Summary:Daeron Targaryen has spent his life drowning in prophetic dreams that burn more than they guide. Haunted by visions of fire, death, and something far worse, he finds his only escape in wine—until a presence begins to follow him through the chaos. A voice. A touch. A woman he cannot see, yet cannot forget. What begins as a fragment in his dreams turns into an obsession, then into something dangerously close to faith. As Daeron claws his way toward sobriety and meaning, the line between curse and calling begins to blur. Because the dreams are changing. And they are leading him somewhere. To someone.
Author’s Note:I’m taking my time with this story, letting things build naturally—hope you enjoy the slower pace. English isn’t my first language, so I apologize in advance for any mistakes. ♡
WARNINGS:Themes of angst, alcoholism, emotional strain, grief, prophetic dreams and visions, slow-burn tension, subtle religious undertones, and canon-typical violence.
Part one
He didn’t remember falling asleep.
How much he’d had to drink was a mystery—but as his eyes slowly opened, he became aware of the heavy, cloying scent of perfume wrapped around him. The sour, stale taste of wine lingered on his tongue, and a sharp ache pulsed at the back of his head.
He lay sprawled across cheap sheets, naked, his body slack with exhaustion. He was aware of someone beside him. A woman. Her breathing was loud, uneven. He knew this room well.
A damned brothel—and the woman, one who often came here from Storm’s End.
He’d done it again, hadn’t he? Just like always—pathetic, weak, giving in to his own desires.
As the truth settled in, slow and suffocating, his blood began to boil. His cursed mind felt shackled. He had risked losing himself for moments of fleeting pleasure.
He had risked you.
He couldn’t remember the night before. Or the one before that. His mind, thick with fog, dragged up fragments anyway—as if it meant to punish him.
Like you.
His only peace.
After leaving a full pouch of coins at the bedside, he walked out of the brothel sometime near noon. He felt too many things as he left—but for the first time, it was shame that settled deepest. Shame, and something darker. Something personal.
He couldn’t even remember where he had left his horse, so he chose to walk back to the castle. Fortunately, he crossed paths with a knight sent by his father—out looking for him—and managed to return alive.
But the torment didn’t end there.
The gods had given him many trials. One of them was his brother, Aerion.
And now, as he tried to find even a moment of peace in his chambers, Aerion stood there, ruining it. Impeccably dressed, wrapped in his usual sharp arrogance, carrying himself like a king—which only made him look all the more ridiculous.
“You smell like a corpse, as always, brother…” His gaze flicked over Daeron’s greasy hair and stained tunic. The difference between them was a chasm. His tone was carefully measured—polite on the surface, but laced with something far fouler beneath.
Daeron didn’t bother answering. He let his head fall back against the chair, a slow breath leaving him as his eyes fixed on the ceiling. His body felt worse than before. So did his mind. His legs were spread carelessly, his arms hanging loose at his sides.
Aerion exhaled sharply at being ignored, then nudged his leg with his foot.
“Father expects you to make yourself presentable. We’re leaving for Highgarden.” He paused, tilting his head slightly as his gaze drifted toward the light filtering through the window behind them. “Lord Leo Tyrell is hosting a tourney in honor of his daughter, Elaria… for that ridiculous name day nonsense.” His voice carried open disdain as he spoke, before his eyes returned to Daeron.
Daeron barely reacted. Straightening just a little, he gripped the arms of the chair for support and leaned forward enough to meet his gaze.
“And why, exactly, do I have to be there?” he asked flatly. He couldn’t tell whether the slight tremor in his hands came from the lack of wine—or from Aerion’s presence.
Aerion began to pace the room with easy confidence, a knowing look settling over his face. Lifting his chin, he spoke as if delivering something of great importance.
“Father intends to arrange a suitable match for you. Elaria is considered… appropriate for the crown.” The words slipped from his tongue like poison. His gaze lingered, savoring the moment. “Nothing is certain yet, but our father seems quite determined.”
The effect was immediate. Daeron’s lips parted slightly as tension spread through his body. Marriage was the furthest thing from his mind.
“What a shame,” Aerion went on lightly. “A poor young woman might find herself bound to something as worthless as you.”
And still, he didn’t stop.
Watching the color drain from Daeron’s face, he continued, voice curling with amusement.
“You should be grateful. If you were the son of some lesser lord, no woman would spread her legs for you—yet now, you might just win yourself a Tyrell princess.”
A quiet chuckle followed.
It was so vile, so utterly foul, that Daeron wanted nothing more than to drive his fist into his face.
Instead, he looked away. Slowly.
“Fuck off,” he muttered, low and strained, anger buried beneath exhaustion. His hands tightened around the arms of the chair, knuckles paling.
Normally, Aerion would have answered that—but in his current mood, he only laughed.
“Pathetic,” he murmured, just loud enough to be heard.
When the door finally shut behind him, Daeron let out a breath—though it brought no real relief.
Nothing was certain yet. Still, the tension lingered.
After two weeks on the road, they had finally reached Highgarden. Aemon had not joined them—he remained at the Citadel, occupied with his studies. Maekar had been uncertain about bringing the girls, but Daella’s insistence on seeing Highgarden, along with Rhae’s refusal to be left behind, had settled the matter. The journey itself had been exhausting.
Still, they had all been prepared as if they were something to be presented. Daeron, of course, was the least impressive among them. It did not matter how he was dressed or how his hair had been arranged—the taste of wine still lingered on his tongue, and its scent clung stubbornly to his body. The dull, drunken look in his eyes betrayed him. He had been made presentable as much as possible, but there was only so much that could be done.
The chamber given to him was more than adequate. Comfortable, even. Though in his condition, comfort meant very little.
Daeron kept himself out of sight as much as possible. Fortunately, his father had not forced him to take part in the tourney—one of the main reasons being his undeniable lack of skill in such matters. Aerion, on the other hand, was quite the opposite. It was almost as if the gods themselves had crafted a cruel contrast between them. Where Daeron failed, Aerion excelled. He had already taken the place Daeron was meant to fill.
And not only in that.
There were several reasons Daeron chose not to leave his chambers. He was already burdened with the prophetic dreams—with you—and struggling, unsuccessfully, to gain control over his drinking. But the greatest reason of all was Elaria.
She was beautiful. Two years older than him. Every inch a proper Tyrell lady. Yet she did not draw his attention. Nor did he draw hers. Her interest lay elsewhere.
With Aerion.
His brother possessed all the striking features of a true Valyrian—undeniably handsome. Yet beneath that beauty lay something far more unpleasant. He took great care to conceal it in the presence of others, preferring instead to play the role of the noble and honorable prince.
Elaria was clearly taken with him, despite the noticeable difference in their ages.
To Aerion, however, her beauty was shallow. She lacked Valyrian blood. That alone was enough to diminish her worth in his eyes. The gods be thanked Daella and Rhae were nowhere near her age—otherwise, not even they would have been spared from the extent of his depravity.
Despite his disheveled state, Daeron still carried a certain kind of beauty—something unrefined, almost poetic, made more striking by the colors of his house. Deep within him, his raw and restless fixation on you burned like a fire—difficult to contain, impossible to ignore.
As he stood by the window of his chamber, his gaze drifted outside. The sight before him was almost overwhelming—a vibrant display of blooming flowers and flourishing trees, thriving under the warmth of spring. Even more beautiful than Summerhall. A place that felt untouched. Almost unreal.
And yet, it brought him no peace.
His body trembled slightly—the absence of wine making itself known. His mind refused to quiet.
Then his gaze fell upon someone below.
You.
Though he did not know it yet.
He could not see her face clearly. The sunlight obscured it, forcing his eyes away. Her back was turned as she worked among the garden beds, tending to the soil, planting something new. Her clothes were old, worn enough to be noticed even from a distance.
A gardener, he assumed.
And yet…
Something within him shifted.
A strange unrest took hold, sudden and undeniable. His chest tightened, as though he could not draw in enough air. His body reacted before his mind could make sense of it.
He lowered himself to the ground, as if he needed something solid to hold onto.
On the third day of the tourney, after a few quiet threats from his father, Daeron found himself walking through the gardens with Elaria. Two knights followed at a measured distance behind them. He had made sure to keep space between them—deliberate, noticeable.
At first glance, her dress was soft, flowing—shades of yellow that caught the light with ease. A thin green belt rested at her waist, and upon closer look, small jewels were set delicately into the fabric. The neckline was inviting—enough to draw the eye.
He noticed.
And then chose not to.
To him, it was only appearance.
The braids in her hair, the rings on her fingers—everything about her was arranged to impress. And it worked. Beside her, Daeron seemed dimmer. Less.
Ten minutes passed without a single word. Neither of them seemed eager to change that. Both would have rather been elsewhere. With someone else.
“The gardens are… beautiful. The order of them, I mean.” Daeron spoke at last, if only to break the tension. Fortunately, he had managed four cups of wine that morning. It had steadied him. Enough.
Elaria cast him a brief sideways glance, though her graceful stride never faltered. “This is only what is meant to be seen,” she replied, her tone carrying a quiet edge of pride. “The true beauty lies behind the castle. Those gardens are kept far more carefully.” Her fingers toyed lightly with the rings she wore. The midday sun rested warm against them, and the scent of flowers lingered in the air.
“This place is a paradise,” she added, certain of it.
Daeron did not argue. He had seen too little of the world to dispute her. Perhaps she was right.
“The gardens at Summerhall… they resemble these,” he said after a moment, swallowing slowly. “Though yours are more… refined. Ours are left closer to what nature intended.” The words came easier now.
Elaria gave a faint smile.
When they came upon a bench, she stopped. For the first time, she truly looked at him. The knights remained at their distance, their attention fixed elsewhere.
“There used to be an old man who tended these gardens,” she said, her gaze drifting toward the roses ahead. “After he died, his daughter took over.” A brief pause. “She is talented.”
Daeron listened, though the weight in his body pulled at him. He lowered himself onto the bench, taking one corner—leaving enough space for her.
She noticed. And followed, settling at the opposite end. Her hands rested neatly in her lap.
He glanced at them.
They looked soft. Effortless. Untouched.
She broke his focus.
“May I speak plainly, my prince?” she asked, direct and composed.
Daeron lifted his gaze to her, a flicker of unease passing through him. “Of course… speak as you wish, my lady.”
The wind stirred faintly through his hair. He ignored it. His hands gripped the edge of the bench as he waited.
“Our families believe they are making the right choice,” she began, her tone measured—careful, almost political. Her posture remained perfect. “What I am about to say may seem foolish… or perhaps impertinent. But I do not believe we are suited to one another—”
She did not let him interrupt.
“I am honored, of course, to be considered for a Targaryen prince. But I am not blind to your… lack of interest in me.” Her voice remained calm. Controlled. “My duty is to my house and to the realm. I would not willingly bind its prince to unhappiness.”
She was clever.
Careful with her words. Careful enough to step away from this without offense.
“I want only for you to be content,” she continued. “If you truly do not wish for this match, you may say so. I will not take it as an insult. On the contrary… I would welcome the honesty.”
Daeron listened to the end. Then he exhaled deeply, lowering his head as his fingers dragged through his hair.
“Believe me…” His voice came rough, weighed down. The exhaustion clung to him. Everything about him did. Beside her, he was too much—and not enough.
“I am aware of how you feel. You need not soften it for me.” He lifted his head again, meeting her gaze. “I will do what I can… to convince my father against this.”
She seemed to ease, if only slightly. The mask did not fall.
“You should convince yours as well,” he added. “Tell him I am a disgrace. A drunk.” He hesitated, just for a moment. His eyes shifted away. “Or worse… say I spend my nights in brothels like a common whore.” His voice flattened. “I would not be offended.”
Because he meant it.
She studied him in silence, lost in thought. Daeron leaned forward, elbows resting against his knees, his gaze fixed somewhere distant—a low hill beyond the gardens.
He looked tired.
“So… you will not make this difficult?” she asked, seeking certainty.
Daeron turned his head toward her, his posture unchanged.
“I am a man who seeks the easier path wherever he can,” he said quietly. “Marriage is the last thing I want, my lady. I will not make it difficult.”
At the evening feast, Daeron drowned himself in wine. It was obvious—done both to satisfy that familiar craving and to make sure he fell further in Leo Tyrell’s eyes. Throughout the feast, he behaved as though he were in some common tavern rather than a noble hall, careless and unrestrained in a way that drew attention for all the wrong reasons.
By the end of it, his father had pulled him away under the guise of courtesy, forcing him out of sight and back to his chambers. The usual insults followed, the same humiliation dressed in different words, the same long-winded lectures that never seemed to end. When Maekar was done, he had him locked inside like something to be contained. A knight from his own household stood guard at the door, and inside, there was not a single drop of wine left for him.
He was drunk—far more than he should have been. But it wasn’t enough.
The absence clawed at him. His thoughts turned restless, circling back to his mother, to the words his father had thrown at him, to that familiar look of disappointment. Maekar had looked at him as if he were something already lost, and perhaps he was. Day by day, Daeron felt himself slipping further into that hollow place, growing used to it, caring less than he once had. Still, the pain remained, stubborn and unmoving.
Sometimes, he just wanted to be good. For himself. For his family. For you.
But who were you?
Were you even real?
That night, he lay sprawled on the floor, staring up at the dim ceiling, his vision unfocused. A tear slipped slowly from his eye, and for a moment, he did something he was not known for. He prayed.
He was not a devout man. Everyone knew that. Still, his voice broke the silence, quiet and uncertain.
“Whichever one of you is real… I beg you…” His words wavered, his breath uneven as he forced them out. He was speaking to all of them, not knowing which, if any, might listen. “Please… ease this pain. I know I am not the kind of man who should pray, but I am asking anyway… just give me one chance. Let me have her. Let her be real… gods, Seven, I—”
The words died in his throat. The weight inside him was too much, pressing down in a way he could not name. A life full of failure, and still he begged like something pitiful, like a man with nothing left but the smallest hope that something—anything—might be given back to him.
And then his thoughts drifted somewhere darker. To things he had considered before, things he knew he should not think about. He could do it. In that moment, with the pain tightening around him, he truly could—and the worst part was that he wanted to.
But you were there.
You had always been there.
