fish with unnecessary care and disliked the entire lawful structure of sons. 

By the time the second course was being carried in, Lyonel Baratheon had come to the front of the high table with a trencher in one hand, a cup in the other, with no sign that princes and kings seated above him troubled his courage. He bowed first to Jacaerys at the centre, then to Baelor because it was Baelor’s nameday, then turned his grin toward the lower end where Aeleanora sat between Valarr and Daeron.

“Princess,” he said. “I have inspected the musicians and bring grave news. The pipes have survived supper.”

Aeleanora rested her elbow on the table. “Then supper has failed in its duty.”

“I considered correcting the matter myself, but I was told Baratheon diplomacy is not improved by breaking instruments over benches.”

“Whoever told you that lacks imagination.”

Lyonel looked to Daeron. “Is she always this encouraging?”

Daeron lifted one finger from his cup. “Only when violence is theoretical.”

“Wise of her,” Lyonel said. “Threatened violence spills less wine.”

“Then you have misunderstood wine,” Aeleanora said.

Valarr pointed his knife toward Lyonel with beautiful laziness. “Careful, Baratheon. If you continue making sense, she will begin expecting it.”

“That would be cruel of her.”

“I am often cruel,” Aeleanora said.

Lyonel’s grin widened. “Yes, but rarely dull. That is why the Stormlands remain loyal.”

A lord at the lower tables turned at Lyonel’s laugh, then remembered survival when Aeleanora noticed him. That was Lyonel’s use at court. He could make noise beside her without trying to own the space he filled. Men who might otherwise drift too near saw Baratheon shoulders, Baratheon teeth, and a grin built for inviting fools into humiliation. Most chose survival.

Baelor had turned slightly to answer Jacaerys. He did not glance down at Lyonel, which told Aeleanora at once that he knew Lyonel was there. His cup remained untouched. One finger moved against the stem, stopped, and went still again.

Lyonel took a solemn swallow from his cup, then glanced toward the open floor where the musicians had begun sorting themselves into renewed courage. “I shall keep near enough for summons once the realm has eaten itself into danger.”

“How noble,” Aeleanora said. “A stag offering himself to slaughter.”

“To dance,” Lyonel corrected.

“That remains under review.”

“Then I shall await judgment with courage, terror, and one more cup.”

“See that you do. Cowardice stains terribly.”

Lyonel pressed a palm over his heart as though the wound had been dealt in song rather than conversation. “Princess, if I fall, tell the Stormlands I died handsomely.”

“I shall tell them you died loudly. It will comfort them more.”

He laughed, bowed to the table, and moved back into the hall with his trencher still in hand. She and Valarr watched him go with open amusement.

The trouble with feasts was that they kept changing shape before she could decide which part deserved the knife. The fish vanished and the roast arrived crowned with rosemary and arrogance. Jacaerys stood at last with a cup in hand. He set his cup against the table once, lightly, and the nearest voices died before the sound finished travelling.

“To Prince Baelor,” Jacaerys said, and his cup lifted only slightly, so the hall could follow without feeling commanded. “My uncle, My Hand, and the man who has spent more years than any song will admit standing between this crown and the very foolish habit men have of thinking crowns stand by themselves.”

A low murmur moved through the hall, not quite laughter and not quite assent, the pleased sound of lords hearing a king make truth handsome. Baelor sat to Jacaerys’s right, still as carved oak, his cup untouched before him, his face turned to his king and nephew with the full courtesy due the moment. Matarys, on Baelor’s other side, looked down at his plate with a smile he was failing to hide. Aeleanora saw that too and hated it a little, because sons were allowed to be proud in public and nieces were apparently expected to sit with their knees arranged and their thoughts caged.

Jacaerys continued, “When men speak of reigns, they remember victories, marriages, heirs, treaties, and deaths. They remember the year a rebellion ended, the day a dragon flew, the winter a granary held. They are less fond of remembering the hand that made the ink dry before blood was needed, or the voice that sent a proud lord back to his chair with his banners still unburned. I remember. My council remembers. The houses seated here tonight have reason to remember, even those wise enough to pretend their gratitude had begun willingly.”

That drew laughter, warmer this time, and several old men raised their cups with the helpless good humour of those who knew they had been caught and spared. Baelor lowered his face for a moment. Aeleanora saw it and felt her grip close around her cup before the rest of her had voted on the matter.

“And because no nameday toast should leave its subject too comfortable, let it also be remembered that the same man has settled more disputes with ink than most commanders settle with steel, and when steel was required, he never sent another man where he would not ride first. Some of you have thanked him across a council table. Some of your fathers learned to thank him from the wrong end of a battlefield. Both lessons have served the realm.”

Laughter stirred again, and Baelor’s eyes narrowed, dry amusement gathering beneath the lowered brow before he lifted the cup. Baelor stood only after the toast had spent itself. He did not hurry, because Baelor did not rescue himself from praise by fleeing like a younger man with less pride. He took the cup at last, inclined his head first to Jacaerys, then to the hall. “Your Grace honours me beyond the work.”

“Then I shall honour the work as well,” Jacaerys said. “It has kept me alive, spared my quills, frightened my enemies into better manners, and corrected my temper often enough to deserve lands of its own.”

That earned a true stir of laughter, and Baelor’s expression changed, the lower lids tightening with dry amusement before he lifted the cup. “A hard burden, Your Grace. Wisdom rarely settles where invited.”

He drank. Barely enough. The sweet wine touched his mouth and was lowered again with all the courtesy that made refusal impossible to prove. Aeleanora watched because she was cursed, because the hall was full of witnesses, because she knew that he disliked that wine and everyone else had just applauded him for swallowing it. A tiny thing. A foolish thing. A private piece of knowledge no one had asked her to hold. It lodged beneath her ribs all the same, sharp as a fishbone and twice as stupid.

After the toast, the hall loosened with the relief of men who had survived sincerity and meant to reward themselves with meat. Jacaerys sat again, and Baelor sat after him, because even lowering himself into a chair beside the king had to be made into a lesson on order, apparently. Matarys leaned toward his father and said something behind the cover of his cup, quick and low, and Baelor cut a sideways warning before his answer came. Aeleanora could not hear the words, only saw the effect: Matarys’s shoulders shook once, Baelor’s brows lowered in warning, and Jacaerys studied his wine pretending his uncle’s warning had anything to do with governance and nothing at all to do with Matarys being one breath from disgrace. Sons were intolerable. Nephews were worse. Family had clearly grown too confident.

The roast was carved, the rosemary surrendered its virtue to grease, and Lord Redwyne’s cask made its long-threatened entrance as though wine had ever required heraldry. A servant poured it first for Jacaerys, then Baelor, then the upper table, and Redwyne watched every cup as if his vines had marched to war and returned crowned. Aeleanora accepted her own measure when it reached the lower end and tasted it. It was sweet, rich, expensive, and entirely convinced of itself. Naturally, half the hall praised it before swallowing.

“This wine has been flattered from birth,” she said.

Valarr lifted his cup, took one dutiful swallow, and winced with courtly elegance. “It tastes like a dowry.”

“A large one,” Daeron said.

“A desperate one,” Aeleanora corrected, setting the cup down. “It keeps insisting.”

Aeleanora laughed at Daeron’s next murmured remark because it deserved laughter, and because Valarr had just put his stolen cup where no cup had any honourable reason to be. She was turning the cup back with two fingers when she felt Baelor’s attention touching the side of her face. He had not turned his head. That was the insulting part. He remained angled toward Redwyne, his shoulders patient beneath another man’s harvest pride, one palm resting beside the ceremonial cup of Arbor wine, yet the skin at the corner of his left eye had tightened as if her laugh had crossed the three chairs between them and tugged there first. Aeleanora took another swallow of the wine out of spite and immediately regretted giving the grapes a victory. 

Jena had returned sometime before the fish bones made their little white accusation upon Aeleanora’s plate, taking her place on Matarys’s right with the unhurried certainty of someone who had never needed to ask where she belonged at a table. Baelor sat on Matarys’s left, close, so when Redwyne’s praise grew too damp, Jena reached past her son and exchanged Baelor’s untouched cup for the darker wine that had just come down from the king’s end. She did it without ceremony and without looking for thanks. Her hand appeared, corrected the world by half an inch, and withdrew. Aeleanora watched the cup settle by Baelor’s plate and thought, with perfect fairness and no ugliness at all, that domestic history ought to be outlawed in public rooms unless every witness had been warned before supper.

Baelor lowered his face to the wine. His expression gave the faintest acknowledgement, almost nothing, the sort of private courtesy a room could mistake for politeness if it had the manners to mind its own business. Matarys noticed too and said something with his head bent, too low for the nearest lord to catch. Baelor’s brow came down at him, a warning drawn in one dark line, and Matarys hid in his cup with the bright innocence who had survived that look since childhood and found it wanting. Jena’s smile stayed on the Reachman speaking to her, but her lashes dipped once. A family at a table, Aeleanora thought, and hated the phrase because it had done nothing wrong except sit there looking carved and old and impossible to stab.

After the second course, Maekar made his way down from the upper end of the high table carrying a cup, his dark sleeve pushed back from one wrist and his expression already sour with the burden of having heard too much praise in one evening. Aemon sat beside Daeron with his shoulders tucked close and a book half-hidden beneath the edge of the table, though he had not turned a page since the roast arrived. When Maekar reached their end, Aemon looked up with the solemn urgency of a boy who had endured all the revelry his blood could reasonably demand. “Mother said I might go to the archives after the second course,” he said. “If I asked you.”

Maekar looked at him, then at the book, then toward Dyanna across the table, where she was speaking to a Reachwoman with the calm authority of a woman who had already judged the matter settled. “If your mother said you may go, then go before someone begins another song and ruins the habit of reading forever.”

Aemon rose at once, bowed to Aeleanora with grave courtesy, surrendered his seat to Maekar, and escaped toward the side passage with the speed of a prisoner granted lawful air. “Do not let Redwyne pour for me,” he said, taking Aemon’s seat with a grunt. “I have survived worse battles with better excuses.”

“Is that how uncles greet princesses now?” Aeleanora asked. “No bow? False admiration of my gown?”

Maekar glanced at her from brow to bodice to rubies, brisk as a battlefield count. “The gown is black, silver, expensive, and meant to frighten men with weak feathers. Consider yourself admired.”

Aeleanora placed a hand over her heart. “Thank you,” she said with grave sincerity.

Jacaerys spoke to Maekar from the centre of the table, voice carrying lightly now that the hall had loosened around meat and wine. “Uncle, I was told you meant to offer a memory before the singers begin making liars of us.”

Maekar chuckled. “I offered you no such thing.”

“You were heard saying it to Aerys.”

“I was threatening Aerys. That is a family matter.”

Jacaerys’s smile brightened with the mild cruelty of a nephew who knew exactly where to press. “Then threaten him loudly enough for the hall.” 

A murmur of anticipation rippled down the high table from the Targaryen to Velaryon side and down to the small group gathered before it. Aeleanora set her cup down and adjusted the ring on her right thumb, pressing the gold once around the joint. Maekar speaking of battles meant Baelor in battles. Baelor in battles meant Baelor before she had any right to know the first thing about the wine he disliked or the noise he made when her nails dragged too hard down his back. Time was proving itself badly managed.

Maekar looked toward Baelor then, and for one moment the annoyance drained from his face, leaving the thing reserved for older brothers beneath it. “There was a crossing in the Riverlands,” he said. “Years before half this hall learned to grow beards worth naming. Rain had eaten the banks for three days, men were freezing in their saddles, and some clever rebel lord thought the mud would slow us enough to split the host.”

Baelor’s cup rested beside the darker wine Jena had given him. His fingers did not curl around it. He sat turned to Maekar, giving his brother the attention due a report, though the table had gone quiet in the hungry way they did when old blood scented the air. 

“He was right about the mud,” Maekar continued. “Wrong about Baelor. Vermithor came down through a cloud so black the men thought the sky itself had dropped into the field. Half the rebel line broke before fire touched the field. The rest learned that mud slows horses better than dragons.”

Beneath her stays, Aeleanora’s stomach tightened once. She had heard war stories all her life. She had stolen some from books, dragged others from old knights, endured plenty from men who remembered themselves taller beside banners. This one irritated because Maekar did not embellish. He gave them mud, rain, fear, Vermithor descending through black cloud, and Baelor sitting his saddle with an arrow in his arm while men behind him tried to turn frozen fingers into obedience. It made the image harder to dismiss. It placed centuries of him beyond her reach and had the gall to do so accurately.

Maekar took a drink from Daeron’s cup by accident or by conquest. “He held the crossing until the rest of us could move. Took an arrow through the upper arm and afterwards kept giving orders with it lodged there like a quill some clerk had misplaced. I asked whether he meant to command the river next, since he had already bullied the bank, the rebels, and the weather.”

“Your concern was moving,” Baelor said with a soft laugh. 

“My concern was practical. You were bleeding on a good horse.”

Laughter broke properly then, relieved and warm, and Baelor allowed it with lowered eyes. Aeleanora watched the tiny surrender of his face, the smile he gave his brother because Maekar had found the only path through praise that did not make it intolerable: mockery, blood, and horses. She had earned his laugh in dark rooms, between wine and breath and sheets ruined beyond the laundry’s right to know. Maekar could reach across centuries and pull one into torchlight with an arrow story. Very well. Wonderful. Perhaps the next course could be poisoned.

An older lady of House Waynwood stepped forward from her place in the group next to Lady Arryn. “The Vale remembers that winter as well, my prince,” she said to Baelor. “You came with fewer men than promised and more sense than any envoy we had suffered in twenty years. My sister claimed you saved three houses from starving and offended all of them by refusing to be thanked.”

Baelor inclined his head to her. “Your sister overstated my offence, my lady.”

“She understated it. You made Lord Elesham apologise to a steward in his own hall. He still speaks of you with fear.”

“Then Lord Elesham has improved with age,” Maekar said. “Fear is the first sensible thing I have heard attached to his name.”

Lady Waynwood laughed, pleased by him and the memory, pleased by Baelor in a way that more women who had lived centuries were permitted because hunger could look like discernment if one arranged one’s shawl correctly. Had he fucked her? Absurd question. Vulgar. A question beneath the sort of woman who did not lower herself into imagined bedchambers because some Vale lady had said his name with too much winter in her voice.

If he had, it had been before Aeleanora was born, which was hardly a crime unless one counted poor taste, and Baelor had spent enough centuries among weather, widows, convenience, and women with loosened morals disguised as hospitality that the record could not be expected to remain spotless without divine intervention. Perhaps it had been the sister, lovely in furs and pale hands, watching him across some cold hall while he refused thanks and looked down at his cup with all that insufferable restraint, as though restraint had ever stopped anyone with warm blood and a door that barred.

Had he done that with her too? The vile downward glance that always ruined him before it ruined Aeleanora, gaze dropping to where his cock disappeared inside her as if the sight gave him pain and worship in the same breath? Had he stopped there as he did with Aeleanora, for one cruel beat, while his hips went still and his grip on her thigh made the next day’s bruises feel personally argued for? Had he bent over Lady Waynwood’s sister afterward with his face pressed into her neck, mouth hot and open against her skin, because looking had made him too hungry to remain civilised and too disciplined to admit he had done it to himself? Had he liked another pair of winter-pale thighs too? Had his thumbs dragged over the soft inner skin with that same careful pressure? Had some woman in furs and old Vale perfume learned the exact place where Baelor’s restraint broke its own teeth? 

The thought struck bright and foul behind Aeleanora’s ribs, ridiculous and fit for trial by combat. Lady Waynwood was still laughing, Baelor was still courteous, the hall remained inexplicably unburned, and Aeleanora still wanted every raven between Dragonstone and the Vale searched for evidence.

“You are going to chip the stem,” Valarr murmured.

Aeleanora glanced down. Her grip had tightened around her cup. She loosened it at once and set the cup aside, because glass was expensive and did not deserve to suffer merely because the Vale had produced sisters. “The stem looked smug.”

“It is glass.”

“Many smug things are fragile.”

Daeron glanced from the cup to her. “Should I move it?”

“No. It must learn.”

Valarr’s eyes glittered, and he leaned back as a singer began tuning somewhere near the musicians’ gallery. “If he sings The Bear and the Maiden Fair, I may throw myself under the table.”

“Do not waste the effort,” Aeleanora said. “The view from under the high table is poor, and one hears too many ankles.”

Jena, hearing plenty from her place, turned her head with a smile already waiting. “You declared the chairs tyrannical.”

“They were.”

“You bit a septa.”

“They all knew I bite and approached me without terms anyway.”

Baelor looked at Aeleanora then. Truly looked, for one dangerous beat, across Matarys and Valarr and the polished ruin of lawful seating. The memory had found him too. Aeleanora knew it from the faint tightening beneath his eyes, the way he found her face with something old in one breath and perilously recent in the next. He had known the child under the table. He knew the woman who would now rather burn the table than hide beneath it. He knew far too many versions of her, which was rude, considering the room gave her no place to know him back aloud.

The singer began the first bright, dreadful note of the Bear and the Maiden Fair, and Valarr’s face performed a miracle of courtly death. His eyes closed, his cup stopped halfway to his lips, and his shoulders went still with the suffering of a man who had threatened tragedy and been offered theatre instead. Daeron made a small sound into his wine, which might have been laughter or a prophecy losing its footing. Aeleanora pressed two fingers to her lips, failed at solemnity almost at once, and then Valarr leaned close enough to murmur, “If he reaches the goat, I am leaving by the nearest window.”

“The goat is essential,” Daeron said, already blinking too slowly. “Without the goat, the bear has no shame.”

Aeleanora’s laugh escaped before she could trim it into something princessly, bright and wicked, drawing glances from the tables below and immediate envy from a nearby Tyrell girl. “Daeron, if you defend the goat in public, I shall have you carried to the sept and made to apologise to music itself.”

“The sept has heard worse.”

“From singers, perhaps. You are blood. Standards must be restored.”

Valarr set his cup down with exaggerated care. “I refuse to perish beside goat philosophy. Tell my mother I fought bravely.”

“Your mother will ask why you were near a goat.”

“She knows court life is full of peril.”

At the upper end of the table, Jacaerys had covered his mouth with his knuckles, laughter shining through him in a way that proved kingship had failed to kill the boy who loved ridiculous songs and Valarr’s suffering. Laena stood behind his chair with a hand on his shoulder, her thumb pressing once as if to pin his laugh inside him before he disgraced the crown by joining in. Even Baelor lowered his face into his cup, and though the rest of him remained mostly obedient, the skin beneath his eyes tightened again, a private crack in the stone. Aeleanora saw it and hated the singer less, which was a mercy the man had done nothing to deserve.

The feast did what feasts always did once meat, wine, and song had loosened the hinges of rank. The high table lost its order and became a shoreline, people drifting in and away from it by permission, appetite, boredom, or ambition. Lords came to pay their respects and escaped with less dignity than they had brought. By the time the song had been replaced by pipes and a drum, no one who mattered was properly seated anymore, and propriety had begun limping around the hall with wine on its hem.

Aeleanora found herself standing near one of the carved pillars with Valarr on one side and Laena on the other, which was exactly the kind of public arrangement that looked harmless because half the court had seen them gathered so since she was old enough to be dragged out of trouble by her braid. Valarr had acquired a dish of sugared almonds from somewhere and was eating them with the serene theft of a man born too handsome to be searched. Laena had taken one without asking. Aeleanora took two. 

Valarr regarded the empty space where his almonds had been with the betrayed sorrow of a prince discovering that beauty offered no protection against thieves. “You have stolen from me in front of witnesses.”

“I have improved your reputation,” Aeleanora said, letting one almond rest on her tongue until the sugar began to soften. “Generosity sits well on you. Briefly.”

Valarr sighed, gave up the dish as a lost province, and angled himself against the pillar with one shoulder. Laena tracked a cluster of Westerland lords who had gathered too neatly near one of the long tables, their smiles polished down to something almost safe. Aeleanora saw them as well and tasted sugar against the back of her teeth. The Lannisters had learned, then. No one lunged anymore. No one offered her fathers’ terms dressed up as compliments and expected the Crown to admire the embroidery. Now they sent younger men forward with cleaner hands and laughter trained to wait for permission before showing itself.

“That one has been looking this way since the second course,” Valarr said, his voice light for the room and edged for family.

“Which one?” Laena asked, though she had already found him.

“The peacock with the lion pin.”

“That is unfair to peacocks,” Aeleanora said. “They have natural gifts and no fathers writing instructions into their sleeves.”

Laena hid her smile in her cup. “His father does look as though he has given counsel.”

“Then the evening improves,” Aeleanora replied. “It saves time when they arrive pre-frightened.”

The lion-pinned lord did not approach. He reconsidered, and turned toward a cousin with the desperate obedience of a man who had been told that survival could be inherited if properly practised. Aeleanora rewarded this with no expression at all, which was generous. Beside her, Laena leaned in to say something about Lord Redwyne’s wife having trapped Corlys near the musicians, and Valarr immediately proposed a rescue party that involved no rescue and a great deal of watching from afar. The three of them laughed like people with nothing to hide beyond ordinary malice, and for a little while Aeleanora let that be enough. Family made excellent cover when family had no reason to suspect the crime.

The hall kept loosening around them. Men who had entered with titles arranged in rows now stood with wine on their cuffs and opinions in their mouths. Women changed places with the smooth decisiveness of commanders moving troops, leaving husbands stranded beside empty chairs and fresh conversations. Aeleanora drifted with Valarr and Laena from the pillar toward the edge of the dancing space, then toward a table where candied fennel had been abandoned beside a half-eaten honeycake, then away again when Lord Redwyne began describing soil. Time moved in little bites: Laena laughing into her cup at Valarr’s imitation of a Tyrell compliment, Jacaerys stealing a sugared plum from Aeleanora as he passed and kissing her hair before she could punish him, Daeron appearing with news that Lord Mooton had changed sleeves and therefore conceded defeat. It was almost pleasant, which made it suspicious.

By the time the musicians traded their pipes for a livelier measure, Lyonel Baratheon stood near the lower tables with one boot braced on the rung of a bench, laughing at something a Stormlander knight had said badly. He glanced up at the wrong moment, or the right one, depending on how one ranked offences, and Aeleanora lifted her cup toward him with two fingers. His grin arrived at once. She went because she had told him he owed her a dance, because Lyonel was safe in the way a loud hunting horn was safe, because a princess could cross a hall to collect a promised turn without anyone building a scaffold under it. If Baelor watched, that was Baelor’s private failing. Aeleanora had her own failings to manage, and most of them had better manners.

“My lord,” she said when she reached him, “you remain unexecuted. I begin to fear you mistook delay for mercy.”

Lyonel set his cup down on the table behind him and bowed with the full cheer of a man walking willingly toward the block. “Princess, I have spent the evening preparing my final words.”

“Do they rhyme?”

“Badly.”

“Then spare us both.” Aeleanora offered her hand, palm angled down, rubies flashing at her brow as she tilted her head. “Come. Let us discover whether the Stormlands have learned rhythm since last we suffered them.”

He laughed and accepted it with the exact pressure required, no more, which she appreciated and disliked for the same reason. The music caught them before the centre of the floor did, quick-footed and bright, and Lyonel moved well for a man built as though the gods had intended him to argue with doors. He gave her the courtesy of space and the compliment of care, guiding the turns without dragging her through them, his palm at her side resting where custom allowed and pride tolerated. Around them, sleeves flared, jewels sparked, skirts brushed the rushes, and half the hall made the usual meal of seeing the king’s sister dance without admitting hunger had brought them to table. Aeleanora smiled because smiling was cheaper than murder and carried fewer petitions afterward.

“You move well for a man shaped like a threat against doorways,” Aeleanora said as he guided her through the turn.

“The Stormlands teach rhythm through survival. If one cannot move quickly, one is trampled by kin, horse, or weather.”

“A touching education. Mine involved septas, knives, and being told not to bite guests.”

“Did it take?”

“Look at your hand and decide whether you feel fortunate.”

Lyonel barked a laugh, and Aeleanora let herself answer it, quick and bright, because the line had earned it and because the sound belonged perfectly well in the hall. Nothing improper lived in it. Nothing that could be dragged before a council, whispered into a sleeve, or folded into a raven. She felt Baelor anyway, or thought she did, which was worse because now she had begun inventing eyes for him when his own were unavailable. On the next turn, she found him near Jacaerys, speaking to a Riverlands lord with his head inclined. His face remained turned toward the man. His right hand rested against the back of the king’s chair, the knuckles pale beneath torchlight, and when the dance carried Lyonel’s palm briefly firmer against her waist through the turn, Baelor’s thumb pressed once into the carved wood.

That was all. No fools display to feed the hall. A single thumb against oak, gone before a lesser woman would have noticed. Aeleanora noticed with the full, cursed devotion of a Citadel scholar cataloguing a new species of self-destruction. The Hand of the King had touched a chair, and apparently her blood meant to make a religion of it. The dance ended, and Lyonel bowed over her knuckles, properly brief, properly public, and released her as soon as the last note fell. He had done well, which was nearly as irritating as doing badly. Aeleanora inclined her head to him, accepted his grin as tribute, and left him to the Stormlanders before anyone could mistake repetition for interest.

She meant to return to Laena and Valarr, but the hall had grown too hot around her. The rubies at her brow seemed to have learned spite from the candles, pressing warmth into her skin, and the black lace at her shoulders scratched lightly whenever she moved. She crossed behind two knights arguing over a horse’s knees, evaded Lord Redwyne by turning sharply around a servant carrying pears in wine, and slipped toward the side passage before the next dance could choose a victim. No one stopped her. A princess leaving a hall for air was harmless. A princess leaving because one man had pressed his thumb against a chair was the sort of truth best taken outside and killed quietly.

The balcony took her out of the hall and gave her the sea, which at least knew how to spend violence without inviting witnesses. Music came through the arch in thinner pieces, pipe and drum and laughter cut small by stone. Aeleanora set both palms on the rail and let the cold press into her palms until it gave her something plain to hold. Below, water struck the rocks and threw white into the dark. Behind her, the feast kept pouring itself into cups, voices, chair legs scraped over rushes, and the bright little shrieks of women laughing at men who had likely earned half of it.

Her ring had marked her thumb. A thin red crescent sat near the joint, absurdly neat, as if even pain had decided to observe court form. She turned the silver once more over the mark and stopped when the sting pleased her too much. That, frankly, was where the evening had brought her: approving of minor injuries because they behaved better than memory. Inside, someone said Baelor’s name again, easy as lifting a cup. Aeleanora stared down at the water and imagined throwing House Waynwood into it.

She stayed until the wind made its case against her gown and her anger had begun to bore itself. The rubies at her brow had gone chill against her skin. Good. Let them suffer too. She pushed away from the ledge, smoothed the front of her skirts with both hands, and turned back toward the arch.

Baelor stood in the passage. He had stopped near the arch, one palm near the carved black stone where the torchlight from the hall thinned into balcony dark. His head was turned toward her, his face giving the world very little, as usual, but Aeleanora had made a private study of very little and could now ruin herself on crumbs. The left side of his throat moved once above his collar. Whatever sentence had reached him found no safe place to go. He had come near to find her and stopped far enough away to keep finding her innocent.

“Prince Baelor,” a woman said behind him, pleased and soft with wine.

Aeleanora looked past his shoulder. Lady Caswell stood a few places inside the passage with her green silk gathered in one fist and a cup in the other, dark hair coiled beneath a net of small pearls. She was pretty in the careful Reach way, all watered fabric, lowered lashes, and a smile polished smooth over the little teeth beneath it. Aeleanora knew of her vaguely, a widow in practise, if rumour and geography were granted legal standing. Her husband had spent enough years away from his own hearth to become a household decoration no one bothered dusting.

“Lady Caswell,” Baelor said.

He turned as courtesy required, one smooth half turn of the shoulders, one inclination of the head, no spilled guilt, no hurried step, no motion fat enough for whispers to gnaw on. The movement placed Aeleanora at the balcony mouth with the wind behind her and the hall before her. She could retreat like a sulking child, wait like a woman hoping to be noticed, or pass through them like the king’s heir and make the corridor regret its proportions.

Lady Caswell’s smile brightened when she saw her. “Forgive me, Your Grace. I have trapped the passage.”

“How ambitious of you,” Aeleanora said.

Lady Caswell gave a small laugh and stepped aside with her skirts gathered clear. Baelor moved at the same instant, drawing back half a pace to widen the passage. The courtesy was exact and blameless, which made it irritating enough to deserve record. Aeleanora wore a smirk and stepped forward. The space narrowed around silk, stone, torchlight, and that useless strip of air between her sleeve and his.

She passed close to Baelor’s arm. The embroidery at his cuff caught the light, black thread over red, the same side she had watched him refasten three nights ago with his hair wild from her fingers and one corner of his control dragged somewhere undignified. The memory arrived dressed indecently for a public corridor. Aeleanora lifted her chin and looked past him, past Lady Caswell’s pearl net, toward the hall where Valarr’s laugh had risen above her music. Her thumb, tucked against her palm to hide the red mark, gave one useless pulse. Foolish hand. It had been given one task and had begun composing ballads.

“My Prince,” she said, because silence would have grown too large.

“My Princess,” Baelor answered.

Lady Caswell smiled between them with the pleasant vacancy of a woman seeing kin exchange courtesy in a passage. She had seen exactly that. That was the infuriating part. Aeleanora continued past them. Her skirts whispered over the stone, black lace and silver thread passing within an inch of Lady Caswell’s green silk. The woman smelled of rose oil and Arbor wine. Naturally. The Reach had developed a conspiracy of fragrance. Aeleanora gave her a small nod as she passed, sharp for rank, sweet for poison, and wasted on anyone without manners to taste it. She did not slow.

Behind her, Lady Caswell said, “I had hoped to ask, my prince, whether you remembered Bitterbridge in the spring before the Blackfyre rising. My father still speaks of the mill rights you settled there.”

“I remember the dispute,” Baelor said.

“Over the mill rights?”

“Lord Meadows built his new wheel three feet into Caswell water and swore the river had moved.”

“Yes. That was the tale.” Lady Caswell laughed, low and admiring. 

Aeleanora reached the end of the passage as two servants crossed before her with a platter of glazed onions and a bowl of cherries. The castle had chosen this moment to present her with produce. Wonderful. Let the cherries gleam like little bloody hearts in syrup. Behind her, Lady Caswell said something softer, too low for the words to carry, and Baelor answered in the public voice that had survived wars, councils, windows, namedays, and women with pearls remembering him in winter and spring.

Aeleanora took one cherry from the passing bowl without asking. The servant nearly tripped trying to bow around the theft. She placed the cherry between her teeth and bit down as she re-entered the hall. It was sweet and dark and too soft in the centre. Serviceable, at least, if one needed something to murder quietly. Valarr saw her first from near the pillars, lifted his cup in greeting, then squinted at her mouth as if trying to decide whether she had acquired the cherry honestly. Aeleanora stared him down until the question retreated.

Laena leaned toward him, said something Aeleanora could not hear, and Valarr laughed. Safe laughter. Family laughter with a place to stand. Aeleanora swallowed the cherry and found it left a stain of sweetness at the back of her tongue. Behind her, Baelor’s voice came once more from the passage, low beneath Lady Caswell’s brighter answer. Aeleanora crossed back into the heat of the feast with her chin high, the mark from her ring hidden in palm, and the vivid, unreasonable desire to burn Bitterbridge by morning.

Harlon Stark found her before the next measure began, which was considerate of him, because the North had always understood how to enter a room without making the torches brighter in self-defence. With dark hair tied back and one hand to his heart, he arrived in a black doublet trimmed with white fur at the collar, as if he had brought a sane climate with him by force. “Princess,” he said. “I was told I might redeem my house’s honour after the matter of the pipes.”

Aeleanora considered him gravely. “Your house’s honour was gravely wounded.”

“Lord Manderly claims the pipe was southern.”

“Lord Manderly claims many things when cheese is near.”

“I did not think you had forgiven him.”

“I have not. I have merely postponed sentence until the sweets have arrived.”

Harlon’s smile appeared small and brief, the sort of expression that did not ask the hall to admire it. “Then I should claim my dance before judgment reaches the North.”

“A prudent northern instinct,” Aeleanora said, offering her hand. “Do try not to make it look like courage. Men grow difficult when praised.”

He smiled, small and brief, and led her into the turn without making a harvest of it. That was why Harlon served well at feasts. He knew where to place himself, gave no courtly little squeeze to prove himself charming, and did not smile at her as though her attention made him taller. He moved with northern restraint, steady and useful, with no spare flourish to make insult of it. Aeleanora let him guide the first turn, answered his mild remark about the pipes, and a threat against all wind instruments, and discovered, with real irritation, that she did not want to murder him. A useful man. A rare deformity. 

The dance carried her past the high table twice. On the first pass, Baelor was laughing with Maekar and Aerys, his head tipped slightly around his cup as though defending a scandalous point of scholarship from men too fond of facts. It was not the polite laugh he had given the hall, nor the low private one that lived against Aeleanora’s skin and therefore had no business being remembered near musicians. This one broke briefly at the eyes and stayed there, easy enough to make Matarys grin from behind his wine. Maekar looked pleased with himself in the sour way of men who believed happiness required witnesses to be ashamed first. 

On the second pass, a servant came by their end of the table with a bowl of blood oranges cut into dark red quarters, rind still on, the flesh shining under a little dusting of salt. Baelor turned toward it after Maekar said something that made Aerys lift both brows over his cup, reaching almost absently, still half caught in laughter. Then Lord Redwyne leaned across Matarys with some urgent remark about the cask’s second pressing, and the servant, poor trained creature that he was, carried the platter onward rather than interrupt a lord performing grapes at royalty. His fingers returned to the table empty. His smile remained because Maekar had not finished being pleased with himself. Aeleanora missed the next half-step by nothing at all, which was still too much.

Harlon corrected for her smoothly, his palm firm at her side and gone from pressure before anyone could accuse him of noticing. Across the room, Baelor’s attention came to the dance for a single pass beneath lowered brows, catching first on Harlon’s palm, then on Aeleanora’s face, then returning to Maekar with the ease of restraint worn smooth over centuries. He laughed again when Aerys answered, but his hand flexed once near his cup. Aeleanora saw that too, because apparently the Crown’s business had been abandoned in favour of one man’s empty hand.

By the last turn, Harlon had been telling her, with admirable gravity, that his aunt considered Dragonstone’s corridors too warm and too dramatic, as if the stone itself had been raised by singers and badly supervised children. Aeleanora informed him that his aunt had shown sound judgment and poor gratitude, since most castles lacked the courage to look openly hostile to guests. The music ended, and he released her on the last note with a bow so exact it was restful. Aeleanora inclined her head, left him to the safety of his northern manners, and stepped away before the hall could offer her another man, another cup, or another publicly acceptable reason to keep standing there while Baelor laughed beneath his own banners and still went hungry. She crossed behind two servants with empty trenchers and slipped from the hall with the taste of sweet wine and cherries still clinging uselessly to her tongue.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆

By the time Aeleanora’s rooms had finished stripping the feast from her, the castle below was still making a beast of itself. The bath had taken the smoke from her hair and left it damp down her back, heavy, chilling the skin between her shoulder blades whenever she moved. Daisy had folded the black gown over a chair with the care due an expensive weapon after battle, then retreated with pins, towels, and the last of Aeleanora’s public face. The rubies lay on the vanity in a little red row, innocent as severed berries. Aeleanora stood barefoot in her white robe and disliked them for looking rested.

The room had been made ready for sleep, which was bold of it. The bed had been turned down, and the windows were latched against the salt wind with every sign of good household order. There would be no visit tonight. That had not required discussion, which was another insult the world had arranged without consulting her. 

The western apartments were full, the guest corridors watched, the guards doubled where guests might wander drunk and curious, and Baelor had wife, sons, brothers, Jacaerys, and nameday obligations stacked around him like shields polished for public use. He would be careful because he was always careful when care cost. He would be careful until the castle coughed up its visiting houses one carriage and wheelhouse at a time. Aeleanora told herself this was sensible. Her stomach answered by tightening once, low and mean, which proved that her stomach had no education and should be barred from council.

At the vanity, she drew one comb through the wet ends of her hair. The teeth snagged near her shoulder. She pulled too hard, and the comb came free with three pale strands caught in it. Aeleanora looked at them with cold satisfaction, set the comb down and reached for the cup of water Daisy had left. 