Calling to him, soft and distant, like something just out of reach. In his mind, you were close enough to touch, pressing quiet kisses against him, whispering in a way that kept him tethered. You were the only thing that held him in place.
Even if he wanted to end it, he couldn’t. Not anymore. No matter how long it took, he would keep going. He would find you. After all this time, after all those dreams, he could not let go now. He would endure it, the drinking, the pain, the slow decay of everything he was. He might never be worthy of you, might stand before you one day as nothing more than a broken man reeking of wine, but even so, he would not stop. If there was even a chance that you would look at him—truly look at him, just once—it would be enough.
That night, the gods answered.
They showed you to him again, standing among the rose gardens. He liked to think of you as his bride—it was a foolish thought, but he held onto it anyway. Even from a distance, he could feel you, could almost smell the sweetness that clung to you, something clean and soft that drowned out everything foul about him. You seemed unreal, like something not entirely bound to the world.
You sat in a clearing, the grass bending beneath you, a yellow rose held loosely in your hand. There was a softness in your expression, a kind of warmth he had never known, not even from his own mother. Perhaps you were not the most beautiful woman in the realm, but to him, that had never mattered. To him, you were everything.
“Daeron…”
The way you said his name—soft, barely more than a whisper—sent something through him that he could not explain.
For a moment, he felt something close to peace.
But morning came, and it never lasted.
His father was already there, pacing the room like a storm waiting to break. Daeron didn’t know when Egg had entered, only that the boy sat quietly at a table in the corner, scribbling something to himself as if the tension in the room did not concern him. There was a strange sort of amusement in his expression, barely hidden whenever Maekar’s temper slipped into harsher words.
“Gods know I am being generous by not smashing that cursed face of yours or sending you to the Wall,” Maekar snapped, stopping abruptly as he turned toward him. Daeron pushed himself upright against the headboard, trying to follow through the haze. The anger in his father’s violet eyes was unmistakable. “What did you do?” he asked, quieter now.
Even Egg paused at that tone.
Maekar crossed the room in a few heavy steps, his shadow falling over Daeron as he grabbed him by the collar and pulled him forward. “What did you do that Leo ended everything in a single night?” The question struck like a blow, sharp and unforgiving.
Egg slipped out without a sound, unnoticed, leaving the two of them alone.
“I don’t know,” Daeron said, the lie coming easily despite the tension in his voice. Whatever had happened, it had worked in his favor, but that did not make this moment any easier to endure.
“Do not lie to me,” Maekar hissed, tightening his grip. “You know what happens when you lie. Do I need to remind you?”
“No… I swear, I did nothing. By the Seven, I swear it wasn’t me—” The same gods he had begged the night before now served his lie without hesitation.
“Or maybe it was me,” he added quickly, shifting, forcing the words out before his father could strike again. “Maybe she simply did not want someone like me. Why would she?” The shift was subtle, but enough to slow the anger.
“I suppose I wasn’t enough of a man for her,” he continued, then let the last part fall carefully. “She seemed far more interested in Aerion.”
That did it.
Maekar released him at once, his focus shifting, his anger finding a new direction. “What do you mean?” he asked, too controlled, too calm.
Daeron held his gaze. “I think Aerion influenced her. His display at the tourney, the conversations during the feast… you know how he is. Women have always been his weakness. It wouldn’t be beneath him to take her from me just to spite me. To take what was meant to be mine.”
It was a weak lie, but he delivered it well enough.
Maekar turned away, muttering under his breath, his anger reshaping itself as he paced. After a moment, he stopped by the window, staring out before letting out a quiet curse. Then he left the room just as quickly as he had entered, the door closing behind him with force.
For now, the matter was no longer his.
Daeron let himself fall back against the bed, turning onto his side as he stared toward the window. From there, he could see the gardens again, stretching out beneath the light.
And, inevitably, he thought of you.
Only moments ago, he had been on the verge of being beaten. Now, he lay there, replaying the dream in his mind, a faint, almost foolish smile forming despite everything.
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Baelor x wife!reader, mentions of Maekar x Tyrell!reader
summary: Cleaning up the mess of your marriage proves to be a little harder when Baelor is trying not to let your father and brother know just how much of a mess it has been as of late.
words: 2.4k
cw: MDNI 18+ mentions of flaying and offing people, Baelor panicking because he is scared of his father-in-law, past infidelity, not proofread, lmk if I missed any
a/n: SWEET WIFE MENTION 🥳🥳🥳 anyways minor detail change sweet wife & makear meet at Valarr’s name day not the Kings
more of the do I wanna know? universe
Baelor was not afraid to admit his wife was terrifying. You had mellowed out some with age, but you could still posses other to fear you when needed, and you learned that from your House. Your father, your elder brothers, and the legacy they carried.
House Bolton's sigil was a flayed man, something they used to do to their enemies, but you had never once denied if it was a practice that was still carried out.
Lord Royce Bolton was a stern man, named after a King and that brought a certain reputation itself. His heir, Rogar, also named after a King, was much the same. He told Baelor on his Wedding night he was scared of two individuals. His father being the first and you being the second.
Valarr and Matarys stood next to you awaiting the
Royce and Rogar both adored Valarr and Matarys.
They respected Baelor. As a prince. As the father of your children, but their arrival still put him on edge, because he was unsure of what to expect.
The flayed man burst through the gates and he watched the small grin spreading across your face at the familiarity. Your father and brother broke the gate as they quickly dismounted.
The Targaryen stood back watching the scene front of him. You greeting your father, then moving on to your brother, as your sons excitedly met their grandsire's embrace, and then the man's cold grey eyes shot up to him
He moved toward him, and the Prince was unmoving, waiting, preparing. "Baelor," Royce greeted, reaching his hand out to greet his good-son, and not the Heir to the realm.
And that is what always caused his terror. Is that the both did not look at him as Hand to the King, Heir to the Iron Throne, or even a prince of the realm.
Just Baelor.
And Baelor had not been the best husband of late.
Though he knew logically Royce nor Rogar did not know this yet, but the way the father was currently staring through his soul he wondered if it was only a matter of time to find the man hovering over him in the middle of the night.
It took two nights of your father being here before Baelor ended up barging in your room in the middle of the night. "You are lucky I did not attempt to stab you," you mused, turning away from the window to meet his panicked gaze. You wore a light blue night gown, and if he was not so terrified he would have admired your beauty a little longer.
Your eyes widened sightly, immediately moving to your feet as you took in the state of him. "My love?" you asked, so gently. You were in front of him before he could even blink, your hand cupping his cheek trying to offer some comfort, "What is the matter?"
"Your father is going to kill me," he finally blurted out. You stared at him a for a moment, blinking, before a laugh escaped your lips. Your hands moved from him trying to cover your mouth.
"Do not laugh at me! Your father is going to flay me and you are laughing!" his eyes were wide in betrayal, hands resting on his hips.
"He is not going to kill you in your own castle. He is not a fool," you continued to laugh, shaking your head.
Your words did not bring him any comfort, "So he is going to lure me out of the castle!?"You barked out another laugh.
You took a step forward taking his face into his hands, and he relaxed without even meaning to. "I would not let him kill you," you told him, your voice light with humor.
"Even after everything?" he asked, before he could stop himself. He sounded more boy than man. And for a moment he was not the hand of the King nor the battle worn man, but the boy standing across the hall, praying that you would spare a glance at him.
You smiled at him, and you were the girl who told him you were unlike any normal woman that would fall at his feet over a mere title. "Even after everything," you confirmed.
"Promise?"
"Promise," you whispered, your voice raw with everything you would not speak.
The pair of you held each other's gaze, unmoving, the room silent. Then finally you blinked once more and your hand dropped back to your side. You took a step back, putting distance between the pair of you once more.
As if that was what he wanted, but it was the furthest from the truth. Though he thought you wanted the very same. He gave you a nod, "Well. I should leave you to…" he scratched the back of his neck awkwardly, "Goodnight," he said, gently, before turning toward the exit.
His lips turned down in a frown, as he walked slower than normal hoping you—
"You can stay," you then offered, and he froze by the door.
The excitement inside him was instant.
"Are you… Is that what you wish?" he asked stumbling over his words. The composed prince that commanded council rooms no where to be found. Not that he was truly needed now.
Only Baelor was needed. Not the Hand of the King. Nor the Prince of the Realm. Baelor. Your husband. The man you married, because you were young in love. The same one you kissed under the weirwood tree in Winterfell, and he thought your gods were to strike him down.
"Would I have offered it if it was not what I wish?" you counter, your head tilting slightly.
Baelor laughed, a deep, genuine laugh that caused him to shake his head slightly, a full grin pulling at his lips. You held your hand out for him, and without hesitation he reached out taking it, allowing you to guide him back toward the bed.
He laid down first, before you moved laying beside him. There was an awkward space, between the pair of you that lasted only a moment, before you crossed over the imaginary border. You moved settling into his side as his arm wrapped around you, pulling you closer into him.
For a moment he wondered if this was a dream. A cruel joke from his subconscious showing him just what he wanted, but he could feel your warmth underneath his fingertips, and he could smell your shampoo and perfume filling his senses for the first time in too long.
He leaned down pressing a kiss to the crown of your head, and letting his lips linger. He hoped all the contentment he currently felt seeped down from his lips into you. Your hands moved wrapping around his linen shirt, clutching him tightly as if you were scared you would wake up and find him missing.
As if he would ever pull away from you again.
"This is nice," you whispered, and that was the last thing he herd before sleep finally consumed him.
It was the best he had slept in almost two years.
Valarr's name day feast raged on around the hall. Baelor sat at the head table, watching as you danced around with young Egg and Rhae. Each holding one of your hands trying to direct you in a different style of dance.
It was the happiest you had looked in months.
He was so engrossed watching you around the floor that he had missed the approaching steps until someone sat next to him in your seat.
The man immediately turned meeting a pair of stone grey eyes, and felt himself froze. He had managed to avoid Royce Bolton for the most part, but that did not seem to be in the plans for the night as there was no way escaping from him now.
"Baelor," he greeted, his voice gruff, nodding to the man slightly. His eyes turned away from him allowing his good-son to feel like he could breath for a moment before they would no doubt make their way back toward him.
The Targaryen always wondered how this was the same man from your stories. The one you talked with such a fondness that you would think someone like his own father raised you rather than a cold man from the North.
"Valarr and Matarys both seem well…happy even," the Bolton remarked, turning to look at the man next to him.
"Yes they are. They are good boys I got very lucky," he replied, his throat felt as if there was a vice around it slowly growing small by the moment cutting of his oxygen.
"And my daughter? Is she happy?"
And finally all the air from his lungs were officially gone, because now the burning question had been asked.
The prince did not mean to hesitate, but he did nonetheless. And of course your father, ever as sharp as you were did not miss it. His grey eyes turned looking toward you, as something close to fondness crossed his face, before he turned looking back to your husband.
Baelor could feel the chill run up his spine, as he tried to remain composed, awaiting his words. "I know that you are Heir to the realm and Hand of the King, and that is a grand thing in this Kingdom but she is my only daughter. She was my last child and I gave her to you with the condition that she was going to be happy. I knew you would make her happy from watching you two in that short in Winterfell all that time ago.
He nodded to himself, "I have never see a man look at a woman the way you do with her. Whatever it is I am sure you can work it out or else…Well we do not have to talk about or else, because I know you will work it out," he told him, patting his shoulder, standing and walking off toward his eldest son.
The Targaryen did not move for a full minute, before he finally turned up looking to you. Royce was right. He loved you, more than anything. You were his wife. The mother of his children. His life partner. His future Queen. You were everything.
Life was nothing without you.
Before he could stop himself he was on his feet, moving through the bodies until he was standing in front of you. Egg and Rhae turned toward their uncle muttering a greeting before they took off disappearing through the sea of bodies. He did acknowledge them his focus solely on you.
"Have you come to ask me to dance, my Prince?" you asked, playfully, your beautiful smile on full display directed at him.
He nodded eagerly, extending his hand in your direction. Your grin widened as your hand wrapped around him as he pulled you closer. Keeping a tight hold on you as he began to guide you both around the floor like he had done countless times before.
You stared at hin at him, the same fond expression Royce got when looking at you, painting your face as you looked up at him. He smiled down at you, the tips of his ears burning slightly as he then began to scan through the guests, before his eyebrows pulled together in confusion.
"Who is that Maekar is talking to?" Baelor asked, nodding his head in the direction.
You turned, staring for a moment, before turning back to him, "Lord Tyrell's daughter. She is a handful of years older then Valarr I believe." He hummed in acknowledgement, and you turned back to your husband not thinking much of it.
You finished through the song before moving outside for some fresh air. The moon illuminated your features, showcasing your beauty even further on the warm night. You moved toward the heart tree like muscle memory, before you titled your head back.
You looked as if was one was trying to soak up the sun, but instead you were at peace in the darkness. The quiet night acting a calmness that always eased you. "I love you!" he then blurted out.
You opened your eyes, turning to look at him. His hands moved anxiously spinning the rings around his fingers, "More than anything. You mean the world to me, and life is absolutely nothing without you. I should have told you that night, but I was a bloody coward. I would give up an—"
His words were cut off by your mouth smashing against his. Your hands instantly moved lacing through his hair, as his moved cupping either side of your face as your lips moved in sync.
You claimed every single one of his features with your mouth alone. You were everywhere. You were everything, only proving his words even more true.
The pair of you only pulled away when your. lungs begged fro air, and even that was fight. Your foreheads leaned against each other, his hands still holding your face as you held his dark, silver specked locks tightly in your grip.
"I love you," he whispered, confessing the three small words that held so much weight come from your lips tonight. Needing to hear you repeat them back to him. That you still felt the very same you did the last time he stood, staring at you like an idiot as you poured everything out to him.
"I love you," you repeated, back without hesitation, and even if it lasted only a moment. Everything felt right in the world, unaware that a mere some feet away Maekar was making his way out to the gardens with the young Tyrell woman.
The Red Keep was a sense of quiet it only got when the sun set every night. You sat across from Baelor, your legs tucked under yourself as you pushed your lips together trying to hide a grin. His eyes brows were drawn together in concentration as he was about to loose to you in Cyvasse once again.
"How do you always beat me?" he asked, his eyes scanning around the board as if he was missing something that only you could see.
He finally made his move, accepting defeat causing you to let out a laugh as you made the final move ending the game, "You have things you are good at, and beating me in cyvasse is not one of them."
"Oh that reminds me. We are being invited to a Tourney in the reach and it is my wish that you as well as Matarys will accompany Valarr and I."
You hummed, looking up to your husband after making your move, "Where in the Reach?" you asked out of curiosity.
the mad king spoilers under the cut! caveat this was truly so detailed and long and at several points I was like fuck there’s no way I’m gonna remember this when I try to write up later. but I’m gonna bullet point it first and then I’ll get into more detail on the bits that interested me most + you can ask about anything you want to know more about. btw the chronology is going to be fucked I’m sorry.
Lyanna opens the play asking the old gods that she might choose her own fate. she meets Howland, and we meet her bros. they have a cute dynamic. rip. Lyanna is to be introduced to Robert at the tourney.
Robert’s tragic backstory is played up to 11 in this, they really focus on his grief for his parents and how that’s led him to become the drunk he is. btw Nedbert shippers will LOVE them in this they are very touchy w each other
Rhaegar is introduced: he is the conspirator at Harrenhal. Arthur and Oswell are his right hand men, and they’ve generally agreed that Aerys is unfit for rule + Rhaegar has been dreaming the song of ice and fire for his whole life, and wants to unite the realm
Elia and Rhaegar are??? easily the strangest part of this production. they are not a love match and never were; Elia is exhausted by his ‘dreaming’ and wants him to step up as a leader. she later alludes to the fact that she wouldn’t really care if he did take Lyanna as a second bride, but she wants him to take his role seriously. she also alludes to having had a love before Rhaegar but I didn’t catch who this was.
Rhaegar is??? Rhaegar is. he’s very earnest and wants to save the world. he’s nonetheless weirdly cold w Elia - they’re cold w each other. she gives birth to Aegon at the tourney and he’s like right. so no third kid. and then dreams of Lyanna
in another story, would’ve found early Rhaelya faintly charming. they dance together in the style of swordplay. later, Rhaegar discovers her in the woods and unmasks her as TKOTLT. he lies on her behalf to Aerys, and when they abscond it’s not shown - we go straight to the burning of Rickard.
back to Harrenhal. Aerys arrives w an open shirt bare feet and acrylics. he’s really fully lost it in this, and some of this is attributed to the trauma of Summerhall (make of that what you will). he and Rhaegar have an interesting relationship?? there’s some level of love on Aerys’ part for Rhaegar but he doesn’t trust him at all. Rhaegar wants to murder his dad straight out but when aerys literally invites him to do so he can’t. this btw takes place in a scene following Aerys’ intro where Rhaegar removes his acrylics and trims his hair to make him presentable lol
Jaime’s story is extremely close to canon in this, so he shows up to the tourney, is inducted into the KG and abruptly dismissed. his role gets bigger in act 2.
Brandon and Ashara are lovers and very romanticised in this. Barristan selmy is portrayed a weird creep in the bg more or less. also this show does NOT care for Barry generally lol he is bystanding the fuck out of proceedings.
Ashara is extremely close to Elia and Arthur. however their stories and characterisations are the ones I suspect most have been spun a bit for the play - following Rhaegar and Lyanna running off together, Elia is literally imprisoned in CHAINS with Ashara caring for her children in the Red Keep. anyway generally Elia is very politically minded in this and wants her children on the throne, with or without Rhaegar.
Rhaegar and Lyanna have an odd relationship as well, you can see in the Rhaegar/Lyanna/Elia triangle that they’ve struggled a bit to make things really emotionally click. Rhaegar and Lyanna are in love but like. on another plane kind of. they have been in each other’s dreams I think before they even met?? they establish a connection because Lyanna just ‘gets’ his song, which is the song of ice and fire and for those wondering, is basically choral Valyrian idk.
Robert and Lyanna are not enemies in this - she likes him and even pities him and doesn’t want war with him. but she’s not into him and we get the canon lines from her about his not keeping to one bed. Btw I really can’t stress enough how much they’ve hammed up Robert’s grief in this like there’s a bizarre bit where Aerys says hey I’ll unveil a to scale model of the ship your parents perished in and Robert is like oh amazing cheers and then aerys unveils a fish tank w splinters in it and he’s like there you are. idk I laughed nice one aerys
god I’m so sorry for the chronology ANYWAY. at the tower of joy, Rhaegar is actually kind of done with the prophecy and it’s Lyanna who is into it. she and Rhaegar ardently believe Jon will be TPTWP. they literally create a red comet in this for Jon to be conceived under, it’s clear they want you to understand that he is at least one of TPTWP, assuming there can be two.
BUT. bizarrely, Dany is also conceived under the same comet. Dany stans are gonna absolutely hate this so I’m sorry, but here goes!!! Rhaella is summoned to Aerys’ room, because he wants to conceive under the red comet and birth TPTWP. Jaime tries to defend her and fight the other KG (including Barry smh smh), but Rhaella (who is very arch in this, not a soft character) says she will do her duty but she will birth a daughter who will bring her vengeance, and burn the realm to cinders.
Ned and Cat’s wedding features briefly. they negotiate the terms of their marriage and then decide they want to bed one another.
Arthur and Oswell (at TOJ) are really impatient for Rhaegar to put an end to the war, but Rhaegar as I say is done w prophecy. Lyanna meanwhile has been exchanging letters with Elia (who knows where they are I forget how) and they’ve agreed together that Rhaegar needs to take action. Rhaegar agrees to go to war so long as three KG remain to protect Lyanna, who is now heavily pregnant.
anyway the trident happens. Rhaegar repeatedly offers Robert the opportunity to yield but Robert’s rage is implied to be a mix of bitterness about Lyanna and bitterness about Rhaegar’s tangential relationship with his parent’s death. you know what happens then.
back in KL. Jaime really disillusioned w Aerys. Tywin arrives at the gates and Aerys is remembering him as a bosom pal, decides to let him in against Jaime’s protests I get my kingslayer scene and I am so grateful. it’s line by line accurate and exactly as I pictured it. aerys’ actor lies on the steps of the throne for literally about 20 minutes after this I applaud him. Jaime ascends the throne, the scene w Ned happens, then Tywin marches in and you think he’s gonna hug Jaime but he actually just rips the cloak from his shoulders and chucks it over aerys which I thought was a fun adaptational bit.
Gregor (who is played by an enormous puppet) drags Elia and her children’s bodies into the throne room. Ned and Robert argue heatedly, before Ned agrees to go find him Lyanna.
Ned arrives at ToJ and this happens as it does in the show. we hear Bran calling to Ned a few times. Howland ultimately wins the duel with Arthur for Ned by getting him in the back.
Ned goes to Lyanna and she gives him Jon, asks that Ned let him live ignorant of prophecy and choose his own path. JON IS NOT NAMED BY LYANNA AT ALL. Ned later names him beneath the heart tree in winterfell, as Benjen says Jon must join the watch some day for his own safety. Cat (Robb in arms) meets Ned with Jon and is furious, storms off.
Jaime and Cersei talk. people from the wings name Jaime kingslayer and pelt him w cabbages. Jaime falls to the floor whimpering. me and several others laughed but I don’t think we were meant to. Jaime wonders why Tywin didn’t claim the throne when given the opportunity. Cersei says the throne is only a crown, Tywin wants real power. Jaime asks what Cersei wants - she says she wants it all. then she says that they should have children together and sit them on the throne. Jaime says that treason, Cersei’s like fuck it why tf do u care.
the show ends more or less with Robert demanding the deaths of Viserys and Dany, and Ned objecting. Robert criticises Ned for burying Lyanna in the North, Ned screams that Robert isn’t the only one grieving. they part ways on bad terms, and Robert goes to marry Cersei.
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Summary: A noble lady from a disgraced house that supported Blackfyres is married off to Lord Bloodraven as a reward for his loyalty and prowess in battle. But he prefers to occupy his time with duties as the Hand of the King. Comfortable but lonely, she befriends one of his ravens.Warnings: arranged marriage, yearning, angst, fluff, Westeros politics, Shiera.
King Daeron's court was full of whispers, and the whispers about the Hand and his lady wife were among the most persistent.
You heard them, of course. You could not help but hear them. The serving girls who thought you out of earshot, the lords who forgot you were standing in the shadow of a pillar, the ladies who smiled at you sweetly with acidic eyes. They spoke of the Oakheart girl who had married the sorcerer, who had been given to the one-eyed bastard as punishment for her family's treachery. They pitied you, mocked you, or marveled at your composure in the face of such a grotesque match.
What they did not know, what they could not see from their distant tables and their whispered huddles, was that you were quite happy.
It was an odd thing to admit, even to yourself. Brynden Rivers was not a man who inspired joy in the hearts of maidens. He was strange and secretive, pale as a corpse, with his missing eye and his wine-stain birthmark and his unsettling habit of knowing things he should not know. He did not dance, did not laugh loudly, did not shower you with the flowery compliments that other lords bestowed on their ladies.
Yet you woke each morning in his bed, your head pillowed on his chest. He rarely slept, you had learned that his strange nature included an ability to go for days with only the briefest snatches of rest, but he would lie still for hours in the darkness, one hand resting on your back, his heartbeat slow and steady beneath your ear. Sometimes you would wake in the small hours and find his single eye open, watching the ceiling. You would murmur his name and feel his hand tighten on your shoulder in wordless acknowledgment.
"Am I keeping you?" you would ask, in the early days.
"No," he would answer every time.
This morning was like the others. You woke to dawn light filtering through the narrow windows of the Tower, to the familiar scent of old parchment and candle wax, to the gentle rise and fall of your husband's chest. His arm was around you, his long fingers splayed against the curve of your waist. His eye was closed, his breathing even. He looked, in these rare moments of counterfeit sleep, almost peaceful.
You propped yourself up on one elbow and studied his face. The birthmark that others whispered about, the blotch of deep red that climbed his neck and pooled on his cheek, no longer seemed odd to you. It was simply part of him, like the silver of his hair or the pale arch of his brow. You traced a finger lightly along its edge. His eye opened.
"Good morrow," you said.
"Good morrow." His voice was rough with disuse. "You are staring."
"I am admiring."
A faint crease appeared between his brows, his version of a puzzled expression. "There is little to admire."
"There is everything to admire." You leaned down and pressed a kiss to his forehead, then to the bridge of his nose, then to the scarred hollow where his missing eye had once been. He held still for this ritual, as he always did, and when you reached his mouth, his hand came up to cup the back of your head and hold you there for a moment longer.
"You are very odd," he said when you pulled back.
"I am your wife. I am allowed to be odd."
"Hm." The sound was almost amused. He released you and sat up, the sheets pooling around his waist. The morning light caught the pale angles of his torso, the lean muscle. "I have something for you."
"You always have something for me."
He rose from the bed and crossed to his desk, where a small wooden box sat beside a stack of parchments. You watched him, the way he moved with that uncanny grace, the way his silver hair fell across his bare shoulders. When he turned back, the box was in his hands.
"For you," he said, placing it on the bed beside you.
You opened it. Inside, nestled on a bed of black velvet, lay a necklace. The chain was white gold, so fine it seemed spun from spider silk, and from it hung a pendant of deep green emerald, carved into the shape of a leaf. Oak leaves. Your house sigil.
"Brynden." Your voice caught in your throat. "This is…where did you find this?"
"A craftsman in Myr. I commissioned it some moons ago. It arrived by ship yesterday."
The emerald caught the light, flashing green fire. You lifted it reverently, and the chain slithered through your fingers like water.
"It is beautiful," you breathed.
"You said once that you missed the Reach. The trees, the green." He was standing awkwardly now, his hands clasped behind his back, his eye fixed on your face with slight anxiety. "I thought perhaps you might like to carry a piece of it with you."
"I love it." You rose from the bed and went to him, the necklace clutched in your fist. "Put it on me please."
He took the chain with careful fingers and fastened it around your neck. The pendant rested against your collarbone, a small green anchor to the home you had left behind.
"There," he said. "It suits you."
You looked down at the emerald leaf, then up at your husband's pale, strange, beloved face. "You give me so many things," you said. "The ruby bracelets, the sapphire hairpins, the pearl drop earrings. The ivory comb from Volantis, the silk shawl from Yi Ti. My jewelry chest is overflowing."
He tilted his head, that familiar birdlike gesture. "Do you not like them?"
"I adore them. Every piece." You reached up and touched his cheek, the smooth skin beside the birthmark. "But you do not need to bring me treasures every week, Brynden. I am not Shiera."
The name hung in the air between you. It was the first time you had spoken it since that night in the solar, the night everything had changed. You watched his face carefully, looking for the flinch, the shadow of old pain. It flickered there for a heartbeat, and then it was gone.
"I know you are not," he said.
"I only mean that I do not require rare jewels to be happy. Shiera collected beautiful things. I…" You hesitated, searching for the right words. "I collect moments."
He was silent for a while, his eye searching your face. Then, slowly, he leaned down. It was a gesture he had developed in the first weeks of your true marriage, when he had noticed how you stretched onto your toes to reach his mouth. So he had taken to bending toward you whenever you were close, a small, unconscious courtesy.
You kissed him. When you pulled back, he looked thoughtful.
"I see," he said.
"I am not ungrateful…"
"You are not." He touched the emerald leaf at your throat. "But I have been foolish. I have been courting you with the wrong currency."
"Brynden…"
"I have a meeting with the Master of Coin this morning." He was already turning toward his wardrobe, reaching for his doublet. "It will be tedious and I will likely have to threaten someone before it is done. But afterward…" He paused, his shirt half-buttoned. "Afterward, I have no obligations. The afternoon is clear."
You blinked at him. "It is?"
"I have ensured it." He finished the buttons. "I thought we might take a walk in the gardens. I have heard there is a new fountain, some ghastly thing from Braavos with mermaids. I would like to hear your opinion on it."
A walk in the gardens. Such an ordinary, unremarkable thing that any husband might do with any wife. Yet your eyes stung with sudden tears, because you understood what he was offering. Time. His time, which was the rarest treasure of all.