The first swallow should have washed the sweet Arbor wine from her mouth. It did not. The wine clung there like an overpraised courtier, and beneath it, sharper by memory alone, came the thought of blood oranges and salt and Baelor’s hand reaching through laughter and returning empty. A nothing. A bowl passed badly because Lord Redwyne, that grape-swollen lackwit, had leaned across Matarys to preach his second pressing at a prince.

Aeleanora put the cup down so carefully the restraint felt theatrical. This was idiotic, truly. So small it deserved to be sealed in a box and mocked by children. The trouble, vile little worm that it was, kept crawling back under the door. Baelor had always noticed hunger in her before she called it hunger. Practically too, which was unfortunate because practical things survived ridicule. 

When she was little, practical had arrived as sugared plums after lessons she had treated as enemy occupation, or a little knife with a pearl-dark handle after she had complained that every other blade made for her looked so ornamental it deserved burning. Then there was Lady Forlorn. Books had appeared more recently, never the soft little moral tales septas favoured, but histories with hostile margins, accounts of dragonseed disputes, old Valyrian fragments, maps with disputed borders, treatises on poisons that had been “included for recognition, not application,” and once, a thin volume on legal inheritance with three questions written inside the cover in his script. Questions that made her return to the page twice as irritated and three times as awake.

She rose from the vanity too quickly, and her damp hair struck the back of her robe like a wet banner surrendering to poor judgment. During the last six weeks, his care had become harder to mistake for instruction. Water after wine. Furs pulled up when she fell asleep pretending she had not. His touch avoiding a bruise he had made the night before without either of them granting it the dignity of mention. Food appearing when she had forgotten meals in favour of temper.

Aeleanora could receive all of that with great composure. Gods always received tribute from man. That was the proper order of things, according to every carved altar and frightened hymn ever inflicted on the realm. Fruit, blood, flowers, vows, daughters, sons, whole harvests dragged up stone steps so the gods could pretend appetite was holiness. She had been fed, armed, warmed, dressed, praised, steadied, and pleasured until accepting had begun to seem like a natural law written somewhere in the black stone. 

Giving was the rot of it. Giving required leaning forward. Giving had wrists. Giving could be seen. Giving said, I remembered. Aeleanora would have preferred to swallow a live coal than be caught remembering something as tender and stupid as a missed piece of salted fruit.

She went to bed in a temper with herself and lay on her back staring at the canopy. The wall in the solar remained stone. Smug, obedient, useless stone. At some point below, the feast had likely thinned into distant footsteps and the groan of doors closing one by one. She turned onto her side, then her stomach, then her other side, dragging the linen into a twisted little treaty around her knees. Every position was wrong, including the bed’s opinion.

Could fruit accuse a woman of softness? Fruit had no tongue. Still, the thought worried at her while the linen twisted around her knees and the wall in the solar remained a wall in the solar. Hunger was vulgar, guilt was worse, and the desire to correct a small missed want belonged in the same sack as bad singers, swollen grapes, and every woman in the Vale who had ever worn fur within speaking distance of Baelor Targaryen. She pulled the linen higher over her shoulder, trapped one damp strand under her cheek, and told herself that wanting to do something kind was merely irritation looking for a throat. A mortal feeling. The spoiled little beast that would surely be gone by morning.

☙──────────✧──────────❧

Morning, naturally, behaved like an accomplice. By the time council released her, the castle had developed the stale, bruised look of a place being forced to digest celebration. Servants carried stripped garlands through the corridors with the grim industry of corpse-bearers. Guests wandered in pairs toward late breakfasts, pale beneath perfume and pride, while guards stood at turns where they had no usual business standing. Aeleanora left the council chamber carrying three petitions and the taste of irritation sharp beneath her tongue. Baelor had stood beside Jacaerys for half the morning in black sleeves instead of nameday red, voice even as he corrected a port tax dispute without granting the ledger so much as a glance.

He had not looked tired enough to satisfy her. That was unjust, which improved nothing. He had looked composed, which made the spoiled little beast in her chest begin to grow restless. She told herself that she was not going to give him anything. Giving meant standing there with the thing in her hand and waiting to see what his face did. She was going to remove an irritation. She was going to perform a small act of correction upon feasts and men with casks. There were worse uses for a princess. Several were currently written on the petitions.

She gave the petitions to a waiting page and told him to take them to Jacaerys before they multiplied. The boy bowed so quickly his hair fell into his eyes, and Aeleanora turned toward the servant stairs before any sensible person could ask where she was going. The kitchens lay below in the warm belly of the keep, already loud with the wreckage of feeding guests who had stayed too long. Steam climbed the walls. Knives struck boards in hard little rhythms. Someone near the hearth cursed a pot in language that showed promise and poor discipline.

Aeleanora entered through the side passage and several lesser lives briefly considered ending. A scullion froze with a basket of onions against his hip. A kitchen maid turned with a pitcher in both hands and poured a thin stream of milk onto the floor before noticing. The cook, broad-shouldered and red-armed from heat, looked up from a slab of bread dough with the expression of a woman long past being frightened by royal whims.

“Princess,” the cook said.

“I require a blood orange.”

The cook blinked. “One?”

“Do you find the number ambitious?”

“No, Princess.” She glanced briefly to the room at large, where every servant had developed an urgent interest in looking busy without moving. “Salt?”

Aeleanora narrowed her eyes. “Did I ask for salt?”

“No, Princess.”

“Then why would you offer it?”

“Because they were served with salt last night.”

Aeleanora looked at her for one long second and decided that execution before midday would upset the bread. “One orange,” she said. “Whole.”

The cook turned toward the cold pantry herself, which was either respect or a survival instinct polished by years of smoke. She returned with a single blood orange, dark-skinned and heavy in the palm, its rind still faintly cool. Aeleanora took it as if accepting tribute from a conquered city. The fruit sat against her palm with obscene innocence. Round, bright, and ridiculous. It had no idea how close it had come to becoming a crisis.

“Will that be all, Princess?”

“Yes,” Aeleanora said, then immediately hated the word because it sounded too small for the amount of trouble required to get away from it. “If anyone asks, the orange was poorly supervised.”

The cook’s face remained magnificently blank. “Of course, Princess.”

Aeleanora left by the same passage with the orange tucked into the deep sleeve of her gown, which made the whole thing feel like theft and smuggling. Theft suited the matter better than generosity anyway. It gave the act a hood and a knife. She made it halfway to Baelor’s solar before the next problem struck her. If she left only the orange, he might think a servant had set it there. Worse, he might think Jena had. Worse still, some green-silk Reach widow with pearl-net hair might have discovered a fruit-based boldness and decided to become memorable. Absolutely not.

Aeleanora stopped so abruptly at the turn that a guard ten paces ahead straightened. She gave him a look that returned his attention to the wall with admirable haste. The orange weighed against her wrist through the sleeve. A note, then. Not a gift-note, because she had standards and most of them were currently bleeding. A notice of theft. A warning written only to keep the wrong woman from being praised for her theft.

She went to her rooms first, because writing such a thing in his solar with his quill would have been so intimate it required both a healer and a septon. Daisy was nowhere inside, thank every halfway competent god. Aeleanora set the orange on the writing table and took out a small scrap of parchment. The fruit looked worse in daylight. Too red and earnest. It sat there like an accusation wearing a rind. She dipped the quill, held it above the page, and immediately wished to throw both a fruit and parchment through the window. What did one write to a man one had let between one’s thighs for almost two moons but could not hand a single orange without wanting to chew through her own wrist?

Stolen. I missed theft and required practise.

She read it once, then again. He would know. That was the problem and the point and the very thing she would deny under torture. The ink dried too slowly, because ink loved theatre. Aeleanora folded the note once, then unfolded it because the crease made it look too considered. She refolded it smaller, hated that more, opened it again, and finally left it plain on the table until she nearly laughed from sheer disgust. The Princess of Dragonstone, heir to the Iron Throne, rider of Dreamfyre, born of Life and Death and undone by stationery. The histories would have to be burned for unrelated reasons.

She snatched up the orange and the note before her pride could stage a second rebellion and made for Baelor’s solar by the inner corridor. The castle remained too crowded for comfort, but the morning bustle could hide a single criminal with excellent posture. Two servants carrying folded cloth bowed near the stair. A visiting knight turned his head when she passed, then thought better of having eyes. At Baelor’s door she paused to listen, then entered quickly when she found no sign of life behind it.

His solar had the nerve to look exactly as it always did. Papers ordered on the desk, a map weighted at one corner, a cup from the morning removed already, the chair pushed in with that severe little discipline he imposed even upon wood. The room smelled of vellum, ash, old leather, and him beneath all of it, a faint clean trace caught near the cloak stand. Aeleanora refused to breathe through her nose again. She crossed to the desk, put the orange down near the inkstand, then immediately moved it to the other side because the first placement looked like an offering and she would sooner die.

There. The corner nearest his chair. Uncut, unsalted, unadorned. If he wanted salt, he could fetch salt. If he wanted the fruit cut, he could find a knife. She was not his kitchen maid, his wife, his son, his Reach widow, his Vale memory, or a little septa of citrus mercy. She was a thief. A thief with boundaries. A thief who had remembered one exact want and was furious enough to make it his problem.

She set the note beside it, then reached back. Treacherous creature, obviously. The same fingers had learned his sleeve, his throat, the scar near his knuckle, the firm heat of his palm. They hovered over the parchment with the thumb ring glinting in the morning light, eager to rescue pride from the gallows. One quick motion, and the whole matter would vanish. The orange would remain an oddity, blame could wander loose among servants, and no one would have to know that Aeleanora Targaryen had noticed a missed piece of fruit.

Footsteps sounded beyond the outer corridor, and Aeleanora’s fingers closed around nothing. She left the note where it was, turned at once, and crossed to the door with her heart beating as though she had stolen a dragon egg instead of breakfast. The latch gave a soft click behind her. She did not run, because running was for guilty people and badly trained dogs, but she did walk very quickly down the passage, chin lifted, sleeve empty, fingers still marked faintly with oil from the orange rind.

By the time she reached the next stair, she had almost convinced herself that the tightness under her ribs had eased. Of course it had. Theft was invigorating. Theft put blood back where it belonged and reminded the body that it had once known better hobbies than sitting in silk while strangers remembered the wrong parts of a man. She had missed stealing, that was all. The orange had merely provided occasion. Aeleanora descended toward her own rooms with the cool satisfaction of a thief restored to practise and absolutely no desire whatsoever to imagine Baelor finding the note, reading the line, and knowing she had carried the fruit there whole.

☙──────────✧──────────❧

For three days, Dragonstone coughed guests out by wheelhouse, litter, horse, and ship. Every departure left behind some lesser ghost of perfume, spilled wine, damp cloak, or lordly grievance for the servants to beat from the stones. Baelor spent those days where he was permitted to exist: beside Jacaerys in council, in the yard speaking to Corlys over a letter sealed in river-blue wax, beneath the rookery stairs with Rhaenys and Laena, his face arranged for work while he gave Aeleanora exactly nothing the room could keep. The western apartments emptied slowly, which seemed excessive. Aeleanora had seen corpses leave with less ceremony. By the fourth night, the last guest banner had gone down the causeway, the extra guards had been dismissed from the inner turns, and the castle’s silence returned with the smugness of a servant who had always known the household would come back to sense. Counting had nothing to do with it. She had merely noticed the castle ceasing to offend her.

Her solar looked guilty. The fire burned high, throwing restless orange along the black stone, the shutters were latched against the sea-wind, and the low table sat near the divan with two cups beside the darker Dornish red, because Aeleanora had put them there before supper and then spent the next hour pretending the servants, the fire, or some passing god had conspired without her. She lay along the divan in a robe of pale silk, one knee drawn up, one bare foot hanging over the carved end, her hair loose over the cushions in a white spill that looked artful in the shameless way expensive accidents often did. The robe was for comfort after pins, and nothing about comfort after pins had ever been treasonous. The room, however, had become a bawd.

The hidden door opened near the hearth with the low scrape of stone. Aeleanora did not rise. Rising would have honoured the wall, and after a week of being nothing but wall, it had developed quite enough pride. Baelor stepped through and closed the passage behind him, dressed in black, collar close at the throat, the damp edge of his cloak darkening one sleeve. He looked tired around the eyes, which made him worse. The day had left him sharpened rather than worn, his collar close and his mouth set in the severe line he wore after teaching fools where patience ended.

“My Princess,” he said, and the title came dry as if the last week had been a matter of stonework.

“My Prince,” Aeleanora returned, lifting her cup from her stomach. “You have brought half the passage with you.”

Baelor unfastened his cloak and laid it over the chair near the hearth, taking in the fire, the cups, the wine, then her bare foot. “I thought you could bear one more offence.”

“One more?” Aeleanora let her foot sway once over the divan’s carved end. “You flatter yourself. The fire has been offending me for an hour.”

He came to the divan with his eyes still on her. “It has kept your company badly.”

At the end of the divan, Baelor sat and took her dangling foot into his lap. His palm closed around her heel, warm and broad, and his thumb settled beneath her ankle, just where the skin went soft before the bone rose. Aeleanora’s toes curled once against his thigh. Traitors. All five of them, pretty little turncloaks in need of a wall. Baelor reached for the untouched cup on the table with his free hand, drank, then turned back to her with the crease beside his eye deepening in that infuriating way that made approval look like something he had trapped before it could run loose.

“You have been practising theft,” he said.

Aeleanora looked at his fingers with grave suspicion. “Theft is a perishable skill. One must keep the hand educated.”

His thumb moved slowly along the inside of her ankle. “Then the lesson was worth preserving.”

That was better than thanks. It was still dangerous, but it arrived wearing dark clothes and carrying a knife instead of flowers, so she allowed it to live. His fingers settled around her foot, and the pressure climbed up her calf in a thin, hot line that made her knee loosen toward him beneath the silk. Barely a week, and her body had become a castle gate with a flattering opinion of the enemy.

“You return very confident for a man who abandoned his post,” she said as his fingers settled more securely around her foot.

His gaze lifted to hers, and the skin beside his left eye creased. “I was not aware the post had been granted.”

“Temporarily,” she said. “The position was created in a moment of poor judgment and may be revoked for arrogance.”

Baelor’s thumb found the inner arch of her foot and dragged slowly from heel to the ball, steady enough to make her fingers tighten around the cup. He watched the motion, then her, and the laugh that threatened his mouth remained trapped behind his teeth. Aeleanora wanted it out with an urgency that belonged in a kennel.

“You left council quickly this morning,” he said.

“Lord Cerion had begun repeating himself.”

Baelor gave her a look from beneath his lowered brow, dry enough to cure meat and far too knowing for the hour. “He had spoken once.”

“Once can be a lifetime when a man is wrong.”

Baelor’s mouth stayed severe, but the lines at his temples betrayed him. He looked too composed with her foot in his lap. This man could make impropriety seem like an account settled in good ink. “You were less patient at the feast,” he said, his fingers closing gently over the top of her foot.

“I was surrounded by singers, speeches, and men praising wine before swallowing. Patience would have been obscene.”

“And Baratheons.”

Aeleanora smiled into her cup. At last, a door with a latch. “Lyonel owed me a dance,” she said. “Do not ask me why. I cannot tell you. You would begin lecturing before I reached the best part. Just know that wine and Daeron were also involved.”

His thumb moved up from her ankle to the lower line of her calf, beneath the loose edge of the robe. “If Daeron and wine were both involved, some poor Kingsguard wished for the Wall.”

Aeleanora laughed before she could make it cruel, and the sound came out warmer than she intended. Baelor’s touch travelled higher while she told him the tale, far too steady to be innocent. His thumb found the soft place just below her knee and swept idly there, a quiet answer to laughter, stolen wine, Lyonel’s lie, and multiple nights of watching one another through rooms that gave them no mercy. Aeleanora looked at the dark line of his sleeve against her pale silk and the place where his fingers held her with intolerable patience.

“You are very calm for a man with ambitious hands,” she said.

Before she finished making the words sharp, one palm slid beneath her knee while the other braced beside her hip. He drew her down the divan until her bent leg lay fully across his lap and her robe had slipped open over the thin nightgown beneath. Her cup tilted dangerously. Baelor took it from her before the wine could disgrace them both and set it on the floor beside the divan.

“That was mine.”

Baelor gave a soft laugh. “You were done with it.”

“I made no such declaration.”

His smile barely moved, small and dry and entirely aware of the trap he had left open between them. “Then make one now.”

She sat up at once, sliding her leg from his lap only so she could cross the short space between them. His grip found her waist as she climbed over him, one knee sinking into the cushion on either side of his thigh. “I am done with the cup,” she said, settling against him. “I am considering what else I might take.”

“Take?”

“That stern mouth, for a start.” 

His right hand moved to the nape of her neck, fingers threading into the hair there, and he drew her down until her mouth hovered above his. He still did not kiss her. Dreadful man. The heat of him hard beneath the dark wool pressed against her inner thigh, and her body answered with such shameless speed that pride packed a bag and left for the Free Cities.

“Where shall I begin?” he asked, his voice soft enough to make her thighs tighten against him.

Aeleanora’s fingers went to the fastening at his throat. “Your coat removed by violence.”

“That is all?” His mouth brushed the edge of hers without becoming a kiss.

Aeleanora smiled against him and pulled once at the fastening until the cloth gave beneath her fingers. “My legs open and your mouth busy enough to stop correcting me.”

Baelor kissed her then, deep and thorough, as if he had been waiting for the sentence and meant to punish every word for taking so long. His hand tightened at the back of her neck, holding her to him while his mouth opened hers with a hunger kept too carefully leashed to be mistaken for carelessness. Aeleanora made a sound into him before she could kill it, and his other palm slid up her thigh beneath the robe, warm palm dragging silk and nightgown together until her hips tipped forward of their own accord. 

He lifted her from his lap in one clean motion, stood with her against him, and made her catch at his shoulders with a noise that was far too high-pitched for her to admit to. Aeleanora wrapped one leg higher around his hip because falling would have been undignified and because the hard line of him against her made dignity seem like a custom from a kingdom with no roads home.

“You are alarmingly sure-footed for a man stealing royal property.”

Baelor kissed beneath her ear, walking her through the entry to the bedchamber. “Royal property has made no formal protest.”

He bit the side of her throat, gentle enough to spare proof, hard enough to send heat down her spine. Her fingers drove into his hair, disordering the dark and silver strands she had wanted to ruin since the passage opened. He made a rough sound at that, almost hidden against her skin, and walked faster.

He reached the bed and brought her down with him. The furs gave beneath her back, briefly cool before his weight and the fire’s heat closed in. Aeleanora looked up at him, hair spilled over the bed, robe loose around her, nightgown rucked shamefully high. “If this is another lesson in patience, I will have the bed burned.”

Baelor looked over her, from her mouth to her throat to the bare line of thigh he had uncovered. The look spread her open before he touched her there, and her body, treacherous thing, mistook attention for touch. His thumb stroked once above her knee, then higher, parting silk from skin with slow certainty.

“Stop complaining,” he said, his palm slipping beneath her knee, “and open your legs for me.” Then his mouth lowered to her inner thigh.

For all his talk of patience, Baelor went to her with the dreadful concentration of a starving man who still knew which knife belonged beside which plate. He kissed his way up slowly enough to make her hips chase him, then held them down when they did, one palm spread over the lower part of her belly, the other hooked beneath her thigh to keep her open to him. The first true stroke of his tongue to her cunt made the bed vanish for one stupid instant. Aeleanora’s fingers found his hair and held on while he worked her ruthlessly, soft when she tried to brace herself, firm when her knees began to close, slow when she cursed him, deep when his name broke out of her without permission.

Her climax struck so hard it tore sense out by the roots. Aeleanora turned her face into her wrist too late to save the sound, and Baelor kept his mouth on her through the last bright pull of it, slower now, gentler, as if he meant to feel every aftershock he had caused. Her thighs shook around his shoulders. His palm stroked once over her hip, almost soothing, which was insolent when the damage belonged to him.

“Baelor,” she said, and the name came out ragged enough to disgrace every title she had ever been given.

He eased only far enough to press a kiss to her clit, open-mouthed and filthy, once more. Aeleanora’s spine arched before she could stop it, too sensitive and still greedy, possessed by a body with no sense of hierarchy. His tongue moved over her again, softer this time, and the slow drag of it sent her fingers back into his hair.

“Come here,” she said, pulling until he looked up.

He lifted his gaze first, dark beneath the lowered brow, mouth wet, beard marked by her, his severity ruined so precisely that victory felt briefly religious. He pressed one last kiss high on her thigh, then moved up her body with maddening care, mouth finding her hip, her stomach through the thin silk, then the underside of her breast before she could gather anything sharp enough to say.

Aeleanora meant to scold him. Truly, she had prepared something elegant. Then his mouth reached the underside of her breast through the nightgown, and the thought fell down a stairwell. “Dreadful man,” she managed.

Baelor slid his arms beneath her, drawing her up into him as his mouth crossed her collarbone. He kissed her throat, the hard line of her jaw, then her mouth, deep and slow and indecently thorough. Aeleanora tasted herself on him and made a small, furious sound into the kiss, because he brought the proof of his mouth back to her with no shame at all. Baelor caught the sound with his tongue and held her there, one hand in her hair, the other holding her waist, while her thighs closed around his hips and every clever thing left in her went obediently to ruin.

When he broke the kiss, his mouth still glistened with her, his coat open under her grip, his body pressed hard against her inner thigh. Through the last stubborn layers of cloth, Aeleanora felt how hard he was and made a sound against his mouth that was meant to accuse him and arrived eager instead. He left her waist only long enough to deal with the fastenings between them. Firelight made a scandal of the wetness at his chin. Public restraint had left him too composed in the hall and hungry enough here that even his silence felt strained. He settled between her thighs again, sliding his palm under her knee, lifting her leg higher along his hip with the ease of a man who knew exactly where she opened best.

“I need you,” she said, and hated how little decoration the words required.

Baelor looked at her. “I know, sweet girl, I know.”

He guided himself against her, the head of his cock dragging once through the wetness his mouth had left there, and Aeleanora’s fingers sank into his shoulders. Her body tipped up for him like a gate with no loyalty to its own garrison. Baelor’s brow lowered as he watched her face, then he pushed into her. The first slow stretch took the insult from her tongue and burned it useless. Her head fell back into the furs, mouth open, gaze half-lidded on his face above her, severe and intent, while he entered her with the dreadful restraint that made every inch feel chosen. He gave her one slow inch, then another, until his hips met hers and his breath struck rough against her cheek.

His head dropped, forehead nearly touching hers. He looked between them to where he was buried inside of her, and the sight of him looking made her clench hard around him. His sound came low and poorly governed. A proper confession at last. 

“Fuck, Aeleanora,” he breathed, ruined at the edges.

She smiled with effort, because effort was all that remained between her and collapse. “Now that is the voice I wanted.”

His hips drew back slowly, and the drag of him made her fingers tighten their hold in his hair. “Greedy girl.”

“You left me empty all week,” she murmured. The skin beside his eyes creased, and then he thrust back into her deep and exact, knocking the rest of her answer into the furs. Aeleanora’s laugh broke into a disgraceful moan. “Rude,” she managed.

“You were made sweeter by waiting.” He hitched her leg higher, changing the angle so knowingly that her next breath came out thin and furious. The first stroke there made her eyes close, and his palm came to her jaw at once, thumb beneath her chin, lifting her face back to him. “No,” he murmured. “Give me that face.”

She opened her eyes with murderous reluctance. “I hope you are proud of it. You made it yourself.”

His hips drove in again, deeper this time, and his grip at her jaw tightened. “I am,” he said, and kissed the next sound from her mouth. “Stay there for me.”

All sense narrowed to the drag of him inside her, the weight of his palm beneath her knee, the rough place where his beard scraped her throat, the furs twisting under her shoulders as he pressed her deeper into the bed. Her body had no loyalty left. It met him stroke for stroke, shameless as a sellsword.

Aeleanora slid her fingers into his hair and pulled until his mouth left her throat. “Is this what you thought of when you watched me dance?” She held him as she asked it, bright and wicked under her lashes, and her hips lifted into his next stroke as though she meant to make honesty expensive.

His gaze fixed on hers, dark and close. “Yes.” Her cunt clenched around him again at the admission, and Baelor felt every bit of it. His breath left him rough against her cheek, punctuated by a groan. “Fuck.”

“Say that with less dignity,” she whispered against his mouth.

Baelor’s palm left her jaw and slid to the back of her neck, holding her there while his hips dragged back at a pace that made her feel every retreat. “Had I been a worse man, litse,” he murmured, catching her lips and kissing her again, “I would have had my hand under that fucking dress, out on that balcony.” His teeth caught lightly at her lower lip before he continued. “Making you forget the entire hall.”

His next thrust struck the place inside her that his fingers and tongue had already made too tender, and Aeleanora’s back arched beneath him. His mouth caught the next sound, and he drew her left hand out of his hair, bringing it down to the bed beside her head. Aeleanora’s free hand slid over his shoulder, searching blindly for his other wrist. She found only sleeve, then skin, then the hard line of his forearm before he caught the attempt for what it was.

Baelor held himself still inside her, breathing hard against her mouth, and his smile came slow enough to be indecent. “Ask me.”

Aeleanora hated him for knowing exactly what he meant. She hated him more for waiting. Her pulse beat in her throat, in her wrist under his grip, between her thighs where he held himself deep and refused to move until she answered. Pride made one last, useless noise inside her and drowned in the heat of him. 

“Hold me, please,” she said, breath hitching. “Make me take it.”

He smiled and caught her free wrist, drawing it down to the other side of her head, his fingers lacing through hers against the furs. He shifted his weight forward onto their joined hands, and the new angle opened her beneath him with such devastating precision that her next breath came out thin and broken. Baelor gazed down at her then, robe long gone and nightgown dragged high, and the look on his face went stripped, almost devout.

“Gods, so good for me,” he said, withdrawing slowly from her and coming back so deep that her cunt clenched around him. “You feel like every wicked thing I denied myself this week.”

His breath broke against her cheek, a small rough thing that made her smile through the ruin of herself. This was much better than cups raised in a hall. Better than old women with winter memories and wives correcting wine. Here, his collar hung open, his hair was wrecked by her hands, his mouth wet from hers. The grave prince from every toast had her wrists pinned beneath his while he praised how sweetly she took him. The knowledge settled low in her body, vicious and sweet: the hall had been allowed his name, but this was hers.

His mouth went to her throat. His hips drove deep, then deeper when her legs tightened around him. He held her wrists above her head until he released one and found her clit. Aeleanora cursed him, then praised him, then bit the next sound into his shoulder because apparently she had become a woman of contradictions and teeth. He laughed once, rough and low, and the sound carried her over the edge before she had time to prepare an objection.

“Do not laugh,” she said, though the command came thin and wrecked enough to disgrace every ancestor with ears.

His thumb circled once, wickedly steady. “Then stop getting tighter when I do.”

She should have killed him. Truly. A lesser man would have been sent through the nearest wall and remembered poorly in song. Aeleanora made a strangled sound against his shoulder instead, and Baelor drove into her again, hard, and the bed answered beneath them. Her body took the stroke greedily. 

The climax hit fast, fed by his mouth and his hand and the terrible accuracy of being known this physically. She came hard pinned beneath him, her whole body locking around him, and tore a groan from his throat. He fucked her through it, dragging the pleasure out, chest heaving against hers as he praised her in low, broken pieces until she accused him of cruelty in a voice so weak that a whisper would have drowned it out.

He lost his own rhythm shortly after that. Braced hard in the furs beside her head, he broke the kiss because he needed breath more than pride. Aeleanora watched his throat work, his gaze fight to stay on her face, the severe prince beginning to come apart while still trying to spare her the full weight of himself. Absurd man.

“Baelor,” she said, softer than intended.

He lifted his head, breath ragged now, gaze fixed on hers with want stripped bare. “Again. Let me hear what I sound like in your mouth.”

She turned her mouth to his ear, because if he wanted ruin he could have it properly. “Baelor.”

“Sȳz riña,” he breathed against her neck, voice scraped raw. “Taking me so well. Gods, missed your perfect little cunt,” he growled into her skin.

His control gave in one sharp, silent break. He came with his face pressed into the side of her neck, his hips pressed fully against hers as he spilled deep inside her. One hand was braced hard on the furs, and the other spread over her hip as though the bed had become the last honest country left to him. Aeleanora held him there tight, breath caught somewhere beneath her ribs where the hall could never put its hands. For several breaths, neither of them moved. Then his weight eased by a careful fraction, and Aeleanora tightened her leg around him before he could mistake survival for retreat. His laugh broke against her throat, rough and nearly soundless, and she smiled into his hair with the lazy viciousness of a woman finding a second knife under the pillow. This was very good. He was warm, ruined, and still far too dressed. The night had further work to do.

Baelor moved slowly, negotiating with her leg still locked around him. One last kiss pressed beneath her ear before he withdrew, and she had to bite a sound back. The loss of him was briefly sharp, then followed by the practical indignity of linen, water, the cloth between her thighs warmed from the basin, and the outrageous competence of a man who could ruin her and then clean the evidence from her skin as though the task had been entrusted to him by oath and blood. Something low was said about soreness. Aeleanora informed him that the bed had suffered more. He checked her for bruises anyway, thumb passing once along her inner thigh where his grip had held too firmly.

He touched the place once more, lighter now, and the carefulness of it struck some small, stupid bell in her chest. The week had made her greedy for that too, apparently. The unhurried care after, the quiet inventory of her body, the way he found tenderness and made it look like procedure so neither of them had to accuse it aloud. By the time he had tossed the ruined linen to the foot of the bed for later judgment, both of them were naked and the chamber had surrendered any claim to order. Baelor lay reclined against the piled pillows, one arm around her, fingers moving through her hair, separating a pale tangle near her shoulder. Aeleanora lay on her belly draped over him, cheek pressed between his shoulder and the warm plane of his chest. Her body settled between his legs with the shameless heaviness that came after pleasure had stripped the bones out of pride and left only skin and heat.

Their talk had wandered for a while after that, low and useless and easier for being useless. By the time the fire had sunk lower in the hearth, Aeleanora had lost track of how they had moved from the feast to Corlys’s missing wine ledger to Daeron’s gift for making prophecy sound like poor table manners. Her cheek settled more fully against Baelor’s chest, and his fingers slowed in her hair.

“This is better,” she murmured. He combed his fingers down the length of her hair. “Do not ask better than what. I am too tired to be dignified.”

His breath left him in a quiet laugh, and his fingers curled once near the ends of her hair before smoothing them down her back. For a little while after that, neither of them reached for another word. The fire worked low in the hearth, the shutters held against the sea-wind, and the furs beneath them had become a defeated country of heat, salt, and Baelor’s skin. Aeleanora let her eyes half-close against his chest and listened to his breathing finding itself again, pleased in a soft dangerous way that immediately deserved suspicion. Peace was a trick. Rest was a lullaby sung by assassins. Worse, those fingers in her hair were making a private argument for staying exactly where she was. 

His palm spread warm between her shoulder blades before moving in slow, firm strokes down the length of her back. Aeleanora felt her body loosen over him, and he paused low near her hip, thumb circling once above her hip. She felt the small answering twitch of him beneath her before he could govern it fully, and her eyes opened. She turned her face enough for her mouth to rest against the warm skin below his collarbone. The thought came shyly first, which was offensive. She considered dismissing it. Then she considered that cowardice was an ugly little garment and did nothing for her complexion.

She kissed him once below the collarbone there, light enough to pass for accident. Another at the edge of his smile when she lifted her head, slower, less deniable, and aimed with deliberate cruelty at the last tatters of his peace. When she looked at him properly, Baelor’s palm slowed on her back. His gaze moved from her mouth to her lashes, then down the length of her body where she lay warm and bare over him. By the time it returned to her face, his lower lids had tightened with all the suspicion of a man who had seen armies form with less warning. 

“What are you plotting?” he asked.

“Instruction,” she said, and the word came out too smooth to be innocent.

His brow lowered. “In what?”

She giggled because the question found where nerve and wickedness had been whispering behind a screen. It was a horrifying sound, girlish and bright. She let her mouth travel along his collarbone and felt his chest lift beneath her lips. “In hospitality,” she said.

Baelor’s fingers slid into her hair and held the weight of it away from her face. “Try again.”

Aeleanora raised herself on one elbow, which ruined the soft arrangement of her body against his and forced the furs to accept a new border. She looked down at him and felt the first real sting of embarrassment open beneath her breastbone, small and hot and vicious. It was absurd. She had just taken him inside her, cried out against his shoulder, swallowed his praise like a starving little thing, and now this one request had arrived carrying a candle and asking where to stand. She lowered her gaze to his chest, then below, where he had begun to harden against her stomach. The sight made the candle flare into a brazier.

“I want to learn how to take you in my mouth,” she murmured, her fingers drawing one idle line through the dark hair at the centre of his chest because looking anywhere else had abruptly become a royal duty. “The way you like it.”

His body went still beneath her with such sudden force that the pillows behind him seemed to brace themselves. His fingers tightened in her hair, then loosened strand by strand as though his fingers had been given a command from a wiser part of him and obeyed through gritted teeth. A sound left him, rough and cut short by his teeth. Beneath her stomach, he thickened further with one slow, betraying pulse, the heat of him pressing up against her.

“You want that?” he asked. 

Aeleanora felt the heat climb from her chest to her cheeks, and indignation rushed to meet it like a loyal, badly trained hound. “Yes,” she said, narrowing her eyes. “You may instruct me, or you may gape. Choose quickly.”

His breath caught hard enough to show in his throat. His grip at her hip flexed, pulling her half an inch higher over him before stopping there. It made him look dangerous in the old way, the beautiful awful way, with appetite under the skin and discipline standing over it with a drawn blade. She wanted to put her mouth on him until the blade dropped. 

Baelor looked down. “Come here first.”

She leaned up, and he kissed her with a hunger that sent a pleased little shock through her belly. His tongue slid against hers, slow and deep. His fingers stayed in her hair, guiding the angle without taking it from her, and Aeleanora sank one palm into the pillow beside his shoulder before the kiss could become a thing that made her forget her own plan. Forgetting would be a poor beginning to any lesson. She had dignity enough for at least one lesson, she hoped.

When she began moving down his body, the furs caught beneath her knee and her hair slipped over her shoulder in a pale sheet that tried to blind her at the worst possible angle. Baelor gathered it back, his fingers sliding under the heavy fall of it and lifting it from her mouth. It made her chest tighten in a manner the chamber would be wise to deny. She kissed the centre of his chest to punish him for it, then lower, across his stomach, pleased when the muscles there drew tight beneath her lips.

She paused just above his navel and looked up before she could pretend she was only choosing her next target. The question must have shown on her face, which was intolerable, because Baelor’s fingers stilled in her hair and his gaze darkened with understanding before he said anything at all.

“Slowly,” he breathed, voice lowered to a worn thread. “I like it slowly at first.” 

The plainness of it put heat in her face. Aeleanora lowered her face to his thigh because she needed somewhere to put the sudden bloom of embarrassment, and because his leg tensed very nicely when her mouth touched him there. She had known him inside her. She had known the weight of him, the stretch, the slow brutal care with which he entered her. This was a separate kingdom. Smaller and worse. Governed by mouth, hand, breath, and the unbearable fact that he had told her what pleased him because she had asked.

At first, she wrapped her fingers around him. Pale against him in the firelight, her grip looked almost obscene, her thumb brushing over the slickness gathered at the head of his cock. Some of it was his, pearled there for her already, and some of it was the mess of both of them from before. Heat climbed into her face again. Incredible, really, that a princess could be pinned down, spread open, and fucked senseless, then blush because her fingers had found him slick with wanting and with her. Aeleanora bent before courage could make demands and pressed a small kiss to the tip of him.

Baelor’s fingers clenched in her hair. His hips jerked once, so hard her lips brushed him again, and the sound he made cut low through the chamber. Aeleanora froze with her mouth still near him. That sound had been worth the embarrassment. It had been worth several embarrassing acts, possibly a minor scandal and one sharp scolding from Jacaerys. She glanced up and found his head tipped back against the pillows, his brow drawn low, his chest rising hard as if the bedchamber had robbed him of air and hidden it in her mouth.

“Was that wrong?” she asked.

“Gods, no.” His gaze came down to her. “Perfect.”