"I would like that," you said, and your voice came out steadier than you felt. "Very much."
He nodded, a crisp, businesslike gesture, but you had learned to read him now. The faint relaxation around his mouth, the slight softening of his red eye. He was pleased.
"Good," he said. "I shall send for you when the meeting is done."
He crossed to the door, then stopped, turned, came back to you and leaned down again, pressing a kiss to your forehead.
"Wear the necklace," he said. "It truly does suit you."
True to his word, Brynden sent a servant to fetch you in the early afternoon. You had dressed with care, a gown of pale cream silk, simple in cut but elegant in drape, the emerald necklace displayed against the bare skin of your throat. Your hair you had left loose, the way he seemed to prefer it. When you descended the Tower stairs and found him waiting in the courtyard, his single eye swept over you with an intensity that made your cheeks heat.
"You look lovely," he said.
"You look like you have just threatened the Master of Coin."
The corner of his mouth twitched. "I did. He was most cooperative afterward."
The gardens of the Red Keep were beautiful in the afternoon light, the roses in full bloom, the lemon trees heavy with fruit, the sea breeze carrying the salt-tang of Blackwater Bay. Lords and ladies strolled along the gravel paths, their silks and velvets a shifting tapestry of color. As you walked at Brynden's side, his arm tucked through yours, you felt their eyes on you. The whispers, too, rising like the hum of insects.
"…the Oakheart girl and the sorcerer…"
"…look at his face, gods be good…"
"…she seems happy enough, poor deluded thing…"
You had learned to ignore them. More than ignore them, you had learned to pity them, for they could not see what you saw. They could not know the quiet sweetness of the man beside you, the way he described the Braavosi fountain in a dry, precise deadpan that made you laugh aloud. The way he paused to point out a particularly clever raven perched on a fig tree, explaining how it had been trained to deliver messages. The way his hand tightened on your arm when you stumbled on an uneven stone, steadying you before you could fall.
"That fountain," he said, gesturing to the marble monstrosity ahead, "The mermaids were supposed to spout water from their mouths. As you can see, they are spouting from their…elsewhere."
You clapped a hand over your mouth, but the laugh escaped anyway, bright and startled. The mermaids were indeed spouting water from anatomically dubious locations, their stone faces frozen in expressions of eternal surprise.
"Who commissioned this?" you managed.
"Lord Redwyne, as a gift to the king. I suspect it was revenge for the wine tariffs."
You laughed again, and the sound drew stares from a nearby cluster of ladies. You did not care. You were walking in the gardens with your husband, your arm in his, he was making you laugh, the afternoon sun was warm on your face, and the emerald leaf was a cool weight against your skin.
"Brynden," you said, when your laughter had subsided.
"Yes?"
"Thank you. For this afternoon."
He was quiet for a moment, his eye on the fountain. The mermaids continued to spout water from various unseemly places.
"I have been thinking," he said, "about what you said this morning. About collecting moments. I have realized that I do not know how to be a husband. All of my tools are wrong." He turned to face you. "I gave Shiera jewels because jewels were what she wanted. I gave you jewels because I did not know what else to give."
"You give me plenty," you said, touching the emerald. "I was not complaining."
"But you were teaching me." He took your hand, his cool fingers wrapping around yours. "And I am a quick learner."
He lifted your hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss to your knuckles, right there in the middle of the garden path, with half the court looking on. The whispers rose to a crescendo, but you did not hear them. You only heard the beat of your own heart, the soft intake of your husband's breath, the rustle of the wind through the trees.
"Come," he said, releasing your hand but keeping your arm in his. "There is a bench by the sea wall. I am told the view is tolerable."
It was more than tolerable. It was magnificent, the bay spreading out before you in a sheet of hammered gold, the sails of ships glinting in the distance, the sky a pale, washed blue. You sat together on the stone bench, your shoulder brushing his, and watched the waves.
"May I ask you something?" you said after a while.
"You may."
"What do the ravens see? When you look through their eyes?"
He was silent for a moment, and you worried you had overstepped. But then he spoke, his voice low and contemplative.
"It is difficult to describe. It is like…being in two places at once. I am here, with you, but I am also above the city, riding the wind. I see the rooftops and the streets and the people going about their lives. I see ships coming into harbor and carts rumbling along the roads. I see a thousand small moments that no one else notices, all happening at once." He paused. "It is overwhelming, sometimes. It is why I do not sleep well. There is always something to see."
"Does it hurt?"
"No. It is simply…much." His eye found yours. "Does it frighten you? Knowing that I can see through them?"
You considered the question. "It should," you admitted. "But I have grown rather fond of ravens."
"One raven in particular, I suspect."
"Pebble is a good friend."
"Useless creature."
"You could stand to be kinder to Pebble."
Brynden Rivers laughed. It was a small sound, rusty, as though his throat had forgotten how to make it. But it was unmistakably a laugh, and it transformed his face. For a moment he looked young.
"I shall endeavor to be kinder to the raven," he said. "For your sake."
"Thank you."
A raven fluttered past, disappearing into the dusk sky towards rookery. You slipped your arms around his waist, pressing your cheek to his shoulder.
"Bad news?" you asked.
"No. Merely information." He turned in your embrace, his hands settling on your hips. "Lord Butterwell has been buying up land. I will need to look into it."
"Tomorrow."
He blinked. "Tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow." You reached up and traced the line of his jaw. "Tonight, you are mine."
His eye softened, the red dimming to something warmer. "Am I?"
"You are." You tugged gently at his collar, pulling him down. He leaned obligingly, bending to your level, and you pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. "We are going to have supper. You are going to eat more than three bites. And then we are going to sit by the fire, and you are going to tell me about the most ridiculous thing you have seen through your ravens this week."
"The most ridiculous thing?"
"Surely there must be something. Courtiers are absurd creatures."
He considered this. "Lord Bracken was seen attempting to serenade a milkmaid last Tuesday. He fell into a cow pat."
You laughed, delighted. "There. That is exactly what I mean."
A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Very well," he obliged. "Supper. And cows. And…being yours."
"Good." You kissed him again. "Brynden."
"Yes?"
"I am happy."
"So am I," he said, and there was wonder in his voice, as though he had only just realized it was true.
The hour was late, and the Tower of the Hand was silent save for the crackle of the fire in the hearth and the distant cry of gulls over Blackwater Bay. You had retired to your chambers hours ago, leaving Brynden to his endless parchments and his murmured consultations with agents who came and went like shadows. You had grown accustomed to these nights, they no longer stung the way they once had, back in the cold early days of your marriage, when every empty hour had felt like a rejection.
Now, you simply waited. You knew he would come to you eventually.
You were half-drowsing when you heard the door open and close, the soft tread of boots on stone. The mattress dipped as Brynden sat on the edge of the bed, and you heard the familiar sounds of him undressing: the rustle of his doublet, the soft thump of his boots hitting the floor. You kept your eyes closed, a small smile playing at your lips, savoring the anticipation.
He slid under the covers beside you, and his hand found your hip in the darkness. His touch was urgent in a way it rarely was. Usually, he came to bed with a kind of restrained gentleness, as though he were still learning the language of intimacy and wanted to pronounce every word correctly. Tonight, his grip was firmer, his body pressing closer, his voice was rough with a weariness that went beyond the physical.
"I need you," he muttered. "Today was…I need to not think. I need to be here. With you. Only you."
Your heart clenched. You knew his burdens, the weight of a kingdom pressing down on his shoulders, the endless schemes and counter-schemes, the dark whispers that followed him wherever he went. You opened your eyes to tell him that you were here, that you would always be here, that he could lose himself in you as much as he needed…and then you remembered.
"Brynden," you whispered carefully. "Wait."
His hand had been sliding up your thigh. It stopped. "What is wrong?"
"Nothing is wrong. It is only…" You bit your lip. "There is something under the covers."
He went still. You felt the shift in him, the instinctive alertness of a spymaster who had survived a dozen assassination attempts. "Something," he repeated.
"A friend."
"A fr…" He stopped. His eye, adjusted to the darkness, dropped to the lump in the blankets between your bodies. A small lump.
From beneath the covers came a soft, contented squawk.
Brynden reached over and pulled back the blankets with a sharp flick of his wrist. There, sprawled across the soft mound of your stomach, wings spread as though drunken, lay Pebble. The raven's eyes were closed, his beak slightly open, his round belly rising and falling with each tiny breath. One of your hands was still resting on his breast feathers, frozen mid-stroke.
There was a long silence.
"My lady," Brynden said, in the tone of a man who was choosing his words with extreme care, "why is there a raven in our bed?"
"He was lonely."
"Lonely."
"He was tapping at the window. It is cold outside tonight. And you were working so late, and I was alone, and he looked so sad with his little beak pressed against the glass…"
"So you brought him into the bed."
"I put down a towel," you said weakly. "In case of…accidents."
Brynden stared at Pebble. Pebble, perhaps sensing that he was the subject of discussion, opened one bleary black eye, regarded the Hand of the King with casual insolence, and closed it again.
"He is lying on your stomach," Brynden said.
"He likes to be close to me."
"He is lying on your stomach in our bed, where I was about to…" He stopped himself, took a breath, and pinched the bridge of his nose. "My love. You have made my raven into a lapdog."
"He is not a lapdog. He is a raven."
"A lapraven, then. A creature that does not exist in nature. You have invented it." He reached down and scooped Pebble up with one hand. The raven let out an indignant squawk, his wings flapping uselessly. "This bird was bred to carry messages across the Seven Kingdoms. To fly through storms and evade hawks. To serve as my eyes and ears in places no man could reach. And now he sleeps on silk sheets and eats from your fingers."
You sat up, clutching the blankets to your chest. "He still carries messages."
"Once a fortnight. To the kitchens. Begging for scraps."
You tried to look dignified. It was difficult when your hair was mussed and your husband was holding your pet like a naughty child. "I will put him back on his perch," you offered.
Brynden sighed. It was a long, tortured sigh of a man who had spent the day dealing with treasonous lords and bickering councilors and who had come to bed wanting nothing more than to bury himself in his wife's warmth, only to find a plump bird in his place.
"Stay," he said. He crossed to the perch near the window and deposited Pebble onto it with more gentleness than you had expected. The raven ruffled his feathers, gave Brynden a reproachful look, and tucked his head under his wing with the air of a monarch who had been grievously insulted.
Brynden returned to the bed. He did not lie down. Instead, he sat on the edge, his back to you, his silver hair catching the firelight. The scars on his shoulders, old and pale, traced patterns you had memorized with your fingertips.
"I am not angry," he said, without turning around.
"I know."
"I am…concerned."
You crawled across the bed and knelt behind him, wrapping your arms around his chest and pressing your cheek to his back. He was tense, the muscles hard. "Concerned about what?"
"Pebble is not a pet. He was never meant to be a pet. He is a tool that has forgotten its purpose. And you…" He paused, and his hand came up to cover yours where they rested on his chest. "You have made him forget. With your kindness, with your attention, with your need to nurture something."
"Is that wrong?"
"It is not wrong. But it is…misdirected." He turned, shifting so that he faced you, his single eye found yours in the dim light. "A raven cannot love you back. Not truly. It can only take what you give and grow lazy on it. You deserve something that can return your affection."
"Pebble returns my affection."
"Pebble returns to anyone who feeds him. I have seen him beg from the kitchen maids."
You wanted to argue, but the image of Pebble waddling after the scullery girls, croaking pitifully for bacon rinds, was unfortunately vivid. "I like ravens," you said instead, a little defensively. "They remind me of you."
Brynden went still. "They remind you of me."
"Your eyes. Your cleverness. The way you tilt your head when you are thinking." You reached up and touched his cheek. "When you are away, which is often, Pebble is…a piece of you that stays with me. A small, feathery, ill-behaved piece. But a piece regardless."
"Then perhaps," he said slowly, "what you want is not a raven at all."
"What do you mean?"
He took your hand from his cheek and held it in both of his.
"Perhaps what you want is a child."
The word hung in the air between you. A child. Your breath caught, your heart stuttered, and you felt the blood rush to your cheeks.
"I…" you started, and stopped. "I did not mean to suggest…"
"You did not suggest. I am suggesting." His thumb traced circles on the back of your hand. "You have made this Tower warmer than it has ever been. You have filled it with your laughter and your gentleness and your stubborn insistence on loving things that are not easy to love." His eye met yours, and there was something almost vulnerable in its depths. "A child would be lucky to have you as a mother. And I…" He hesitated. "I would be honored to give you one."
Your throat tightened. "Brynden, you do not have to…you said once that you were not a man given to tender feeling. That you were strange and secretive and cold. If you do not want children…"
"I did not say that."
"Then what are you saying?"
He leaned closer, his forehead nearly touching yours. "I am saying that I have spent my life serving the realm. I have given my eye, my youth, my conscience, everything I have, to the Iron Throne. And I would do it again. But there is a part of me that is tired. A part of me that wants something that is not duty." His hand tightened on yours. "Something that is ours."
Your eyes were burning. You blinked rapidly, but a tear escaped anyway, tracing a hot path down your cheek.
"You want a child with me?" you whispered.
"I want a family with you." He said it simply, as though it were a fact he had long since established and was only now reporting. "I want to see you holding our son or daughter in your arms. I want to teach them to read and to shoot a bow and to understand the language of ravens. I want to watch you be the mother I know you will be: patient, kind, fierce when you need to be." He paused, a ghost of a smile crossed his lips. "And I want to stop finding birds in my bed."
A laugh burst out of you, wet and startled. "That is what this is about? You are jealous of Pebble?"
"I am not jealous of a raven."
"You are. You are jealous of a useless raven."
"I am not…" He stopped, his smile widened involuntarily. "Perhaps a little. He sees more of you than I do, some days. And he is always on your stomach."
You laughed again, it the tears spilled over. You threw your arms around his neck and kissed him. He caught you and kissed you back with a fervor.
"You are a ridiculous man," you murmured against his mouth.
"I am a pragmatic man. I see a problem, I propose a solution."
"A child is a solution?"