Aeleanora smiled, and pride spread warm under her ribs with the shamelessness of a banner raised after a very small battle. She kissed him again, dragging her tongue over the slit of him. Salt, skin, the faint bitter edge of him, and under it the intimate proof of herself returned to her. Her throat worked around the taste. She wanted to laugh, hide, bite him, and do it again until his hand forgot gentleness and his voice forgot every room that had ever borrowed it.

“Use your hand,” he said, and the instruction frayed when her tongue moved. “There, around the base of me. Yes—Good.”

She obeyed with enough care to make her own pulse irritating. Her grip closed more firmly and he exhaled through his teeth when she stroked upward with her mouth. His fingers held her hair back while she took the head of him past her lips. Heat filled her mouth at once, heavy against her tongue, alive in a way that made her pause and blink. The act required study down to the smallest change: the pulse of him under her tongue, the sound he swallowed too late, the way his thigh pressed harder into the furs when she sealed her lips.

“Less, sweetling,” Baelor said, voice rough at the edges. “Let me feel your mouth before you try to take more.”

Aeleanora glanced up once, wet with concentration and irritation, then lowered again before either could become a conversation. She adjusted her hold, loosened her mouth, and tried again. She followed the shallow, slow rhythm he had asked for, her tongue soft along the underside of him, her grip moving with uncertain care until his fingers tightened once in her hair and guided her. A little slower. There you go. Hand higher for me? Yes, litse, like that. Each murmur came shorter than the last, stripped down by breath, and Aeleanora listened with the furious concentration of a woman learning the balance of a blade. Unfortunately, the blade was in her mouth and beginning to pulse against her tongue. 

His sounds began to come loose under her mouth. At first they lived deep in his chest, rationed with the stingy discipline of winter stores. Then her tongue found the place beneath the head that made his stomach go hard and his thighs brace on either side of her, and a groan tore out of him and sent heat spilling down between her own legs. Aeleanora pulled off him to breathe, spit wet at the corner of her mouth, and looked up because she needed to see the damage. His gaze fixed on her, his face severe in that ruinous way, brow lowered, mouth open, neck taut, his body fighting the crude miracle of her mouth with the last scraps of his discipline.

“Look at me when you do that,” he said.

Aeleanora’s fingers tightened around him. “Is that instruction or weakness?” she asked before taking his cock back into her mouth.

“Both.”

The answer made her laugh around him before she could pull away. Baelor cursed, sudden and low, his hips jerking up a fraction into her mouth. She startled and took too much. Her throat closed around him, tears springing hot and immediate to her eyes, and her hand came down against his thigh as her body tried to remember how air worked. He stopped at once, one fist in the bedding so hard the fur bunch under his white knuckles.

“Breathe,” he said, voice rough and awake. “Through your nose. Easy, sweet girl.”

Aeleanora pulled back enough to cough once, eyes watering, mouth slick, pride staggering through the chamber with its crown crooked. Shame rose hot under her skin, quick as flame along oil, and Baelor cupped her jaw before she could hide inside it. His thumb touched the corner of her mouth where spit had gathered. His gaze stayed on hers with no pretty mercy, which felt much worse and so much safer. Attention like that made her feel naked in a new direction, and she had already run out of clothing as a defence.

“Less at first,” he said. His voice dropped when her tongue touched his thumb by accident. “You are all right.”

“I know that,” she said, hoarse and wet at the edges. “Do not become heroic. I shall have to reward it.”

His lower lids tightened. “Stop trying to make me laugh with your mouth wet from my cock.”

“Poor showing for a man I just made curse.”

Baelor’s laugh broke out of him at the wrong end of a moan when she lowered her mouth again, and Aeleanora would have had the sound set in gold if any goldsmith in the realm had been equal to the work. This time she took him carefully, hand doing the work where her mouth could not, tongue soft because he had told her so, lips tightening when his hand pressed, loosening when he stroked her hair. It became a study quickly, shamefully quickly. His thigh flexed when she curled her tongue. His breath hitched hard when she paused around the head and sucked gently. His fist closed too fiercely in the furs when she let spit gather and spread it with her palm, the slide turning slick and obscene between her fingers.

“Gods,” he said, the word thin. “That mouth is wicked.”

Aeleanora hummed around him because praise had become a leash and she had taken it between her teeth. The sound ruined him. His head pressed back into the headboard and pillows, throat exposed, hips lifting again before he caught himself by gripping the carved headboard above him. The restraint of it maddened her. He had strength enough to take the rhythm from her, hunger plain on his face, the angle his for the taking. He could have spent himself against the back of her throat, and the fact that he did not, the fact that his hand stayed gentle in her hair as a guide, made the act feel filthier than any loss of control could have. Baelor Targaryen, horrifying man, could make restraint so obscene it deserved its own altar and three dead septons.

“Do not rush because I sound like this,” he breathed.

Aeleanora lifted her mouth only far enough to answer, dragging her lips along him as she went. “I like how you sound.”

His eyes opened, and the look he gave her was so dark her fingers faltered. She took him again with a small, startled noise, losing the pace for one stroke before his grip corrected her. Slower. Yes, again. Beautiful thing. The room filled with wet sounds now, mouth and hand and breath, the slick slide of her palm, the little catch in her throat when she tried more and had to pull back. Spit gathered over her knuckles and shone along him in the firelight. Her hair slipped from his hold in pale pieces and clung to her cheek, her damp mouth, the corner of her jaw. Tears blurred her sight when she took him deeper again, stubbornly, because retreat had begun to offend her, and his praise came at once, rough, and the effort felt crowned.

“Good,” he breathed. “Yes, sweetling. That’s it. Breathe. You have it.”

Aeleanora’s eyes lifted through the wet fringe of her lashes. She must have looked appalling. Mouth swollen around him, cheeks flushed, eyes wet, one palm braced on his thigh while the other worked what she could not take. A ruined little altar with better hair. Baelor looked at her as if the sight had struck him under the breastbone. His mouth opened around her name, barely even a sound. The tendon in his throat pulled tight while his hand trembled once in her hair.

That tremor fed her more surely than any feast could have. She pulled back until only the head of him rested against her tongue, then looked up and repeated the softer stroke he had liked, slow and precise. His breath broke. There, then. She did it again. His fingers curled. Again, because repeated pressure found the weak place in any wall, and his body was giving up its secrets in pulse, tendon, and wrecked breathing. Aeleanora smiled around him before she could stop herself.

Baelor saw it, because he saw everything when it would be most convenient. “Proud of yourself?”

She drew off with a wet sound and stroked him slowly, thumb circling where her mouth had been. “Is that gratitude I hear?”

“I am trying to give you warning.”

He said it with his eyes on hers and his chest heaving. Warning was a small practical word, and yet her body answered with a low twist of heat. He meant to warn her. He meant to give her the choice because virtue had been forged into the man’s bones and left there to make trouble. Aeleanora felt the old instinct to turn aside, to make a joke large enough to hide inside, to spare herself the rawness of wanting to stay. Then his cock pulsed against her palm, heavy and slick, and his eyes dropped to her mouth before returning to her face with visible effort.

“Come here,” he said, voice rougher now. “Oh—Aeleanora, enough.”

That lit her temper. As though she had wandered into this by accident. As though he could give her the very answer she had asked for and then pull it away because restraint had staggered into the chamber with a bloody nose and a royal seal. Aeleanora’s hand tightened around him, and his hips jerked into her grip before he caught himself.

“No,” she said.

His brow drew lower. “Aeleanora,” he warned.

“I said I wanted to learn.” Her voice had gone hoarse, wet at the edges, and terribly satisfied.

“If you do not stop,” he breathed, nostrils flared. His palm slid to the back of her head and rested there, trembling against the weight of her hair. “You will finish me in your mouth.”

Her body answered before she decided to, heat rushing between her thighs. Shameful thing. Hungry thing. It heard him say finish and mouth, then opened the gates. She held his stare and lowered her lips back to him. The first stroke of her tongue over the head made his control crack open on a rough curse. His hand tightened in her hair at last, fingers spread against her scalp, and the sound that left him when she took him deeper was the filthiest thing he had given her all night: raw, unwilling, almost angry with pleasure. 

Aeleanora took as much as she could, gagged, pulled back with spit stringing from her lower lip to his cock, and went again because his reaction made every indignity shine. Tears slipped from the outer corners of her eyes now. Her throat ached. Her grip was slick and clumsy, her mouth wetter than sense, and Baelor looked ruined, and worth every bit of it.

“Fuck,” he groaned, hips lifting, then stopping hard under his own command. “Aeleanora. Good. Gods, good. Like that. Keep your tongue soft. Yes. There.”

She followed him as best she could, and where she failed, he corrected his broken scraps. Slower. Thumb higher. Looser for me? Yes, sweet girl, yes. The words came lower, rougher, less shaped by each breath, and praise began spilling between them in pieces he would have never spent in daylight. Sweet mouth. Clever girl. Wicked little thing. Perfect when she listened. Perfect when she tried again. He sounded astonished by what she was giving him. He could feel her learning him. That was the real obscenity. Aeleanora was going to require a new faith by dawn.

His thighs tensed on either side of her. His fist left the furs and gripped the pillow behind his head, pulling it half out of place, which pleased her so much that she tightened her mouth and dragged her tongue beneath the head just as her palm stroked upward. Baelor’s body went rigid. His gaze locked on her face, and the sight of him holding himself at the brink made Aeleanora feel briefly enormous. Divine in the oldest, rudest sense. A giver of ruin. A collector of tribute. A woman with spit on her chin and victory between her teeth.

“Enough,” he said again, and the word came ragged now. “Litse. I am close. Come here. I can’t—”

Aeleanora gave him one slow stroke, watched his abdomen clench, then took him back into her mouth as far as she could bear. His curse broke into her name. His hips lifted, checked by the grip buried in her hair, and she gagged around him with tears flooding hot down her cheeks. It was messy and difficult and nothing like the clean, clever performances foolish men probably invented in their own heads. It was breath and spit and ache and the salt-bitter taste of him, the weight of him on her tongue, the heat of his body trembling under her palms, his voice coming apart because she had stayed.

“Fuck, good girl, Sȳz riña,” he said, and the praise cracked down the middle. “Gods, Aeleanora. Sweetling, I am going to come.”

She pulled back until the head of him rested against her tongue, lips sealed around him, palm working slick and fast because his body had told her the pace before his mouth could. Her scalp stung beneath his hand now, and Aeleanora welcomed it. It made the whole thing honest. Then his control broke.

Baelor came with a harsh, low groan that tore itself out of him against his will. His hips jerked once, then again, and she held him with her hand and mouth while he spilled hot over her tongue. The first pulse shocked her, bitter and salt and him, startling, and her throat tried to close around it, yet she kept her mouth there because he was making that sound, because his hand was trembling in her hair, because she had wanted to know and knowledge had never been meant to arrive politely. Some of it slipped from the corner of her mouth despite her effort, warm along her lower lip, over her chin. She drank up what she could and nearly choked on the last of it, eyes watering so badly the room blurred into fire and pillows and the dark shape of him above her.

His body shuddered through the final pulse, and his grip in her hair loosened as if strength had gone out of him by the fistful. “Aeleanora,” he said, and her name sounded wrecked beyond office, family, feast, and every public record that had ever dared claim him whole.

She stayed there one breath longer than mercy recommended, mouth softening around him while he twitched against her tongue. Cruel, perhaps. Educational, certainly. Then she drew back slowly, lips dragging over him until he hissed and caught her under the jaw with shaking fingers. Her mouth was swollen, wet, aching at the corners. Spit shone over her fingers and his cock. His spend had slipped from one side of her mouth to her chin, and when she looked up at him through red, tear-wet eyes, Baelor stared as though Vermithor himself had landed in the bedchamber and asked to be praised.

For one narrow moment, the chamber belonged to his stare. His chest heaved, hair disordered, mouth open as he took in the state of her: cheeks flushed, lashes clumped with tears, lips parted and slick, chin marked by what he had spent in her mouth. The naked hunger on his face should have frightened someone wiser. Aeleanora, being cursed with taste, felt her pride stretched out in the warmth of it like a dragon over hot stone. 

“Well,” she said, so hoarse the word was nearly useless. “I think I understood the lesson.”

Baelor moved at last. His thumb came to her mouth, brushing the corner where his spend had gathered. The touch was gentle and devastatingly exact, gathering the slickness from her lip as his gaze stayed on her face. “Come here.”

“I am still deciding whether to be proud or offended.”

“Aeleanora.”

The command in her name had very little court left in it. She rose onto her hands and knees, and he pulled her up with a strength that still had ruin shaking through it, bringing her over his body until her knees bracketed his hips and her mouth hovered above his. His thumb, still wet, rested near her lower lip. She looked at it, then at him, because apparently there were depths to vulgarity and she had brought a lantern.

Aeleanora opened her mouth and drew his thumb in. His brow lowered and his breath stopped. Entirely. She sucked the last of him from his skin, slow and soft, tongue curling around the pad of his thumb. His other hand clamped at her hip and dragged her closer. When she released him, his thumb slid from her mouth wet and clean, and the look he gave her was so feral under all that restraint that her pulse kicked between her thighs before she could remind it that it had recently been thoroughly attended.

“You,” he said, and the rest of the sentence died against his teeth.

Aeleanora smiled with her swollen mouth. “Careful. You may injure yourself attempting language.”

His fingers went into her hair and pulled her down. The kiss came ravenous, taking her mouth open at once, tasting himself from her tongue with a sound that travelled hot through her belly. Aeleanora caught his shoulders, then slid to his neck, holding on while he kissed her as though the act had offended him into appetite. He licked into her mouth, slow and filthy, then deeper, thumb pressing under her chin to keep her open for him. The ache in her jaw, the soreness between her thighs, the taste of him still at the back of her tongue, all of it braided together until she made a small sound against his mouth that had no rank at all.

“You,” he said again, rougher now. “You perfect, wicked little thing.” Aeleanora’s answering smile hurt at the corners.

Baelor kept her in his lap after the kiss, his arm banded around her waist while he drew her sideways against him, her shoulder tucked into his chest, one thigh hooked over his hip and the other loose across the furs. The arrangement was obscenely considerate. Warmth pressed at her back, his breath was ruined at her ear, and his palm lay over her stomach as though he meant to keep her there by right of recent catastrophe. Aeleanora stared at the carved footboard through damp lashes and attempted to assemble a remark about his greed, but her tongue still tasted of him and had apparently abdicated the throne. Very well. The tongue had laboured bravely and would be permitted one small mutiny.

“There you are,” he murmured, kissing the tear track near her temple.

Aeleanora’s throat worked before she could make it behave. “Do not sound as though I went anywhere.”

“You did.” His palm spread warm over her stomach. “You came back very sweet.”

The simplicity of it made her shoulders draw up. Dangerous sentence. Aeleanora turned her face toward him, and the sight was wholly unfair: hair wrecked, mouth still red from her kisses, gaze dark and alert despite the ruin she had personally inflicted. She had made that. She had made Baelor Targaryen look like a man dragged from history and put back into flesh by mouth alone. A useful result. Possibly an art.

“Do not sound so reverent,” she said. “It gives the act airs.”

His lips touched the edge of her smile, slow and warm. “You earned them.”

Aeleanora made an offended little sound, which was difficult to take seriously with her cheek against his beard and her body spread loose across his lap. Baelor’s palm slid lower over her stomach, broad and warm, stopping just above the pale hair between her thighs. Her hips tilted before permission had been requested. His breath changed at her ear, and she felt him notice the movement with the same unbearable accuracy he brought to council disputes and her worst lies.

“You are still very wet,” he said, pressing a kiss under her ear.

“That happens when one is handled by a diligent man.”

His fingers slipped lower, parting her slowly, and his thumb moved through the slick heat of her, so slowly the answer left her mouth and drowned somewhere honourable. He stroked once, then again, gathering the wetness there with a slow care that made the skin at the back of her neck prickle. Aeleanora swallowed hard and shifted her knee over his hip, which helped nothing except his access, so the movement would be denied until the Stranger grew bored of waiting.

“I am thanking you,” he said, his voice close, each word touching her ear.

“You thanked me with your face. I cherished it.”

He dipped his fingertips into her entrance, and her next breath thinned. “I remember.”

“No, you do not. You were busy dying,” she breathed.

“I remember how sweet your mouth is.” His lips grazed her cheek. “I remember your eyes full of tears. I remember my spend on your chin and your hand still working me as if you meant to wring the soul out of me.”

Aeleanora’s whole body clenched. “Terrible man.”

He huffed a laugh and shook his head, then kissed under her jaw. “I know.”

He slid two fingers into her then, slow and deep, and Aeleanora’s head tipped back against his shoulder with a sound that should have been sealed with blood magic and hidden beneath the Dragonmont. Her cunt received him too eagerly, slick and swollen, still sensitive from his cock and mouth, and the new fullness made her fingers claw at his forearm. Baelor held her tighter against his chest, his other arm firm under her ribs, bearing her weight while she tried and failed to pretend the room had not just tipped sideways. The furs scratched at her calf. The pillow behind his shoulder sagged beneath them. Even the ruined linen at the foot of the bed seemed to watch with the solemn horror of a septa trapped in a brothel.

“There,” he breathed. “Let me hold you.”

“I am being held against my better judgement.”

“Your judgement left when you smiled around my cock.”

Aeleanora choked on a laugh and a moan at once. The combination was unbecoming, therefore inevitable. His fingers curled inside her, and the laugh lost its footing completely. She gripped his wrist while her other hand flew back to his hair, nails scraping through the dark and silver strands at his nape. 

“You are filthy,” she said.

His thumb found her clit, gentle at first, a slow circle that made her thighs tremble over his lap. Aeleanora shut her eyes and immediately regretted it, because darkness gave every sensation sharper teeth: his chest solid behind her, his arm holding her open to him, his beard scraping her cheek, his fingers moving inside her with slow, wet precision. He kissed along her jaw while he worked her, and the sweetness of it was intolerable. It made the pleasure feel witnessed. It made the shaking of her thighs feel like something to be valued, which was far worse than being desired. Desire could be mocked. This wanted an altar, a locked door, and no questions from living men.

“You taste yourself on my tongue?” he asked, mouth brushing hers.

Her eyes opened. “You are determined to be killed tonight.”

“I tasted you on mine.” His fingers stroked deeper, and his thumb kept the steady circle that had begun dismantling her ability to sit like anything with bones. “Then I tasted myself in your mouth. I want you to feel what that did to me.”

Aeleanora made a sound through her teeth. “I felt it.”

“No.” His arm held her more firmly when her hips bucked. “You felt what I gave you after. This is what I owe you.”

“Owe,” she said, grasping at the word because words had become scarce and she enjoyed owning one before it escaped. “You have made a debt of my mouth?”

“I have made a feast of it.”

Her body answered so violently that his fingers pressed deeper from the force of her own hips. Aeleanora bit the inside of her lower lip hard. Baelor noticed and gave a low sound against her cheek, one part warning, one part hunger, every part entirely his fault. 

“Open your mouth,” he said.

“For what?”

“For breath,” he murmured. She could feel his smile against her cheek.

“Disappointing.”

“For my name, if you can manage it.”

Aeleanora hated the little shudder that went through her. She hated how smugly her body accepted the instruction, lips parting as his fingers moved inside her, thumb rubbing slow and sure over her swollen clit. He kept her at that pace, refusing the sharper rhythm her hips began asking for, and the refusal made the pleasure thicken. It gathered in her belly, heavy and warm, spreading down her thighs and up beneath her ribs until every inch of her skin felt too close to him.

“You were nervous,” he whispered.

Aeleanora went rigid against him. “Choose your next word with care.”

“I am.” His lips pressed to her temple. “You were nervous, and you still asked. You were a very good listener. You kept taking me, even with that blush on your face. You let me feel every time you grew braver.”

Her grip on his forearm tightened. “That is a vile account.”

“It is incomplete.”

“Burn it.”

He kissed the edge of her smile. “Absolutely not.”

His fingers slowed, and Aeleanora’s hips followed them with immediate, humiliating obedience. His thumb eased, then stroked again, and the gentler pressure made her throat work around a sound she refused to spend. Baelor kissed beside her eye where another tear had gathered without authorization. This was truly too much. A woman ought to be permitted one bodily betrayal at a time. Her thighs trembled, her mouth ached, tears were leaking proof, and the man behind her had begun kissing the evidence like it was tribute.

“Tell me what you need,” he murmured.

“I need you to stop knowing so much.”

His fingers curled again, pressing into the place that made her back arch off his chest. “Aeleanora.”

Her name in that voice cut through every shield she owned. She clutched at his arm, nails biting into skin, and the next breath came ragged. “Softer. Too much.”

Baelor obeyed at once. The change hit her so precisely that her head dropped back against his shoulders and her eyes closed. His thumb softened into smaller circles while his fingers kept their deep, steady rhythm, and the pleasure turned molten. Aeleanora swore under her breath. Naturally the bastard had listened. Naturally the exact thing she asked for became worse than whatever he might have chosen alone.

“Like that?” he asked.

“Stop fishing for praise,” Aeleanora tried to shift away from him and only succeeded in grinding herself more firmly against his fingers, the movement tearing a small, traitorous sound from the back of her throat. “Greedy bastard.”

“I am asking because you are shaking.”

“Then use your eyes and spare me the work.”

His mouth brushed her ear, and the laugh there nearly undid her. “My eyes are occupied.”

“With what?”

“You in my lap,” he murmured, kissing her jaw. “Open. Beautiful. Wet for me,” he punctuated each word with a kiss as he moved lower down her throat.

Aeleanora’s answer broke into a moan when his fingers pressed up again. He held her while it went through her, arm tight under her breasts, palm spread over her ribs, keeping her body from twisting out of the pleasure he had built so carefully. She had no leverage in this position, which was outrageous. Sideways across his lap, pinned by warmth, by one arm, by the precise touch between her thighs, and by praise that kept arriving where insult should have been. If anyone ever discovered this method of warfare, the Crown would fall within a fortnight.

“You were so sweet,” he said, and his voice had roughened, putting heat straight into her stomach. “Sweetest when you forgot to be proud.”

“I never forgot.”

Baelor’s mouth opened against her throat, hot and slow, and his tongue dragged once over the place where her pulse had gone frantic. “You had my cock in your mouth with tears on your face.”

“Pride can work under difficult conditions.”

His fingers thrust slowly, and the wet sound of it made her flush down her throat. “You looked fucking beautiful.”

“That is a vile thing to say to a woman with no useful bones left.”

“Your mouth swollen from me. Your hand slick. Those pretty blue eyes looking up at me.” His fingers curled inside her as he said it, slow and deep, as if he meant to make memory answer inside her body. “Ñuhys dārilaros,” he whispered against her skin. My princess. 

Aeleanora whimpered. Horrible. Criminal. The sound should have been chased down and drowned in the nearest cistern. Baelor rewarded it by kissing her cheek, then her mouth, awkward from the angle and filthy from everything still lingering on her tongue. She tried to turn farther into it, but his arm held her in place, keeping her exposed to him while he kissed her in slow, hungry strokes. “Again,” he said against her mouth.

“I have already been obedient once tonight,” she whined, her hips making one helpless little twist against his hand before she could pin them still.

“I want to hear you.”

She kissed him harder, then gasped when his fingers moved faster, still deep, still angled with that unbearable knowledge of where pleasure became almost too much. His thumb stayed soft because she had asked for it soft, and somehow that made the whole thing indecently intimate. He was giving her exactly what she asked for. The responsibility of it sat in her lap with a sweet little face and a knife behind its back.

“Say something clever,” he murmured, smiling against her lips. Aeleanora opened her mouth, found nothing but heat there, and made a broken sound instead. His breath caught against her cheek. “There she is.” His fingers drove a little deeper, and her breath broke apart into a cry. He held her through it, chest solid behind her, beard rough against her cheek, voice low and mercilessly tender. “That sound. Give me that one again.”

“I shall do no such thing.”

His thumb circled, and her body betrayed her immediately, the sound spilling out, thinner and needier this time. Baelor groaned against her throat as if the noise had caught him by the ribs. That fed her even as it ruined her. He was thanking her, yes, but he was suffering through the thanks too, raw from what she had done to him, voice scraping every time she clenched around his fingers. Excellent. Let the thanks cost him something.

“Gods, you are so sweet like this,” he said.

Her mouth opened, and no retort came. His fingers slid in and out of her with slow, filthy ease, and she could hear it now, wet and intimate, beneath the crackle of the low fire. The sound made her bury her face against his neck, mortified and hungry. Baelor let her hide there for the length of one breath. Then he left her ribs and caught her jaw, turning her face just enough that his mouth could find hers again. 

“Stay with me,” he said into the kiss. “Let me have you like this.”

“I am trying,” she whispered.

His lips pressed once to her lower lip, swollen and sore from him. “Let me.”

That drew another shiver from her. Aeleanora felt the climax building now, blooming low in her belly, thick and sweet and impossible to discipline. His fingers knew it. His thumb knew it. The entire bed knew it and would doubtless grow arrogant by morning. She clutched at his wrist, torn between pushing him away and dragging him deeper, and Baelor read the indecision with insulting ease.

“You can take it,” he said. 

“I know.”

“Then stop running from my hand,” he murmured, kissing the damp hair at her temple as his palm flattened more securely over her ribs.

“It is—” She whimpered. “It is strategy.”

“Yes.” He kissed her hair. “So very fearsome,” he crooned.

She bit him. He curled his fingers and held the pressure there, and the pleasure flashed so bright behind her eyes that her whole body arched in his lap. Baelor’s arm caught her before the motion could pull her off balance. His mouth went to her ear again, and the praise came rougher now, thick with his own renewed hunger.

“Beautiful,” he said. “My sweet, wicked girl. Come for me. Let me feel you.”

“You are fucking obscene,” she whined, her words breaking off into a gasp.

“Yes, sweetling.”

“Say it again.”

His fingers moved, and his voice dropped. “Come for me.”

Aeleanora broke. The pleasure took her in a slow, terrible wave that rose from his touch and seized her whole body, locking her thighs around his wrist, bowing her back against his chest, dragging his name from her mouth in a ragged little cry. Baelor held her upright, fingers still deep, thumb steady through every pulse. He praised her through it, low and relentless, telling her she was perfect like that, so lovely when she let herself be held, so sweet around his fingers after her mouth had ruined him. The words should have been punishable. They made the climax last longer.

She shook until the first hard rush began to loosen, and still he kept her there, slowing only when her grip closed weakly around his wrist. His lips found her temple, then the tear-wet skin beside her eye, then her cheek, each kiss small and ruinously exact. Aeleanora lay limp against him, panting, deeply offended by how thoroughly her bones had deserted. Her body continued to flutter around his fingers in small aftershocks, every little clench making his breathing roughen against her hair.

“No more,” she whispered. 

This time he obeyed. His fingers eased from her slowly, and the loss made her hips twitch despite herself. Humiliating. He kissed her hair as though he had not noticed, which proved he had noticed with precision and elected mercy. She was going to recover and become unbearable at him.

Baelor lifted his wet fingers into the firelight, and Aeleanora saw herself shine over them. Her face heated at once. He looked from the wet shine to her mouth, and the hunger that crossed his face was so naked that her pulse gave a weak, treacherous kick between her thighs. He brought his fingers close to her lips and paused there, waiting. Even debauched beyond repair, the man still knew how to make permission more obscene than demand.

“Open,” he said.

“You are becoming ambitious.”

“Yes.”

Aeleanora opened her mouth. He slid two fingers over her tongue, and she tasted herself on his skin, slick and salt, mingled with the last bitter trace of him still haunting the back of her mouth. Her eyelids lowered before she could stop them. Baelor watched her suck his fingers clean with that fierce, reverent hunger still carved across his face, and pride stirred weakly inside her, discovered the conditions, and fainted again. When he drew his fingers free, his thumb dragged once over her lower lip.

“Good girl,” he murmured.

Aeleanora turned her face enough to look at him through the wreckage of her lashes. “That phrase is acquiring a dangerous opinion of itself.”

Amusement creased his eyes, and the smile that answered looked tired, filthy, and far too alive for a man the hall had tried to turn into a monument. “You took it well enough.”

“I took your fingers. The phrase came in uninvited.”

“Brave little thief,” he said, and kissed the inside of her wrist when she tried to cover her mouth.

The kiss to her pulse made the retort vanish. Rude little thing, tenderness. Always entering through the servants’ door with a tray and a dagger. Aeleanora stared at his mouth against her skin, then at the fingers that had been inside her, then at the low fire making a scandal of the wet shine still drying between them. The chamber smelled of salt, sweat, spent candles, and him. It ought to have been unbearable. It was so unbearable that she snuggled deeper into his lap anyway.

“You are not getting a thanks from me,” she said.

His lips brushed her wrist again. “We shall see.”

“You are greedy.”

“Yes. Terribly so.”

Aeleanora hummed and let her head fall back against his shoulder. Baelor drew one of the dry furs up over her, then settled his palm low on her stomach again, possessive in the private, governed way that made no claim outside these rooms and somehow made the chamber feel claimed down to the stones. The fire had sunk to red teeth in the hearth, and beyond the shuttered windows the sea worried Dragonstone like a beast denied entry. Let it worry. Let the whole castle pace itself stupid against the doors. She had spent the feast watching every lawful piece of him passed from wife to son, brother to king, lady with a winter memory to her own mouth full of old gratitude, and now the living man beneath all that ceremony was behind her, breathing against her hair, his fingers splayed over the place where her body still trembled.

“You are very warm,” she said, because that was safer than several other truths and also because he was, offensively.

His mouth touched her temple. “You have come very far to complain of it.”

“I did not say I wished you colder.” Her fingers tightened once around his wrist, keeping him there though he had made no move to leave. The small honesty of it came easily and frightened no one, which was new and therefore suspicious, and she allowed it through the gate after a brief inspection. “Stay,” she said, almost lazily, as if the word had crossed half a battlefield to reach her tongue. “Until the fire dies.”

Baelor’s arm closed more securely around her, and his next breath moved through her hair. “Of course.”

Eight years before, little Princess Aeleanora Targaryen woke one bright morning to Briony, her human governess, gently shaking her shoulder and telling her the sun was up and her lessons would not wait. Nearly two years had passed since the deaths of her mother and father, and the lords of the Seven Kingdoms had come to swear fealty to her brother and to her as she was named Princess of Dragonstone.

The young princess wondered whether there would ever come a day when she did not resent the gentle voice of her governess waking her so sweetly. She loved Briony. Truly, she did. Briony was not Queen Aemma.

Every morning when she woke, her thoughts went at once to the days when her royal mother would slip into her chambers with Aeleanora’s favourite fruits or sweetcakes, and wake her up by pressing one kiss onto the girl's forehead, one on the tip of her nose, and one on her cheek. Aeleanora would groan and bury her head in the pillow to hide her smile, and beg her mother for a little longer. Aemma would let out a laugh that sounded like a bird's song, one only ever sung for her children, and would say something like “Sleep longer if you must, sweetling, but who will eat these blood oranges with me?”

Aeleanora would giggle and sit up, hug her mother, swing her feet out of bed, and would eat her morning meal while her mother washed her face, brushed her hair, and braided it back for her. When Aeleanora had finished eating, her mother would wipe her sticky fingers, grab her hand, and bring her to her wardrobe.

In her wardrobe, Aeleanora and Aemma would argue about what Aeleanora would wear that day, until they eventually settled on something, and Aemma would get her daughter dressed. Aemma knew that she could simply pick something for her daughter to wear and tell her to put it on without allowing her to paw through the other gowns, and Aeleanora would listen, but Aemma liked giving the little one the freedom of choice.

This was a routine that confused the governesses, Septas, and ladies' maids of the castle. It was most unusual for a Queen to be tending to her daughter the same way a servant would, but the mornings were sacred for the mother-daughter pair. It was their favourite part of the day, and she loved it even more than her bedtime routine, which included her lying in front of the fire with her head on her father's lap. His hand would run idly through her hair while she listened to the story he was telling her at the time. Even in his teen years, Jacaerys would come sit with them and listen in every night. Sometimes her father would tell her a story in High Valyrian and have her repeat it back to him in the common tongue, or do the reverse. If she got stuck on a word, Jacaerys would mouth it to her, and she would fail to hide the amusement in her voice as she parroted it to her father. Her brother mostly gave her the right answers, but sometimes he would give her the wrong one so he could watch her say it to her father with confidence. Viserys would have to pause his reading to laugh and stifle it so he could continue. If Aemma had joined them for the evening, she would explain to Aeleanora and gently scold her for not trying to figure it out herself. Aeleanora never took the scolding seriously, however, because she could feel the laughter that her mother was trying to hold back whenever she did.

The night before, as on every night, Jacaerys came to her room carrying a book that contained some of her favourite tales. They had argued earlier that evening at supper, so he brought one of Aeleanora's most beloved tales as a peace offering, which was about Durran Godsgrief, who won the love of the daughter of the sea and wind goddess. She had not yet learnt the truth of what she was at this point, but Viserys had made sure that he worked this tale into the nightly telling to ensure she would remember it.

Jacaerys sat down in front of the fireplace, called her over, and she lay her head in his lap and listened while he read her the story the same way their father used to. It wasn't the same, and it didn't do much to cheer her up. In fact, it often just made her miss her parents more, but she knew that it was just as much of a comfort to Jacaerys as it was to her, so she allowed him to do it. After he had tucked her into bed, she lay awake staring out of her window and up at the moon until sleep had dragged her into its grasp. She couldn't remember what she dreamt of, but she remembered it feeling good and soft, like a pillow or a gentle breeze kissing the side of her face.

After her lessons, she was called to the small council by her brother so she could listen in while she poured cups and helped with the copying. They were discussing something about fish or ships when Lord Corlys threw her a question to test if she was listening. She wasn't, but she did listen dutifully, perched at the foot of the table, while he explained the answer to her. Once the council was finished, she followed her brother and Baelor to the training yard.

When sword practice ended, she finally let out the breath that she had been holding all day. She ran as quickly as she could to her rooms, where she picked a book that held tales about ice dragons from beyond the wall. One afternoon at six years old, a few days before the Queen's nameday celebration, Aeleanora stumbled upon her mother reading the story while she sat on the beach with Dreamfyre, who was sunning herself. Aeleanora asked her mother if she would share the story with her, and her mother obliged.

After telling her the story, Queen Aemma shared an anecdote with Aeleanora about being young with her twin sister, Seraphyra. Aeleanora wouldn't learn the truth of her birth mother until years later, but Queen Aemma loved to share pieces of her sister with her daughter so she could have a sense of who she was.

Aemma told Aeleanora about a conversation she had with her sister a little while after they had claimed their dragons. Seraphyra had recalled their lessons and the tales they read as children and compared her dragon, Balerion, to a firewyrm and her sister's dragon, Dreamfyre, to an ice dragon due to their colouring and temperament. This led to the pair inventing yet another pair of nicknames for each other that they only ever used between the two of them.

"Goodnight, firewyrm!" Queen Aemma would say to her sister before kissing her on the cheek and getting into bed.

"Goodnight, ice dragon! I'll see you when you wake." Seraphyra would call back.

So nine-year-old Aeleanora took up the book about ice dragons and headed towards the pit. She entered and walked to the end of the long platform that her family used to take their mounts and sat down on the edge of it. She sat with one leg dangling off the platform, the other tucked under her, and the book on her lap. She had asked a dragonkeeper to stand by with a lamb to offer Dreamfyre when she appeared from her lair.

"Rytsas Ēdrurzys!" Aeleanora called out in the darkness. Her head snapped down to her right when she heard a rumble come from the opening outside of the deeper cave where Dreamfyre was, and saw Vermithor stretched upon the ground.

"Rytsas Vermitōs!" Aeleanora greeted her uncle's dragon. He lifted his head and sniffed the air, and returned to his lounging when he knew it was only Aeleanora who was there.

"Ēdrurzys, Eman maghatan aōha vestriarzir. Suvion zaldrīzoti?" I brought your story, Dreamfyre. Ice dragons today? "Eman aōha irudy tolī." I have your gift too, Aeleanora sang.

Aeleanora did not get a response, but she opened the book and began reading aloud anyway. Within a few lines, the cavern shook a little as she heard Dreamfyre exit her lair and stalk towards the young princess. Aeleanora paused her reading to let out a giggle as she saw Dreamfyre's head poke out of the dark and become illuminated by the torches blazing along the pit. Her silver and blue scales glistened in the firelight. She resumed her reading as Dreamfyre stalked closer and closer, approaching the platform and setting her head down right next to Aeleanora. The beast closed her eyes slowly and let out a contented sigh as she allowed the girl to read to her.