"A child is many things." He pulled back just enough to look at you, his red eye bright in the firelight. "A legacy. A hope. A piece of us that will outlast all the schemes and wars. A child is the one thing that matters more than the realm." He brushed a strand of hair from your face, his touch gentle. "You asked me once what I wished for. I told you I had wished for foolish things. But this…this is not foolish. This is the wisest thing I have ever wanted."
You kissed him again. His hands slid up your back, pressing you closer, and you felt the tension drain from his shoulders as he let himself sink into you.
"What about Pebble?" you asked breathlessly as his lips traced a path down your throat.
"Pebble," he said between kisses, "can sleep on his perch tonight. And every night hereafter. Our bed is about to become considerably less accommodating to ravens."
"That seems unfair to him."
"I will buy him a larger perch. The finest perch in the Seven Kingdoms." He lifted his head and looked at you, his expression was serious now. "But this is not about the raven. This is about us."
Part 3: coming soon...
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Pairing: Brynden 'Bloodraven' Rivers x Bastard! Reader
divider by: @cafekitsune & @saradika-graphics
word count: 21.1k
synopsis: After helping secure victory at the Redgrass Field, you return to a court ruled by rivalry and resentment. As Bittersteel’s hatred erupts into open challenge, Bloodraven must fight not for pride—but for the woman he refuses to lose.
a/n: I think I almost died writing this, it got way longer than I expected. And yes, this is an AU/Canon Divergence. The timeline is skewed, events may not line up exactly as they did in canon (if at all tbh), and that is entirely on purpose. With the power of fanfiction, this story is my kingdom and I am its ruler, so we’re going with it.
warnings: Attempted SA (not by Brynden), mutilation, Aegor Rivers, Targcest, Canon Divergence
You and Brynden had grown together in the shadow of whispered names and divided loyalties. Bastards, the both of you—though different in blood and temper, the two of you were bound by something fiercer than either title could define. Where others saw omens in his pale hair and red eye, saw rivalry in the way lords measured him against his half-brothers, you saw only the boy who watched too much and trusted too little.
The boy who had never hesitated to stand between you and the world.
And you…you never hesitated to do the same.
There had been days when your half brother, Aegor, let his resentment toward Brynden spill into open violence. The yard would ring with the crack of steel and the low snarl of boys becoming men too quickly. Blood was drawn more than once. Bruises bloomed dark beneath tunics. Pride was shattered before being rebuilt harder.
What started as childish rivalry slowly twisted into something uglier—an obsessive need in Aegor to take whatever Brynden guarded, to dominate whatever he valued, and to prove himself not merely equal but superior.
Soon, that point of contention had become your shared youngest half-sister, Shiera Seastar.
She had drifted between them like perfume and poison. She delighted in the tension she inspired. She liked to be fought over and desired. There was power in that, and she wielded it as naturally as breath.
You, however, did not.
With the temper of both dragon and storm in your blood, you had been fiercely protective of the boy Aegor delighted in provoking. You never masked your disdain. When Aegor’s cruelty crossed from rivalry into something uglier, you answered it openly and more than once with the near promise of steel. There had been days when it seemed you and Aegor might come to blows yourselves, tempers snapping bright like sparks against dry timber.
But you were sent away before the worst of what would become of Brynden and Aegor could root itself too deeply. It was decided that distance might temper you. That time away from court and the infamous rivalry might shape you into a more suitable for the realm. A proper lady.
You were sent first to Dragonstone. There, you resided with your half-brother, Prince Daeron, and his family.
Dragonstone was unlike King’s Landing. Within those ancient walls, you were steeped in your Valyrian heritage. Maesters drilled the old tongue into you until it no longer felt foreign upon your lips, until High Valyrian came as naturally as breath. You learned the histories of dragonlords and conquerors, reminded that dragon blood was not merely lineage but legacy.
And in time, you grew close to the dragon prince and your nephews, especially Baelor and Maekar. Though you were younger than they, you were keenly aware of what your birth meant. You were a noble bastard, but in the eyes of many you were considered a stain.
But at Dragonstone, you were not treated as such.
Unlike in King’s Landing, you were not reminded of your birth at every turn. Princess Myriah treated you with warmth from the start, offering open kindness. Daeron treated you with honour. When he corrected you, it was as he would Baelor never with cruelty, always just and fair.
Baelor was the easiest—earnest, open, guided by his own rigid sense of right and wrong. In his company, you felt only the expectation that you would rise to whatever standard you decided upon yourself.
Maekar had been different. Prickly. Suspicious. He was quick to bristle at perceived slights and quicker to guard what he believed his. With your fiery tempers, the two of you clashed often.
But time has a way of wearing down the edges of petty rivalries and slowly, grudgingly, the two of you warmed to the other.
By the end of your stay, even Maekar no longer looked at you with the disdain he once had. He looked at you as family.
From Dragonstone, you were sent to Storm’s End, where your mother and her kin welcomed you with open arms and louder laughter. It was there you met your younger cousin Lyonel, the future Lord of Storm’s End. He accepted you without judgment.
Storm’s End taught you something Dragonstone had not. It taught you to never apologize for being yourself. Pride there was worn openly, loyalty fiercely defended.
And finally, you were sent to Dorne.
At Daeron’s behest, you were dispatched south to strengthen the still fragile ties to House Martell. And there, beneath relentless sun and silken smiles, you thrived.
The Dornish courts were a den of snakes—but you learned quickly that snakes could be allies as easily as threats. You studied the art of negotiation, trained in combat and even learned the careful sciences of the deadliest poisons in the realm.
You discovered the power of whispers and learned to listen more than you spoke. The alliances you forged were not decided through the purity of your name, but through your strength, your intelligence, your ability to stand your ground without flinching.
Being a bastard meant little there.
Worth was measured in action. Respect was earned, not inherited. And in that sun-scorched land, you learned to shed the shame others had once tried to press upon you like a brand.
And through it all, you built your connections. By the time you returned, the realm no longer whispered your name solely with shame. They spoke it of it in favour.
When you finally returned to King’s Landing, you were no longer the girl hiding away in the shadows, but a woman shaped by distance and discipline.
War met you at the gates.
The First Blackfyre Rebellion had already begun to tear at the realm’s seams, banners rising in defiance, loyalties tested in blood.
With you, you brought the alliances you had cultivated in Storm’s End and Dorne to aid Baelor as he gathered troops to fight Daemon Blackfyre’s rebellion. Stormlords who had laughed with you at your cousin’s table now answered your call, with Lyonel leading them. Dornish captains who had once tested your resolve now marched beneath Targaryen command because you called for them to support princess Myriah and her family.
You rode at Baelor’s side as he rallied the allies you had forged in distant courts. And when the armies converged, you joined Maekar upon the field.
History would remember that day in bloodied iron.
The Hammer and the Anvil, they called your kin—Baelor Breakspear and Maekar Targaryen. One to drive the rebels forward with relentless force. One to hold the line unyielding as stone.
Then there was you the spark that rekindled the hope of victory.
When Aegon, Daemon’s eldest, rode at the front of the Blackfyre charge, the field trembled beneath the weight of hooves. His banner snapped black behind him, his blade raised high, his men surging with him with a determined roar meaning to shatter Maekar’s position in a single devastating strike.
For the span of a single breath, the world narrowed as you saw him.
Your fingers drew the bowstring back in one smooth motion, utterly steady. The poison that tipped your arrow glistened faintly in the sun.
With an exhaling breath, you released.
The shaft flew true.
It pierced through Aegon’s armour and buried itself in his chest. He jerked sharply in the saddle, breath torn from him, before pitching backward into the churned earth just moments before his charge could crash against Maekar’s line.
It was his death that would draw on the opportunity to kill Daemon, who gathered Aegon’s dying body into his arms, heedless of the battle raging around them. For a fleeting, terrible moment, he was not rebel king nor pretender—only a father cradling what he had lost.
But grief turned swiftly to fury.
When Aegon’s life finally slipped away, Daemon rose, his gauntlets slick with his son’s blood, and his gaze found yours across the field. Blinded by rage and desperate for retribution, he charged, cutting a path through any who stood between him and his target.
And it would be Brynden’s arrow that slew Daemon, loosed the instant he saw where the rebel king’s fury was aimed—at you.
For your actions, you turned the tide of the Battle of the Redgrass Field. After, its victory you returned to court, drawing the attention of not only the courtiers but of Brynden as well. His gaze followed you taking in the fierce beauty that you’ve become.
There was a time he felt the stirrings of feelings but at the time he’d been too shy, hiding away in his youth. Yet, now time and challenge had hardened him into a lord whose name was whispered with fear throughout the realm.
He felt as though something long dormant had woken the moment you stepped into the Red Keep. You carried yourself with the quiet assurance of someone who had learned to survive in courts not her own. Compared to them, the red keep seemed almost filled with sheep.
He was not the only one who noticed your beauty, admirers were quick to flock you but unlike Shiera who indulged and even flaunted the attention of her admirers to his face, you remained polite to those who sought your hand.
That was until you saw him, he was sure his heart stuttered as you gave him that familiar bright grin devoid of any fear as you came up to him, enveloping him in a warm hug before he could even react.
“Brother,” you greeted warmly, and your embrace was like a summer wind from the Marches, cutting right through his cold exterior.
Brynden froze. For a man who claimed to see through a thousand eyes and one, he was momentarily blinded by the sheer, grounding reality of your presence. His arms, usually stiff and poised for the weight of a bow or the scratching of a quill, hovered uncertainly for a fraction of a second before they closed around you.
“You’ve grown taller, Brynden,” you said lightly, your voice softened by the lingering cadence of the Dornish and Valyrian accents you’d picked up in your travels. The vowels rolling warm against his ear.
You drew back just enough to look him in the red eye that so unsettled others, before shifting to the still healing socket half-hidden by pale strands of hair.
You didn't flinch or recoil in disgust like so many others did at the sight but your lips did briefly tip down. You had heard the rumours of what happened, heard that it was Aegor who had taken Brynden’s eye.
Your fingers lifted instinctively, moving to brush the silver hair aside for a better look.
Brynden’s hand shot out before you could touch him. His fingers closed firmly around your wrist and for a heartbeat, his expression looked as if it were carved of stone.
You let out a soft huff at the sight of his stoicism and lowered your hand, easing from his hold without resistance. “And far too serious,” you teased, though your voice remained tender. “Have you forgotten how to smile? Or has the Red Keep finally turned you to stone?”
At last, his mouth twitched.
“I’ve grown taller, as one does with age,” he drawled dryly, choosing to answer your first comment instead. A faint snort escaped him. “The last you saw me was five summers past. Long enough for boys to become men.”
Your gaze couldn’t help but once again trail down his form, this time to properly take him in.
Up close, you could see the change in him more clearly. The pale hair still fell straight and stark against his red and smokey grey doublet. His ruby red eye still burned bright beneath the pale hood of his lashes—the colour unnerving to some, mesmerizing to you. But the softness of youth had been stripped away by time and trial. What remained were sharp cheekbones that lent him an almost gaunt severity.
Even as a child, he had been lean to the point of frailty, all long, gangly limbs. Now that same leanness had hardened. Muscle lay coiled beneath cloth and leather belonging to those of a seasoned warrior.
He had grown into himself.
His voice snapped you out of your perusal, "They told me you were a 'proper lady' now," Brynden said, his lip curling into the ghost of a wry, jagged smile. He reached out, his pale fingers ghosting over the golden chains of your Dornish dress. "But I see the sun of the South didn't completely burn the dragon out of you. It only tempered the blade."
He glanced over your shoulder at the flock of courtiers who had been hovering nearby, their faces a mask of poorly hidden envy and sudden caution. With a single, icy look from Bloodraven, they scattered like ash in a gale.
You hummed softly, unfazed. “Yes. My time away taught me much.”
“So it did,” he murmured, his gaze returning to you. There was curiosity there now. “Tell me—was it Dorne that taught you your skill with the bow?”
A slow smirk curved your lips.
“Why?” you asked lightly, leaning forward just enough to shorten the space between you. “Are you worried I may take your place as Westeros’s most skilled archer?”
He could not help but mirror the movement, leaning in as well, the red eye glinting with quiet amusement. The corner of his mouth lifted into a rare, genuine grin.
“I do not—”
“Well,” a new voice drawled, cutting clean through the moment, dripping with mockery and unwanted heat, “the lost doe returns to the dragon’s den. And I heard she’s grown quite a set of horns in the Stormlands.”
You didn't have to turn to know it was Aegor. A single glance at Brynden was enough. It seemed the old rivalry you remembered between them had not died in your absence—only festered. The air around Brynden seemed to still, the warmth leaching from it as if winter had come.
His jaw tightened; the faint amusement you had received from him, vanished without a trace.
Slowly, you turned.
He looked like an older version of the childish brute you remembered—harder, heavier in muscle, a beard shadowing his jaw. The same restless aggression simmered beneath his skin, though now it wore the arrogance of a man riding the high of his new legitimized status.
His gaze dragged over you with open appraisal.
You forced a smile.
“Aegor,” you greeted evenly. “I see your tongue is still as blunt as your sword. Has no one taught you how to greet a lady in my absence, or do I need to show you how they handle such rudeness in the Stormlands?”
A faint murmur rippled through the nearby courtiers, that had been brave enough to stay.
Aegor’s lips twitched into something you couldn’t even call a smile. “Stormlanders correct rudeness with fists, if I recall.”
“Oh, good,” you replied sweetly. “There is something within that head of yours. I worried for a moment it might be hollow.”
He scowled.
“I see not even exile could teach you to become a proper lady,” he said, voice tightening. “Your mouth is still as crass as ever.”
"Crass?" You let the word hang in the air, tilting your head as if weighing its value. "In the South, they call it candor. But I suppose to a man who only understands the language of a grunt and a grumble, any sentence with more than three syllables sounds like an insult."
Aegor’s face flushed a dull, angry purple, his hand twitching toward the heavy signet ring on his finger. "You always did have too much of our father’s arrogance and none of his sense. You think those Dornish trinkets and Stormland boasts make you untouchable? You’re still a bastard just like the rest of us sister, sister. Just one with better fabric and a sharper tongue."
"And a better aim," Brynden cut in, his voice like a sheet of ice cracking. He hadn't moved, but the air around him felt charged, dangerous. His single red eye was fixed on Aegor with a lethal focus. "Or have you forgotten whose arrow spared Prince Maekar’s line from being overrun. It wasn't a lady's embroidery needle that pierced Aegon’s plate, Bittersteel."