Aeleanora paused her reading and lifted her hand, and placed it right on the beast's nose. She stroked gently and moved her hand to the area just under Dreamfyre's right eye and repeated the sweeping motion. The dragon let out a relaxed trill.

Aeleanora left her hand there while she completed the story, and when she was done, she closed the book and set it down beside her. She shifted to sit on both knees, placed her other hand on Dreamfyre's snout, and touched her forehead to the dragon's softer patch of shimmering, sky-blue scales on her face. It was like she was praying to the beast.

"Gaomagon ao ōdrikagon hae olvie hae nyke?" Do you hurt as much as I do? the girl murmured. Dreamfyre let out a small noise that sounded like agreement.

"Kessa mirre keligon?" Will it ever stop? Aeleanora asked the dragon as a tear slipped down the side of her nose, settling itself in the corner between her nostril and her cheek. She was genuinely asking, as Dreamfyre had lost before, but Aeleanora had not. Her family had tried to console her by answering these questions, but for some reason, Aeleanora cared most about what Aemma's first baby had thought.

This was also a ritual for the pair, and Dreamfyre typically responded by making a sad sound and nuzzling Aeleanora towards the end of the platform, where the dragonkeeper would appear with the lamb that the dragon knew was waiting for her.

Today, however, Dreamfyre did something different. She pulled away from the girl and looked at her for a moment, and blinked slowly. Caught off guard at the dragon's reaction, the girl stood up and took a step back. She could feel the dragonkeeper at the entrance of the platform take a step forward, ready to intervene in case the beast lashed out.

Aeleanora did not know why she did it, only that her hand moved behind her back in silent command for the dragonkeeper to stay where he was. "It is all right,” she called out.

She took a step towards Dreamfyre and put her hand back on her snout. Dreamfyre gently pushed the girl's hand away and let out another soft sound. She drew her snout back and lightly bumped Aeleanora's chest, causing her to take a step back. The dragon took another step up from the stairs beneath the platform and placed her entire head and neck down onto the stone. She crept slowly up the platform until her shoulder was resting on it, and tilted herself so the saddle was in line with the ground under Aeleanora's feet. All she needed to do to mount Dreamfyre was climb up and into it.

She had been flying before, and she had ridden Dreamfyre with her mother. In fact, riding Meraxes was one of the first and best memories that she ever made. As soon as she could say the words, Aeleanora had begged her parents to take her flying. On her fifth nameday, Viserys and Aemma burst into her room with a set of riding clothes, made to fit her perfectly. The black wool and leather overcoat was draped with a red cape, held in place by the same dragon-shaped pin that Aemma always wore, which Aeleanora had stolen from her mother’s jewel casket more than once. It was the same colour and similar style to the riding outfits the rest of her family wore. It was the first time she felt the weight and glory of her name.

They brought her to the dragon pit, her whole family in tow, where Viserys called up Meraxes, lifted Aeleanora, and sat her in the saddle. Viserys then climbed in the saddle behind her, strapped them both in, and they were off. Not long after their takeoff, the remainder of her family followed. Her mother followed on Dreamfyre, her uncles Baelor and Maekar on Vermithor and Quicksilver, her aunt Rhaenys on Meleys, Laenor on Seasmoke, her brother Jacaerys on Silverwing, and her cousins Valarr and Matarys on Sunfyre and Shrykos, with Daeron and Aerion not far behind on Tessarion and Syrax.

They flew for hours, racing, turning in the air, flying above the clouds, and banking down across the city, plains, mountains, and water. Aeleanora shrieked and laughed the entire time, eyes burning from the wind and her tears, but she refused to close her eyes for fear of missing a second. She gasped and squealed as she watched her family fly above her, below her, and beside her. When the flight was finally over, and she dismounted, she spent the following hours running around, exclaiming about how amazing it was when Baelor did this and when Rhaenys did that. She asked each person multiple times if they had seen when Meraxes flipped them over or saw how pretty the mountains looked over the clouds at that height. At supper that night, she could scarcely keep quiet about how it felt to touch the clouds, and she swore to all seven gods that if Meraxes had climbed just a little higher, she would have been able to hold the sun in her hands.

She shook her head and blinked the memory away, took a deep breath, and started towards Dreamfyre to mount her. Though her steps didn't falter, her breath hitched in her throat. She maintained eye contact with the dragon, who lowered her snout and gently pressed against the princess’s lower back, nudging her forward. Aeleanora took the final step, grabbed onto the saddle, climbed into it, and strapped herself in. She left the reins tied up; she wouldn't command Dreamfyre, only ask.

The dragon lifted her head and neck up and brought it back towards the girl as if checking that she was secure. Aeleanora lurched forward and held onto the dual horns of the saddle.

"Gevī?" she asked the dragon. Dreamfyre trilled and took off. For the first time, Aeleanora and Dreamfyre took to the skies alone. After the initial shock wore off and before the wild joy set in, Aeleanora's hands involuntarily fell back to her torso, and her upper body turned to look behind her. Her father would always tell her that she had to practice with a sword every day, and her Uncle Baelor said she had to use proper technique so her muscles would remember. She thought about how her muscles probably remembered the feeling of her mother's arms around her and pulling her into her chest. Her ears remembered Aemma's laugh in her ear, gently telling her to keep her hands on the horns.

She flew around what felt like the entirety of Westeros, but she knew that she really didn't go further than the Isle of Faces. By the time Dreamfyre had turned around and taken Aeleanora back to Dragonstone, the sun had begun to set. She landed in the pit, jumped out of the saddle, and onto the platform. She turned to the dragon and thanked her before turning back around to face the group of people waiting for her at the top of the platform. She called out to the dragonkeeper for Dreamfyre's offering while her eyes scanned her family.

She stared at them with her wild eyes for a second while her brother, Uncle Baelor, Aunt Rhaenys, Mysaria, Laena, and Laenor returned the favour. No one knew what to say. Aeleanora broke the silence after folding her hands behind her back and cocking her chin into the air.

"I think she chose me," she breathed, and her mouth set itself into a wicked grin.

"It appears so," said Jacaerys, who was standing a few paces in front of the rest of the crowd. He matched her smile as he crossed towards her with a boyish, graceless haste and captured her in a bear hug. When he pulled away, he kept one arm around her and pulled her into him, lifted her off the ground, and turned to the rest of their family. They were too far away for the rest of them to notice, but Aeleanora saw the glassiness in his eyes and threw her arm around his shoulder to hug her brother back.

"If this is not cause for celebration, then I do not know what is! To the newest member of the Targaryen vanguard!" Jacaerys cheered as he brought her to the rest of the crowd for them to sing her praises.

At eight-and-ten and twenty years old, respectively, Princess Aeleanora Targaryen and the Lady Laena Velaryon returned to court after four long years. The Crown’s account was simple enough. They had been sent between Driftmark, Dragonstone’s lesser holdings, and allied estates for the tempering of their increasingly unruly behaviour.

Among the highborn, the tale changed with the tongue that told it. Lord Corlys and Princess Rhaenys had sent Laena away, some claimed, to cool a reputation grown too bright before marriage. Aeleanora’s version was less kind. The Silver Menace, too wild and too indulged for Dragonstone, had been removed before she shamed the Crown past forgiveness. The smallfolk made better sport of it. The girls were touring the realm, learning grace among sea winds, or being hidden because the princess had finally become a spoiled little monster too large for even Dragonstone to contain.

Aeleanora hopped off of Dreamfyre, pulled the glove from her right hand using her teeth and middle finger, and dropped the glove into her left hand as she turned to her mount. "Gevī, Ēdrurzys, Gevī," she cooed at the dragon, whose skull was nearly three times the size of the princess's entire body. "Iksan lenton syt ao," I am home for you, she murmured with one final stroke as she leaned forward and touched her forehead to Dreamfyre's face, right next to where her hand was planted.

She turned to walk towards the group of people standing at the end of the platform, waiting to receive her and Laena. Laena dismounted Vhagar behind her and followed suit. Princess Rhaenys stood at the forefront, one hand resting lightly at her hip, the other curled at her side as though resisting the instinct to reach. Lord Corlys lingered just behind her shoulder, gaze sharp and appraising in the way of a man who had spent more than one lifetime measuring storms. The Lady Mysaria stood a half-step apart from the rest, still as a shadow, her pale eyes already dissecting Aeleanora’s face. By the time she reached them, the moment had stretched just a little too long for Aeleanora's comfort.

"Laena," Rhaenys said first, her voice warm but edged with relief she did not bother to hide. She stepped forward then, cupping her daughter's face briefly before pulling her into an embrace that was firm, grounding, and quick to end. "You've been gone much too long."

"I've been exactly where you sent me," Laena returned lightly, though she leaned into her mother for just a moment longer before pulling away. Corlys clasped Laena's shoulder next, pride plain in the set of his mouth, before his attention shifted to Aeleanora. He inclined his head, something like respect threading through the gesture.

"Princess." Aeleanora's mouth curved.

"Lord Corlys," Aeleanora said as she mimicked the gesture. Mysaria did not move at all.

"Aeleanora," she said, her voice soft, though the others stood within arm’s reach. "You look…well."

Aeleanora caught it. Of course she did. "I am," she replied, just as softly.

Rhaenys stepped forward then, closing the space Mysaria had left open. She took Aeleanora's face in her hands, turning it slightly towards the light as if searching for damage, perhaps, or proof. "Gods," she murmured, more to herself than anyone else. "Look at you."

There was pride there, though Aeleanora sensed an undercurrent of something beneath it. She smiled. "Aunt."

Rhaenys exhaled and pulled her into an embrace that lingered just long enough to feel like a memory. Then it was gone. Aeleanora let her gaze move over them, counting without appearing to. Rhaenys. Corlys. Mysaria. Laena.

"…And where," she asked, tilting her head with feigned ease, "are the two men who are meant to be pretending they are not waiting for me?"

Laena huffed a laugh beside her. Rhaenys's mouth twitched. Mysaria's expression did not change at all.

"They are waiting," Mysaria said, "just not here."

Aeleanora's eyes flickered at that in interest. "Oh?" she hummed.

Corlys glanced towards the castle and nodded, "the throne room," and there it was. Aeleanora stilled for half a breath, then, slowly, her mouth curved again.

"Of course they are," she said. She turned towards the exit of the dragon pit without waiting to be told more, already moving.

"Come, then," she added lightly over her shoulder. "It would be unkind to keep the king waiting."

The doors to the throne room were already open by the time Aeleanora reached them. That, too, felt deliberate. She slowed just enough to feel the shape of the moment before stepping into it. The hall beyond stretched vast and black, torchlight catching along black stone and polished floors, the Iron Throne rising at the far end like something grown rather than made.

There, of course, sat her brother, Jacaerys Targaryen. He might as well have been in full ceremony, crown set upon his brow, and one leg slightly forward as if he had been there long enough to grow comfortable. He was trying, badly, not to look pleased with himself. To his right, just below the dais, was Baelor Targaryen, standing with his hands clasped behind his back, posture easy, expression composed, every inch the man who had absolutely agreed to this and would absolutely deny it later.

Aeleanora stopped for half a breath. So that was the game. Her head tilted, just slightly, and her mouth pressed into something dangerously close to a scowl as she turned to the guard at her side as he lifted his voice.

"The Princess of Dragonstone, Aeleanora Targaryen," he called out as he began his introduction, the sound carrying through the chamber, "of the blood of Old Valyria— " Oh, she thought. You want a spectacle? Fine. The scowl vanished as quickly as it had come. Her head turned, unhurried, and she looked at the guard with an unimpressed stillness as he completed his announcement. She could have sworn his voice wavered for a second.

Her shoulders settled. Her chin lifted. Her mouth curved. Something feline settled behind her eyes as she turned forward again. She let her gaze drag lazily to the throne and began to move again, taking her time with every step, towards the two men waiting for her. By the time she reached the foot of the steps, her smile had fully formed. Bright and edged with something just short of insolence.

Not a welcome, then, she thought. A lesson? "Well," she said as she reached the centre of the hall, her voice carrying just through the echo, "if this is meant to be another lecture, I pray you have improved since the last one."

A flicker of something quick as a blade crossed Jacaerys's face. He had planned something. A line, perhaps. Something clever. Something that would land just right, but it vanished. He opened his mouth and stared for half a breath too long.

His restraint broke. He rose in one smooth motion, the grin already spreading. "Gods, Ellie," he didn't finish. He crossed the distance between them in a few quick strides and pulled her into him, arms wrapping around her with a force that lifted her clean off her feet. "You're home," he said, quieter now, the words pressed somewhere near her temple. For a moment, she didn't move.

"Brother," she murmured into his shoulder, the words quieter than anything she had said since entering the hall. He pulled back only enough to look at her, hands still firm at her arms as if to confirm she was solid.

“I confess, it is a pleasure to see you standing here in Dragonstone and not out in the wilderness.”

"I'm inclined to agree," she said. Then, as easily as it had come, she slipped out of his grasp. "You've grown tiresome in my absence," she added lightly, glancing past him towards the throne. "After you departed from our last visit, I could still hear you lecturing me from half the realm away." Jacaerys huffed, rolling his eyes in a way that would have scandalised a court twice this size.

"And I could feel you ignoring me," he returned.

"That has never required distance."

That earned her the look she wanted. She smiled, satisfied, and turned. Baelor had not moved. Of course, he hadn't. He stood where she remembered him, all solid and immovable. A constant in a world that had shifted beneath her feet more than once. For a moment, she simply looked at him, then she closed the distance.

"Uncle," she said, softer now, not small, but stripped of performance in a way that she did not offer easily. He opened his arms, and she stepped in. The embrace was brief and controlled. Yet his hand settled higher on her back than memory expected, and the space between them pulled taut before either of them stepped away.

She pulled back first. "I owe you thanks," she recovered. "For the sword."

Baelor's expression eased, something familiar returning to it. "You owe me nothing," he said. "Though I had hoped it had found its way into capable hands."

"You doubt me?" She lifted a brow.

"I doubt your patience," he corrected dryly. "Which tends to ruin good steel." Jacaerys snorted at that from behind them, and Aeleanora ignored it.

"I meant to write," she continued, tilting her head, "but unfortunately, speaking back to one's elders is a punishable offence, and letter writing a privilege."

Baelor's mouth curved. "A lesson long overdue."

"Cruel," she said lightly. "I suffered greatly."

"I'm certain you did." After a beat, he added "And? Does it have a name?"

Aeleanora's mouth curved slightly. "Lady Forlorn."

Baelor said nothing at first. His eyes held on the sword’s name a beat longer than courtesy required, then returned to her face with too much care. Interesting. Her expression didn’t change. "It suits," he said at last.

"I thought it might," she returned easily. But she kept that moment and tucked it away, determined to make sense of it later.

Baelor moved first. "Come," he said, "You have been away long enough without keeping the court waiting for ceremony."

Jacaerys made a sound of agreement, already turning towards the steps. "There are things to be done, and unfortunately, all of them involve you." The king followed.

"How dreadful," muttered Aeleanora, falling into step beside them.

They descended together, the echo of their steps carrying ahead of them as they crossed the length of the hall. Jacaerys spoke as they walked, something about appearances and obligations. Names and titles threaded together like something rehearsed.

“There will be dancing,” he said, almost as an afterthought, though his tone sharpened slightly. “To announce the betrothal.”

Aeleanora glanced towards him. "How brave of you."

"I am nothing if not resilient," he returned dryly.

They were nearing the doors when Aeleanora slowed so she could return to her assessment of the Kingsguard who announced her. He stood where she had left him, posture rigid, eyes fixed somewhere just above the horizon of the room in the particular way men had when they were trying very hard to seem blind. Aeleanora’s head tilted as she looked him over: shoulders first, then hands, then jaw. A fine blade on a rack would have received the same courtesy. Four years had taught her that bodies confessed first. A man could train his face into stone and still betray himself in the hand, the throat, the breath taken too late. The world had returned to her full of little confessions.

"Ellie." Jacaerys' voice cut across the space without raising in volume. Aeleanora didn't look at him.

"Keep walking," Baelor added, quieter, but no less firm. That, finally, earned them a glance. She smiled, amused. She continued following the pair.

The corridor beyond was brighter, louder, filled with movement and voices that swelled as they stepped out of the throne room proper, where Laena was waiting. "Finally," she said, pushing off the wall where she had been leaning. Her eyes moved over Aeleanora quickly, approvingly, as though checking a piece she had already claimed. "I was beginning to think you'd been swallowed whole."

"I nearly was," Aeleanora replied. "By governance."

"A tragic end."

Jacaerys stepped forward then, and whatever king he had been inside the throne room slipped just slightly. "Laena."

Her expression softened a touch as she reached for him, familiar and certain. "My king."

He huffed quietly at that, pulling her closer for a brief embrace before releasing her again. "Don't start," he muttered.

"Never," she said, entirely unrepentant.

Aeleanora watched them for a moment. Then she suddenly exclaimed, "Oh, gods," grabbing Laena's arm with abrupt urgency. "What am I meant to wear?" Laena blinked at her. "For the wedding, for anything," Aeleanora continued, already frowning. "I have worn nothing but leathers, ritual silks, and things I was not meant to be recognised in for four years. I am fairly certain anything I owned at fourteen would now be…optimistic."

Jacaerys made a noise that might have been a laugh, and Baelor looked faintly resigned. Laena, however, lit up. "Oh, finally," she said, like she had been waiting for this exact moment. "Something important."

Aeleanora narrowed her eyes. "That tone concerns me."

"It should." Laena took her by the wrist, firm and warm, and began steering her away from the King and the Hand without waiting to be dismissed. "You cannot possibly think I would allow you to return to court and present yourself like some half-feral creature dragged in from the coast. You will not be anything less than undeniable."

"I am offended," Aeleanora said, though she went easily enough. "I am at least three-quarters refined."

"Debatable." Laena glanced at her, quick and assessing. "I have been drawing gowns for you," she said.

Aeleanora paused mid-step. "You've been what?"

"For months," Laena continued, as though this were obvious. "No, for a year, if we are being honest. Evenings, mostly. When I could think without interruption."

"You lie." Aeleanora stared at her.

“I am not capable of jesting about this,” Laena countered. She smiled, slow and satisfied.

"I had measurements sent," she added. "Regularly. You grew. I adjusted."

"You—" Aeleanora stopped, recalibrating. "How did you get my measurements?"

"I asked Daisy for them after she fitted us before assignments. You would have complained if I asked you," Laena said, pleased.

"I am complaining."

"Yes," said Laena, "and yet you will look extraordinary."

Aeleanora broke out into an unabashed smile and said, "You're insufferable," to her friend.

"I am correct," she replied.

That earned Laena a laugh, and her grip softened, but she didn't let go. "We will go through them," she continued, already planning. "All of them. And if they are not right, we will have new ones made. I will not have you wasted on poor tailoring."

"Wasted," Aeleanora echoed faintly.

"Tragically."

They moved further down the corridor as the conversation shifted. "I always liked the old styles," Aeleanora said after a moment, almost thoughtfully. "The ones from before. The ones they write about when dragons ruled Valyria."

Laena's head snapped towards her, delighted. "Yes, I thought so."

"Of course you did," Aeleanora countered. Laena's smile sharpened, almost conspiratorial now.

"Then we will make them remember,” Laena said. Aeleanora smiled at that.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆

Laena and Aeleanora entered the princess's chambers through a sequence of stone giving way to a gradual warmth that felt strangely like the entrance of the dragonpit. The walls curved instead of meeting in clean angles, carved from black volcanic stone that had been polished until it held a soft, low sheen, like cooled glass. Veins of dark red ran faintly through it, as though the castle remembered the fire that had shaped it. The ceiling arched high overhead, ribbed like the inside of some great beast, and heavy wrought-iron chandeliers hung from the dark beams.

She remembered the room by its fire. Gold light moved over black stone, over iron, over the polished curves of the walls. Candelabras stood in clusters along the walls, black iron worked into curling organic shapes where each arm held a slow-burning candle that dripped pale wax down its length. A low heat breathed up from deeper stone, the old reminder that dragons slept below.

Velvet and dark wood had been set against the stone, rich enough to make the chamber liveable without taming it. Low couches upholstered in deep burgundy velvet curved around a central table of dark wood, its surface inlaid with thin threads of gold that caught the candlelight. Cushions in black silk and red brocade had been arranged with courtly malice, beautiful enough to offend anyone hoping to sit comfortably. Aeleanora marked that for correction later.

A single tapestry hung along the far wall, House Targaryen's banner layered in blacks and muted reds, the three-headed dragon stitched in threads so fine they seemed to move when the light shifted. She studied the tapestry for a moment, feeling a rush of heat in her chest as her shoulders relaxed a bit.

Other pieces from across the known world had been placed more sparingly. One depicted a pale city of white domes and flowering trees, its architecture unfamiliar and too delicate to be Westerosi — Lys, perhaps, or somewhere further east. She could not remember the story behind it, and marked it for the archives. There was even a narrow panel of silk from Yi Ti, its fine threads illustrating a quiet procession beneath towering, stylised mountains.

Another tapestry had been hung at an angle where the candlelight caught it unevenly, warming one half while the other lingered in shadow. This one was unmistakably Dornish and had been hung in her rooms before she was even old enough to leave the cot she had slept in, back in the chambers of Viserys and Aemma.

Gold-threaded suns had been worked into the borders, each one slightly different, as though no two had ever risen the same way twice. At its centre stood a woman draped in flowing orange and red silks that bared more skin than any Westerosi lady would dare, her posture unbothered by the gaze of those around her. A spear rested loosely in her hand, held as though it belonged to her in the same way the sun did.

The court around her had been stitched in quiet defiance. Men and women stood at her sides, sharp-eyed and amused, while one uncrowned figure held the room by posture alone. Every gaze bent towards her by a thread’s width. The softness in her face had no surrender in it. Aeleanora's gaze lingered there for a moment longer than it had on the others. There was something in it, familiar in a way she could shape but not immediately place. She liked the way the woman occupied space without asking for it. The way the world around her seemed to rearrange itself accordingly.

"Dorne," she murmured, more to herself than anyone else.

She couldn't remember who had commissioned it or sent it, or when exactly it had been brought here. Only that it had always been part of the room. She'd have to ask about that as well. Laena slowed, marking the pause.

"Come," she said after a moment. "You may make yourself known to the walls later. I have something far more important to show you."

Aeleanora's gaze lingered for a fraction longer, then slipped free of the tapestry as easily as it had caught. She followed.

The receiving chamber gave way gradually rather than abruptly, the space narrowing through a short passage where the stone pressed closer, and the air grew warmer still. The sounds of the castle softened here — voices fading, footsteps swallowed — until the only thing that remained again for a brief moment was the low, constant hum of heat beneath the walls.

Laena pushed open the inner door without ceremony. The dressing chamber beyond was smaller, though no less purposeful than the rest of her apartments. If the solar had been made to receive, this one had been made to construct.

The walls were lined with stone and towering wardrobes carved from dark wood so polished it reflected the candlelight in muted, liquid streaks. Their doors stood partially open, as though in invitation, revealing layers upon layers of fabric within. Silks that caught the light like water, velvets so deep they seemed to swallow it whole, threads of gold and silver worked so finely into their weave they appeared almost molten. The room had been dressed in the colours of bloodline and conquest. Black held most of it, red burned through where it chose, and gold caught only where command required ornament. Most of what had once been hers was gone. Aeleanora noticed immediately that the childish things had been removed entirely. The ill-fitted gowns, the half-forgotten pieces she had outgrown before she ever learned how to wear them properly.

What remained had been chosen. A few older pieces lingered at the edges, enough to keep the room from feeling like it belonged to a stranger. Her jewels, however, had been left untouched. It might as well have occupied an entire wall of its own.

There were shelves holding chains of gold draped over dark velvet strands. Rings set with stones the colour of flame, smoke, of sea-glass, and of blood. Diadems, coronets, headpieces, and a few crowns as well rested in shallow cases lined with black silk. Some were fine enough for a maiden’s throat. Others were unmistakably Targaryen, meant for fire and blood. Even at rest, they still suggested weight and expectation.

Candles had been placed here more densely, their light catching and refracting through metal and gemstone until the entire room seemed to flicker. At the centre stood a raised platform, circled by tall mirrors framed in blackened steel. Many angled reflections, the glass denying her the mercy of one true angle. She stepped up onto the platform while Laena crossed to the nearest wardrobe, pushing one of the doors fully open this time.

"Come here," she said, not looking back.

Aeleanora obeyed, slower, but her attention shifted as Laena reached in and drew the first piece free. It fell into her hands like poured water. Black silk, thinner and smoother than the kind she remembered. It slipped between Laena's fingers as though it had no interest in being held at all.

"This is Volantene," Laena said, almost absently, as she turned it once, letting the fabric breathe. Aeleanora reached out before she could stop herself, catching the edge between her fingers. It was cool, then warm as it settled against her skin.

"Hm," she murmured.

"I thought so," Laena's mouth set itself in a mischievous grin. She set it aside with care and reached for another. This one was heavier, deep red velvet, cut through with narrow seams of gold thread so fine they were almost invisible. When Aeleanora brushed her fingers across it, the nap shifted beneath her touch, darkening, then brightening again as though responding.

"Westeros will read this as restraint," Laena said. "They're wrong, but that's hardly the point."

Aeleanora huffed a quiet breath that might have been a laugh. "They usually are."

"Mm." Laena did not disagree.

More pieces followed. Silver-threaded gauze that looked insubstantial until it was doubled, layered, structured. A darker piece next, charcoal cut in a way that would leave very little to the imagination if worn without intention. A softer one, deceptively simple, until Aeleanora traced the stitching with the pad of her middle finger and realised how carefully every line of it had been placed. She moved along as she looked, slowing to brush, lift, and test the different fabrics with her hands. Fabric slid over her skin, caught briefly at her knuckles, and slipped free again.

Laena watched her the way one watches their plans unfold precisely as expected. Aeleanora held a piece of pale silver against her arm, watching how it shifted against her skin.

Laena moved to the door. "I'll have everyone brought in to begin the fittings," she said. "We'll begin with structure. Everything else can be adjusted." She slipped out into the corridor, already issuing quiet instructions to the servants waiting just beyond the threshold.

Aeleanora handed the first dress she selected to the attendants and seamstresses who entered the room after a few minutes. Once it was on, she stepped into the centre of the mirrors, and the room multiplied her. For a moment, she did not look directly at herself. Her gaze moved the way it always had. Line first, then balance. The placement of weight across her hips, the set of her shoulders, the alignment of her spine. She catalogued it without thinking.

She stilled and looked up, and the first thing she noticed was the way the light behaved when caught by her skin. Candleflame clung to her collarbones for a breath before releasing them, and the pale gleam from mirrors lay over her throat like captured moonlight. When she turned her head, the light followed too late, as if her skin had stolen a little of it and only grudgingly given it back.

Her face came next. The girl who had left Dragonstone had been pretty in the careless way of royal children, all silver hair and spoilt mouth and lashes long enough to excuse several sins. The woman in the glass had kept the mouth, full and soft and naturally parted, with that indolent pout that made men weigh their words before they had decided why. Her upper lip had a lovely little bow to it, her lower one fuller, faintly flushed even at rest, as though it had been bitten and then denied the courtesy of explanation. Her nose was fine, her brows softly arched and just dark enough to give shape to all that pale Valyrian excess. Her lashes lay heavy over silver-blue eyes, sweet enough at first glance to invite approach, until one noticed how little warmth moved behind them.

Her cheekbones sat high and clean beneath the skin, catching the candlelight with a precision that looked almost carved. Her jaw was narrow enough to seem delicate while her face was lowered, but when she lifted her chin, the delicacy sharpened into command. The whole of her face had that same troublesome arrangement: softness placed exactly where softness would be most dangerous. A mouth made for coaxing. Eyes made for judgment. Skin fair enough to make the light linger and hair pale enough to look less like hair than some expensive spell poured over her shoulders.

Beauty had arranged itself there with the patience of a trap. A soft mouth to draw the eye, pale skin to hold it, eyes too still to comfort anyone who lingered. There was sweetness in her face, yes, but sweetness could be bait. A flower could feed on flies if the gods were feeling clever. Aeleanora stared at herself and understood, with an odd little turn in her stomach, why people looked twice and then pretended they had only looked once.

“…Strange,” she muttered to herself. It did not feel hers entirely. She shifted her weight and watched the rest of it answer. The mirrors gave her back a body longer than memory, narrow through the waist and taut through the stomach, with the lean strength of training carried beneath skin that still looked too fair to have earned it. Her hips gave the dress something to hold. Her breasts lifted against the fitted bodice with a softness that made the rest of her discipline look almost indecent. Four years had taken the child from her proportions and left something far more difficult to dismiss: a body built to wait, to strike, to be looked at, and to punish the looking.

The strength in her did not announce itself the way a man’s did. It lived in the clean line of her arms, in the steadiness of her shoulders, in the quiet set of her spine. She looked still because she chose to be still, and that was the worst of it. Even motion seemed to wait for her permission. The dress understood her before she did, drawing the eye to the places courtly manners would have preferred to survive untouched. Aeleanora studied the effect with the wary interest of someone discovering that a weapon had been sharpened while she slept.

It was the kind of body that she trained to hold still for hours or move very quickly when required. Her hands lifted slightly, turning in the reflection. The skin was smooth, and her nails were well cared for, but there were faint calluses along her palms and fingers. They were marks of grip and repetition. Of steel and leather and reins and horn. That, at least, felt correct.

"Well?" Behind her, Laena's voice came, quieter this time.

Aeleanora took a moment to continue assessing her reflection before responding. "I see why they stare," she said at last.

"They always have."

"Yes," Aeleanora said, "But this is new." Laena stepped closer, just enough to enter the edge of the mirror beside her.

"No," she agreed.

The left side of Aeleanora's lips turned upward. "Good," she said. She adjusted her shoulders and watched the change ripple outward through every reflection.

“Movement will be the trouble,” she added, almost an afterthought.

Laena huffed, faintly amused. "Of course it will."

"I mean it," Aeleanora said, finally glancing at her. “I refuse to be dressed in anything that traps my legs.”

"You will not be prevented," Laena replied. "You will be contained."

Aeleanora's brow lifted at that. "That sounds worse."

"It isn't," Laena said. "It simply requires intention."

Aeleanora considered that, then looked back at herself. The way the fabric fell. The way her body altered it simply by existing within it. "…Fine," she said. "Then we adjust the rest accordingly."

Laena's expression sharpened slightly. "The rest?"

“My leathers,” Aeleanora said, matter-of-fact. “Everything I ride or train in.” She gestured faintly to the reflection. "I want them to look like this, too."

Laena blinked, then her mouth slowly widened to a satisfied grin. She didn't answer immediately. She watched Aeleanora in the mirror instead, the way the fabric shifted when she breathed, the way the light caught and held along her skin like it wasn't quite willing to let it go. 

"Good," she said softly. Laena did not look at the dress again. She was looking at Aeleanora. "Because that is the only way this works."

Aeleanora's eyes met Laena's through the mirror, her typical lazy, half-lidded eyes narrowed as her pupils searched her friend's face for further context. "Works," she repeated. Laena stepped behind her, not touching, but close enough that their reflections aligned.

“You know you are returning to court as more than yourself,” she said. “Look again, and be honest for once. You left here a child. You have returned a woman.”

Aeleanora's eyes relaxed again to their natural feline glare, the mischief returning to them. “Second,” Laena continued, “you are returning as the thing the realm has been whispering about for four years.”

A pause. "And, what, exactly, is that?"

Laena's smirk returned to her face, her violet eyes brightening with it. "It depends on who you ask." She reached past her, adjusting a fall of fabric at Aeleanora's waist to demonstrate something. “Some will hope we came back corrected. Others will hope we came back worse.”

Aeleanora huffed at that, amused. "To the older houses, you are your father's indulgences." A small shift of her shoulder, testing the line again. "To the younger ones— " Laena's fingers brushed lightly along the edge of the sleeve, "— you are something far more interesting."

Aeleanora's gaze sharpened again, "And what do they think I am?" Laena met her eyes in the mirror.

“A story,” Laena said. “They heard the Silver Menace was sent away and spent four years deciding what sort of creature would return.”

Aeleanora tilted her head slightly. "They aren't entirely wrong."

“No. That is why we must dress the creature ourselves.” Laena moved then, selecting another piece, black again, with a structured neckline carved low and sure. Laena held the black dress beside Aeleanora’s reflection. “Westeros teaches women to make themselves easier to forgive,” she said. “We need not oblige it.”

Aeleanora involuntarily smiled at that, a shallow dimple appearing next to the left corner of her lips. "No," she agreed. "We don't."

“Old Valyria knew better than Westeros,” Laena said. “Power loses nothing by being seen.” Her lashes fluttered as her gaze dropped briefly to Aeleanora's collarbone, the exposed line of her throat. “Let them fear it or want it. Either way, they look.”

Aeleanora exhaled softly through her nose. "And this— " she gestured faintly to the dress, to herself, to the room, "— makes them look."

Laena smiled at that. “This is the leash in your hand.”

Laena turned her head to the attendant pinning the hem of the dress on Aeleanora and told her they would move on to seeing the next dress. Once Aeleanora was in the next dress, one seamstress laced her from behind while another knelt to check the hem. As the second girl knelt, Aeleanora's eyes tracked the downward movement and flicked back up right as a third attendant reached up to adjust the fabric at Aeleanora’s shoulder.

Before the thought even formed, Aeleanora's right hand lifted and caught the girl's wrist mid-motion. Aeleanora looked down and found the girl’s wrist in her hand. The girl stared back, brown-eyed and frightened into silence. After half a breath, she gently guided the girl's hand to its destination. She swallowed and loosened her grip, sweeping her thumb across the girl's wrist three times before letting go. The girl continued adjusting the dress, folded her hands in front of her as she dropped her head down, and took a step back from the platform.

"My apologies, y-your Grace, I did not mean to frighten you." The girl kept her voice low and soft.

Aeleanora straightened her shoulders and brushed a hand across her stomach and upper thigh, smoothing her dress. She turned fully towards the girl and lowered her gaze to meet her. "What is your name, love?" Aeleanora asked her.

The girl looked up at her, confusion slowly replacing the terror in her wide brown eyes. "Daisy, your Grace."

Aeleanora smiled softly at her and said, “Daisy,” Aeleanora repeated, gentler. “A pretty name. I cannot accept an apology for my hand catching yours. Take mine instead.”

"Not so close," Laena stepped in, laughing as she said, “the dragon prefers to see hands before they touch her.”

Daisy smiled at that, relief flooding her brown eyes. "Yes, your Grace," she nodded at Aeleanora, "My Lady," she nodded at Laena. She looked back up at Aeleanora and said, "Thank you, Princess, it is quite all right, really." She nodded her head again and stepped back to join the other group of girls in the room.

Laena brushed once through the hair near Aeleanora’s temple. Then she pulled her hand away as Aeleanora's eyes flickered once in the mirror. Laena's gaze met hers for a fraction of a second, as if saying I saw that, you're fine. Aeleanora's expression did not change, but her posture settled slightly as she gestured to the attendants for the next dress.

When the final argument over the hem was done, Aeleanora stood in the last dress. Black again, so deep the candlelight seemed trapped inside it. It shaped itself to her without clinging, tracing the length of her body. Gold crowned the neckline, the filigree at the throat forced attention upward first, then guided it down in controlled increments, each opening cut to guide the eye and deny it satisfaction. For a moment, no one spoke. Even the attendants seemed to hesitate, their hands stilling as if unsure whether to continue or step back entirely.

Laena exhaled, "Yes," she said.

Aeleanora's eyes flickered to hers through the mirror. "Yes?"

Laena stalked closer, slow, her bright violet eyes tracing the line of gold at Aeleanora's throat, the narrow breaks in the fabric beneath it, the way the light danced along her pale skin and lingered here. "That one," she said, quieter now, "will do exactly what it's meant to."

Aeleanora raised a brow. "Which is?"

Laena lifted her eyes to meet Aeleanora's in the glass. "Cause problems."

Aeleanora let out a low, breathy laugh at that. Her fingers brushed once along her waist, testing the structure again, the way it held without restricting. "It's efficient," she said. "It directs attention."

Laena lifted one brow and met her eyes in the glass. Her smile turned knowing. "No," she said, "It isn't." A small pause settled between them. Laena lifted her chin again and tilted her head, studying Aeleanora's reflection instead of the dress.

"It invites," she added.

Aeleanora stilled slightly. "Invites what?"

Laena didn't answer immediately. Her gaze dropped, briefly, to the line of Aeleanora's throat, then lower, lingering just enough to make the point before returning. "Attention," she said.

Aeleanora exhaled softly through her nose. "Everything in this room invites attention."

"Yes," Laena said. "But not all of it is the same." Aeleanora's fingers stilled against the fabric. Laena let the silence sit just long enough to register. "Some of it is study," she continued. “A man deciding what he might risk touching.” Her eyes flickered once more, brief and precise. "Some of it is him deciding how badly he wants to be ruined for it."

Aeleanora’s gaze dropped to her own reflection again, to the gold at her throat and the dark cuts of fabric below it. She understood the garment’s arithmetic well enough. Men were easiest when their wanting had somewhere useful to go. Ruin was different. “That is an extravagant amount of trouble for a dress,” she said.

Laena's expression softened slightly, and she took a step forward and turned her head to her left. "The room, please." She returned Aeleanora's gaze.

The attendants hesitated for a breath, then moved quickly, gathering fabrics, tools, and themselves. The door closed behind them with a soft click, and the room belonged to Laena. Laena took another step towards her, just close enough to touch.

“You have always been good at taking a thing apart until it obeys you,” Laena said.

Aeleanora's spine straightened almost imperceptibly. "It works," she said. She wasn't sure what Laena was getting at.

"It does," Laena agreed. Then she lifted her hand, slowly, and brushed the tips of her fingers along Aeleanora's shoulder. It was the lightest drag of contact along warm skin. Down, across the line of her collarbone, following the gold filigree as though tracing the design itself. Aeleanora’s throat worked once.

“Think back to our training. Why were we taught allure?” Laena asked. Aeleanora paused to consider it.

“To control the approach,” Aeleanora said. “To set where he stands and how near he thinks he may come.”

Laena's fingers stilled briefly against her skin, then resumed, slower now. "And then?" she asked.

“To move him,” Aeleanora replied, “towards the door he does not question.”

Laena hummed at that, almost approving. "And after that?"

Aeleanora’s gaze did not waver. “Then we decide whether he is worth using.”

Laena’s hand slid from Aeleanora’s collarbone to her waist and settled there. "You remember the merchant in Braavos," she said quietly. Aeleanora's eyes flickered at once.

"He followed you halfway across the courtyard," Laena continued, tone light and precise. "Didn't even realise he'd left his guards behind."

"He thought I was lost." She smirked at that.

Laena's breath ghosted just behind her ear. "You let them think you were softer than you are."

"I let him think I needed help," Aeleanora corrected.

"And then?" Laena pressed. Aeleanora's fingers tightened slightly at her sides, the memory returning whole.

"I led him somewhere quiet," she said. "He spoke with much more ease about how he came into his wealth."

"He didn't last long after." Laena's thumb traced once, absent-mindedly, along the line of her waist. Aeleanora didn't respond to that part. She didn't need to.

"It works," she said instead, quieter now. "Every time." Laena tilted her head the other way to study Aeleanora's reflection.

"Yes," she said, "it does." Her hand shifted again to fit more firmly at Aeleanora's waist. "But you still think that's all it is," Laena followed up. Aeleanora's brows drew together at that, slightly.

"It is all it is," she said.

Laena’s smile softened. She looked entirely unconvinced. "No," she said gently. "That's just the part you use."

Aeleanora started to turn towards her. Before she could, Laena brought her other arm around Aeleanora's body, touched her thumb and index finger to her chin, and turned Aeleanora's attention back to the mirror. Laena didn't give her time to resolve it before dropping her hand again.

"Tell me," she murmured instead, her voice dropping just enough to settle differently in the space between them, "what do you think they're feeling…in that moment?"

Aeleanora's gaze sharpened, searching for the nearest useful answer. "Anticipation," she said. "Distraction."

"And before that?" Laena’s fingertips pressed more firmly into Aeleanora’s waist. Aeleanora hesitated a breath too long.

"Curiosity," she said, but it didn't land as clean as she meant for it to. Laena's smile deepened, just slightly.

"Mm." Her gaze dropped again, briefly, then returned to Aeleanora's eyes in the mirror. "And you've never wondered why it's so easy to create that?" Laena followed. Aeleanora opened her mouth to respond, but couldn't find an answer.

Aeleanora covered Laena’s hand with her own. Her left hand instinctively went to find her right thumb so she could run her left thumb over the various edges of the ring she always wore there. It was her mother's, in the shape of a silver dragon that coiled around her finger, its tail wrapped around to the front of the digit and settled just below the knuckle. At the top of the ring was a dragon's head, in Dreamfyre's likeness, with wings pulled in tight. The eyes were set with cornflower-blue stones that sometimes seemed to glow.

“It is all right,” she said quietly after Aeleanora snapped her head towards the sound of Dreamfyre’s rumble climbing up the walls of the castle and shuddering into the room. The sound matched the unsettled feeling that was travelling down Aeleanora's spine. Aeleanora followed the bond until Dreamfyre quieted. Her dark lashes fluttered for a moment as she tried to tamp that down for Dreamfyre's sake. It soothed her to know that they were close enough to be able to feel each other again.

Laena watched her for a moment, then exhaled softly, the sound almost a quiet concession. "You're looking in the wrong direction," she said. Aeleanora's fingers stilled against the ring. Laena shifted slightly behind her, her hand easing at her waist.

"You keep thinking about what they see," she continued, her tone quieter now, less pointed. "What they do with it. How they follow it." A pause. "But you never seem particularly interested in them."

Aeleanora frowned faintly at that. "I don't need to be," she said.

"No," Laena agreed easily. "You don't." Her fingers drifted again, absent-mindedly, along the edge of the gold at Aeleanora's side. "But that doesn't mean there's nothing there." Aeleanora's gaze flickered in the mirror. Laena tilted her head slightly, studying her face. "You've never noticed it?" she asked. "Not even a little?" Her voice lifted at that, her full lips now spread into a teasing smile.

Aeleanora's brow creased. "Noticed what?"

Laena's smile had grown into a wicked grin. "Men." Aeleanora didn't respond, and Laena didn't wait for her to. “The way they move,” she said. “Heavier than us. Less careful when they think themselves unwatched.” Her thumb pressed once, lightly, at Aeleanora's waist, as if marking the contrast. "Their hands," she continued, almost thoughtfully. "Always rougher than they realise, even when they try to be careful."

Laena watched Aeleanora's reflection breathe for a moment, tracking it. “Gods, the training yards on hot days,” Laena said, tipping her head back. “When they forget anyone has eyes.” She returned her head to its earlier position, her face parallel with Aeleanora's once more. Aeleanora's eyes flicked away from the mirror, then back again. 

"They don't notice who's watching," Laena said. "Or what they look like when they're not thinking about it." A pause. "The way their shoulders move. The line of their backs when they turn. The way sweat sits at the base of the throat and doesn't quite fall." Aeleanora swallowed. She regretted it immediately, knowing Laena caught it.

Laena didn't acknowledge it. "Their faces are worse," she added lightly. "They think they're guarded. They're not." Aeleanora's fingers tightened slightly around her ring. "They look at you like they've already decided something," Laena continued. "And then they try to pretend they haven't."

Aeleanora's voice, when it came, was softer. "That's what makes them easy."

Laena’s smile softened. "Yes," she said. "It does. It also means that they're not…nothing." Aeleanora stilled at that. Laena spread her hand across Aeleanora’s taut stomach. "There is a reason it works," she said. "Not just because you're so clever."

Aeleanora's gaze sharpened again, trying to catch hold of something, anything. "I never said it was only that."

Laena huffed at that. "No," she said. "You just behave like it is." Aeleanora's lips parted again, turning it over in her head. Laena was circling something, and Aeleanora disliked being circled. Laena watched it happen, "It is all right," she said again, quieter this time.

Aeleanora's jaw tightened, "I am not confused," she said, gruffly.

"Of course not." Laena countered. Aeleanora's eyes dropped, briefly, to her own reflection again. The gold, the shadow, the skin. Then back to Laena.

"…It doesn't matter," she said finally.

"No," Laena agreed. "It doesn't." Laena dipped her chin to hide her smirk. Her hand remained, and Aeleanora allowed it.

Laena left her to stew over it by calling the girls back in to finish up the fitting. She had given Aeleanora a kiss on the cheek and told her to choose something wicked for supper. Daisy and a few others remained to help her with her bath and had the remainder of her trunks unpacked. Afterwards, she asked the girls to come back in a few hours so she could rest before supper this evening. As they exited, Aeleanora poked her head out of the large double door separating her lair from the rest of Dragonstone's inner keep to tell Ser Roric that she was sleeping, should anyone send for her.

He laughed as he nodded, amused as he said, "Yes, my princess." He knew she wanted a few hours unbothered.

She was now barefoot, padding around her bedroom in her black slip. Her white hair hung straight down her shoulders to her lower back. It was still wet, and the moisture had soaked through her slip, coating her back and upper shoulders. A cup had been passed into her hand at some point. Gods, when had I last drunk wine this fine? It was dark red, nearly black in the low light. She turned and swished it idly, watching the surface shift and catch the candles the way everything in this castle seemed to. Even the wine refused to sit still.

Her bedroom was much warmer than the rest of her chambers. The stone curved inward here, the ceiling lower, the arches pressing down just enough to feel contained. Heavy beams crossed the ceiling above, dark wood set against black stone, and from them hung sheer drapery that moved faintly with the draft from the window. It softened the space just enough to make it liveable without disguising the fact that the room was carved from a mountain.

The bed sat slightly raised on a stone platform, wide and anchored, its frame carved from the same dark wood as the wardrobes beyond. Layers of black silk and deep red velvet had been arranged over it with care, furs thrown across the foot. Firelight held everything together. A hearth was set into the far wall, a low and constant flame. Candles filled the rest of the room, scattered in iron holders and shallow dishes, their light flickering unevenly against the curved walls.

She continued turning her cup in her hand, glancing down at it, but then her gaze caught on the bookshelves that took up the corner of the room. On one of the shelves, there were a series of carved wooden figures, dragons, horses, knights, people, and a few various animals like a swan and a wolf. They were set in a careful line in front of the spines of the books behind them. She let her gaze pass over them without lingering too long.

She turned and left the bedroom, returning to her solar. She brought her cup to her lips, tipped her head back, and finished the remainder of the wine. She sat on the couch in front of the entry to her terrace and poured herself another cup from the decanter perched on the low table in front of her. She took another sip and stood up, turning to face the door behind her.

She circled the couch and leaned against the back of it, turning her head to the left. On the far wall sat her desk sandwiched between two large, full bookshelves. Above her desk, set into the wall itself, partially obscured by shadow and a hanging length of black silk, was a narrow relief worked in darkened steel. It was not the sort of work that one would notice if they weren’t looking for it.

A dragon, coiled inward on itself, held and contained in its own form. The wings were drawn tight, the body curved in a way that made it look like it was resting. It was Balerion's likeness. It wasn't warm or inviting, the way the rest of the artwork in her chambers was; this one always seemed to know her back. She continued to stare for a moment until she straightened her spine and broke eye contact with the piece. Enough, she thought.

She turned, the movement clean, and crossed to the doors, pulling one open. The wind met her as soon as she stepped outside, cool from the sea and warm where it carried the castle’s breath. It slid through the damp strands of her hair, pulling them back from her shoulders, cutting through the lingering heat beneath her skin in a way the bath had not. The slip clung where it had been soaked through, then loosened again as the air moved across it.

The world widened as her bare feet met the cold stone. She stepped to the edge and watched the dark water stretch below the cliffs, restless and endless. The horizon was already dissolving into night. Torches burned along the lower walls of the castle, small against the scale of it all, their light flickering up the stone in uneven patterns.

Behind her sat warmth, memory, and containment; in front of her was the open air and movement. She lifted the cup to her lips as she concentrated on the waves crashing against the rocks below. It was the first time in a long while that she had truly been alone with herself. She knew she had some dissection to do, but for now, she decided to enjoy the taste of the wine and the smell of the sea.

♚♚♚♚

After a few hours, the salt air had dried her hair into thick and loose waves that ended at her lower back. It spread over her shoulders and covered her like a blanket. She was absent-mindedly twirling the ends of it with her left hand when she heard a noise from inside her rooms. She turned and left the terrace to see that Daisy, Briony, and two other girls had entered the room to let her know that it was time to get ready for supper.

She chose a red dress for supper. It was a few shades brighter than blood and fell in a long, uninterrupted line from the waist. The fabric was heavier than it first appeared, and the movement was controlled even as it shifted around her legs. The bodice was structured, drawn in tight through the ribs, fastening up the centre in a series of black clasps that looked almost ornamental until one noticed how precisely they held everything in place. The neckline folded wide across her shoulders, baring them entirely in a clean line. Frill would have cheapened it.

She liked the cruelty of it, pale skin against red. The girls had left off the heavy jewels and given her only a single piece at her throat that was an extension of the black clasps that climbed up the front of the dress. The dark metal wrapped around her throat and drew the eye without competing with the remainder of the dress. Her hair had been gathered low at the nape of her neck, loosely pinned, strands already slipping free to frame her face and fall along her jaw. It made her look less finished than she was.

Aeleanora turned once in place after Daisy adjusted the fall of the skirt, her gaze catching her reflection briefly in the mirror across the room. She did not linger this time.

"Good," Aeleanora said, simply.

Daisy stepped back immediately, relief and admiration warring quietly across her expression. "You look -"

"I know," Aeleanora cut her off, her tone light and certain. She gave Daisy a soft smile. Aeleanora moved to the door, Ser Roric straightening the moment it opened, his posture shifting from ease to readiness in a single, practised motion. His eyes flickered over her once, quick and controlled, but he did not linger. He knew better.

"My princess," he dipped his chin in greeting.

Aeleanora inclined her head slightly as she passed him, and he fell into place a step behind her to the side. They were silent as they moved through the corridors, the torches burning lower now. When they reached the foyer before the hallway where the private supper chambers were located, Laena was there waiting for her. Laena's eyes scanned Aeleanora, assessing the effect of the dress.

Her lips curved up as she said, "There you are."

Aeleanora slowed as she reached her, her expression easing into something softer, more familiar. "You told me to pick something good."

Laena pushed off the wall, stepping into her space without hesitation. Her gaze dipped once, brief but precise, then returned to Aeleanora's face.

"I did," she said. "I didn't expect you to be so…cooperative."

Aeleanora smirked at that. "Don't get used to it," she countered. Laena huffed a quiet laugh, then reached up to adjust a loose strand of hair near Aeleanora's temple, tucking it just enough to sit correctly before letting it fall again. Artful as a lie.

Laena's hand dropped. "Ready?" she asked. Aeleanora held her gaze for a moment, something sharper flickering just beneath the surface before settling.

"Yes."

Laena nodded once and turned, not waiting, trusting Aeleanora to follow. She did, rolling her shoulders back and straightening her spine, folding her hands together behind her back with Ser Roric falling in behind them as they crossed the threshold together. The doors opened without announcement, and warm light spilled outward.

The room was already in motion. Low voices, the soft clink of glass and metal, and the quiet shift of chairs against stone. It stilled, almost imperceptibly, as they crossed towards the middle of the room. The table had already been set, long but not formal, the space arranged for intimacy, with the royal shape of it still intact. Candles burned lower, their light softer, caught in polished metal and dark wood. Plates had been laid, wine already poured. No servants lingered close enough to intrude.

It was family with a crown set above it. Several of them were seated, while others stood and talked. Baelor was the first to look up. His gaze found hers at once, held, then lowered to the dark clasp at her throat with such exact restraint that the restraint became the offence. When his eyes returned to hers, his face had already gone still. Too late, she thought. I saw it. His eyes gave one small answer before his face took it back.

When Rhaenys rose to greet Aeleanora and Laena, Aeleanora watched Rhaenys's gaze soften the moment she saw her, though Rhaenys still looked at her as if checking the shape of an old fear. She stiffened, but inclined her head as she stepped forward to return the greeting. She left her head slightly tilted as she watched Rhaenys's eyes scan Aeleanora's face.

Jacaerys broke the silence, pushing back from the table with none of the restraint that the others held, crossing the space towards her with the same easy, boyish, lop-sided grin he always had. Her shoulders relaxed a bit as she felt relief flood through her chest at the sight of him.

"Well," he said, looking her over once. "You've made quite an entrance." The left corner of Aeleanora's mouth ticked up in response. "You look — " he started, then stopped, searching for the word.

"Dangerous?" Laena supplied lightly from beside her.

Jacaerys blinked. "— I was going to say lovely."

"How kind of you," Laena quipped. Jacaerys frowned faintly, glancing between them, knowing he was missing something but wasn't sure what it was.

Aeleanora let out a quiet noise, closer to a laugh than anything she had given the room so far. "That's generous," she said, her tone light. It broke the tension just enough for others to follow in resuming their greetings. 

Courtesies followed, warm on the surface and changed in the hand. Rhaenys touched her cheek with the same tenderness and searched her face a breath too long. Corlys clasped her shoulder as he always had, though his fingers released her with a new care, as if he had found a blade beneath familiar silk. Laenor kissed her brow, grinning, then looked at her twice before remembering to make a jest of it. Aeleanora accepted each welcome with perfect grace and counted every correction. They loved the girl who had left them, and their hands had already begun negotiating with the woman who had come home.

Baelor had taken his seat again, though his attention kept finding her between other duties. A glance while Jacaerys spoke. Another while Corlys reached for his cup. Each one brief enough for courtesy and too exact to be nothing. Neither Rhaenys nor Mysaria had looked away fully, either.

Jacaerys, at least, seemed ignorant of the air of uncertainty the others radiated. Aeleanora silently thanked him for it in her head. "Come," he said, gesturing loosely. "You are late enough as it is."

Aeleanora's brow lifted at that. "Laena delayed me."

Laena made a soft, dismissive sound beside her. "I improved you." The two girls glanced at each other, sharing a moment of amusement before moving towards their seats.

They took their places and settled into supper. The rhythm returned with the low murmur of voices and the sounds of cutlery on glass plates and wine being poured. Aeleanora took her seat between Laena and Jacaerys.

Laena leaned back first, one arm draped loosely along the back of her chair, posture relaxed in a way that read effortless but never careless. She reached for her wine without looking, already halfway into a story before the room had fully resettled.

"You should have seen her in Lys," Laena said, her tone light. "They tried to tell her she wasn't allowed into one of the inner courts." Aeleanora didn't look at her. She reached for her cup instead, lifting it smoothly, her gaze flicking once across the table before settling back down.

"They didn't try," Aeleanora corrected mildly. "They told me."

"And you listened?" Jacaerys cut in, already grinning.

Aeleanora tilted her head slightly, the faintest pause. "I walked past him," she said.

Laena laughed at that. "You walked through him."

"He moved," Aeleanora replied, taking a slow sip of wine. "Eventually."

Laughter moved around the table more easily this time. Jacaerys leaned forward, resting his forearms against the table. "And then what? They just…let you stay?"

Aeleanora set her cup down with a soft, precise sound. "They required little convincing before they decided I was meant to be there," she said.

Jacaerys frowned faintly, knowing there was an inside joke to this, but he ignored it. "Just like that?"

Laena tilted her head, amused. "Men can be very accommodating when they think something is their idea."

Aeleanora almost snorted at that. "He escorted me himself," she added. "He even apologised twice.”

"For what?" Jacaerys asked.

Aeleanora lifted her cup to her mouth again, "For hesitating," she said before taking a sip and setting it down.

Aeleanora's fingers stilled briefly against the stem of her cup, feeling the attention from the room again. They were weighing the story against the woman telling it. She stamped down the flush rising to her cheeks and adjusted her shoulders, focusing on the pinch between her shoulder blades and drawing herself tight through the stomach. Safer.

Jacaerys, oblivious or pretending to be, she wasn't sure which, shook his head. "Gods, you've been gone much too long."

Aeleanora glanced at her brother, one brow lifting. "Then you'll have to tell me what I've missed."

"Everything," he said immediately. "Nothing," he amended a second later, grinning. "Depends on who you ask."

"Helpful," she murmured.

Baelor, Rhaenys, Mysaria, and Laenor filled the gaps between Jacaerys’s interruptions, tales folding into one another. At least some things had stayed the same, Aeleanora thought to herself. Jacaerys still interrupted where he should not. Rhaenys still corrected details without ever fully contradicting, and Mysaria still loosed one of her soft little observations at exactly the wrong moment for everyone else at the table. Aeleanora smiled to herself as she listened to Jacaerys and Laenor lightly bicker over a tourney they participated in. Once it dwindled, Jacaerys turned back to Aeleanora.

"There were…tales," he added, more loosely now, like he hadn't meant to say it that way.

Aeleanora's gaze shifted to him more directly. "About?"

"About where you were sent," he said. "Why." The table quieted a bit.

"Mm," Laena hummed, light but pointed. "I'm sure they were all very accurate."

Jacaerys huffed. "Most of them were ridiculous."

"Most?" Aeleanora asked.

His grin widened. "There was one that said you'd been married off to a prince in Essos, which quickly evolved to a tale about you feeding him to Dreamfyre after she was spotted hunting in the Flatlands," Jacaerys told her, pausing to take a bite of his food.

Aeleanora's signature wicked grin returned to her face as Laena snorted. "That's almost flattering," Laena followed.

"Almost flattering? I say the Maesters should ensure to document that one in their histories." Aeleanora said.

Jacaerys continued, "Another said that you angered a blood witch, so she turned you into a feral dragon. Sheepstealer, they called you."

Aeleanora let out a laugh at that. A true laugh, the kind that involuntarily drew a matching giggle from Jacaerys and a sentimental smile from Baelor's mouth.

"Now I'm not sure which one I prefer, they're both too good." Her face was flushed as she smiled and took another sip of wine.

"They're both absurd," Jacaerys added quickly. She knew he thought the tales were funny, but she also knew him well enough to know that he was worried about whether or not they bothered her. She also knew that they bothered him, as much as he would never admit it, she knew that he wished the reputation of his beloved heir and sister was cleaner.

"Mm," Baelor hummed, finally speaking. "I don't know about that. They both have merit."

Jacaerys turned to him immediately. "You cannot be serious."

Baelor didn't look away from Aeleanora. "She does have the temperament for it."

Aeleanora's brow lifted, slow, deliberate. "Careful."

"Or what?" he asked, pretending to be stern.

Her smirk returned to its rightful position on her face. "You'll find out whether the story was exaggerated." That earned a laugh from Laena and Laenor. Baelor's expression didn't shift much but something in it sharpened slightly.

"I imagine," he said, "the problem isn't the story."

Aeleanora tilted her head. "No?"

"No," he said. "It's that people couldn't decide which version of you they preferred."

After a small pause, Jacaerys asked, "What does that even mean?" He was frowning slightly.

"It means," Baelor continued, finally glancing at him, "half the realm seems to think she's dangerous, and the other half seems determined to prove it."

Aeleanora let out a soft breath through her nose, amused. "That sounds like a waste of effort."

"Is it?" Baelor asked.

Her gaze flicked back to his, meeting it. "They've had years to decide," she said. "If they haven't managed it yet, I doubt supper will help."

Baelor's mouth curved, faintly. "Perhaps not," he said. "But you've made it more difficult."

Laena snorted again. "That was always the plan."

Jacaerys leaned back in his chair, shaking his head. "You're all insufferable," he laughed.

Aeleanora smiled into her cup. "You love us."

"I tolerate you," he corrected.

"Poorly," Laena added. 

Laughter moved around the table. Supper continued, though attention kept returning to her in small, irritating passes. She was beginning to grow annoyed as she found herself noticing it. She reached for her wine again. It had already been refilled, but she didn't remember when. She took a longer sip, letting it sit on her tongue a moment before swallowing. The conversation moved easily around her, Laena taking the reins on interrupting this time, and Jacaerys laughing too loudly at something only half amusing.

Aeleanora let it carry her. She answered when spoken to. Asked a question when the rhythm required it, smiled when it was expected. And she drank. The edge she had held all evening began to dull. The tightness in her shoulders eased as she finally allowed her posture to soften. With that, her breath lost its count.

She leaned back slightly in her chair. She decided to let the fabric of the dress settle where it wanted to instead of adjusting it this time. The room felt warmer now, or perhaps it was her. She caught the edge of another conversation, Mysaria saying something sharp under her breath. Laenor responded with something too quick to be entirely sincere. She let herself laugh at it as she brought her cup back up to her lips. When she lowered it again, she didn't immediately reach for something else to occupy her hands.

For a moment, she just sat, listening. She exhaled quietly through her nose, her shoulders sinking a touch further into the back of the chair while the room went on without requiring anything from her. Her gaze was drawn back to the candlelight on the table, and her attention was caught by the way the candlelight moved across the table, gold sliding over metal and glass.

Jacaerys' left arm pressed against her shoulder as he reached across her plate to grab a piece of bread off a serving tray. He used more force than necessary to shove her a bit, as they did as children, back when he was still a prince. She followed his hand as it moved up to his face, where he lifted his brows and made an exaggerated grin at her. She smiled and shook her head at that. Her head stayed in his direction after he turned to continue the conversation he was having at his right.

She noticed the careless way he leaned too far into the table, unguarded in a way that he always had been. Her gaze lingered for a moment until it caught on Laenor lifting his cup, the sleeve of his shirt pulled back just enough to reveal the movement of muscle beneath as he turned his wrist. It was an unremarkable thing. Ordinary, but she watched it anyway.

She returned to the candlelight when a servant passed behind her, quiet and efficient, barely there. The air shifted faintly in their wake, and the fabric at Aeleanora's sleeve stirred as her fingers tightened slightly against the stem of her cup.

Laena’s voice returned without invitation. They don't know who's watching. Aeleanora let the thought remain and began, almost idly, to prove it. She returned to Jacaerys, still speaking, not realizing how far forward he'd leaned, how open his posture had become. Then Laenor, whose shoulders rolled back as he laughed, the movement settling unevenly after. She looked over to Corlys and Rhaenys, the former leaning in on the space of the latter, elbow perched on the arm of his wife's chair. Rhaenys's hand was resting against her glass, perfectly still even as the rest of her moved.

Unaware. All of them. She tilted her head slightly, just enough to change her angle without drawing notice. Laena had been right. They didn't think about it the way she did, or the way she had been taught.

Her eyes drifted further, just past the table, towards the edges of the room at the guards standing there. The one nearest the far wall was younger than the others and had not yet made peace with his armour. It sat on him like a lord’s borrowed coat, fitted well enough for duty and poorly enough for comfort. His hand rested near the hilt at his side, fingers loose, the skin roughened at the knuckles. A small scar cut the base of his thumb.

Her gaze followed his forearm up to his shoulder and across to his jaw. It was set with a kind of stillness that came from trying to look composed rather than being it. We write with the same ink, she thought to herself. She watched him draw breath once more before looking away to the other guard in her view.

The older guard near the pillar gave her less. His armour fitted like habit, his shoulders broad beneath the dark metal, his forearms bare below the vambraces and marked with old practice. When he swallowed, the small movement in his throat drew her eye and held it a breath too long. He shifted his weight, efficient and unaware, and Laena’s words came again. Heavier. Different from us.

Her lashes fluttered as she focused on the cup she was lifting to her lips, lifting back up when she took a sip and settling immediately on Baelor. He sat across the table with one arm along the back of his chair, turned enough towards Rhaenys and Corlys to belong to their conversation. His sleeve had ridden back from his wrist. Candlelight caught the dark hair along his forearm, the tendons near his hand, the slow movement of his thumb beside the cup. There was nothing careless in him. That made the exposed skin worse.

Her eyes flicked up too quickly this time to his jaw, where the candlelight caught the dark edge of his beard and the hard line beneath it. He did not hold himself still the way the younger guard did, with effort showing at every seam. Baelor’s stillness had been built into him long ago. The hand Aeleanora rested on the table tingled with the urge to take another drink of wine, but she shut it down before her finger could so much as twitch. Her gaze was pulled to the candlelight catching there as he tilted his head slightly in response to something Laenor said. The movement was subtle, but it exposed the line of it just enough.

She caught the incoming urge to tilt her own head in the same manner as his and shoved it away by quickly looking back down at the plate in front of her. It was too quick, and the motion pulled her shoulders with it, a fraction too sharp to pass as natural. She stilled immediately after correcting, her fingers tightening around the stem of her cup, the glass cool against her palm.

Her skin did not feel cool. The warmth had started somewhere beneath her stomach, low enough to be irritating and deep enough that correcting her posture did nothing to command it. It moved strangely, with no honest path to follow, tightening when Baelor’s thumb moved beside his cup and loosening when she looked away, only to gather again the moment she remembered the dark hair along his forearm. Her breasts felt too aware of the dress. The inside of her thighs felt too aware of each other. Even the brush of the red fabric over her knees became a report her body insisted upon delivering. Her breath shortened before she could discipline it, and by the time she looked back across the table, Baelor had turned a little further in his chair. His shoulders angled towards the conversation, yet some private part of her behaved as though the movement had been made towards her.

He wasn't even looking at her. That made it worse. Or easier? Both? Her pulse picked up. Irritating, she thought. She straightened herself, the movement more controlled this time. Aeleanora shifted her attention back to the table with deliberate care, turning just enough to re-enter the conversation without drawing notice to the fact that she had left it. 

Jacaerys was speaking again, halfway through some grand correction to a tourney tale that had plainly improved in the telling. She caught the tail end of it. "…and then he missed entirely— "

She let out a soft breath to feign a laugh, lifting her brows in the right place, nodding once as though she followed the whole of it. She agreed with something he had said afterwards, but couldn't remember what it was. She finally let her hand lift her cup, taking a much larger draw of the sweet red in it. She held it a moment longer than necessary, letting it anchor her.

Focus. The word settled cleanly in her mind. She set the cup down with precision. Reached for a piece of fruit. Touched it, didn't take it. Adjusted the angle of her wrist against the table instead. She made sure to turn her head slightly towards Laena as she spoke, catching enough of the cadence to respond if needed. Let her shoulders relax just enough to look unguarded.

Her gaze slipped back to Baelor again. She didn't let it land fully this time, not at first. She caught the edge of him instead, the movement of his arm as he reached for his cup, the shift of his weight. She corrected it, a little too late for her taste, and forced her attention back to the table again.

Aeleanora caught Mysaria's voice mid-sentence. Her fingers tapped once, barely, against the stem of her cup as she listened half-heartedly. Something about trade routes. Or alliances. It didn't settle. She nodded anyway, but at the wrong moment. She corrected it with a soft hum, tilting her head just enough to suggest consideration rather than distraction. Mysaria's eyes flicked towards her, sharp and assessing, but moved on just as quickly.

Still intact. Aeleanora exhaled slowly through her nose, steadying. She tried to examine the feeling properly. This heat did not behave like anger. It tightened low in her body, patient and muscular, like the snake she had once watched take a rat whole in a Dornish courtyard.

Her shoulders drew back slightly, instinctively correcting her posture once more. She forced her attention back to the conversation, trying to cling to Laena's voice to her right, but it slipped again, and her gaze found Baelor's without her permission. She watched his fingers as he slowly brushed them up the side of his cup before holding them still again.

Her ribs tightened around the next breath. Fear was the nearest word and still the wrong one. It felt similar to the way it did when she would hide in her own dark corners, lurking and waiting for her target or her signal to appear. She remembered giggling about that one night with Laena and their sister Jeyne in their shared rooms back in Old Town, comparing it to how horses must feel just before they're given the command to cross the lists or the battlefield at their opponent.

Her fingers pressed harder into the table now, grounding herself against the wood as the sensation moved again, spreading, dragging through her in a way that made her shift in her seat before she could steady herself. She was much too aware of the weight of her dress against her skin, the sea draught touching her face and collarbone, the chatter, and the servants clearing the table in preparation for the final part of the meal.

"Aeleanora." Her name cut through it. Her head lifted a fraction too slow in the direction of Rhaenys's voice to meet her striking violet eyes that contrasted with her ink-black hair.

"Tell me," she continued, her tone even, conversational, "did you find Qarth as extraordinary as they insist it is, or were they simply determined to convince you of it?"

Aeleanora felt the rest of the table still. She paused, taking a moment to collect herself and decide whether she wanted to snap back to the posture of the Heir Apparent or if she still needed the feeling of the wooden chair on her bare back for grounding.

She decided to hold her position and reached for the stem of her cup as she turned her head towards Rhaenys.

"I found it…" she began, grateful her voice still knew its work, "committed." She was even more thankful to feel that natural languid spark of trouble that was perpetually behind her eyes. What she was not thankful for, however, was the flush that she knew had spread across her chest and cheeks for what had to have been at least an hour now.

"They name themselves the greatest city that ever was or will be," she continued, her tone light, almost thoughtful. "After the fourth repetition, I assumed they were trying to remember it."

Laena choked softly into her wine, and Jacaerys turned to Aeleanora and blinked at her before laughing. Soft laughter from the others at the table filled the background. "But they were polite to me regardless," Aeleanora added, though she didn't quite recall permitting her mouth to speak them. 

Her pulse ticked up again, and a light pressure brushed against her ankle beneath the table. It was Laena's foot pressing against the outside of Aeleanora's foot, aligning itself perfectly parallel with Aeleanora's. Aeleanora relaxed slightly as she watched Laena lift her cup to her mouth with a lazy ease out of the corner of her eye.

"Well," Laenor sighed lightly, "that's disappointing. I was hoping you'd at least scandalise someone properly before returning." The table laughed again.

"Give her time," Rhaenys added dryly with a warm smile.

"Gods, give her a night to unpack before you demand a scandal," Laena cut in smoothly. "She's only just arrived, let her choose which noble house to ruin with care."

"Preferably not ours," Jacaerys muttered, snorting into his cup, which caused Mysaria to let out a soft laugh as she smiled into her lap.

Aeleanora eased and let herself be drawn into the quarrel between Laena and Laenor. She reached for her wine again until she felt eyes on her, burning as they trailed down her lowered eyelids, across her cheek, down her nose, settling on her lips before moving back down her chest and shoulders. It moved like the cool sea wind from the windows at her left, save that this burned along the right side of her face.

She continued to stare down into her cup as she brought it back up to her lips, knowing better than to lift her gaze immediately. She finished taking a sip, following the cup as she set it back down before finally looking up to meet Baelor’s gaze, which was still fixed on her. He met her eyes and held them. Most men betrayed themselves in the first breath, with a glance lowered too quickly or a hand corrected against a cup. Baelor gave her no such courtesy. Aeleanora held his gaze and let amusement sit where any other feeling might have shown. The same expression she had worn a dozen times tonight already. Easy and faintly amused.

“Have you decided yet,” he said, voice even, “whether Dragonstone still suits you, or if you’ve outgrown it?”

Aeleanora's brow lifted slightly at that, the corner of her mouth curving just enough to suggest amusement without confirming it. "Dragonstone will always suit me," she said, simple and matter-of-fact.

Baelor exhaled softly, something in his posture changing with it. "It seems to suit you differently now," he said, quieter than before. Not quite a challenge, not quite approval. "I wasn't certain it would." Concern showed in the slight tension of his brow and the way his attention stayed on her face. 

Aeleanora tilted her head slightly, studying him. "You were concerned?" she asked, the faintest trace of amusement threading through her tone.

"Some things return more easily than others," he said. Aeleanora hummed softly at that, almost thoughtful.

"Yes, they do," she said. "That's usually the idea." Her eyes still held his, "Isn't it?" she followed, tilting her head the other way.

His gaze sharpened, studying her as though he was testing the shape of her words against the version of her he remembered.

"You look unconvinced," she said lightly. Baelor's jaw shifted once, subtly.

"I think," he said, measured, "you look tired."

Aeleanora let out a quiet breath through her nose, her fingers adjusting minutely against the stem of her cup to steady herself. "Do I?" she asked, tone still light but thinner now. "I hadn't noticed."

Baelor's gaze lingered, held hard enough to make restraint visible. Like he was choosing, very deliberately, where not to look. It almost seemed to tighten for a moment before it gave once more.

Baelor's eyes flickered downward, almost imperceptibly, to her throat and collarbone, the line of red where the dress began. It snapped back to her eyes so quickly it might have been imagined. Aeleanora stilled. It was no courtier’s stare, reaching and pleased with itself. That would have been simple. This kept the old familiarity and put something hotter beneath it, close enough to unsettle every safe thing she remembered about him.