The mention of the Redgrass Field and his fallen nephew turned Aegor’s irritation into a raw, bleeding snarl. He stepped into your space, Looming over you, the scent of leather and old sweat rolling off him.
"Careful, Brynden," Aegor hissed, though his eyes remained locked on yours. "The war is over, but the grudges are long. Your little 'doe' might have found some horns, but I’ve broken stags before."
“Try it,” you whispered, not retreating a single inch. Your hand came to rest openly on the hilt of the slender Valyrian steel dagger at your thigh—a gift from Prince Daeron himself. “And I’ll show you why the Dornish say it’s the smallest vipers that carry the most certain death.”
Aegor’s gaze dropped to the hilt of the Valyrian steel dagger, his pupils narrowing. He recognized the ripples in the dark metal. The sight of it, held by a woman who had already tasted the blood of what was once his cause, seemed to stoke the fire behind his eyes until it threatened to boil over.
“A gift from the Scholar-King?” Aegor sneered, though he did not step closer. “He gives you toys of ancient steel while he gives nothing to the men doing the real fighting, like Maekar. You haven’t change, hiding behind titles and trinkets.”
“And you,” you replied softly, your voice dipping into something far more dangerous than anger, “are still the same brat who screams at the sun because it refuses to stop shining.”
Anyone in proximity had gone silent.
“You speak of real fighting,” you continued, honeyed and lethal. “Yet I recall quite clearly the sight of your back as you fled the Redgrass Field. Tell me—did Blackfyre teach you that particular stride, or did it come naturally?”
The insult struck home like a hammer.
Aegor surged forward, fury finally breaking through restraint. His hand flew to the hilt of his sword, leather creaking beneath the force of his grip.
Steel sang half an inch from its sheath—
Brynden moved instantly, stepping between you with his arm raised to halt him—
—but you were faster.
Your dagger was in your hand before most realized it had left its sheath. In a single fluid motion, you stepped in close and pressed the edge of Valyrian steel to Aegor’s throat. A thin line of red blossomed across his skin where the blade kissed flesh. He was fortunate you had not dipped it in poison, as you so usually did.
“Careful,” You all but crooned warningly.
“Some might consider your behaviour to be one of traitor,” Brynden warned quietly, “After all, you only just managed to clear your name of any treason.”
Aegor stilled.
He had been one of Daemon Blackfyre’s most ardent supporters, convinced of the righteousness of a rebel crown. When the rebellion shattered at the Redgrass Field, when banners burned and brothers turned their blades inward, survival had demanded a different posture. He had claimed blindness and manipulation. Claimed he had been misled by ambition and false promises. He had bent the knee to Daeron and sworn himself renewed in loyalty.
It had been by the narrowest edge of royal mercy that his head had remained upon his shoulders.
And he knew it.
For a long, tense moment, he glared at the two of you, fury warred with calculation behind his gaze. Slowly, he stepped back, fists clenched in a physical effort to restrain his anger.
A throat cleared nervously.
A few steps away, a young servant stood stiff as a pike, face pale beneath the torchlight. “M-my lord,” he said, voice wavering slightly, “the Lady Shiera requests your presence.”
You fought the urge to scoff at the sound of your half sister’s name but you didn’t miss the way Brynden’s shoulder went stiff from beside you.
Aegor’s expression shifted as smug curve tugged at his mouth as he glanced at Brynden. Anger replaced by petty satisfaction at the perceived victory. Without a word, he turned and followed the servant down the corridor.
Only when he was fully out of sight did Brynden’s shoulders ease, the rigid line of him loosening by a fraction.
"Well," you muttered, the metallic snick of your Valyrian steel dagger sliding home into its sheath puncturing the silence. "He’s still the same as ever."
"He is worse," Brynden corrected, his voice a low.
When you looked at him, the edge of cold calculation had returned to his features—but beneath it was something else.
Concern.
“Be on your guard around him,” he said seriously. “Aegor is ruled by his temper,” Brynden continued. “He won’t so easily forget such a slight against him.” His jaw tightened, the pale skin over his bone structure pulling taut. “I fear he will seek repayment.”
You snorted softly. “I’ve survived far worse than our brother.”
“I do not question your strength,” he began, his single red eye narrowing as he prepared to press the matter further, to make you understand the gravity of his warning was not just something you could brush aside—
“My lady.”
The interruption came from your left.
You turned to find a herald standing stiffly at attention, the three-headed dragon sigil embroidered across his chest in threads of obsidian and flame.
“The Hand requests your presence,” the man announced. “At once.”
You inclined your head gracefully. “Of course.”
Brynden’s jaw tightened with frustration
When you turned back to Brynden, something unspoken passed between you.
He leaned in, his voice a ghost of a whisper. “Do not dismiss what I said.”
You offered him a faint, teasing smile, the kind that had always managed to disarm his gloom. “I won’t,” You reassured, “I’ll see you later.”
He only inclined his head, standing perfectly still like a sentinel of bone and shadow, watching as you walked away.
That night, Brynden dreamed.
In his sleep, he walked a narrow path—one he had been treading for years, the earth well-worn beneath his boots. At its end stood Shiera. She wore a radiant smile across her plush lips, yet she remained perpetually just out of reach, no matter how long he walked.
Beside him stood Aegor, blade drawn, anger ever simmering. In that future, Brynden saw the years stretching on in endless contest: challenges in the court, wars waged for a woman who belonged to neither and delighted in belonging to both. There was no peace there. No certainty. Only a lifetime locked in rivalry, chasing affection that would never root itself fully in him.
It was a life of endless stalemate for a loveless war disguised as devotion.
Then the dream shifted.
The path split.
The second road was quieter. There was no spectacles, no rivalry. Only you.
You stood beneath a sky washed in gold, your expression steady and unafraid. In this future, Brynden did not have to fight Aegor for scraps of attention. He did not measure his worth against his brother’s rage. He stood beside you—not above, not in pursuit—beside.
When he reached you, the smile you gave him was blinding, reaching into the cold corners of his soul. Your fingers came up to his pale, red-stained cheek, cupping it tenderly. You looked at him as though you saw every shadow and flaw he carried and did not recoil. As though loving him was not a challenge to conquer but a choice you happily made.
He saw then what that life could be. You, with the alliances you had cultivated from the jagged cliffs of Dragonstone to the sweltering courts of Dorne. You, who had won the respect of the realm through intelligence and strength rather than seduction and brute force. Lords who trusted you extended that trust to him. You, who would not toy with his heart, but guard it as fiercely as he would guard yours.
There was no endless duel upon this path, only devotion and love.
When Brynden woke, he realized there was no choice to be decided. You and he had always been two halves of a whole. Shiera had been his attempt to fill the space your absence carved into him. A distraction.
Now that you had returned, there was no room for substitutes.
It would only ever be you.
But Brynden was not the only one whose gaze shifted. Aegor’s had as well, for the sole reason because Brynden now wanted you. The rivalry that had once been tempered by pride and sharpened by Shiera’s indulgence darkened the moment it centered upon you.
Your half sister had a beauty that men drowned in with indulgence. You, however, had a beauty that sent men to their knees, begging for the smallest of tastes.
While Shiera had entertained them both, weaving the tension between Brynden and Aegor like a spider spinning silk around its prey, you offered neither invitation nor game. You did not flirt or indulge in his crass attempts. In truth, you did not even look Aegor’s way, for since you had been a young girl, it was only ever Brynden who held your heart.
However, continued denial to a man accustomed to conquest, was its own provocation. It was a month after your return when he finally found his opportunity to corner you alone.
“What does he have that draws you to his side?” Aegor demanded one evening, stepping from shadow as you made your way toward your chambers. “Is it sorcery? Or do you simply enjoy the company of things that should have been drowned at birth?”
You glared, “Watch your tongue.”
“Is he fucking you?” he demanded, his voice dropping into the gutter. He stepped closer, his bulk looming over you, the scent of wine heavy and sour on his breath. “Are you so desperate for a man that you would settle for such a freak?”
He didn't wait for an answer. He leaned down, his voice laced with a grotesque sort of arrogance that made your skin crawl. “If it’s a man you need, I can assure you I would satisfy you far better than he ever could.”
The sound of your palm striking his cheek echoed down the stone corridor like a whip-crack.
Aegor's head snapped sideways, the force of the blow jarring his teeth. For a heartbeat, he stood frozen, stunned less by the physical sting than by the sheer, audacity you would do such a thing. A dark, angry crimson flared along his jaw where your hand had landed.
You let out a cold, mocking, humourless laugh.
“You reek of desperation,” you spat, your voice like winter steel. “It’s pathetic.”
You took a step closer, forcing him to meet your eyes, refusing to be intimidated by his size. “You’re pathetic, Aegor. You’re so consumed by what Brynden has that you’ve forgotten how to be a man of your own. And that is why you will always be second to him.”
Slowly, Aegor’s head turned back toward you. The surprise was gone, replaced by a raw, white-hot fury that ignited in his eyes. "You'll regret that," he hissed.
Your other hand moved instinctively for your dagger — but this time he was ready.
Aegor caught your wrist mid-motion, his fingers clamping down hard enough to bruise. Before you could twist free, his other hand seized your remaining arm. In one brutal shove, he drove you back against the stone wall, the impact knocking the breath from your lungs. Cold stone pressed into your spine as he pinned your arms above you, using his weight to anchor you.
You struggled immediately, muscles straining, trying to wrench free from his grip.
“Let me go!” you shouted, fury lacing your voice.
But he was larger — broader through the shoulders, heavier with muscle. You were fast and trained, but in sheer size you were nearly half his measure. Your wrists burned beneath the pressure of his hold as he forced you still against the wall, his breath hot and unsteady against your face.
He let out a dark, jagged chuckle, leaning in until the stench of wine was suffocating. “If you have doubts of me being a man, then let me show you. Let me show you exactly what a man can do.”
You snarled, whipping your head forward in a desperate attempt to get free. Your forehead met the bridge of his nose with a sickening, wet crack.
Aegor let out a pained howl, his grip breaking as he staggered back, clutching his face. Stars danced across your vision, and a high-pitched ringing erupted in your ears from the impact. You gasped, your hand flying to your own throbbing brow as you stumbled, fingers clawing at the stone wall for purchase. You tried to shove past him, to find your footing and flee, But Aegor recovered faster than you expected.
He surged forward with a snarl, his weight slamming into your shoulder and shoving you back against the masonry with enough force to knock the air from your lungs. One hand clamped around your wrist again, pinning it high above your head. The other hand reached out and fisted the fine Dornish silk of your bodice and tore downward.
The delicate fabric let out a violent rip and gave way beneath his rough fingers.
There was a near-manic glint in his eyes, blood from his broken nose smearing across his lips as he bared his teeth. “Let’s see if he will still desire you after I ruin you,” he spat. It was the ultimate, ugly logic of a man who equated possession with power: if he could not win your regard, he would take your dignity and call it a victory over the brother he hated.
You let out a scream, the sound torn from your throat as a searing hatred for your own helplessness flared hotter than the fear. His grip was iron, crushing the bone of your wrist, and for a fleeting, terrifying heartbeat, the world narrowed to the bruising pressure of his hand and the suffocating smell of wine on his breath.
Then—
He was torn away from you before you fully understood what had happened.
The weight was suddenly gone. Aegor staggered back, his boots scuffing violently against the floor as he fought to keep his footing. Blood poured down his face from the gushing, broken nose you had delivered, staining his beard and collar in crimson streaks.
Behind him stood Brynden. He was fury rendered in absolute stillness, his pale face carved into something cold and utterly lethal.
Aegor laughed through the blood, a wet, breathless sound devoid of any humour. He spat a glob of red onto the floor, his eyes wild and jagged with spite as he looked from his brother to you.
Brynden’s expression darkened further when his gaze swept over you, taking in the torn fabric at your bodice, the disheveled strands of your once-styled hair, and the fear you were trying so fiercely to master.
He had tolerated much in his life.
He had endured Shiera’s games, the tension and jealousy she caused by the cruelty of her whims, the shared affections she distributed between him and Aegor. He had accepted the sting of it because that had been her choice. But this—this was not a choice.
Brynden lunged.
They collided with brutal, bone-jarring force, crashing to the stone floor in a violent tangle of limbs and raw fury. The corridor erupted in the sound of chaos—boots scraping frantically against the masonry, shoulders slamming into heavy pillars, and the sound of grunts as knuckle meeting flesh.
Aegor recovered quickly, snarling as he swung back, breath tearing from battered lungs. His fist glanced off Brynden’s jaw; Brynden answered with one to the ribs that drove the air from him.
They grappled like beasts, years of rivalry igniting in full.
Eventually, Brynden gained the upper hand.
With ruthless efficiency, he forced Aegor onto his back. He braced his knees against Aegor’s ribs, pinning him to the stone. Then, his fist came down.
Once.
Twice.
Again.
And again.
The sound of knuckles striking flesh and bone echoed sickeningly through the corridor. Blood splattered across pale skin and grey stone alike. Aegor’s face became a swelling, bloodied ruin beneath the relentless assault.
Brynden did not slow; his movements were mechanical, driven by a cold, white-hot rage that had finally found its outlet. Each strike carried the weight of years of restrained fury, and in that moment, you understood with chilling clarity: if you had not moved—if you had not seized his arm and spoken his name, begging him that it was enough—he would not have stopped until he had beaten the life out of the man beneath him.
The Keep would not remember this as another brotherly fight but for a brother’s death.
He would not be called Bloodraven.
He would be called kinslayer.
“Brynden! That’s enough!”
Your voice cut through the corridor. Your hand closed around his sleeve, halting his next move mid-arc. The fury in him did not vanish—you could feel it vibrating through his entire frame—but at your touch alone, he stilled. His fist hovered in the air for one agonizing heartbeat before finally lowering.
His shoulders heaved with ragged, silent breaths.
For a long moment, he did not move.
Then, slowly, he rose.
Aegor lay groaning on the stone, blood pooling beneath him, but Brynden no longer looked at him. His attention shifted to you instead—and whatever rage had consumed him moments before dulled beneath something far more urgent.