She felt the snake in her chest begin to coil again, like it was rearing up its tail to begin rattling at her, a signal to run the other direction or be struck. Neither of them spoke at first. Aeleanora became aware of the small distance between his hand and his cup, and of her own fingers tightening around the stem of hers.

"You should rest," he said quietly, after a beat. "Dragonstone has not changed, but returning to it might be more taxing than expected."

"I am quite all right," she offered, softer. 

For half a breath, his face gentled. His brow eased first, then the severe line of his mouth, and the change made him look almost unbearably familiar. Then his jaw set, and whatever had come near the surface was gone. She narrowed her eyes and searched his face, moving from the blue eye to the brown. He took that as an opportunity to look away. Aeleanora’s fingers tightened once around the stem of her cup. For a moment, she didn’t move or breathe, then she exhaled slowly through her nose, lifted her chin, and turned her attention back to the table with practised ease.

The conversation had continued without them. Jacaerys was halfway through yet another story, gesturing too broadly, Laenor interrupting him loudly with something that earned a sharp look from Laena and a quiet, cutting remark from Mysaria. She touched the cool metal cup to her lips and forced her hand to remain steady. This was another one of the moments for her where she was suddenly thankful for the exhausting hours she had spent training her hands to remain steady no matter what.

Baelor did not look at her again. Not once. That, more than anything else, irritated her. Irritation had always been a bad servant. It multiplied when fed. Tonight, she clung to it. Other than heat, irritation was the only feeling in her body she could put her hands around. 

When the last of the food was cleared, Rhaenys rose first. "That will do," she said lightly, though the tone carried finality. "Before this turns into something less dignified."

“Too late,” Jacaerys muttered into his cup, tipping it towards Laenor before he drank, earning a laugh from Laena. The rest of the table followed Rhaenys's lead, gradual and unforced. Aeleanora stood with them, the motion smooth, controlled, her composure fully reassembled. She offered the expected courtesies with clean precision.

Aeleanora inclined her head to Rhaenys and Corlys, precise and respectful. They returned the courtesy. "My Princess," Rhaenys said, her tone warm.

Jacaerys did not bother with restraint. He stepped in too close, as he always had, pressing a quick kiss to her temple before she could fully turn her head away from it. "Do not disappear again," he said under his breath, the words light, but not entirely a joke.

Aeleanora huffed softly, the sound almost fond. "I've only just arrived."

"Good," he said, pulling back, satisfied with that answer. "Try not to terrify the court on your first morning back," he added.

Before Aeleanora could respond, Laenor had jumped in from beside Jacaerys, clapping his hand on Jacaerys's shoulder. “I missed her antics,” Laenor said. “I have been waiting to see how she terrifies the court next.”

Aeleanora and Laena glanced at each other and laughed. They bid the two boys and the remainder of the room a good night. Laena reached for Aeleanora and drew her into a warm and familiar embrace. "Rest," Laena murmured against her temple. "You'll need it."

Aeleanora exhaled softly, allowing it for a fraction longer than she normally would before pulling it back. "Walk carefully," Aeleanora returned with a smirk, a little louder.

Laena smiled at that, that perfect mix of softness and amusement settling behind her eyes. It was the look that Aeleanora always secretly sought from her closest friend.

"I always do," she returned, stepping back and crossing to Rhaenys, where she slipped in place easily beside her. The two of them fell into a quiet conversation as they moved towards the doors. The rest followed in a slower unravelling, their voices fading into the corridor.

Aeleanora did not move immediately. Her eyes followed her hand as it adjusted the fall of her short sleeve and smoothed down her dress. She took a breath before straightening her spine, folding both hands behind her back, and turning to leave. Baelor stood a short distance away, headed towards the door. His posture remained composed, though something in him had gone still. He inclined his head as she drew near, the gesture measured.

"My Princess," he said.

"Baelor," she returned. He stepped aside, yielding the door. "You should rest," he said after a moment, his voice even but softer than it had been at the table. "The castle will not keep a gentler pace for you in the morning."

Her gaze flickered over him briefly, assessing before returning to his face. "I wouldn't ask it to." Something in his expression shifted to a faint, almost smile that didn't fully form.

"No," he said. "I suppose you wouldn't." Another brief pause. "Goodnight, Princess."

"Goodnight," Aeleanora offered with a soft smile. It lingered for a fraction of a second before she inclined her head once, clean and final, and stepped past him. Ser Roric fell into place at her side the moment she crossed the threshold. Behind her, Baelor remained where he was. He waited until she had taken several steps into the corridor before turning in the opposite direction.

The door to her chambers closed behind her with a quiet, final weight. The solar held its shape around her, warm and inviting. The candlelight burned a bit lower and steadier than it had been earlier in the evening, no longer competing with voices or movement. The fire in the hearth had been banked to a low, constant glow, its heat pressed gently into the stone. Everything was where it should be.

She stood with her hands folded behind her back until the habit of being watched loosened. Her shoulders eased first, then her fingers loosened where they had been laced together, separating without urgency. She stepped forward, and the space unfolded around her in layers she knew too well. The sitting area opened before her, with the dressing chamber beyond and the bed waiting out of sight behind the carved wall of stone.

For a brief, misplaced second, she expected noise: low voices, movement, the rustle of bodies settling into borrowed spaces, girls snickering quietly while someone else shushed them. Nothing came, and the room gave her nothing back. Aeleanora crossed into the dressing space, reaching absently for the clasp at her throat before she fully registered the motion. Her fingers paused there, resting lightly against the dark metal. A knock, soft and familiar, came at the door to her rooms.

She did not turn. "Come."

Briony slipped inside without ceremony, closing the door behind her with practised care. She had aged, of course. Fine lines had gathered at her eyes, and she carried herself with the care of a woman whose joints had begun keeping accounts. The way she moved through the room had not changed. Her eyes flickered once over Aeleanora, quick and assessing, before softening.

“Well,” Briony said, moving toward her. “They have finally let you loose again, have they?”

Aeleanora smiled at that. "That implies I was ever contained."

Briony hummed under her breath, already reaching for the fastening at Aeleanora's collar. "Mm. Contained enough to be dressed like this, at least." Her fingers worked deftly, loosening the metal at her throat with careful precision.

Aeleanora exhaled as the pressure eased, subtle but not immediate. "There are no children left in the palace for you to terrorise," she said, tone light. "I'm surprised you've taken to dressing me instead."

Briony snorted softly. "And what do you think I'm doing now?" Aeleanora laughed at that, short and unguarded, unfamiliar in its lack of restraint. It settled her a bit.

Briony moved behind her, beginning on the laces at her back. "Hold still."

"I am still."

"You're thinking," Briony corrected. "It shows."

Aeleanora's brows pulled together slightly. "That would be unfortunate."

"It always has been," Briony said, tightening, then loosening the laces in a practised rhythm. "You used to get that same look before you did something I had to apologise for later."

Aeleanora's lips pressed together, faintly amused. "You never apologised."

"I did," Briony replied. "What do you think happens after you storm off to your rooms to pout and throw things?" That earned her another laugh.

The dress loosened in increments, structure giving way piece by piece. The tension along her ribs eased as the lacing fell slack, the weight of the garment shifting subtly against her frame. Aeleanora reached for her rings next, one by one, each removed with care and set aside in a deliberate line along the table. Each weight set down and accounted for.

Her thumb paused briefly at her mother's ring. She did not remove it. Behind her, Briony worked the final fastening free. "Arms," she ordered Aeleanora.

Aeleanora complied without looking, the fabric slipping from her shoulders as Briony guided it down. The air touched her skin differently without the structure in place. The dress pooled at her feet, and Briony stepped away to gather it, folding it with the same care it had been put on with.

Aeleanora reached up, drawing the pins from her hair. One, then another. Each loosened strand fell heavier than the last, settling against her back and shoulders in slow, uneven waves. She moved to the mirror without thinking, stopping just within its range. Her gaze flickered once across her own reflection before dropping instead to the surface of the table. Her fingers adjusted the line of rings again, though they had not shifted.

Briony moved quietly in the background, setting the folded dress aside, following Aeleanora’s habit of straightening things that did not need straightening. Once she was satisfied, Briony crossed to Aeleanora with a slip for her to change into, bade her goodnight, and left her alone again.

Aeleanora returned to padding around her chambers, just as she had before supper. The evening began to return to her in pieces. Jacaerys' voice, too loud, cutting across the table. The sweet sound of Laena's laughter threaded through it. Mysaria's perfectly timed, sharp little replies.

She had returned to twisting her mother's ring on her thumb as Baelor's measured and even voice had found its way into her thoughts. Aeleanora lifted her hand, brushing a loose strand of hair back from her shoulder. It fell forward again almost immediately. She thought again about corrected glances, the angle of a shoulder, the adjustment of a hand around a cup, and how much weight the space between words had carried that evening. The way his thumb had moved, small and unnecessary.

Aeleanora's fingers stilled against her ring. She turned it once, then stopped. She sighed as she ran a hand through her hair. She thought about the correction in his gaze again and the pause before he spoke. Her fingers resumed their movement, sharper now, the jagged edge of the ring pressing briefly into the side of her thumb before she loosened her grip again.

Think, she ordered herself. Concern had been there. So had relief. Neither explained the correction in his gaze, the pause before he spoke, or the way he had looked away first. Annoying, she thought. Her jaw tightened slightly. Aeleanora turned and crossed slowly towards the open archway of her chambers. The air changed as she moved, cooler near the terrace doors, warmer closer to the hearth.

She was painfully aware of the room’s uneven warmth, how the cooler air found every place the slip did not cover. Her steps slowed as she stopped near the edge of the room, her fingers hovering over her desk. She meant to reach for something, but the purpose vanished before her fingers touched the wood. Aeleanora frowned. There it was again, that sensation. She straightened instinctively, shoulders pulling back, chin lifting a fraction as though correcting posture alone might command it. It didn't. The pressure stayed low in her body, sulking where discipline could not reach it.

She set her jaw. Wine had never undone her after one supper. Dragonback had left her aching, sunburnt, half-starved, and still clearer than this. Her mind moved through each possibility and found no place to set the blame. Unacceptable, she thought. Aeleanora's fingers curled at her sides as she turned sharply, crossing back through the room with sharper purpose this time.

She returned to her bedchamber, took the silver brush from her vanity, and drew it through her hair while staring into the hearth. Just as she felt the repetition begin to calm her, the irritation sparked back up again. Her lips pressed into a thin line as she exhaled slowly through her nose. That awareness remained uncooperative, so she padded back over to the terrace, opening the doors but staying put in the threshold. 

With a soft drag of air, the night pressed in against the doorway. It slid over her skin, cooler than the room, cleaner. It moved through her hair, lifting a few strands from where they had settled against her shoulders. The air helped. The sensation quieted, and she took the mercy without trusting it. Her fingers pressed once against the stone, grounding before withdrawing.

Aeleanora turned away from the terrace with resolve this time, crossing back into her bedchamber without hesitation. The doors remained open behind her, and the night with it. She set the brush back down on her vanity exactly where it was before, adjusting the edge of the cloth beside it so it aligned with the grain of the wood. Her fingers moved next to the candles, extinguishing one, then another, reducing the room to a lower, more controlled light.

She pulled her hand back and rubbed thumb and forefinger together, smearing the soot between them. She smiled as she remembered the way that Briony used to scold her for snuffing candles with her fingers, but she had always been immune to flame and burn. Even after the better part of forty years in an immortal household, that was one of the things Briony could never quite adjust to.

Her slip was black, so she used it to clean the soot off her fingers as she moved to stand in front of the bed. Aeleanora paused there before moving to the side of the bed and slipping beneath the covers in one clean motion. She settled onto her back first, arms placed at her sides, eyes open and fixed on the darkened ceiling above.

She focused on counting her breaths, in and out, still trying to ignore that stupid warmth slithering through her veins. She flipped over to her side, stilled again, and waited for something to change. It didn't, and her jaw tightened at that. She exhaled through her nose, slower this time, forcing the breath to lengthen, to settle deeper, to press everything else down with it.

This time it worked, and she clung to it. Her shoulders eased into the mattress first, and after a while her hands unclenched beneath the coverlet. The awareness was still there, but she did not open her eyes again. It would settle. Everything did, eventually. 

The week did not break her open or leave any visible mark that could be pointed at across a council table and named. It altered the way she occupied her own body, and that was far more difficult for anyone else to catch. She rose at the same hour, sat through the same petitions, listened to the same tedious grievances about fences and fishing rights, and she gave the same answers with the same measured cadence that had already taught half the court to mistake her restraint for virtue. The difference crept in through moments that would have once been corrected before they fully formed. A lord droned on past the point of usefulness, and she let him finish, not out of patience but curiosity, watching the exact second his confidence curdled into desperation when she did not rescue him. A servant brushed close enough that the silk at her sleeve dragged along his wrist, and instead of stepping away, she noted the contact, the brief heat, the way her shoulders almost locked before she chose not to let them. It irritated her, how immediate her body was, how quickly it tried to decide for her, and she found herself lingering there out of spite more than indulgence. If she refused everything the instant it rose, she learned nothing about it, and the realization annoyed her enough to keep going.

In council, she let silence stretch until it became uncomfortable, until someone shifted, someone else cleared their throat, until the room itself leaned toward her like it expected to be corrected. She did not rush to give it what it wanted. She listened past the point of efficiency and watched what people did when they believed they had more space than they deserved. Most of them filled it badly. Some surprised her. She filed those away. The distinction sharpened quickly in her mind, the difference between denying an impulse and allowing it to exist long enough to understand its direction. It was a narrow space, but it was real, and once she noticed it, she could not unsee it. After a handful of days, it no longer felt like she was slipping. It felt closer to choosing where to place her hand on something that might bite, testing how far she could press before it did.

_____________________________________________________________________

She flew higher than she needed to; she always did. It was never for the distance, or the efficiency, or even for the visual vantage point. It was for the feeling of it. Dreamfyre rose without resistance, the long stretch of her body lengthening into the climb as the air thinned around them, each beat of her wings slower, heavier, as though the sky itself had thickened and she cut through it by will alone. Dragonstone dropped away beneath them in increments, stone turning to shape, shape to color, until it looked like something drawn rather than built. Up here, there were no voices to interrupt her thoughts. Only the wind, the sun, the clouds. 

The wind struck her throat hard enough to shorten her breath, sharp and cold where it met exposed skin, and her first instinct was to regulate it, to force it back into something even and presentable. She did not. She let the disruption run its course, felt the shallow inhale, the slight burn, the moment where her body tried to correct without permission, and she ignored it out of sheer stubbornness.

Her hands rested on the reins with a steadiness that came from long practice, the leather warm from Dreamfyre’s heat, the living strength of the dragon traveling up through her legs and into her spine. Aeleanora watched the muscle rolling beneath scale at Dreamfyre’s sides, the heat radiating upward through leather and bone, alive in a way that was impossible to ignore at this height, in this air, where there was nothing else to dilute it. It grounded her in a way nothing on land quite managed. The sun hung off to her left, bright enough that it edged her vision in white, and she angled toward it without thinking, because she had always preferred to fly toward something rather than circle like a hawk with nothing to claim.

Aeleanora exhaled, low and steady, her grip easing just slightly as she murmured, soft enough to be carried back into the wind rather than thrown into it.

“Lykirī.”

 Dreamfyre responded at once, wings adjusting just enough to take them into the cloud instead of tearing through it. Mist swallowed them whole, and the world narrowed to white. Cold damp closed over her in an instant, clinging to her lashes, her throat, slipping beneath the edges of her collar and into the seams of her gloves where the leather flexed around the reins. Sound dulled, distance vanished, and for a moment there was nothing but the steady rhythm beneath her hands and the fact of her own breath moving in her chest. Aeleanora tightened her fingers once on the reins, then loosened them again, forcing herself to stay in the moment instead of rushing through it.

“Naejot, Ēdrurzys,” she said softly.

Dreamfyre answered with a surge that broke them clean through the cloud’s upper edge. The sky opened wide above them, blue deepening with height, the sun unobstructed now, laying its heat across her shoulders. Below them, the clouds gathered in slow-moving masses, thick, rolling, impossibly soft in appearance, their surfaces rising and falling like something alive, like a second world laid out beneath her feet. They looked soft enough to fall into, which she knew was a lie. Everything up here was a lie if you looked at it long enough.

Aeleanora’s breath settled into something quieter, something deeper, her body easing into the rhythm of the glide as Dreamfyre leveled beneath her, wings stretching wide to catch the thinner currents of air. She had always preferred this height. Not for the isolation, though that was a part of it. Control lived in that space, in the absence of force, and she had spent years cultivating it to the point where it felt like a second spine. It was for the separation, the way the world became something she could look at instead of something she had to exist inside. The way everything below lost its immediacy. Its urgency, its constant demand for response. Up here, nothing reached unless she allowed it. Up here, she chose what mattered.

Her posture shifted with the dragon without thought, her spine aligning along the line of Dreamfyre’s neck, her knees easing, her hands steady on the reins without gripping. She did not need to hold on. Not like this. Control did not come from force. The wind at this height no longer struck her in erratic bursts; it moved in long, continuous streams that traced along her throat, her wrists, the edge where her collar had loosened during the climb. She felt all of it. Loved every moment of it. She did not dismiss it. She did not temper it. She let it linger. If only to prove that she could.

Dreamfyre dipped at a subtle cue, barely a movement, just a slight pull at the reins. Her wing skimmed the upper curve of a cloud, slicing through the soft mass with a muted resistance that tremored up through her body. Aeleanora felt it immediately, the change in texture, the drag, the answering correction of the dragon’s movement. Aeleanora couldn’t help her smile now. She guided the dragon lower by degrees, weaving through the cloud layer instead of remaining above it, moving in and out of shadow and light that broke across Dreamfyre’s scales in flashes of pale gold and blue and silver before slipping away again.

Movement below caught her eye, not because it was loud or obvious, but because it did not belong to the slow drift of cloud or the steady line of the sea. Something darker cut through the open air, a shape that carried weight even at this distance. She tracked it without adjusting her course at first, letting her gaze sharpen, picking out the pattern of wingbeats that arrived with measured force rather than speed. The outline resolved into something vast and unmistakable. Vermithor.

Even from above, his presence read as heavy, each movement completing itself before the next began, as if time had learned to move around him instead of through him. He had to have had at least a millennium of age on Dreamfyre. It sat in the span of him. He flew slow and steady, similar to how Vhagar carries herself. Aeleanora’s fingers tightened on the reins, just enough for the leather to press back against her gloves, and she stilled them again when she noticed it. Control, she reminded herself, as though the word could settle her body back into obedience. She was a few miles above and behind him, out of sight, and she watched.

She watched, letting her eyes adjust, sharpen, drawing closer without moving, watching him through the breaks in the clouds. She peered down to see if Vermithor had just returned from a hunt or if his rider was with him. It took a moment longer to see the rider. Baelor sat at the center of that vast movement as though he had always belonged there, his posture aligned with the dragon’s without visible effort, his hands steady on the reins in a way that suggested nothing beneath him required correction. Aeleanora’s gaze lingered longer than it needed to.

He would not see her unless she allowed it. The thought came quietly, without urgency, which made it worse. She could turn away. Continue forward. Pretend this had been nothing more than observation. That had been her habit for years. She had built half her reputation on it. Her fingers tightened again on the reins and did not release immediately this time. Dreamfyre felt it at once, the subtle change in pressure, the difference between holding and deciding, and her body responded with a slight coiling readiness that Aeleanora felt like a second pulse. The dragon’s body drew in slightly beneath her as though something long and familiar had finally been returned.

Aeleanora considered the opportunity she had in front of her again. Her gaze flicked once more to Baelor below, and something in her did not coil away from the curiosity that was pushing its way up to the surface. It leaned into it, interested. Her mouth curved again, slower this time, something softer at the edge of it, something that might have been amusement if it were not threaded so cleanly with the warm bite of satisfaction. Her grip tightened on the reins again, pulling them a bit more taut to gather Dreamfyre’s attention fully into her hands. The dragon was already waiting. Aeleanora did not look away from the sky below as she spoke, her voice almost quiet enough to be lost ot the wind if Dreamfyre did not already know to listen for it.

“Ēdrurzys, tubī jemagon? “ Shall we have some fun? Aeleanora offered her dragon. Dreamfyre’s response was immediate and unmistakable. She knew exactly what to do. A low, pleased sound rolled through her chest, deeper this time, warmer, something almost indulgent in it, and she dipped slightly, gathering movement, a coil of muscle and intent that shifted her entire body beneath Aeleanora’s readiness. Not for flight. Not for movement. For deviation. Something that was not required. Aeleanora felt it like a second pulse beneath her own, that shared awareness tightening and brightening all at once, the quiet, steady control she had held for so long no longer something rigid and fixed but something she could bend. Not break, just…bend.

Her breath came a little deeper with it, her fingers tightening fully now around the reins with purpose and decision, the leather creaking softly beneath the pressure as she leaned forward just enough to bring her body into alignment with what she was about to do. Below them, Vermithor continued on, vast and unbothered. Baelor remained unaware. For now.

Aeleanora did not hesitate. Not anymore. She leaned forward, aligning her body with what she was about to do, and then she let Dreamfyre go. The dragon’s long body tightened beneath her, a bow drawn back to its limit before release, wings angling, folding just slightly as the glide broke into something sharper, and then they dropped. They did not descend. They fell. The sky tilted hard beneath her as Dreamfyre drove downward in a steep, cutting dive. The sun slipped from her shoulders, and the clouds rushed up to meet them in a blur of white and gold. The wind tore past her all at once, louder now, harsher, pressing against her throat, her mouth as her breath caught from the sheer force and speed of it. Her body had to keep up or be left behind.

Her fingers locked around the reins, not to restrain but to stay with the movement, to keep herself aligned as the distance between them and Vermithor collapsed. Aeleanora laughed. It broke out of her before she could catch it, sharp and breathless, carried immediately back by the wind, swallowed up by the speed of their descent as clouds rushed up and then through. They tore straight through the layer this time, the cloud layer shattered around them in a burst of cold damp that struck her face and vanished as they broke through.Vermithor was now close enough that she could see the individual span of his wings, the deep bronze of his scales catching the fractured light, the slow, massive beat of him mid-stroke as he continued forward, completely unaware. Until he wasn’t. 

Dreamfyre dropped beneath him at the last possible instant, her body folding and driving through the pocket of air under Vermithor’s wings, the force slamming up through Aeleanora’s spine hard enough to knock breath from her chest. The world narrowed to heat and pressure and the violent rush of displaced wind as they carved under his vast span, so close she could feel the drag of him against her skin, the air thick with it, alive in a way that made her pulse jump sharp and bright.

Vermithor roared. It hit like thunder, deep enough to rattle through her bones even as they passed beneath him, the sound bursting through the air just as Dreamfyre snapped upward again, her wings flaring wide, catching the current in a brutal, powerful climb that dragged them back up along his side, up, and past him. Close enough now that there was no mistaking the flash of pale blue and the sudden, deliberate intrusion. Baelor would see her. He had to. Aeleanora did not look away. She could have, she should have, and instead she kept her gaze fixed, wind clawing her hair loose, breath coming uneven and fast in a way she chose not to fix because it felt too good, too immediate, too much like something she had been denying herself on purpose.

Dreamfyre rolled out of his reach before he could correct, smaller body cutting a tighter path through the air as she pulled them away, not retreating, not fleeing, but widening the space like she was daring him to notice it. Dreamfyre let out a high-pitched trill that rang through Aeleanora’s bones, high and pleased, and her mouth broke into a grin she did not bother to hide, her body settling into the rhythm of it instead of resisting. Aeleanora was grinning now, fully, openly, the expression breaking across her face without restraint as she leaned into the motion, her body moving with the dragon instead of against her. The reins stayed firm in her hands, but she no longer forced them into obedience; she moved with them, let the tension live instead of strangling it.

This is what she had been denying. Not chaos. Not loss of control. But this. The sharp, electric edge of it, the awareness of her own body, her own choice, the way the world responded when she allowed herself to act instead of refuse. Bright and vicious and a little disbelieving, as if she had just found something she had hidden from herself and now had the audacity to enjoy it. Behind them, Vermithor surged, slower but enormous, the air around him bending under the weight of his movement as he answered the provocation. Not chasing in earnest, no, he would never give her that satisfaction, but answering enough to say he had seen her. Dreamfyre answered with another sharp dip and rise, a flash of blue and silver through the broken light, always just out of reach, and Aeleanora laughed again, softer this time, but no less real, the sound pulled from her without permission and left there, uncorrected. Aeleanora glanced back, not to measure distance, not to calculate, but simply to see him and confirm it, the fact of him, the fact that she had made him respond.

She expected it to end there, a moment acknowledged and then dismissed, Baelor choosing restraint as he always did, folding the disruption back into order. A reaction, perhaps the roar, Vermithor’s irritation made sound, and then a return to that same, steady, unbothered line he had been holding before she had cut through it; as though the disruption would be acknowledged and then dismissed, as though Baelor would simply choose not to engage. That was the version of him she knew, the one that refused escalation simply because it existed. Her grin lingered anyway, stubborn and bright, the laughter still caught somewhere in her chest as Dreamfyre carried them forward into a clean, rising arc, her wings cutting smooth and fast through the open air, already pulling them back toward the cloud line, already leaving it behind.

And then the air behind her thickened. It pressed differently, heavier, a presence that did not move with the wind but displaced it, and she felt it before she turned, felt it in the way Dreamfyre adjusted beneath her, spine tightening, wings flicking as she recalculated the space around them. Aeleanora turned properly this time, shoulder opening, line of sight clear, and saw him.

Vermithor turned through the sky with the slow authority of a mountain deciding to move. His massive body carved a wide arc toward them, each wingbeat driving a deep pulse through the air, bronze wings forcing the clouds to shudder apart in his wake. Aeleanora’s mouth fell open around her smile when Baelor let the turn happen. He kept his seat, hands steady on the reins, shoulders settling with the dragon’s chosen line. He had taken her bait. Oh, that was appalling of him. She adored it immediately.

Even from that height, she could see the change in him. Baelor had gone with the turn, seat deepened in the saddle, body aligned with Vermithor’s pursuit, hands firm enough to guide and loose enough to allow. Engaged. Her laugh broke sharper this time, pulled thin by the wind as her brows lifted. They were answering her. Dreamfyre felt it too, the pleased trill rising through her chest and vibrating up through Aeleanora’s legs until her whole body seemed to ring with it.

“Oh,” Aeleanora breathed, and the word vanished into the wind as her grin widened, disbelief threaded through it now. They were answering. Dreamfyre felt it the same instant she did. The dragon’s response came in a delighted, rising trill that vibrated through Aeleanora’s entire body. Her wings snapped tighter into rhythm, her speed rising with a delighted impatience that needed no command. Aeleanora leaned with her, hands firm on the reins, guiding instead of restraining while Vermithor’s presence thickened the air behind them. He was slower, heavier, ancient enough to make the sky feel crowded, and he was coming. Actually coming after her. A laugh tore out of her again, bright and half-disbelieving, and she glanced back over her shoulder with the giddy horror of a girl who had knocked over a shrine and found the god inside laughing.

Her eyes flicked back again, quick this time, sharp with it, tracking the distance closing. Vermithor bore down with offended grandeur, bronze hide flashing through cloud-light, and Baelor remained fixed at his center. He drove nothing wildly, urged nothing past sense, and yet he refused to stop the pursuit. He had chosen to answer. The realization slid beneath her ribs, sharp and hot, feeding the exhilaration already burning there.

“That is very unlike you,” she called into the wind, though he could never hear it from there. Dreamfyre dipped eagerly beneath her, angling for the next turn as if the dragon herself had taken offense on Aeleanora’s behalf and meant to make a spectacle of it. Vermithor surged again, each wingbeat refusing to let the moment die. Aeleanora felt the answer in the air before she looked back, the pressure behind her growing stronger, the rhythm of his wings driving harder through the thinning distance. The race should have remained hers to shape, with him acknowledging her insolence from a dignified distance like the insufferably measured man he was. Instead, the distance narrowed. Her grip shifted on the reins, more deliberately now, more precise, her body leaning forward again as she guided Dreamfyre into another sharp, weaving climb, not escaping, not fleeing, but leading and drawing him out further. Vermithor rose on a current with brutal strength, his wings lifting him higher and faster than his bulk had any right to manage. Dreamfyre answered before Aeleanora touched the reins, body tightening beneath her, wings cutting into sharper angles as she accepted the challenge.

Her pulse beat hard and fast, her breath uneven and completely uncorrected now, laughter still lingering at the edges of it as she glanced back once more, just long enough to meet the line of it again, to confirm that yes, he was still there. Still coming. Still playing. 

“Oh, you,” Aeleanora laughed, the sound brightening into open challenge as she bent closer to Dreamfyre’s neck. Her grip adjusted with purpose, and she guided them into a steeper climb across Vermithor’s line, forcing him to choose again. Follow, or let the little silver terror have the field. He followed. Vermithor cut after them with the inevitability of a falling tower, slower through the turn and terrifying in the certainty of it, the air shuddering as he closed space through force instead of speed. Aeleanora’s pulse kicked hard against her ribs, and she gave Dreamfyre her answer.

“Gōntan,” she murmured, as she angled them forward through the reins. And Dreamfyre flew. Her long body stretched into a powerful line, blue and silver cleaving the air with a speed Vermithor could never match, and the distance opened again in a fierce, satisfying pull. The chase became a race. Aeleanora had no need to look back; she felt him behind her, ancient pressure pursuing through the sky, answering her insolence with his own. Dragonstone rose ahead, stone and grass and black cliffs sharpening as the world rushed up to meet them.

Her breath came faster as she guided Dreamfyre lower, choosing the greens instead of the pit. Another choice, another deviation, another little crime committed in broad daylight against the dignity of princes. Dreamfyre angled down, descent fast and controlled, wings cutting tighter as the air thickened with salt, smoke, and trampled grass. Vermithor followed. He yielded no landing and broke no pursuit. Aeleanora’s mouth curved with wicked satisfaction as Dreamfyre folded into the final drop, wings snapping once, twice, before her claws struck the ground in a controlled impact that sent a tremor through Aeleanora’s legs when she dismounted a heartbeat later.

She stayed where she was. Vermithor landed harder, the weight of him rolling through the greens and stirring the grass around her boots. Baelor dismounted with infuriating composure, grounded and arranged as though he had spent the last few minutes reviewing grain ledgers instead of chasing her through the clouds. The space between them thrummed with speed, dragon heat, and the fresh absurdity of him having answered. Aeleanora’s smile sharpened as she lifted her chin, hair wind-torn around her face, breathing still uneven and gloriously uncorrected.

“You were faster than I expected,” she called to Baelor, voice lighter than it had ever been with him, something unmistakably teasing threading through it. “But still not fast enough.” She gave him no time to answer and turned to Dreamfyre, because delight deserved proper devotion. The smile was still there, still alive, and she had turned from him to redirect the energy of her happiness back toward the source of it. 

“Ēdrurzys, ñuha ānogar—tubī jemis… skoros ao naejot iksis?” Dreamfyre, my blood — you did beautifully…who could match you? She called out again, her voice carrying across the greens, pitched just enough to be heard. Dreamfyre answered immediately, her head lowered with a soft, pleased rumble that rolled through the ground as much as the air, something warm and deeply satisfied in the sound as she leaned into Aeleanora’s approach, great neck curving, wings settling with a slow, deliberate fold. 

Dreamfyre lowered her head with a pleased rumble that traveled through the ground, her great neck curving toward Aeleanora as her wings folded with queenly satisfaction. Aeleanora stepped into her space and pressed one hand flat against the warm scales of her neck, fingers sliding over the living heat still humming from the flight. “You felt that,” she whispered, forehead brushing Dreamfyre’s jaw. “I know you did.”

Dreamfyre’s answering sound was lower, deeper, almost indulgent, her head angling just slightly to follow the contact, to keep it, as though she, too, was reluctant to let the moment settle. Aeleanora laughed under her breath, quieter this time but no less real, her hand lingering another beat as she raised her voice again before she pulled back just enough to turn towards Baelor. “Yes, yes, I know,” she said. “You were magnificent. Entirely perfect. Faster than that ancient bronze brute and far better tempered.” She couldn’t tell if she heard Vermithor give a low, offended sound at that from behind her or if it was just said ancient bronze brute setting back into himself. 

Aeleanora’s grin sharpened with pure, irresponsible joy. She stood before Baelor again with the sky still on her, cheeks bright from wind, hair escaping its pins, eyes clear in a way they had refused to be for days. “You let him take that personally,” she said, glancing past him toward Vermithor before returning her eyes to Baelor’s. “I thought you had more control over your household.”

Baelor looked at her for a long moment, his expression composed enough that it almost passed for sternness, if not for the one corner of his mouth that ruined it.“My household,” he said, very evenly, “was flying in a straight line before yours dropped out of the sun like an assassination attempt.”

Aeleanora barked out a laugh at that, an actual laugh, delighted enough that the sound widened her smile before she could sharpen it into anything clever. She could not believe that those words actually came from his mouth. “Oh, that is unfair,” she said. “If I’d meant to assassinate you, you would not still be standing there looking disapproving.”

“That is not as reassuring as you seem to think.”

“It wasn’t meant to be.”

His eyes narrowed by a fraction, discipline pulling itself back into place with miserable effort. “You nearly gave Vermithor cause to tear Dreamfyre in half.”

“No, I gave him cause to remember he is old,” she corrected lightly. “There is a difference.” Behind him, Vermithor huffed again, a sound like a furnace resenting the existence of younger fire, and Aeleanora’s grin sharpened as she tipped her head toward him with open vindication. “You see?” she asked. “He knows I’m right.”

Baelor’s gaze flicked once toward his dragon, then back to her. “He knows you are provoking him.”

“Yes,” she said at once, as though that were obvious and perfectly reasonable. “That was the point.” That nearly got him. She saw it happen. His mouth betrayed him, one brief pull at the corner before he pressed it flat again, and Aeleanora lit up as though she had seen a comet fall directly into her lap. “Oh no,” she said, stepping half a pace closer, laughter still threaded through every word. “Don’t do that now. You were much more interesting in the sky.”

Baelor’s brow lifted. “Interesting.”

“Yes,” she said, as if she were being generous enough to explain it to him. “Animated. Responsive. Positively impulsive.” Her eyes flicked over his face, unhurried and entirely too pleased. “I had no idea you were capable of it.”

“I was responding to a threat.”

“Mm,” she nodded, pretending to weigh that with grave scholarly rigor.. “And yet, at no point did you actually stop.”

“I was making sure you did not kill yourself for amusement.”

That made her laugh again, softer this time, the sound curling between them. “That still counts.”

“It does not.”

“It absolutely does.”

Baelor exhaled through his nose, and the almost-smile returned, small and tightly held, making him look like a man dragged into enjoyment against every oath he had ever sworn to dignity. She was so shocked at this. “You are impossible to argue with when you are pleased with yourself.” 

Aeleanora’s expression turned almost sweet, which made it far more dangerous. “That is because I am usually right when I am pleased with myself.”

“Usually,” he noted.

“Nearly always,” she corrected him.

“Dangerously often.”

She tilted her head the other way, “Thank you.”

“That was not praise.” He raised his brow at that, chin dipping slightly.

“No,” she agreed, eyes bright now, “but it was close enough that I am choosing to take it as such.” This time he laughed, brief and low, more breath than sound, but unmistakable. It changed his face by a cruel degree, enough life cutting through restraint to make her chest tighten around a feeling she had no intention of cataloguing. She recovered quickly by smiling harder. “As I said,” she murmured, lighter now, “very unlike you.”

Baelor held her gaze. “You say that as though you are disappointed.”

She shook her head. “Not disappointed.”

“What, then?”

The easy answer waited on her tongue, polished and useless. She could have turned it into a jest, wrapped it in arrogance, fed it to him with a bow. The wind still moved in her blood, though, and the laughter had left her reckless. Her mouth curved. “Surprised,” she said. Then, after the briefest pause, her mouth curved again. “And encouraged.” That landed exactly where it was meant to.

Baelor’s gaze sharpened, though the amusement had not entirely left it. “That sounds very much like a warning.”

“It is,” she said cheerfully.

“For me.”

“For both of you,” she corrected, glancing toward Vermithor again. “Now that I know you’ll answer.”