Worry.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
His voice was a quiet rasp, stripped of its usual icy composure. His single red eye trailed down the length of you, cataloging the damage with a near clinical precision. He took in the wild disarray of your hair, the jagged tear at your dress, and the angry, purple imprint of fingers already darkening against the skin of your wrist.
As he reached the bruises, something in his expression darkened further, a flicker of the monster returning to his eyes before he forced it back down.
Without a word, he unfastened his cloak in one smooth motion. He draped the heavy black fabric around your shoulders, the weight of it swallowing you in warmth and the faint, sharp scent of pine and old parchment.
You swallowed hard, the adrenaline finally beginning to ebb, leaving a cold shiver in its wake.
“Thank you,” you murmured, your fingers clutching the silver-weighted edge of the cloak as if it were an anchor. Your gaze dropped briefly to the stone. “I should have taken your warning more seriously… I did not expect him to—”
Brynden’s hand rose to your cheek. His palm was cool against your flushed skin
The touch was so sudden and so gentle that it stilled the very breath in your lungs.
“It was not your fault,” he said, his voice dropping to a register meant only for you. “You are not responsible for Aegor’s actions. Never suggest otherwise.”
His thumb brushed lightly along your jaw carefully. A near reverent caress that felt like a benediction— so different from the violence he displayed moments before.
“Time has only made him more twisted,” he continued quietly. “More vile.”
Behind you, Aegor shifted with a pained groan as he slowly pushed himself to sit up.
Your gaze snapped to his broken form. The softness Brynden had drawn out of you vanished, replaced by a cold, calculating fury that mirrored the steel at your hip. Without a word, you stepped around Brynden and knelt over Aegor. Before he could even blink through the blood in his eyes, you had your dagger out, pressing the sharp point of the blade directly against his groin.
Aegor stilled instantly. He let out a sharp, hitching breath as he felt the barest, stinging pinch of the Valyrian steel through his breeches.
“Try this again,” you whispered, your voice a lethal caress, “and I will personally ensure that the next time you try to bed a woman, you’ll find you are missing the parts required for the task. I will make a eunuch of you before you can even draw a breath to plead.”
Aegor’s jaw worked, his hands balling into white-knuckled fists against the floor. Even broken and bleeding, he looked ready to strike, desperate to prove his dominance with the only tool he truly understood: violence. But the bite of the blade was the only thing that kept him at bay.
"You're a madwoman," he hissed, his voice bubbling through the blood, though his eyes darted nervously to the blade in your hand.
"I'm a dragon," you corrected him sharply, your voice devoid of mercy. "And I've spent enough time with vipers to know exactly where to bite."
With those words, you straightened up, the adrenaline beginning to leave your limbs. Brynden offered his arm and you accepted it, letting him lead you away from the wreckage of his brother. The heavy sweep of his cloak trailed behind you, a dark shroud that hid your torn dress from the prying eyes of the Red Keep.
Once inside the safety of your chambers, Brynden turned to face you.
“Do you need me to call the maester?” he asked softly. His fingers reached toward the swelling at your brow where you had struck Aegor.
You winced as the dull throb behind your eyes intensified, then shook your head. “I’ll be fine. A maester will only ask questions that might cause the realm to gossip.”
He exhaled a long, sharp breath through his nose, his jaw tightening. “You should have let me kill him. He doesn't deserve the air he breathes, let alone the mercy you showed him.”
“And have the realm call you kinslayer?” you scoffed, looking up at him. “The gods know you have enough enemies, Brynden. You don't need that blood on your hands.”
“At least we’d be rid of him,” he muttered darkly, his single red eye fixed on the door as if he could still see Aegor’s broken body through the wood. “The world would be quieter without his constant, grasping greed.”
“And then your reputation would be tarnished beyond repair,” you pointed out, reaching up to lay your hand over his.
It was his turn to scoff, a jagged, self-deprecating sound. “It can seldom get worse, you know. You’ve heard the songs. You know what the people say about me. A thousand eyes and one, all of them belonging to Westeros’ darkest sorcerer.”
He looked down at you, his expression softening into something painfully vulnerable. “I’ve long stopped caring for what the realm thinks of me.” His hand turned beneath yours, lacing his fingers through your own. His knuckles were still stained a dark, drying crimson—a stark contrast to the milk-white of his skin. “I care only for what you think of me”
Your breath hitched. You swallowed harshly, “And what of your paramour, the Lady Shiera? I’m sure our sister would have been remiss if you had succeeded in killing off her other lover.”
The mention of her name acted like a douse of ice water, but not in the way you expected. Brynden didn’t flinch; instead, his entire posture went rigid, his single eye snapping open to lock onto yours with a startling, crystalline focus.
"Shiera," he repeated, the name sounding foreign on his tongue in the sanctuary of your chambers.
He let out a short, sharp breath that might have been a laugh if it weren't so bitter. He pulled his hand back, though only far enough to frame your face, his blood-stained knuckles inches from your hair. “I care not for what she thinks.”
“Lovers quarrel?” You arched a brow.
The faintest tightening touched his jaw, a flicker of genuine irritation—or perhaps pain—crossing his pale features. “Have you really no idea of my feelings for you?”
You stilled, “What are you talking about?” Your shoulders stiffened instinctively, retreating even as his hand remained gentle against your skin. “Do not think I am willing to be a part of this… this triangle you, Shiera, and Aegor insist on orbiting.”
Your voice sharpened.
“I did not leave King’s Landing only to return as someone’s shared amusement.”
Brynden flinched as if you had struck him, his hand dropping from your face as he recoiled a fraction, expression shifting into one of hurt.
“Amusement?” he repeated quietly. “You think I would place you among her games?” His red eye burned fiercely with emotion. “That I would ask you to share what has always been yours?”
"I have spent my life in that triangle because I believed it was the only place for a man like me," he said, his red eye fixed on yours with a terrifying, unblinking honesty. "A freak born of a King's whim. I took what was offered because I never believed I deserved more. Shiera is a mirror of all my worst impulses, a reflection of the darkness I thought I was born to inhabit. But you?”
He reached out again, his fingers hovering just shy of your pulse point, waiting for your permission. When you didn't pull away, he let his hand settle, his thumb tracing the frantic beat of your heart against your neck.
"I want to be the man you deserve, not the monster they see. If you think this is a game to me—if you think I am merely looking for a new way to spite my brother—then I have failed you more than he ever could."
You let out a trembling breath, “What changed? Why now?”
“Because you finally came back, and I realized I could no longer continue on this path without at least trying to take a leap of faith and follow my heart.”
He leaned forward and pressed a lingering kiss to your forehead. “You do not need to give me an answer now,” he murmured against your skin. “I know what I am asking.”
He pulled back slightly, though his gaze held yours.
“All I ask is that you consider me.”
Without another word, he turned and disappeared into the shadows of the hallway, leaving you standing alone in the silence of your chambers to ponder the weight of his confession.
Not long after the incident with Aegor, you would decide to cut your stay at court short. King’s Landing had begun to feel less like home and more like a snare. You had grown fond of the freedom your birth afforded you—the small mercy of bastardy, which loosened the heavy chains binding trueborn royals to endless, suffocating ceremony.
You had meant to depart alone.
But Brynden had refused to let you, insisting on staying by your side to join you on your travels. You had agreed, if only to see what a life shared with him might look like when the realm wasn't watching.
Aegor’s presence had also loomed over you like a gathering storm. The memory of his hands on you and the look in his eyes remained a jagged wound, and you feared he might strike again if left to his own devices. That unease, more than anything, had fuelled your decision to leave the Red Keep.
Together, you rode first for the salt-sprayed cliffs of Dragonstone, then to the thunderous heights of Storm’s End to meet your family, and eventually to the ancient, weirwood-shaded peace of Raventree Hall to see Brynden’s family.
In that freedom, away from the prying eyes of the capital, you discovered one another. Without the court poised between you to judge every glance, the tension began to melt into something sturdier. Despite the depth of your own feelings, you had been reluctant to accept his confession back at court; Shiera’s presence seemed to show up at every turn, and your sister had done everything in her power to remind you of the space she once occupied in Brynden’s bed.
But the open road was mercifully free of such games.
Brynden watched you closely in those months as you traveled, and he never pressed for more than you were willing to give or an answer to his confession. If anything, he seemed content simply to ride at your side.
He watched as you renewed the ties you had forged in earlier years. And for those where familiarity lacked, you created new alliances. Unlike Shiera, you did not seduce loyalty—you earned it.
You were cunning, yes—sharp-minded and sharp-tongued in your speech—but you were not cruel. The alliances you shaped were not fragile threads spun from vanity or waning desire. They were rooted in trust, in reciprocity, and in quiet demonstration of worth.
With each land you crossed, the distance between you narrowed in ways neither of you were quite ready to name aloud.
Brynden felt it long before you did.
He had already seen the shape of what could be.
In dreams that came unbidden and unrelenting, he glimpsed futures branching before him like veins of light and shadow. In some, you stood at his side—not in obligation, or as a pawn—but as a partner. He saw the way your influence would steady his own, how your grace would soften the jagged edges of his reputation without dulling its strength. He saw halls filled not with bitter rivalry, but with respect. He saw you looking at him not as a brother-in-arms, but as the man you had chosen.
He woke from those dreams with certainty. He loved you. He had loved you for years, but he had been too much of a coward to say it—and now, he was paying for his actions with the doubts he had caused you.
But unlike him, you did not carry the burden—or the blessing—of foresight. You did not see the roads unfurl before your feet. You felt only the present: the comfort of riding beside him, the way his silence felt companionable rather than cold, the jump in your pulse when his hands would come up to grip your waist as he helped you dismount your horse.
He was patient.
He had always been patient.
If the future he saw was meant to belong to the two of you, he knew it would not require force; it would arrive in its own time. And eventually it did.
There was no singular moment that split friendship from something more. Instead, it unfolded quietly—like dawn creeping across a darkened sky. What began as companionship began to deepen into something steadier.
The realization finally took hold at Raventree Hall. You found him amongst the ancient weirwood of his mother’s people. The Brackens had poisoned the site long ago, and the massive tree stood skeletal and pale, dead yet still towering. Its white branches were no longer heavy with red leaves, but with hundreds of ravens watching those who would come before it.
“You are missing out on the celebrations,” you mused, your voice cutting softly through the heavy silence of the godswood.
Brynden didn’t turn at first. He stood as still as the wood itself, his pale skin nearly matching the bone-white bark of the tree.
“I’m afraid my tolerance for drunken cousins has its limits,” he replied dryly, his voice low and even. “Before long, I find myself seeking the solace of silence.”
You huffed a quiet laugh as you came to stand beside him, your shoulder almost brushing his arm.
“Your mother’s kin do celebrate with enthusiasm,” you said.
“None can match those of your kin,” he answered, finally turning his head. A ghost of a smirk tugged at his mouth. “Baratheon celebrations remain unmatched.”
You let out a quiet laugh, gazing at the great tree.
“It is beautiful, in its own way,” you murmured, the cold air biting at your cheeks.
“Most see only death,” he said quietly. “Though I suppose you always did prefer the broken things.”
You hummed softly, a small plume of breath blooming in the night air. "Perhaps. There is more character in a ruin than in a fresh-built wall. You know exactly where the strength lies when everything else has been stripped away."
Brynden went still at your words. He turned fully now, his single red eye tracking the way the moonlight caught the edge of your cloak—the same cloak he had draped over you a year ago, now worn thin from the dust of the road.
“Is that what you saw in me,” he asked quietly, the dryness gone from his voice, replaced by something far more fragile, “when you stood up against Aegor all those years ago to protect me? A broken boy?”
You raised your hand to his face. "You were never a ruin to me, Brynden," you whispered, your thumb tracing the line of his jaw and his eyes fluttered shut at your touch.
“Even back then,” you continued softly, the words a bridge between the children you were and the people you had become. “You were the boy who made sure none of the courtly girls dared mock me again after you found me crying in the gardens because they called me a lowly bastard.”
A faint exhale left him at the reminder of the memory.
“You were the boy who would sneak raspberry squares from the kitchens simply because you knew they were my favourite,” you said, a fragile smile touching your lips. Your thumb brushed lightly beneath the scarred hollow of his eye socket, a gesture of intimacy that no one else in the Seven Kingdoms would have dared—not even Shiera. “You were the first person who made me feel as though I never had to be anyone but myself, even when the entire court was trying to mold me into a proper lady. It’s those memories and more that made me love you since we were children, Brynden.”
He opened his eye then, the crimson depth of it searching yours with a clarity that no prophecy or vision could ever provide. He reached up, covering your hand with his own and pressing your palm more firmly against his face.
“We lost our chance in youth,” he murmured, his voice low and jagged with the weight of years spent in silence. “I cannot give you back the time I spent being a cowardly fool. But allow me the chance to love you now, as a man.”
He leaned closer, the breath between you mingling in the cool, crisp air beneath the skeletal branches of the weirwood. Above, the ravens grew still, their dark forms silent witnesses to the shifting of fate.
“Tell me to stop,” he whispered, his lips only a breath from yours, his single eye searching for any hint of hesitation. “Tell me now, and I will.”
You didn't speak. Instead, you simply closed the distance. Your lips met his in a gentle, unhurried kiss—years of unspoken longing finally given shape.
Brynden’s hand slid from your cheek to the back of your neck, his fingers tangling in your hair to hold you there, as if he feared you were another one of his dreams and you would vanish once he woke up. A low, ragged sound—half-sigh, half-growl—vibrated against your lips.
You pulled him closer, your hands gripping the heavy fabric of his doublet, feeling the frantic, hammering rhythm of his heart against your chest. For all his talk of being a monster or a creature of shadow, his mouth was warm and devastatingly human.
He broke the kiss just enough to trail his lips across your jaw, his breath hot against your ear. "I have spent a thousand nights dreaming of this," he rasped, his voice thick with an emotion he could no longer control. "And not one of them was enough. Not one of them compared to the truth of you."
By the time the first murmurs began—soft whispers that you and Brynden were courting in all but name—the truth of it had already rooted itself too deeply to be denied. You found your gaze instinctively seeking his across crowded halls whenever your duties kept you apart. You found yourself attuned to the subtle cadence of his voice and the rare, private curve of amusement on his lips that was reserved for you alone.