Baelor shook his head once, slow and almost disbelieving, though the smile remained, slight and controlled. “There will not be a next time.”

Aeleanora’s brows lifted. “You say that now.”

“I am saying it very clearly.”

“And I am hearing you very politely.”

“That is not the same thing.”

“No,” she said, and there was laughter in it again, open and warm, and impossible to mistake now. “It rarely is.”

The laughter in her voice warmed the space between them, and Aeleanora felt the flight’s wildness gather beneath her ribs instead of burning away, in the bright, quick beat of her pulse, in the faint instability beneath her boots that had not quite finished resolving into solid ground. For one brief, suspended moment, none of them moved. Dreamfyre stood behind her like a banked flame, vast and pleased and watchful, while Vermithor loomed behind Baelor in all his ancient, offended, grandeur, bronze hide catching late light in dull, embered flashes through the irritation still smoldering in him. The greens still trembled faintly from their landings. Aeleanora kept her eyes on Baelor’s face, on the stubborn trace of amusement at his mouth, on the way restraint returned to him by degrees and failed to erase the man beneath it. She would remember that laugh later with entirely too much clarity, which was irritting, inconvenient, and therefore guaranteed.

Behind them, Dreamfyre gave a low, satisfied hum and lowered herself more fully into the grass, folding one wing with a slow, proprietary care that seemed to say she had won not only the race, but the right to keep the mood of it. Vermithor answered with a rough exhale through his nose, heat ghosting from between his teeth, a final grumble from an old beast whose pride had survived worse than a blue-and-silver ambush. The light lengthened over the greens, laying bronze along Baelor’s jaw and the broad line of his frame. The day kept moving around them, dreadful creature that it was, dragging duties and stone corridors and waiting eyes closer by the moment. Aeleanora tipped her chin, small and almost courtly, spark still bright in the gesture.

“Try not to let him brood himself into a worse temper,” she said, her gaze flicking once toward Vermithor before returning to Baelor. “I should hate to think I’ve damaged his pride beyond repair.”

Baelor’s eyes followed hers briefly, then settled back on her face. “His pride will recover,” he said. A pause. “I am less certain about yours.”

That made her smile again, slower this time. “Mine is doing exceptionally well, thank you.”

“Yes,” he said, dryly. “I had noticed.”

She dipped her head as though accepting tribute, and for once the gesture came easily instead of arriving polished and empty. It felt easy. “Good,” she said. “Then the lesson was not wasted on you.” Before he could answer, she turned, leaving the moment at its brightest instead of pulling it thin. Her hand slid along Dreamfyre’s neck as she passed, and the dragon lifted her head to follow. Aeleanora took three measured steps through the grass before looking back over her shoulder.

He was still watching her. The knowledge sank beneath the fading rush of flight and lodged somewhere quieter, a little lower than was convenient. She left it alone. For once, she spared it the knife. Her mouth curved, small and private, impossible to suppress. Then she turned away with Dreamfyre at her back and the warmth of the sky still alive beneath her skin.

________________________________________________________________________________

Over the next week, she kept making small allowances. No one would have known where to look for them, which pleased her more than it should have. She left pauses unfilled, let servants approach without flinching, let conversations breathe long enough to show their teeth. She still kept the spine of every exchange in her hand. She simply stopped strangling every loose thread the instant it appeared. By the time the days narrowed toward Jacaerys’ nameday celebration, she had finished treating this new lenience as an experiment. She had begun using it.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆

The castle had begun to change the pace in which it moved. t crept in at first, a banner where there had been bare stone, a second horse tied where there had been one, voices carrying farther through the arches until the air itself felt crowded. The old rhythms accommodated, bending outwards to admit this surge of movement and energy. It started in the outer wards, the first harbingers arriving with little warning. Messengers. Minor stewards. Then, a steady trickle of banners. 

More riders passed through the gates. Servants moved with greater urgency, their paths more direct, their hands fuller. The outer yards filled gradually. Horses were brought in, inspected, walked, settled, then unsettled again as more arrived. They came shod in gold, in lacquered black, in the grey of the north, and their riders drew eyes by pedigree and the calculated confidence in which they entered the space.

It lacked the stiffness of court entirely. It carried teeth instead. Jacaerys had refused the stillness of a hall, the predictability of a ball. There would be no endless line of petitioners, no rigid seating chart, no hours lost to the tedium of precedence and polite insult. Jacaerys chose a hunt and built everything around it. Not a half-day ride and return, but a test to outlast the sun, to draw the boldest and the best away from castle walls and into the wild. He wanted distance, competition, display. A hunt that would stretch across days rather than hours, drawing in houses not simply to attend, but to participate. It was celebration, yes, but it was a different kind of performance. Strength was shown, loyalties were counted, names were remembered.

The castle responded as if it had been hungry for it. Laughter grew louder in the halls, echoing up the stone. The kitchens seethed with something more like pride than desperation. The air thickened with heat, smoke, and the kind of anticipation that made people stand closer than they need to.

Aeleanora stopped summoning every detail to her and instead placed herself where she would be seen. They approached her without being called. It wasn’t because she became approachable; she never had been, and didn’t plan on becoming approachable any time soon. She simply stopped cutting people off before they finished speaking. There was still structure, still expectation, and no one mistook her silence for permission. When she felt the urge to close a conversation early, she let it run long enough to see what fell out of it. Just long enough to catch the hesitation. Some stepped forward; others hovered at the edge and retreated. She noticed both. Those moments told her more than any report. It wasn’t in solitude. People revealed themselves when they thought she was listening instead of steering. She still chose when to cut in, but now she watched the moment pass as often as she seized it.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆

He announced himself without a word. Aeleanora was mid-conversation when it happened. A minor exchange, inconsequential on its surface. The lord spoke about hounds and terrain while she let him talk past the point of usefulness. She half-listened, letting him ramble until she could gracefully end it. Then, the lord faltered. His cadence slipped half a beat, enough to betray that something had pulled his attention elsewhere. Aeleanora did not need to turn. A servant veered around an empty space, two riders lowered their voices mid-sentence. The yard adjusted around a single moving point, and that was enough.

She let the lord finish, let him reach the end of his rambling without interruption, without offering him the correction he expected her to provide when he lost his footing. When he was done, she dismissed him with a response so clean it left no room for recovery, no invitation to continue. She moved past the conversation instead of turning toward it. She stepped clear of the lord and into open ground. Her eyes tracked the movement and found him. Aerion.

Aerion had not paused since entering through the iron-bound gates. He moved through the yard as though it had already made room for him. His eyes moved constantly, taking in doors, people, exits, without settling anywhere for long. A man spoke to him, but he did not stop. Another fell into step at his shoulder, dismissed with nothing more than a glance that was not unkind, but final, sharp as Valyrian steel. He stopped close enough that anyone watching would assume the space belonged to him. Familiarity sat in him like habit, and he used it without asking.

“There you are,” he said, his tone casual.

“Like I was misplaced?” Aeleanora replied, raising an eyebrow.

“Only briefly,” he countered, a smirk tugging at his lips. “You have a habit of disappearing when things get…inconvenient.” 

Aeleanora held his gaze evenly, the silence stretching just long enough to make it clear she would not follow him into it without choosing to.

“And you,” she returned, “have a habit of mistaking persistence for authority.” 

Aerion’s eyes flickered in interest. “If that were true,” he said, stepping closer without invitation, “you wouldn’t have chosen me.” The tourney sat between them, whether either of them named it or not. He set it there as leverage. She fought the urge to roll her eyes. Aeleanora didn’t react outwardly, which, more than anything, forced him to look harder.

“I didn’t choose you,” she said, calm and precise. “I made a public decision.”

Aerion exhaled, amusement threading through his demeanor. “Yes,” he said. “You did.” The silence stretched long enough to demand an answer. “Mine,” he asserted, the claim unmistakable. He said it outright. No attempt to soften it. She tipped her head just enough to study him properly. The movement was small, almost thoughtful.

“You are confusing visibility with victory.”

His smile deepened. “Am I?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice calm but unwavering. She didn’t raise her voice or step back. Instead, her posture grounded, making the space between them feel more defined. “You made yourself useful,” she continued. “That is not the same as being wanted.” His jaw tightened a fraction. A hint that he felt it. Good. With a deliberate movement, Aerion leaned closer, testing her boundaries. 

“And yet,” he murmured, “you still placed your favor in my hand.”

Aeleanora did not yield an inch. “Yes,” she acknowledged, adding weight to the moment. A pause hung delicately in the air. “I did.” She let that sit too, then “and you are still trying to decide what it meant.”

His focus narrowedon her, interest snapping into something more focused, more dangerous now that he realized she wasn’t going to let him define it first. “I know what it meant,” he said.

“No,” she countered lightly. “You know what you want it to mean.” Aerion studied her now, recalibrating his approach in real time, no longer assuming, no longer pressing blindly. 

“Something is different,” he said.

Aeleanora didn’t give him anything for that. “Am I?”

“Yes.”

His eyes narrowed. “And you’re not denying it.”

“I’m not explaining it to you,” she replied, keeping her tone steady.

His almost laugh came unexpectedly, sharp and brief. “Good,” he said. “I’d be disappointed if you started.” The edge in him shifted from dominance to interest. He pushed again, testing. He stepped back a fraction, enough to release the immediate pressure. “For what it’s worth,” he added, almost casually, “I wasn’t wrong.”

Aeleanora’s brows lifted slightly. “That remains to be seen.”

“You need someone to hold what you don’t.” He returned to it. The original argument. Placed right there between them. Aeleanora did not flinch. 

“And you decided that was you,” she noted.

“I know that it is,” he answered, conviction ringing in his voice.

Her smile returned, slower, sharper, threaded with something that had nothing to do with amusement. “Then I suppose,” she said, “you’ll spend the weekend trying to prove it.”

Aerion met that without hesitation. “Yes, and you’ll spend it pretending you don’t want me to.” He edged too close to presumption. Not crude or careless, but very close to it. Aeleanora didn’t snap, and didn’t shut him down. She simply held his gaze, long enough to make the answer matter.

“Careful,” she said, quietly. “Confidence is only attractive when it survives contact.” The statement landed, and for a brief moment, he faltered, then smiled again, something more genuine surfacing beneath it.

“Good,” he said. “Then don’t make it easy.” He stepped past her then, close enough to brush the edge of her space again, deliberate but controlled. Aeleanora didn’t turn immediately, but her smile sharpened as she watched him walk away. This would not be a quiet weekend.

_____________________________________________________________

The feast tent roared by the time she stepped inside. Laughter rose in uneven bursts, cups already half-emptied, voices overlapping in loose clusters instead of ordered ranks. Lords who would have stood stiff-backed in court leaned into one another here, sleeves rolled, hands gestured wider than necessary. The air carried roasted meat, spiced wine, trampled grass, and something sharper beneath it. Men spoke louder than necessary, each one aware of who watched. Aeleanora did not need to announce herself; it happened the moment she stepped inside. Subtle, sliding, heads turning a fraction too late to pretend they hadn’t. Voices dipped, then resumed.

She did not match what they had prepared themselves to see. No fancy silks, no boned corset squeezing the life out of her, forcing her to keep a distance. Instead, she glided in dark riding leathers, clinging snugly to her every curve. The leathers fit close enough to move with her, not against her. The glossy black material glistened in the dim firelight, tracing the contours of her legs and hips with subtle flashes, interrupted only by the tight-laced, soft leather corset hugging her waist, shaping her figure without confining it. A deep wine-colored blouse added a touch of softness, its fabric billowing at the sleeves and cinched at the wrists to allow seamless motion. The dagger was once again strapped to her thigh. It belonged to neither court nor camp entirely. Her hair was elegantly pulled back, not severely styled but rather artfully woven and pinned to keep it away from her face, allowing some tendrils to cascade in an artful mess around her jawline and high cheekbones, catching the light as she moved. If they mistook it for openness, she would decide what to do with that. Risk made it interesting.

Each step she took produced a soft creak from the well-worn leather of her boots, a sound that seemed almost like a reassuring heartbeat in the silence around her. Laena stood not far from the central tables, already leaning against one with a cup in hand, dressed much the same, leathers, though lighter, her presence as unapologetic as ever. She noticed Aeleanora immediately, her grin widening with open approval. Laena pushed off the table as Aeleanora approached, her gaze traveling with deliberate slowness over the change in Aeleanora’s appearance.

“Well,” she drawled, wine cup dangling between her fingers. “You’ve decided to become interesting.”

Aeleanora’s mouth curved, slow and unbothered. “I was always interesting,” she replied, voice smooth as silk. “You’ve simply been inattentive.” Laena barked out a laugh, pleased, the sound filling the space between them. Without hesitation, Aeleanora accepted the cup Laena extended toward her, not bothering to inquire about its contents. She took a measured sip, letting her gaze drift across the tent’s interior, studying the shadows and silhouettes with quiet assessment. 

Across the tent, Aerion had noticed her, his attention sharpening the moment the space shifted around her, the moment the room bent just slightly in her direction without her forcing it to. This was not the same Aeleanora he had cornered in the yard. This Aeleanora was even looser, and somehow harder to contain because of it. She gave less away and invited more guesses. He approached anyway. He always would.

“Interesting choice,” he said, moving closer to her without invitation, his gaze dragging over her in a way that was not subtle, not polite, and not entirely controlled. Aeleanora did not look at him immediately. She took a sip first, then turned. 

“You’ve been staring since I walked in,” she said. “If you have something to say, say it properly.” That landed sharper than anything polite.

Aerion’s lips curved into a half-smile, a hint of challenge in his response. “Properly?” he repeated. “You walked into a room full of men dressed like that, and you want proper?”

Her gaze dropped, brief, intentional, then back up. “You’re still looking,” she said. “That sounds like your problem.”

Aerion let out a short breath, almost a laugh, but tighter. “Careful,” he said, stepping closer. “You’re drawing attention you won’t enjoy,” he warned in a low voice. A small smile played on Aeleanora’s lips, her features sharpening. She stepped into the space, closing the distance he’d taken just like she was correcting his mistake.

“From who?” she asked softly, head tilting, “you?”

He didn’t step back. “From anyone who thinks this is an invitation,” he said, voice dropping lower.

Her smile changed, smaller, a harder edge threaded through it. “Then they can try,” she shot back with cool determination.

His eyes narrowed briefly, interest sharpening into something with teeth. “You’re playing a dangerous game,” he said.

Aeleanora’s response was swift, unwavering, her eyes meeting his with a dangerous clarity. “A game?” she echoed, her voice as soft as silk wrapped around a blade. A measured intent settled into her posture. She tilted her head slightly, studying him with new interest, as if discovering an unexpected flaw in a familiar painting. “No,” she said, each word deliberate, stripped of any previous boredom. “You’re just not used to being the one setting the rules.” Aerion’s expression flickered again, the kind of adjustment that only happened when something hit closer than expected. His gaze dragged over her again, slower now, no longer claiming but calculating.

“You’ve changed them,” he said, an accusation wrapped in wonder.

Aeleanora let out the faintest breath of a laugh, barely there. “I stopped following them,” she corrected, lips curving slightly. A beat passed between them, tight as a bowstring. Like something being pulled to its limit, threatening to snap. When Aerion stepped closer this time, every movement was deliberate, nothing careless in his approach.

“You think that makes you harder to handle,” he said, voice low to a rumble that hung in the private space between them. Aeleanora didn’t retreat, didn’t yield a single inch of ground. Her eyes remained steady on his, unflinching.

“If I needed handling,” she replied, matching his quiet intensity, “you wouldn’t be guessing.” His jaw twitched again, the small muscle there betraying what his practiced composure wouldn’t.

“And yet,” he murmured, leaning in just slightly, “you still put your favor in my hand.” He was never going to let that go. The words carried the weight of something he wouldn’t release, couldn’t forget. Good. Aeleanora let her eyes flick to his mouth for half a second, intentional as a piece on board, precise, then back up, meeting his gaze again.

“Yes,” she said, simply, offering nothing more. He waited in the silence she created, and she let him linger there. “And you’re still trying to decide whether you earned it,” she added finally, her tone almost thoughtful, as if considering a puzzle.

Aerion exhaled through his nose, a colder intent weaved into the amusement now. “I don’t need to decide,” he said, words clipped. “I know what it meant.” 

Aeleanora stepped closer, not enough to touch, but enough to force him to manage the narrowed space between them. “No,” she said, voice softer while carrying a new danger in its quietness. “You know what you want it to mean.” Their eyes locked, that familiar tension snapping right into place. Older than this moment, older than the wedding, a current built from over a decade of Aerion pushing and Aeleanora refusing to yield.

“You always do this,” he said, voice dropping further, tinged with frustration. “Twist it just enough that you don’t have to answer.”

Aeleanora’s mouth curved into something that was not quite a smile. “Answer what?” she asked, wrapping false innocence around the question like a veil.

A shadowed intent presented itself in his eyes, pupils dilating a bit. “Whether you meant it.” She fought the urge to smirk at that, savoring the knowledge of how deeply he hated his own need for her answer. She held his gaze, deliberately extending the moment until it seemed she might finally relent.

“I meant exactly what I chose to mean,” she said at last, each word clean, controlled, and utterly useless to him. Perfect. Aerion let out a breath, half frustration, a darker pull coming from deeper inside of him. His eyes didn’t leave her face, but they weren’t still anymore. They were tracking the line of her jaw, the curve of her mouth, the place where her pulse sat just beneath her throat. Measuring something he hadn’t needed to measure before. 

“You enjoy this too much,” he said finally, voice stripped of its earlier ease. 

Aeleanora didn’t answer immediately, letting the silence stretch again, like a living thing, her gaze holding his while her fingers adjusted slightly at her side, the leather of her glove creaking faintly with the deliberate movement.

“Yes,” she said, finally, simple and unapologetic. His expression tightened, a flash of surprise he couldn’t quite conceal. Her smile widened. “You don’t,” she added, softer. She lifted her chin slightly, a subtle challenge in the tilt of her head. Aerion’s brow dipped and his mouth pulled.

“Don’t what,” he dared.

“Enjoy not knowing,” she said. His nostrils flared slightly as he pulled a slow breath, leaning in just enough that the space between them narrowed to a distance that would have forced anyone else to retreat. She didn’t.

“You think this is about knowing,” he murmured. There was something else in it, though, less polished, less practiced. “It’s not.”

Aeleanora tilted her head, studying him again with renewed focus, as if peeling away the layers. “Then what is it about?” she asked. She actually let him answer, and she felt that shift the scale again. 

Aerion held her gaze for a heartbeat too long. “You,” he said, placing the word between them, letting it settle like an offering. Or a claim. Aeleanora didn’t look away. Sharp interest darkened her heavy-lidded eyes. She stepped even closer to Aerion; the line between them was no longer space, it was a choice. 

“That’s vague,” she noted, her voice barely above a whisper.

Aerion’s hand moved, stopped just short of her waist, not touching. Not yet. “Is it?” he murmured, gaze dropping to her lips for the briefest moment. Aeleanora’s eyes flicked to where his hand hovered, and she dragged them slowly back up to his, looking at him through her lashes.

“If that’s all you have,” she said, voice low and silken with warning, “you’re going to spend the entire weekend failing.” His hand shifted closer, fingers brushing the edge of the leather at her waist before stopping again, like he was testing the line instead of crossing it.

“You think I don’t know how to win you,” he said. Not a question. Aeleanora’s smile came back, slower now. Sharper. Borderline wicked. 

“I think,” she said, leaning in just enough that her voice didn’t have to carry at all, “you’ve convinced yourself you already have.” For a fraction of a second, he didn’t have a response, and she saw it again in his face, that he hadn’t expected her to say that out loud again. She let her smile widen at that. “Careful,” she added, voice almost light but edge like a knife. “You were just starting to sound certain.”

His eyes narrowed, focus tightening further into a calculated pace. “You are not as unaffected as you think,” he said, voice dropping an octave. 

Aeleanora neither confirmed nor denied it. Instead, she stepped just past him, her shoulder sliding against his chest with just deliberate pressure, enough to make him feel it, to force him to adjust his stance while hers remained unbroken.

“If I wasn’t affected,” she said over her shoulder, voice lighter now but no less controlled, “this wouldn’t nearly be as entertaining.” She took two measured steps forward and stopped, turning to look at him again, eyes brighter now, alive in a way they weren’t before but no less dangerous. “But don’t mistake that,” she added, lips curving, “for you having anything to do with it.”

For a moment after her last words, he didn’t follow. He watched. That was new. Aeleanora felt it anyway, the weight of his attention tracking her even as she turned away, even as the noise of the tent swallowed the moment whole again. Good. Let him. She didn’t slow as she reentered the crowd, didn’t fold back into anything quieter or more contained. If anything, she leaned further into it.

“AELEANORA—!” Jacaerys’ voice cut across the tent before she even reached the tables, loud, bright, already halfway into laughter. He was standing on a bench, cup in hand, boots planted like he intended to fall and simply hadn’t yet. “Archery line—now,” he called, pointing with the cup. “Before Laena cheats again.”

“I don’t cheat,” Laena snapped immediately, already moving. “You’re just a poor archer.”

“You moved the target!”

“I improved the challenge.”

Aeleanora didn’t bother listening to the rest. She was already moving, following Laena and Jacaerys. When they arrived, the archery line had been set up rough, no ceremony, no perfect spacing. Targets were hammered into the ground at uneven distances, some closer, some deliberately set farther back where the ground dipped slightly. Men clustered around it, arguing, laughing, placing wagers that no one would remember later. A bow was thrust toward her from somewhere in the cluster before she even reached the front. Aeleanora caught it in one hand without breaking stride, the wood settling into her palm like something familiar, something expected.

“Try not to embarrass yourself in front of the realm,” Jacaerys called to her, nearly spilling his drink as he shoved past someone to grab his own bow. Aeleanora didn’t look at him. 

“I would be more concerned for you,” she replied smoothly, testing the string with a sharp pull, the tension singing faintly beneath her fingers. “You’ve already started poorly.”

Laena snorted beside her, already selecting arrows with quick, efficient movements. “He always does,” she said, nudging Aeleanora’s arm with her elbow. “Give him time. He’ll find a way to blame the wind.”

“There is wind,” Jacaerys shot back, squinting at the targets as though that alone proved his point. 

“There isn’t,” Daeron said flatly from behind them, folding his arms, thoroughly unimpressed. “You’re just inconsistent.”

Jacaerys turned on him immediately. “You missed twice this morning.”

“That was deliberate,” Daeron replied.

“That was humiliating.”

“It was strategy.”

Aeleanora’s mouth curved faintly, she didn’t engage. She had already dismissed the conversation behind her. She stepped into place, boots pressing into uneven ground, adjusting automatically for the slight dip in the earth beneath her left foot. No bracer, she didn’t care, pain was temporary. Her shoulders rolled once, loosening, The noise blurred at the edges until only the target mattered. She lifted the bow. Drew. Held—

“A little high.” Aerion’s voice came from just behind her right shoulder. Aeleanora didn’t flinch, didn’t turn, didn’t acknowledge him at all. Her fingers tightened on the string. She ignored his voice and adjusted her grip by instinct. Release. The arrow struck just off-center. Close, close enough that a murmur moved through the small crowd, low and impressed.

Laena grinned, sharp and approving, “Better.”

“Not good enough,” Aerion said immediately. Aeleanora lowered the bow slowly, deliberately, only then turning her head just enough to glance at him over her shoulder.

“Then you should do better,” she said. His mouth curved, challenging. He stepped forward into her space without asking, brushing past her shoulder just enough to feel intentional, to displace her by a fraction. She let him. That was new too. He took position where she had been standing. He didn’t test the ground. He didn’t adjust. He just drew. The line of his body straightened into it, shoulders locking into place, jaw tightening slightly as he sighted down the arrow. He released, and the arrow drove into the inner ring, closer than hers. Closer than hers. There was a sharper reaction this time, a few low whistles. 

Jacaerys groaned loudly. “Oh, for fucks—he’s insufferable when he does that.”

“He’s insufferable when he breathes,” Laena corrected. 

Aerion turned to look at Aeleanora, like the shot had been for her alone. “You’re rushing the release,” he said, not mocking. Worse, certain. Aeleanora tilted her head slightly, studying the arrow, then him, her expression unreadable for a beat too long. She stepped forward again, through his space now, close enough that her shoulder brushed his chest with enough force to knock him back a step without apology.

“You’re overconfident,” she replied, voice low enough that it didn’t carry beyond him. She didn’t wait for his response, she took another arrow. Set it. Drew again, but this time, she let the tension build, let it sit in her shoulders, her arm, her breath, feeling it instead of correcting it away. Her fingers held, a beat longer, two, and the world sharpened. She released and struck dead center. For a fraction of a second, nothing happened. Then the reaction hit. A sharp intake from somewhere to her left. Laena’s hand smacked hard against the table of arrows with a bark of laughter, loud and victorious. Jacaerys actually choked on his drink mid-swallow, coughing as he pointed at the target like it had personally offended him.

“Oh, fuck off—” he wheezed, half laughing, half-indignant. “No, absolutely, not again.” 

Daeron didn’t laugh. That was how she knew it mattered. He leaned forward instead, arms unfolding slowly, eyes narrowing slightly as he looked from the target back to her. His mouth twitched once at the corner, The corner of his mouth lifted without warmth. 

“Again,” he said, quieter. 

Aeleanora didn’t turn to them. She lowered the bow with controlled ease, her chest rising once, slow, steady. The string had kissed the inside of her forearm on release, she could already feel the faint sting blooming there, but she didn’t look at it, didn’t acknowledge it. Her gaze shifted instead to Aerion. He did not react like the others. No laughter, no noise, no immediate retort. Just stillness. His eyes were locked on the target, not her, but not distantly either. Focused, sharp, like something had just snapped into place in his mind that he hadn’t been prepared for. Slowly, his gaze moved back to her, dragging over the line of her posture, her shoulders, the set of her hands still loosely around the bow. Aeleanora tilted her head slightly, just enough to catch his eye fully now. 

“Was that centered enough for you?” she asked, voice smooth, almost idle. Aerion exhaled once through his nose, slow. His tongue pressed briefly against the inside of his cheek, like he was holding back something sharper, something more immediate. When he stepped forward this time, it wasn’t careless, and it wasn’t to displace her. He stopped just inside her space again, close enough that the heat of him cut through the open air between them, then whatever he’d been about to say stalled somewhere behind his teeth. His eyes flicked once, past her, to the target, center, then back to her. Something in his expression tightened, not quite anger but sharper than irritation. Maybe it was the realization that this was no longer a conversation he could win by pressing harder. Good. Aeleanora held his gaze for exactly one beat longer, then turned away. The dismissal was clean and intentional, and she stepped out of his space like it had never held her at all.

“Again,” Daeron said from behind them, quieter but carrying more weight now. That got movement. Aeleanora didn’t reach for another arrow immediately. Instead, she rolled her wrist once, loosening her grip, then tossed the bow straight toward Jacaerys, who fumbled it. 

“Oh, come on,” he snapped, catching it against his chest with a scowl. “You don’t just—throw weapons—”

“You asked to win something,” she said, already stepping back. “Start there.”

Aerion didn’t move from the line yet, his fingers flexed once at his side, like he was deciding whether to follow her or stay where he still had ground. He stayed. Good choice. Bad instinct.

“Move,” he said, not looking at anyone in particular. No one argued. The space cleared in front of him almost immediately, the loose crowd shifting back with the same subtle awareness that followed him everywhere. He took another arrow. This time, he did adjust his stance, just slightly. It was small, barely noticeable, but Aeleanora saw it from where she’d stepped back into the loose circle beside Laena. 

“Oh,” Laena murmured under her breath, grinning into her cup. “You got into his head.” 

Aeleanora didn’t answer; she didn’t need to. Aerion drew, held for longer this time, correcting, thinking. Too much. When he released, the arrow struck clean in the inner ring. Close, but not center. The reaction was immediate, not impressed this time. Not really.

Jacaerys barked out a laugh. “Oh, that’s tragic.” Aeleanora exhaled softly through her nose, something almost like a laugh caught there. She did not look back at the target again. She didn’t need to. Behind her, Aerion moved toward the line. He took another arrow, but there was a difference now, subtle and unmistakable. His shoulders were tighter, his jaw set a fraction harder, the easy certainty stripped down into something more deliberate. He drew again, slower, more measured, correcting in small increments that only someone watching for would notice. Aeleanora did. He hit the inner ring again, and the silence that followed was shorter, thinner, and less impressed.

Jacaerys made a face like he’d tasted something sour. “Gods, you’re getting worse.”

“I’m getting consistent,” Aerion said, though his tone lacked its earlier ease.

“That’s worse,” Laena cut in immediately. “Consistency without improvement is just failure with discipline.”

Aeleanora snorted at that, turning away fully now, letting the archery line fall behind her like it had already finished serving its purpose. It had.

“Enough,” Jacaerys declared abruptly, tossing the bow back onto the table with a careless clatter that made two nearby men flinch. “Archery is dull. I’m bored. Someone do something worth watching.”

“Translation,” Laena said, already stepping away from the line, “he’s losing.” Aeleanora barked out a laugh at that this time.

“I am not losing,” Jacaerys snapped, grabbing a fresh cup from somewhere and sloshing half of it onto his sleeve in the process. “I am choosing to move on.”

“To something you might actually win?” Daeron asked.

Jacaerys pointed at him. “You are ALL insufferable today.” The energy broke cleanly then, snapping out of its narrow focus and spilling outward into something louder, looser, more dangerous. Aeleanora felt it course through her like wildfire, catching in dry brush, racing from her fingertips up her arms and into her chest. The sharp edge of concentration that held her bow steady now dissolved into something warmer, faster, less contained. A flush painted her cheeks and made her blood sing in her veins. She didn’t resist it. She didn’t try to smooth her smile or lower her chin or pull herself back into anything composed or distant. She let it take her, let the victory light her from within.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆

By the time the sun had dipped lower and the light had begun to turn gold at the edges, the gathering had moved beyond anything that resembled a structured celebration. The feast tent had spilled outward into the open grass, tables dragged, benches overturned or repurposed, cups abandoned wherever hands had decided they no longer needed them. Someone had started music, badly, loudly, and no one had asked them to stop. Valarr and Matarys had arrived in the middle of it, already laughing at something that had clearly started elsewhere, their entrance folding seamlessly into the chaos. Valarr didn’t so much as arrive as collide with the edge of the group, knocking a cup clean out of someone’s hand as he shouldered his way through, already laughing about something that had clearly started elsewhere. He didn’t apologize, he didn’t even look back.

“Why is he still upright?” he demanded, jerking his chin toward Jacaerys, who was still balanced precariously on the table like a poorly made decision. “Someone fix that.”

“I’m hosting,” Jacaerys shot back, affronted, clutching his cup like that gave him authority. “You don’t get to fix me.”

“That sounds like a challenge,” Matarys added, sliding in right behind Valarr and immediately reaching for the nearest unattended drink like it had been set there for him personally. He took a sip, made a face, and kept drinking anyway. His eyes flicked to Aeleanora mid-swallow, and he paused. Matarys’ eyes flicked sideways mid-swallow, catching Aeleanora just as she stepped back into the open space, the movement of her easy, uncontained in a way that still hadn’t settled into anything predictable. He paused for a moment. “…Oh, that’s new,” he said, lowering the cup slowly, his gaze dragging over her again, more deliberate, more interested. “When did you start—”

Aeleanora cut in, “Are you here to ruin my fun again?” The line landed clean, silencing whatever Matarys had been about to say. Valarr froze mid-step, his laughter cooling into something more controlled as his eyes found her. His gaze swept over her once—quick, assessing, not claiming like Aerion’s had—taking in her leathers, her easy stance, the way she owned the ground beneath her feet. Something flickered across his face: recognition, then interest.

“Depends,” he said, slower now, the words dragging slightly as he recalibrated, his voice dropping half a note into something more deliberate. “Are you about to give me a reason?”

Aeleanora’s mouth curved immediately, the edge of it sharper, not amused. “I usually don’t need to,” she said, tilting her head just slightly as she looked at him, the movement loose, unbothered. “You tend to take care of that on your own.”

Matarys snorted into his drink, nearly choking on it. “That’s not wrong.” 

Valarr didn’t look away from her, but the corner of his mouth pulled slowly and reluctantly, like he was trying not to give her the satisfaction and failing anyway. The tension in his shoulders eased by a fraction, something warmer slipping back into place beneath the earlier assessment.

“Careful,” he said, quieter now, though the warning didn’t carry any real weight behind it. “Now that we know where you are, it’s our turn.”

Aeleanora’s brow lifted slightly. “Your turn for what?”

“To fix the mistake,” he said simply.

She narrowed her eyes at him, already suspicious. “That sounds like something I don’t agree to.”

“It wasn’t an agreement,” Matarys cut in, grinning broadly now, fully recovered and far too pleased with himself. He stepped closer, gesturing vaguely between Valarr and Jacaerys, as this had already been decided hours ago. “You vanished at the wedding before we could do it properly.”

“Do what properly,” she asked, though there was a note of laughter sitting just under it now. Valarr finally broke eye contact, glancing past her toward the chaos behind her, Jacerys still on the table, Laena already shouting at someone, Daeron grabbing a second cup mid-tipping his head back to finish his first cup. Then back to her.

“Get you drunk, of course,” Valarr said, raising an eyebrow. Aeleanora let out a short breath of a laugh, genuine this time, her shoulders loosening further as she shifted her weight onto one hip. “And,” he added, almost as an afterthought, “this time we don’t have to worry about you getting dragged off halfway through it.”

Aeleanora’s smile sharpened again, brightening, something quick and alive flickering behind it. “That sounds less like concern,” she said, “and more like poor planning.”

Matarys laughed again, louder this time. “No, no—this is excellent planning,” he said, already reaching for another drink and shoving it into her hand without asking. “You’re staying exactly where we can see you.”

Laena leaned in from the side, knocking her shoulder into Aeleanora’s with deliberate force. “You’re not escaping this time,” she added, grinning. Aeleanora looked down at the cup now in her hand, then back up at Valarr, one brow lifting again. 

“You’re very confident,” she said. Valarr’s expression didn’t shift much, but there was something in his eyes now, familiar, steady, and just a little bit challenging.

“Not confident, he said. “Prepared.” 

Aeleanora took a sip, slow, then smiled over the rim of the cup. “Then try not to fall behind,” she said.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆

The night spilled into a slow, inevitable collapse of anything that had once resembled structure. The tables had drifted first, dragged out into the grass in uneven lines, then abandoned entirely when no one felt like sitting. Benches overturned, repurposed, kicked aside. Cups left wherever hands forgot them, which was everywhere. The torches burned too bright, or maybe her eyes just weren’t adjusting fast enough anymore. Light smeared at the edges when she turned her head too quickly, gold and orange dragging into streaks before snapping back into shape. Shadows jumped wrong, faces came into focus too late. 

Someone shouted, someone laughed louder. Something shattered, ceramic, maybe wood, and the reaction wasn’t concerned, just a roar of approval from somewhere to her left. Aeleanora felt it in her chest before she understood it. The sharp, rising swell of this is good, this is too much, this is perfect. She laughed and laughed, did not know why, and did not need to.

“NO—no, that doesn’t count—”

“It absolutely counts—”

“I improved my footing—”

“No, you—”

“Drink.”

“I’m not—”

“Drink.”

“I will not—”

“DON’T—” He went over anyway. Jacaerys hit the grass with a thud that knocked the breath out of him and half the wine out of his cup. For a split second, he just lay there, staring up at the sky like he’d lost the argument with gravity itself. Then he started laughing. Hard. Full-bodied, helpless, curling in on himself like it hurt. “YOU—” he wheezed, pointing blindly at Valarr without actually looking at him, “—you planned that—”

“I absolutely did,” Valarr shot back, already reaching down to haul him up by the front of his shirt, not even pretending otherwise. “And I’ll do it again if you keep talking.”

“You won’t—” He shoved him again, not hard, but enough for Jacaerys to stumble sideways into Matarys, who did go down this time, dragging two other people with him in the process. 

Someone cheered, and someone shouted, “AGAIN.”

Aeleanora felt a hand slam into her shoulder. Laena, of course. “Your turn,” she said, already shoving a cup into her hand like it was a weapon.

“For what—”

“Don’t ask,” Laena cut her off, her grin was feral. “Just drink.” Aeleanora didn’t argue or think, she tipped the cup back too fast. The rum burned sharper this time, hotter, aching in her throat before she swallowed it down, coughing once under her breath as the heat spread outward, immediate, overwhelming, settling deep into her chest and rising just as quickly to her head. Her vision tilted, not enough to lose it, but just enough to notice.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆

“Gods,” Matarys was saying from the ground, still laughing, hair half in his face, one arm flung across his eyes like he’d given up on the idea of standing entirely, “shes worse—shes definitely worse—”

“I told you,” Laena shot back, not even looking at him as she grabbed Aeleanora’s wrist again, dragging her sideways into another circle that had formed without her noticing.

“You didn’t tell me she’d enjoy it—”

“I didn’t know she would—”

“I always enjoy things,” Aeleanora cut in, and the words came out smoother than they should have, looser, her mouth curving like she was in on something no one else had caught up to yet. 

Laena barked out a laugh at that, pointing at her and her whole body tipping forward with the momentum of it.“Liar!”

“I am not—” Aeleanora started, already laughing again, the protest dissolving halfway through it as Laena shoved another cup into her hand, sloshing dark liquid all over her fingers.

“You hate everything,” Laena accused, eyes bright, teeth flashing.

“I hate boring things,” Aeleanora shot back, wiping her hand absently at her hip without looking, already lifting the cup again. “This is not—” she drank, too fast again, coughed once, swallowed the rest anyway, “—boring.”

“That’s because we fixed it,” Matarys called from somewhere below knee-level, still on the ground, one eye squinting open now as he propped himself up on an elbow. “You’re welcome.”

“You didn’t fix anything,” Daeron said, stepping cleanly over Matarys like he wasn’t here, not even glancing down, his balance untouched despite the uneven ground and the wine he’d clearly had. “You made it worse.”

“That’s the same thing,” Matarys argued, pointing vaguely upward, missing Daeron entirely. “Objectively.”

“It is not—”

“It is if it’s more fun.”

“It is not.”

“Drink if you’re wrong,” Valarr cut in, already shoving a cup into Daeron’s hand before he could finish the sentence. Daeron looked at it, then at him, unimpressed. Daeron stared at him, then, without breaking eye contact, drank. Valarr grinned like he’d just won something.

“You’re all idiots,” Daeron muttered, lowering the cup, but there was a flicker at the corner of his mouth now, something almost amused.

“Still drank,” Matarys sing-songed from the ground.

“Get up,” Aeleanora said, nudging him with her foot.

“No.”

“I will step on you.”

“You won’t—” She did. Not hard. Just enough. Matarys yelped, twisting away, grabbing at her ankle like he might drag her down with him, but she stepped back too quickly, laughing, her balance shifting wrong for a second before correcting, the world tilting then settling again in a way that made her grin widen instead of falter.

“Careful,” Valarr warned, reaching out without thinking, catching her wrist just briefly to steady her. His grip was firm, grounding, familiar in a way that cut clean through the blur for half a second. “You're leaning.”

“I’m not,” she started, then stopped, because she was slightly, her weight had tipped too far onto one side before she adjusted again, rolling her shoulders like that fixed it. “The ground is uneven.”

“The ground has been uneven all day,” he said.

“It’s more uneven now,” she replied, completely serious. That got him, he tipped his head back and laughed at that. 

“Right,” he said, releasing her wrist. “It’s definitely the ground.”

“Exactly.”

“Of course.” Valarr’s laughter lingered a second longer than it should have, head tipped back, throat exposed, the sound easy and unguarded in a way that only ever happened here, like this, when the world had narrowed down to just them and their cousins and whatever chaos they’d built for themselves. Aeleanora watched it for half a beat, the shape of it, the familiarity, the way it sat in her chest like something steady even as everything else blurred.

Then, someone collided into Valarr’s side hard enough to knock him off balance. Not an accident. Aerion. He didn’t apologize. Didn’t even look at him. Just caught himself on the edge of the table behind them, one hand braced, the other holding a cup he definitely hadn’t had a moment ago, wine sloshing over the rim and down his fingers.

“You’re in the way,” he said, like it was a fact, not insult.

Valarr blinked at him once, then laughed again, sharper this time. “You ran into me.”

“You didn’t move.”

“I wasn’t aware I was meant to anticipate you.”

“You should start,” Aerion said, already drinking, not waiting for the rest of it, his throat working as he tipped his head back. He swallowed too fast, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and then looked at Aeleanora. Not the same look as before, still sharp but looser now. Less calculated. Warmer at the edges in a way that had nothing to do with the kindness and everything to do with the wine sitting too deep in his system. “You’re still upright,” he said.

Aeleanora’s brow lifted slowly. “So are you.”

“Barely.”

“Disappointing.”

The corner of his mouth pulled, not quite a smile, something quicker. “Give it time.”

“I have,” she said, glancing at the cup in his hand, then back up, “you’re underperforming.”

Valarr made a noise at that, half-laugh, half-choke. “Oh, that’s cruel.”

“She’s right,” Matarys added from the ground again. She had no idea when he had sat down again. “You’ve had at least three more than me, and I’m thriving.”

“You’re horizontal,” Daeron said flatly.

“I’m conserving energy.”

“You’re avoiding gravity.”

“It’s aggressive tonight.”

“It is not.”

“It is—”

“Drink,” Laena cut across them again, already bored of the argument, already reaching for something else to throw into the mix. She shoved another cup at Aerion this time, not Aeleanora, her grin sharp. “If you’re going to interrupt, you participate.”

Aerion took it now without looking at hers, eyes still on Aeleanora. “Careful,” he said, voice lower now, though the edge of it had dulled. “You’re going to regret encouraging this.”

“I regret very little,” Aeleanora replied.

“That’s not true,” Daeron muttered. She ignored him.

“Drink,” Laena repeated. Aerion didn’t break eye contact when he did, just tipped the cup back and swallowed, slower this time, deliberate, like he was proving something that no one had actually asked for.

“Again,” Valarr said immediately.

“That wasn’t the rule.”

“It is now,” Valarr countered.

Aerion laughed then, short, real, there and gone again. Surprisingly enough, Aeleanora felt it before she thought about it. He drank again, too fast this time. Coughed once, sharp, then shot it off like it hadn’t happened, dragging his sleeve across his mouth and stepping closer into the circle without asking, without waiting. Closer to her. Something in Aeleanora’s chest answered it before she decided to, something restless and bright and slightly off-balance. Fun. This was still fun. 

“Alright,” Matarys said, finally rolling onto his side and pushing himself up just enough to be part of it again, his ginger hair a complete disaster, one eye still squinting. “New rule, no standing still. If you’re not moving, you drink.”

“That’s not a rule,” Daeron said.

“It is now. Drink.” Daeron drank. Valarr lost it. Laena shoved someone for no reason at all. Jacaerys tried to climb back onto the table and immediately slipped halfway up, swearing loudly as someone grabbed his boot and yanked him back down. Aeleanora laughed, breath catching halfway through it, the sound breaking apart as it came out, her head tilting back just slightly as the world tilted with it, the torches dragging streaks of gold across her vision before settling again. Too bright. Too loud. Perfect.

Someone bumped into her from behind, and she staggered forward half a step, attempted to catch herself, but a hand caught her instead. Aerion. “Careful,” he said, the same word but different. Aeleanora pulled her arm back like she didn’t need it.

“I’m fine,”

“Prove it.”

She blinked at him once, slowly. “What.”

“Prove it,” he repeated, gesturing vaguely toward the open space, behind him, where the grass had been trampled flat and uneven from too many bodies moving through it. “Stand.”

“I am standing.”

“Not well.”

“I am standing better than you.”

“Doubtful.”

“Try me.” 

Aerion’s mouth pulled again, something quick and amused, something that would have been easier to ignore if it wasn’t directed. “Alright,” he said. Then he moved around her, close enough that his shoulder brushed hers again, deliberate this time, not enough to knock her off balance, just enough to test it. She corrected immediately, too quickly. He saw it. “Mm,” he said, low.

She turned on him for that alone. “Don’t—”

“Don’t what.”

“Do that.”

“Do what? You’ll have to be more specific,” he smirked. “You’re leaning again.” 

“I—” She stopped. Because she was leaning slightly, her weight tipped wrong again as she turned too fast to keep up with him, her foot sliding half an inch in the grass before she caught it. Aerion saw it too, his eyes flicked down, then back up, something more awake flickering through his vision. 

“Careful,” he said, mocking now. 

Aeleanora stepped forward, too close, on purpose. “Stop saying that.”

“Make me.”

Aeleanora’s smile came back, slow and wrong in a way that had nothing to do with humor and everything to do with impulse. She would typically be annoyed by this, but she was too drunk to care. “Oh, that was a mistake.”

Aerion’s brow lifted, “Was it?”

“Yes.”

His smile didn’t widen, it sharpened, like he knew exactly what she meant and chose to step into it anyway. “Good,” he said. Then he moved again, straight into her space, close enough that she had to adjust or be moved, and she did adjust, automatically, her weight shifting back half a step as his shoulder clipped hers, enough to knock her balance loose again.

Aeleanora let out a breath that turned into a laugh before she could stop it. “You’re the worst.”

“You’re slow,” he cut in immediately, and there it was, clean, easy, their old childhood rhythm dropping back into place like it had never left. Her head snapped toward him, eyes narrowing, not sharp yet, not dangerous. Just familiar. 

“I am not slow.”

“You are tonight.”

“I will push you over.”

“You won’t.”

“I will—”

“Try.”

Aeleanora lunged, not graceful, not measured. Just enough to catch the edge of his sleeve, fingers closing around the fabric as she tried to shove him sideways into the loose circle of bodies behind them. He moved with it, not resisting, letting the momentum carry him half a step before twisting out of her grip, laughing under his breath as he caught her wrist and pulled, just enough to throw her off balance again.

“You’re worse than you were this morning,” he said.

“You’re just noticing that now?” She twisted out of his hold, quick, the movement instinctive, familiar, from a dozen variations of the same fight when they were younger. Courtyards, training yards, hallways where they weren’t supposed to be running. It wasn’t even conscious, it just was.

Laena whooped somewhere behind them. “Oh, here we go—” Aeleanora didn’t look at her.

“Come on then,” Aerion said, lifting one hand in a loose, taunting gesture. “Prove it.” She didn’t think, she stepped in again, faster this time, aiming for his shoulder, her hand catching the front of his tunic as she tried to turn him, and that was when he moved first. His hand dropped, fast, and before she even registered the motion, there was a sharp, clean shift at her thigh. Leather sliding, pressure gone. Aeleanora froze for half a second, then her head snapped down. Her dagger was gone. Aerion was already stepping back, turning just enough to put distance between them, the blade loose in his hand, angled downward, casual. Her dagger. From her thigh. She stared at him for a moment, blinked, and then she laughed. Full, bright, surprised out of her.

“You did NOT—”

“I did,” he said, already moving backward another step, grin cutting sharp across his face now, eyes bright in a way that had nothing to do with control and everything to do with this.

“You—” She stepped toward him, he stepped back, still watching her, still smiling. “You’re a thief!”

“You’re slow.”

“I will kill you.”

“You’ll have to catch me,” and then he turned, just enough to make it a chase. Aeleanora didn’t hesitate, she went after him immediately. Boots slipping slightly in the grass as she pushed off too fast, laughter breaking out of her again as she closed the distance, her hand catching the back of his sleeve this time. He twisted, and she held on, and for a few seconds it was nothing but movement and noise and the sharp, bright rush of it, bodies colliding and separating, slipping in and out of each other’s reach, neither of them fully trying to win yet. Just playing, exactly how they used to.

“Give it back.”

“Come take it—”

“Coward!”

“Short,” he returned, holding the dagger above his head. She shoved him again, harder this time, catching him off balance just enough that he stumbled half a step, he caught himself, turned, and grabbed her wrist again, pulling her forward instead of away this time, dragging her into him a second before she twisted, trying to wrench herself free.

“Let go.”

“No.”

“I said—”

“Make me.” Their feet tangled, they both went sideways, not quite falling but close enough that it turned into something messier, closer, their shoulders knocking, her hand still trying to get at the dagger, his grip tightening just enough to keep it out of reach. Someone shouted something behind them. Someone cheered, Laena was definitely yelling, Matarys returned to the ground, and Valarr was laughing like this was the best thing he’d seen all night. It was easy, just this, the same stupid, familiar fight they’d had a hundred times before, scaled up and louder and a little too fast because of the wine, but still wholly the same. 

Aeleanora twisted again, harder this time, her free hand bracing against his shoulder, laughing, breath breaking, body loose and unguarded, her palm flat against his shoulder as she tries to shove and twist free, but he doesn’t let her go immediately. His grip shifts, bettering his hold on her, his hand sliding from her wrist to her forearm, catching higher this time, controlling the turn instead of reaching to it, pulling her with him instead of letting her slip away.

“Too slow,” he murmured, just under his breath.

She scoffed, breathless, still grinning. “You’re cheating—”

“I’m winning!”

“You stole it—”

“You left it—”

“It was attached to me.”

“Poorly.” She shoved him again, harder, this time aiming properly, catching him square in the chest. He rocks back a full step, actually off balance now, and she lunges immediately for the dagger. She almost had it, her fingers brushing the hilt, but he jerked it back just in time.

“Oh, you—” she growled at him. She went back for him again, faster, sharper, and he’s laughing properly now, head tipping back for half a second as he pivots away, turning it into motion instead of resistance, dragging her with him when she catches his sleeve again, their momentum carrying them sideways through the grass. They collide with someone, Valarr maybe, who swears and stumbles back out of the way, laughing, hands up like he’s not getting involved.

“Finish it!” Valarr called, voice bright with it. Laena shouted something that might be encouragement or might be instructions to make it worse. Matarys was definitely on the ground again. Aeleanora was still laughing. Her hair came loose somewhere along the way, strands sticking to her face, her neck, her mouth as she exhaled too hard, too fast, the word tilting just slightly every time she turns her head too quickly. She didn’t care, she didn’t slow, she didn’t think. She just moved, again. Again, and again. Her hand caught his sleeve, her other reaching for the dagger, her body turning into his this time instead of away, trying to force him off balance, and he let her. Just for half a second, just enough that she thought she had the dagger, and then he moved in. His arm hooked around her waist, quick and instinctive. Familiar in the way that comes from years of the same stupid, physical games where winning meant control. He turned with her, using her momentum instead of fighting it, pulling her off-center, her feet slipping in the grass as the world tilts harder this time. With his arm still around her, his other hand lifted the dagger just out of reach again, his body angled behind hers now instead of in front, their movement slowing just slightly as the game shifted from a chase to a hold.

“Got you,” he says, low, still laughing, breath uneven against her shoulder. Aeleanora twisted immediately, still cackling, still fighting like she always did.

“Let go—”

“No—”

“Aerion!”

“Make me—”

Her hand caught his wrist, fingers digging in as she tried to pull it down, to break the hold, to get the dagger back, but he adjusted again, slightly, his grip tightening hard enough, not intentionally rough, but she couldn’t slip free on the first try. That was new. She twisted again, harder, her shoulder jerking, her hips turning, trying to break the line of his hold the way she always had, but the wine is in her blood, in her balance, in the fraction of a second shes slower than she should be, and he’s faster. Still laughing, still playing, but not letting go.

“Aerion—” it comes out wrong this time, thinner. He didn’t hear it or register it. His focus was still on the game, on keeping her there, on winning the moment instead of ending it. 

“Too slow,” he breathes, the words velvet-soft against her neck but hammering through her. They should be familiar, this tease, this coaxing cadence, but they snap something rigid inside her instead, something dark and less ancient than she wishes. Her lungs seize, filling too shallow, too quick, her ribs clamping down like a trap. She forces a laugh, twists away, chasing the rhythm, but it skids off, misshapen. His arm stays locked around her waist—steady, unmoving, insistently claiming. Not violent, yet utterly inescapable.

Heat shot through her chest too fast to follow. Her fingers curl around his wrist, claws digging in, hunting a release. His grip shifts, just the tiniest correction, barely a move, and it detonates through her, colder than wine, older than memory. The revelry around them warps: laughter trembles into shrill echoes, shouts blur into raw static, a fallen cup shatters like a scream. Torchlight bleeds gold across her vision, streaks of fire that burnt her eyes. Everything surges, presses, shrinks around her.

Her pulse hammers against her throat, her temples throb with each jagged beat. Every contact point, his arm, his hand on her forearm, registers in excruciating detail, as if her skin suddenly catalogues pain. She wriggles free, brute force, but gravity betrays her: her heel slips on damp grass, and she pitches forward. He catches her, of course. He had done so all night. But now it isn’t a dance; it’s a trap.

Her vision narrows, edges curving inward until the crowd, the lights, the music collapse into a choking tunnel. The torchlight glares, dims, glares again, her pupils spasming. Then her boots scrape not on the dew-heavy grass beneath them now, but on the hard, dry earth of then. Heat radiates up through the packed dirt. The tang of sweat and dust replaces wine and smoke. 

A new hand clamps her wrist, harder, colder, clawing into bone. Not Aerion’s. His body looms too close, blocking the scant space she’s clawing for. A low voice snarls words she doesn’t hear, words her body already knows. The memory hits her sideways, half-formed, overlapping the present, the panic, the helpless tilt, the silent scream lodged in her throat. It tangled with the present until she could not separate them. Into Aerion’s hold, into the crush at her waist, into her absolute inability to move, even as she wills herself to move. Her fingers lose precision, then overcorrect, gripping harder, nails biting into his skin through the fabric of his sleeve. 

“Aerion,” it comes out all wrong. She’s not laughing anymore. He doesn’t hear it. Or he hears it and doesn’t understand it, because he’s still in it. Still playing. Still holding. He leans in to say something into her ear, but she can’t hear what it is. Her body doesn’t ask her, it doesn’t check with her, it doesn’t care that this is just Aerion, that this isn’t danger, that this is familiar and stupid and fun, and it only knows that she is caught and cannot get free when she tries. 

Her heart beats higher, erratic now, her chest tightening so sharply it almost hurts. Her breath comes in faster, shorter, not enough air, too much air, everything wrong at once. The noise around her collapses into something distant and overwhelming at the same time, like she’s underwater but still hearing everything too loudly. Her vision flickers again, and all she can think about is how it’s the same angle, the same hold. Her body jerks hard, a full, violent twist that has nothing to do with the game anymore. 

“Let go.” Not laughing, not asking. He doesn’t; he tightens his grip just a bit more, and that first fraction of a second is all it takes. Before she even realizes it, her heel drives down, sharp and precise, slamming into his foot with a force that has nothing to do with play. His balance breaks, just enough that she wrenches herself out of his hold with a violent, uncontrolled motion. Just before tearing free, in the same movement, same fraction of a second, her hand is already moving before she fully sees him again, before the present fully snaps back into place, before her brain catches up to what her body already decided. She hits him. Hard. Her fist connects clean across his jaw, the impact sharp and solid, snapping his head to the side. The force of it travels up her arm, jarring her shoulder, her breath punching out of her chest with it.

For a single, suspended second, everything stopped. Not the noise, the music, the shouting, or the distant laughter still spilling across the grass. It stopped for her. Aeleanora froze exactly where she stood, arm still half-raised from the strike, chest heaving too fast, too shallow, her breath catching on nothing. Her vision sharpened all at once. Too sharp, too clear. Aerion straightened slowly in front of her, not stumbling or falling. Resetting. His jaw tightened as he rolled it once, the motion controlled, deliberate, like he was testing the damage rather than reacting to it. The dagger was still in his hand, hanging loose at his side now, forgotten for the first time since he’d taken it. And then he looked at her, not laughing or playing anymore. 

It slammed into her all at once, fast, and brutal, and undeniable. I just hit him. The realization hit hard and stayed in her mind, like it had weight, like it had gravity. I just fucking hit him. Her stomach dropped so hard it felt like she might actually fall over this time. The adrenaline that had flooded her seconds ago had nowhere to go now, nowhere to burn, and it turned inward instead, sharp and nauseating and overwhelming. Her pulse was still racing, her hands still shaking, her lungs still pulling in too much air, but now there was nothing to fight. No hold. No threat. No reason. Just him, standing there. 

I just fucking hit him. It wasn’t a shove or a game, it wasn’t one of the hundred messy, physical, half-serious fights they had always fallen into without thinking. She had hit him. Hard. Her fingers twitched at her side, like they didn’t belong to her anymore, like they were still caught in the moment before, still acting on something that had already passed. Heat crawled up the back of her neck, sharp and immediate, flushing across her cheeks, her ears, her chest, until she felt like she was burning from the inside out.

Gods, fuck what did I just do? Her mind started moving too fast, tripping over itself, trying to catch up, trying to justify, trying to rewrite what had just happened into something that made sense. He grabbed me—no, we were playing—he didn’t let go—he always does that—no, not like that—not like that. Her breath hitched again, uneven. He didn’t know. He didn’t know. Of course, he didn’t know. The realization made it worse, so much worse. Her chest tightened painfully, something twisting low and sharp under her ribs, something that felt dangerously close to humiliation, real, true humiliation, and not the kind that she wielded like a weapon, not the kind she chose. 

This was not chosen or controlled. This was weak. Her spine locked. Her chin lifted a fraction without her thinking about it. No. Absolutely not. Her posture snapped back into place, instinctive, and violent in its own way. She knew she should apologize, to smooth it over. It was the right thing to do. But the idea of letting anyone see her falter, like this, especially this. It made her blood burn, that ancient hum settled itself into her mind, rattling her thoughts as her expression smoothed over in a heartbeat. Every inch of that raw, spiraling panic forced down and buried under smooth precision. Her shoulders squared, her stance correcting itself with mechanical precision, like she could physically rebuild control just by standing differently. Her gaze held his, steady, unflinching, as if nothing had happened. Like it was completely intentional. 

“Don’t hold me like that,” she said. Her voice came out level, not breathless anymore, despite the fact that her lungs still hadn’t caught up. It caught cleanly between them, sharp as a blade, stripped of everything that had actually just happened. “I warned you.” It was a lie. A complete, blatant lie. She had not warned him. She had not done anything except panic. Her pulse was still hammering, her hands still trembling, her skin still felt wrong, but none of that showed. Across from her, Aerion didn’t respond immediately. His head tilted slightly back to center, his jaw still tight, his eyes fixed on her in a way that was no longer playful, no longer loose, no longer anything close to what it had been moments ago. 

The energy around them tightened. Behind him, somewhere just outside the immediate circle, Valarr’s laughter cut off mid-sound. Jacaerys had gone still on instinct alone, his body half-leaned forward like he’d been about to shout something and forgotten how. The energy had been bright and chaotic and careless just moments ago, but it had changed a bit, a few were watching. Laena’s eyes locked on her, but Aeleanora didn’t look away from Aerion. She felt the sharp, immediate lock of Laena’s attention, the way it cut through everything else without hesitation, without confusion. There was no delay, no second-guessing. Laena moved fast, faster than anyone else in the loose, half-formed circle, cutting through the space between them with purpose that didn’t match the chaos around them. Her hand closed firmly around Aeleanora’s wrist. Firm, grounding, not rough, but not optional either.

“Enough,” Laena said, and there was nothing playful in it. Aeleanora didn’t resist. That was the worst part. She didn’t even think about existing. Her body just followed. Laena didn’t look at Aerion. Didn’t give anyone else time to ask questions or make it into something bigger. She just pulled Aeleanora back, turning her clean out of the circle, out of the space, away from the eyes that had started to focus too closely. Behind them, the noise began to return to its earlier volume, but it wasn’t immediate. Valarr said something about “poor form.” Jacaerys laughed too loudly in response, like he was trying to patch over something he didn’t understand. 

It worked, mostly. By the time they reached the edge of the tents, the moment had already begun to dissolve behind them, swallowed back into the mess of the night. Aeleanora barely remembered the walk. The ground uneven under her boots, the torchlight flickering too bright, then too dim, her own breathing still wrong. Too fast. Too shallow. The further they moved from the noise, the more wrong everything felt. The music dulled first, the sharp, uneven rhythm flattening into something distant and indistinct. Laughter followed, breaking apart into pieces that no longer matched anything she could see. By the time they passed the last line of torches, even the light had changed, the gold glare softening into something dimmer, steadier, but her eyes didn’t adjust to it properly. The dark felt too close at the edges, like it was pressing in instead of settling naturally.

Laena didn’t slow. Her grip stayed firm around Aeleanora’s wrist, keeping her close, guiding her through the narrow gaps between tents with an ease that suggested she’d already decided exactly where they were going the moment she stepped in. Aeleanora stumbled once when the ground dipped unexpectedly beneath her booth. Her foot slipped on uneven grown, barely anything, but her body overcorrected for it, her free hand lifting instinctively as if there were something to grab. There wasn’t. Laena’s grip tightened for half a second in response, just enough to steady her without stopping. 

They didn’t speak. There wasn’t space for it. Aeleanora’s breath still hadn’t settled into anything even. It came in uneven pulls, sharp on the inhale, catching on the exhale, like her lungs hadn’t remembered the rhythm yet. Every few steps, she tried to slow it consciously, tried to pull it down into something controlled, but it slipped again almost immediately, too fast, too shallow. Her hand throbbed with each pulse. Her knuckles ached where they’d connected, a dull, spreading soreness beginning to settle in under her skin. It pulsed faintly in time with her heartbeat, grounding in the worst possible way, a quiet reminder of something she could not undo. 

I hit him. The memory forced itself back in, louder now in the quiet, sharper without the noise to bury it. She flexed her fingers once as they walked, then again, like she could shake it out, like the sensation would fade if she ignored it long enough. It didn’t. They reached her tent without ceremony. Laena pushed the flap aside with her shoulder and pulled her through before the fabric had fully fallen open, not giving her the chance to pause, or hesitate, or turn back toward the noise still lingering somewhere behind them. Inside, the air was warmer, thicker. The scent of leather and fur and faint lingering incense wrapped around her immediately, familiar in a way that should have settled her. It didn’t. The space felt too still. The moment the flap fell shut behind them, the outside disappeared completely. No light, no sound beyond the faintest murmur bleeding through the canvas. Just the soft, low glow of the lantern set near the center, casting everything in muted gold. Laena let go of her wrist, and that was when it caught up to her. Aeleanora stood there for half a second too long, unmoving, like her body hadn’t yet decided what to do without direction. Then her shoulders jerked slightly, a delayed reaction, and she dragged her hand back through her hair, catching on the loosened strands, pulling harder than she needed to without noticing. 

“I didn’t—” the words came out too fast, colliding into each other. “I didn’t mean—he—” She stopped. The sentence collapsed in on itself before it could become anything. Her mouth stayed open for a second longer, like the rest of it might follow if she waited. It didn’t. Her hand dropped, then lifted again, then dropped, her fingers curling into her palm like they needed something to do and couldn’t find it. “I don’t—why did I—” Her hands curled into fists at her sides. “I just —hit him,” she said, and this time it came out flat, horrified, disbelieving. “I just fucking hit him.”

Laena closed the distance between them in two steps and didn’t hesitate this time. She caught Aeleanora’s face in both hands, firm but careful, forcing her to look at her. Her thumbs pressed lightly just below her cheekbones, grounding, steadying, her touch warm against skin that still felt too cold and too hot all at once. 

“No,” Laena said, quieter now, but stronger. “Look at me.” Aeleanora tried not to, for half a second, her instinct still to look away, to shut it down, to bury it. She couldn’t, Laena’s eyes were already there, already holding her in place. “I know where you just went,” Laena murmured. Aeleanora stilled. Her breath caught again, softer this time. “You don’t have to say it,” Laena continued, her voice lowering just slightly, not soft in pity but careful in the way you handle something that still has teeth. “You don’t have to explain it. I was there then, and I’m here now.” Aeleanora let out a short breath that almost turned into a laugh, except there was nothing amused in it.

“Yes, I do,” she snapped, the words coming out harsher than she intended, her frustration turning inward immediately. “I hit him, Laena. In front of—” she gestured vaguely toward the outside, toward everyone, toward the entire mess of witnesses she couldn’t properly name right now. “And he didn’t even—he didn’t even do anything, we were just—” Playing. The word was stuck on her tongue. It wouldn’t come out. Her throat tightened around it. Her stomach twisted again, worse this time, sharper. “I was having fun,” she said instead, quieter now, and that somehow made it worse. “I was actually—” she exhaled hard, dragging a hand down over her face. “It felt like before. Like when we were younger. It wasn’t—” she huffed out a breath. “It wasn’t like it always is now,” she said, tense and sharp. “I ruined it,” Aeleanora repeated, quieter now, something bitter threading through it. “I couldn’t even hold it together for one night.” 

Laena didn’t let that sit, she stepped closer instead, closing the last bit of space between them and pulling Aeleanora into her without asking, arms wrapped around her shoulders, firm and grounding and completely unyielding. Aeleanora stiffened for half a second on instinct, then, just as quickly, gave in to it, her hands catching in the fabric at Laena’s back, gripping tighter than she meant to.

“You didn’t ruin anything,” Laena said into her hair.

“I did,” Aeleanora muttered against her shoulder.

“You didn’t,” Laena repeated, slower now, like she was correcting something fundamental. Laena didn’t let that sit. She didn’t soften it, didn’t dress it up, nor did she give it the space to turn into something that Aeleanora could sink into and make permanent. She pulled back just enough to look at her again, one hand sliding up to the back of Aeleanora’s neck, fingers pressing in just slightly at the base of her skull, not rough, but there, anchoring. Her other hand stayed curled into the fabric at Aeleanora’s shoulder like she wasn’t letting her drift even an inch further into her own head.

“You didn’t ruin anything,” Laena said again, but this time there was edge in it, not sharp Aeleanora, but sharp for her, like she was cutting through something instead of cushioning it. Aeleanora shook her head immediately, the movement small but forceful, her breath catching again as it tried to steady and failed halfway through. 

“I did,” she said, there was heat in it now, ugly and directed all of the way inward. “I lost it.” Her fingers tightened harder in the back of Laena’s tunic, knuckles whitening without her noticing. “Over nothing. Over—” she cut herself off, jaw clenching so tight it ached. “He didn’t even—” she tried again, and stopped again, the words collapsing before they could form. Her stomach twisted, sharp and sudden. Laena’s grip didn’t loosen. Her thumb pressed once, slow and deliberate, against the side of Aeleanora’s neck, grounding her back into something physical instead of whatever spiral she was sliding into. 

“Look at me,” Laena said again, lower this time. Aeleanora didn’t want to. It was written all over her face in the way her eyes flicked away first, towards the edge of the tent, toward the lantern, toward anything that wasn’t Laena seeing her like this. Laena didn’t let her. Her hand shifted, fingers tightening just enough to guide her chin back, not forcing but not optional either. Aeleanora’s gaze snapped back up, sharp and defensive and already edged with something like shame she didn’t know how to hide.

“I don’t understand why i’m—” Aeleanora started again. “Fuck,” her mouth twisted, “I’m horrible. What is wrong with me?” Aeleanora Laena’s expression didn’t soften. That was the thing with Laena, she didn’t look at her like she was fragile, didn’t look at her like she’d broken. She looked at her like she was wrong about something.

“Nothing,” Laena said, flat and immediate. 

Aeleanora’s mouth pulled into something sharp, almost angry. “That’s not—”

“That is exactly what it is,” Laena cut in, not louder, but firmer, her grip tightening just slightly at the back of her neck to keep her from pulling away. “Nothing is wrong with you.” Aeleanora let out a short, disbelieving breath, her hands dropping from Laena’s back just to gesture vaguely between them, agitated, restless. 

“I fucking punched him,” she snapped, frustration breaking through clean now. “In the fucking jaw, in front of everyone. For no reason—”

“There was a reason,” Laena said, and that stopped her. Aeleanora’s brow furrowed immediately, resistance snapping back into place just as quickly. 

“There wasn’t,” she said, sharper now, defensive again. “We were just—” she broke off, the word still refusing to come out clean. “It was nothing.”

Laena’s eyes didn’t leave her. “No,” she said quietly. “It wasn’t.” The silence that followed that was different, heavier, sitting between them like something neither of them needed to name out loud. Aeleanora’s breath hitches again, softer this time, no less uneven. Her gaze dropped, not all the way, just enough to break the direct line between them, her shoulders drawing in a fraction like she was bracing against something she didn’t want to fully face. 

“It’s like I—” She muttered, quieter now, the anger bleeding out into something thinner. “Like I-I forgot where I was a moment.”

“I know,” Laena said immediately. Aeleanora let out another breath, shaky, her hands curling into fists at her sides again like she needed to hold onto something solid.

“But I know it wasn’t—” she tried again, “but I still,” she stopped, her jaw clenching hard enough that it flickered in the low light. “I still reacted like that.”

Laena stepped closer again, closing the space Aeleanora had tried to create without even realizing it. “You reacted,” she corrected, quieter now, but no less firm. “He was holding you.” She started. “Yes, you were laughing a second before, but then you stopped laughing. He still held you,” Laena continued. “You told him to let go,” she stated. “He didn’t.” Laena raised her brow, pausing for a moment. “So, you reacted.”

“I reacted terribly, Laena, that’s—” she cut herself off, shaking her head again, more agitated now. “That’s losing control.” 

Laena’s hand slid from the back of her neck to her shoulder, gripping it firmly. “Aeleanora,” she said, putting force behind her name. Aeleanora went still at that, her breathing faltered, catching halfway through an inhale. The urge to argue quickly dissolved into a wave of disgust that coiled in her stomach, tightening like a fist. It churned uncomfortably, overwhelming her, while heat surged her face, warming her cheeks and leaving her feeling exposed. Shame washed over her in a rush, accompanied by a sensation of heaviness that settled in her chest, constricting her breath.

“I hate it,” Aeleanora said, barely above a whisper. Her shoulders dipped, the tension in them shifting from sharp to heavy, her hands loosening slightly at her sides like the fight had drained out of them all at once. “I hate that it’s still there,” she added, quieter, her voice flattening out. “I hate that—” she swallowed, her throat tight again. “That it gets to do that. That it gets to—” she made a small, frustrated sound, shaking her head. “I was having fun,” she repeated, like that was the worst part of it. “I was actually having fun with Aerion.” Aeleanora dragged a hand back through her hair again, slower this time, her fingers catching in the loosened strands and just staying there for a second. She didn’t have the energy to pull them free. “And I ruined it anyway.” Laena huffed out a quiet breath that almost resembled a laugh, but there was no humor in it, just disbelief at how far Aeleanora was willing to turn this on herself. 

“You’re unbelievable,” she murmured, not unkindly, her hand shifting slightly to cradle the back of Aeleanora’s head more securely. “You think one moment gets to erase the rest of the night?” Aeleanora didn’t answer. Laena pulled back just enough to look at her again, one hand still firm at her shoulder. “You had fun,” she said, slower now, like she was laying it out piece by piece so Aeleanora couldn’t twist it. “You were laughing. You were playing with him like you used to. That doesn’t disappear because you hit him once when something felt wrong.”

Aeleanora’s mouth pressed into a thin line. “It wasn’t wrong,” she said, automatically. 

Laena didn’t even blink. “You stopped laughing,” she repeated. Aeleanora didn’t have an answer for that. Her gaze dropped again, her shoulders tightening slightly under Laena’s hands.

“…I hate that you’re right,” she muttered.

“I know,” Laena said easily. The tension in Aeleanora’s posture didn’t vanish. It shifted into something less sharp, less frantic, but still sitting under her skin like something that wasn’t going to settle completely tonight. Laena seemed to accept that. She sank onto the giant pile of furs and bedrolls, settled onto a pallet, and patted the spot next to her. “Sit,” she said again, softer now. Aeleanora sank down this time without argument, the movement slower, heavier as she exhaled another unsteady breath. 

“In the morning,” Laena said, like it had already been decided, “We’re both too ill to move.”

Aeleanora huffed faintly through her nose, the ghost of something almost amused flickering and disappearing just as quickly. “Tragic,” she muttered.

“Devastating,” Laena agreed. 

“They’ll survive without us.”

“They won’t notice,” Laena corrected. That earned the smallest twitch at the corner of Aeleanora’s mouth. Laena glanced at her, catching it, and leaned back slightly on her hands, more relaxed now but still watching her carefully. “They’ll all be gone before sunrise,” she added. “You and I will sleep. Stay in here for the morning. No one bothers us.” Aeleanora nodded once, small. “And tomorrow,” Laena continued, her tone shifting just slightly, something more deliberate settling into it, “you act as if nothing happened.”

Aeleanora’s mouth twitched again. “…I am good at that.”