Rumour traveled faster than ravens.
It reached the Crownlands soon enough, bleeding into the stones of King’s Landing and reaching ears that burned at the mere thought of your union. Shiera did not take kindly to losing the man she had once considered her most devoted toy, and Aegor did not appreciate being displaced in significance—least of all by the brother he had sworn to outshine.
The praise sung of you—of your valour in the Battle of the Redgrass Field, of your celebrated beauty and grace, and now of the growing bond between you and Brynden—struck at both of them differently, but the sting remained equally sharp.
When word came of the tourney at Ashford, you and Brynden decided it was finally time to step out of the quiet safety of the provinces and to return to the Crownlands. You would attend the celebration and he would join the games, and afterward ride back to the Red Keep with the Targaryen procession.
Many turned to look as the two of you rode in.
Conversations faltered. Cups paused midway to lips as they took the two of you in. Lord Bloodraven and Lady Y/n.
You had purposefully chosen to dress in a red reminiscent of blood—a deep, vivid shade that caught the sunlight like living flame. Gold thread traced the seams in subtle patterns of dragons and stags, your two lineages woven together in defiance of those who would see you as lesser. Golden ornaments were threaded through your braids, the small pieces glinting as they moved through the length of your loose hair, catching the wind as you rode.
Atop a dapple-grey horse, you looked every inch the storm dragon’s daughter, born from two unyielding houses and beholden to none.
Beside you rode Brynden, a stark contrast in all black. Black cloak, black leather, and a black stallion. The hood of his cloak shielded his pale skin from the unforgiving sun and cast his features into deep shadow, leaving only the faint, crimson glint of his eye to unsettle the hearts of lesser men.
The two of you rode close, knees nearly brushing. Your chin remained high as the crowd parted. Yes, you were a bastard. But you were a noble one.
Across the lists, a boy with a shaven head squinted through the dust toward the road, his eyes brightening with instant recognition.
“She’s here!” Egg exclaimed, nearly bouncing on his heels.
“Who is?” Duncan asked, following the boy’s gaze with a puzzled frown.
“Y/N Storm,” Egg breathed, excitement softening his usual youthful caution.
“Isn’t that a bastard’s name?” Duncan questioned, recognizing the surname given to the high-born children of the Stormlands.
Egg nodded fervently.
“And who’s the one beside her?”
“Brynden Rivers,” Egg supplied, his voice dropping an octave in awe. “They’re among the Great Bastards. My father says they were pivotal to the victory at the Redgrass Field and without them, the battle would have been lost.”
Duncan raised a curious brow. “Have you met them?”
Egg nodded, his gaze fixed on the dapple-grey horse and its rider. “Lady Y/N stayed with my family back on Dragonstone. She was kind.” His cheeks heated. “And definitely the most beautiful, too.”
Duncan coughed, his gaze drifting toward a nearby tent where Shiera Seastar had straightened from her languid recline. Her mismatched eyes—one emerald, one sapphire—narrowed into slits as she watched the procession. “I heard the men say that she was?” He nodded subtly toward the silver beauty in the pavilion.
Egg wrinkled his nose. “Shiera is beautiful,” he admitted reluctantly. “But she’s an ugly witch underneath.”
Before Duncan could murmur a reprimand for such insolence, Egg had already slipped from his side, darting down the slope toward the stables where you and Brynden were just beginning to dismount.
Your mare stamped lightly as you drew her to a halt. You were perfectly capable of dismounting without assistance—you had done so since childhood—but Brynden stepped forward all the same, as he always did when you were in his company.
His hands settled at your waist, firm and assured, and he lifted you from the saddle with ease before setting you gently upon the ground.
You looked up at him, and for a fleeting moment, the clamour of the tourney faded to a distant hum. Your fingers rose almost without thought, slipping beneath the edge of his hood. The fabric brushed your knuckles as you pushed it back just enough to reach him. You traced your fingertips along his cheek, feeling the warmth of his skin beneath the cool shade that shielded him from the sun.
His red eye softened at your touch, the severity of his usual expression easing into something reserved for you alone. He leaned ever so slightly into your hand—but the sound of hurried footsteps shattered the moment.
You turned just as a small figure barrelled toward you, nearly tripping over his own haste.
“Y/N!” Egg called breathlessly, skidding to a stop before you, his face split by a wide, gap-toothed grin.
Laughter escaped you before you could stop it. You crouched slightly, arms opening without thought as he threw himself forward in greeting.
“Egg,” you breathed warmly, steadying him. “Look at how much you’ve grown.”
“Everyone still says I’m puny for my age,” he huffed, though he couldn't hide his delight at the praise.
“You will grow; you are still young,” you reassured him, leaning back just enough to take him in properly. Your fingers brushed over his newly shorn head, and a brow arched in amused disbelief. “And what,” you asked lightly, “have you done with your hair?”
He only shrugged sheepishly, a mischievous glint in his eyes.
Behind you, Brynden straightened. One gloved hand rested idly near his belt where his sword hung—the gesture born more of habit than of threat. His posture remained watchful, but the sharp edge of his presence softened as he observed the scene.
There was something almost indulgent in his expression.
Brynden did not often smile. The world had not shaped him into a man to give easy warmth. Yet, as he watched you kneel in the dirt of a stable to embrace a child, witnessing the genuine affection you gave so freely, something in him eased.
One day, he thought—with quiet certainty—he would see your belly swell with his child not only in the shifting shadows of dream, but beneath his hand in waking life.
Egg beamed up at you, oblivious to the stares gathering around the stables or the dark intensity of the man standing behind you. “So, you’re back?” he asked, as though he had half-feared you would never return.
“We are,” you replied, smoothing your hand over his head once more. “And after the tourney, we’ll be returning to the Red Keep as well.”
His eyes lit up at once. “Could I ride with you? On the way back?”
“If your father agrees,” you said with a small, knowing nod. “I would not dare steal the young prince without his permission, Egg.”
He only waved you off, “Father would agree to almost anything when it comes to you, so long as you don’t mention—“
He cut himself off shooting Brynden a nervous glance. It was no secret of Maekar’s dislike for Brynden and vice versa. But in all fairness both men were known to be notoriously hard to get along with.
You only laughed and pulled him back into a brief embrace, pressing something small into his palm as you did so.
“For later,” you whispered, your voice conspiratorial.
He glanced down at the wrapped handful of sugared almonds now tucked in his hand, then back up at you with his delight barely contained.
You gave him a wink before straightening, “Now, off you go,” you added, straightening your skirts. “Before your father begins to wonder where you’ve run.”
Egg nodded dutifully, though he lingered a moment longer than necessary. His gaze shifted to Brynden, who stood a quiet step behind you, black-clad and watchful as a sentinel.
“Will you win?” Egg asked earnestly, his voice echoing the hopes of every boy watching their favourite knight gather.
Brynden’s mouth curved faintly, that rare ghost of amusement flickering across his pale features. “I do not enter the lists to lose.”
Egg considered this gravely, then nodded as though sealing a pact. “Then you must crown her,” he declared, gesturing toward you with the sugared almonds still clutched in his fist. “The Queen of Love and Beauty.”
You let out an amused giggle and for a heartbeat, your gaze met Brynden’s. His red eye held yours, softening in a way that was only reserved for you.
“Even without titles, she is the finest beauty in the land,” he murmured.
Your cheeks heated, the flush deepening beneath the golden ornaments in your hair. You had faced the terror of the Redgrass Field without flinching, yet a few quiet words from this man made your heart flutter like a trapped bird.
Egg, satisfied with his decree, gave a small nod and hurried back toward the lists, already peeling at the paper wrapping in his hand as he returned to where he had left Duncan. You and Brynden watched him go, shared amusement lingering at the corners of your mouths.
You did not notice the tall man Egg made his way toward across the yard, but he had caught Brynden’s eye.
Your lover’s gaze had shifted, resting for a moment too long upon the broad-shouldered knight whose dirty-blond hair gleamed in the afternoon sun. There was something calculating in that look, something almost prophetic, as though Brynden were placing a vital piece upon a board only he could see.
Yet his focus was soon drawn back to the present when you slipped your hand into his. As the two of you turned away from the stables and the cluster of pavilions, his fingers closed around yours at once and the simple contact steadied the restless pulse at your throat.
Together, you moved toward the training grounds, where the clang of steel rang sharp in the sunlit area.
Below, several knights were already practicing for the morrow’s events; lances struck shields in splintering bursts, and swords flashed in disciplined arcs. The smell of trampled grass and sweat hung thick over the packed earth.
The sight of Brynden did not go unnoticed.
Conversations faltered. One knight lowered his blade mid-swing; another turned too late and nearly stumbled over his own footing. A ripple of murmured whispers followed the sight of the infamous Bloodraven, and the lady in red who walked so comfortably at his side.
His reputation preceded him, and yours was just as formidable.
You leaned toward him to murmur something low and teasing, your attention fixed on his shadowed profile rather than the path ahead—
—and nearly walked straight into a wall of black and gold.
You halted abruptly, your hands instinctively but Brynden caught your waist and steadied you before you could stumble.
“Careful there,” rumbled an amused voice, deep as thunder. “Wouldn’t want to trample the fairest jewel at Ashford.”
You looked up, a genuine smile breaking across your face. “Cousin,” you greeted warmly.
Lyonel Baratheon grinned down at you, all broad shoulders and easy arrogance, the golden crowned stag antlers of your mother's house gleamed atop his head. For all his intimidating size, he took your hand with surprising gentleness and pressed a courteous, lingering kiss to your knuckles.
His dark eyes flicked past you to Brynden, and though his smile remained, caution entered his stance.
“Rivers,” he acknowledged.
“Baratheon.”
The exchange was simple, neither outright hostility nor complete ease.
You knew your lover wasn’t the easiest man to warm to, his quiet nature often put many at unease. Lyonel was his opposite in nearly every way—boastful where Brynden was restrained, loud where Brynden was quiet, easy to laugh while Brynden often remained stoic. The Stormlands blood ran like a tempest within the Laughing Storm; pride came to him as easily as breath, and charm was his natural armour.
Until, of course, someone struck the wrong chord. Then, the legendary Baratheon temper would reveal the jagged lightning behind the clouds. For now, however, the storm lay dormant.
Lyonel rolled his broad shoulders as though loosening them for a bout already begun, his dark eyes gleaming with anticipation. “You’ve come at a good time,” he said, glancing between you and Brynden. “The lists tomorrow promise better sport than half the dreary affairs we’ve endured this year.”
Brynden inclined his head slightly. “I was under the impression Stormlanders preferred melees to lances.”
“We do,” Lyonel replied at once, his grin widening. “There’s something honest about a proper swing of steel. None of this splintered-wood pageantry.” His gaze flicked toward the practice field where a green knight had just awkwardly dropped the lance he was inspecting. “Still, I’ll settle for spectacle if it draws the right opponents.”
“Is that a challenge, Lyonel?” you asked lightly.
“I dare not challenge you, cousin. You are the deadliest being in the land,” Lyonel said with faux seriousness, before breaking into a booming laugh when you playfully slapped his arm at his jest. His gaze then shifted to Brynden with a spark of mischief. “However, I would not mind a bout with your paramour.”
Brynden’s expression did not change, but there was a subtle sharpening in his eye. “Then I hope you are prepared to be disappointed.”
Lyonel barked another laugh. “Careful, Rivers. You’ll make me think you’ve grown fond of arrogance.”
“I have not grown fond of it,” Brynden replied dryly. “I have merely learned to tolerate it after being forced to endure your company for months on end.”
You smothered a smile, enjoying the rare sight of Brynden engaging in even the smallest amount of banter.
Lyonel looked to you as though seeking an ally. “You see how he speaks to me? And here I was prepared to offer him ale and decent company tonight.”
“You offer ale to everyone, Lyonel,” you countered, your eyes dancing.
“Aye, but decent company is selective.” He placed a hand dramatically over his heart. “And I had hoped to convince you both to join us this evening. There’ll be music. And dancing.”
You smiled, answering before Brynden could find a way to decline. “We’ll be sure to stop by, cousin.”
At your side, your other half released the faintest, most put-upon sound beneath his breath—so quiet most would have missed it.
You did not.
Lyonel’s grin widened at Brynden’s discomfort. He clapped him once more on the shoulder, a heavy-handed gesture that would have made a lesser man stumble, then bowed with exaggerated gallantry, his lips brushing over your knuckles once more.
“Until tonight, cousin. Rivers.”
As the Laughing Storm sauntered off toward his tent, his booming laughter trailing behind him, Brynden exhaled slowly through his nose. “Must we attend?”
You turned toward him, feigning innocence as your fingers idly toyed with the edge of his dark cloak. “If you do not wish to join,” you said sweetly, “I can go on my own. I wouldn't want to bore you with something as trivial as music.”
His eye narrowed at once.
Before you could step away, his hand found your waist and drew you closer, his black shadow folding over your vivid red skirts as easily as night claims the day.
“Out of the question,” he murmured, his voice a low, possessive vibration.
“Oh?” You tilted your chin, teasing him, enjoying the faint tightening at the corner of his mouth that signalled his rising protective streak.
“You will not wander into a pavilion full of drunken knights and idle lords unescorted,” he stated, his grip firming just enough to emphasize his point.
“I could have Lyonel as my escort,” you pointed out lightly, as though the thought had only just occurred to you. “You are hardly fond of dancing, my love. Lyonel, at least, would not sulk in the corner while the musicians attempt to coax you into civility.”
A faint breath escaped him—something between disbelief and reluctant amusement. He leaned down, his forehead nearly touching yours, the heat of his presence drowning out the chill of the afternoon breeze.
“I do not sulk,” he corrected softly.
“You brood.”
“I observe.”
“You glower.”
His eye playfully narrowed at that, a faint spark of warning flickering in the crimson depth.
You sighed dramatically, though your fingers still toyed idly with the edge of his cloak. “It is only music, Brynden.”
“And dancing,” he reminded you, as if the word itself were a sentence to the Wall.
A small, almost hopeful smile touched your lips. “Perhaps I should like to see you dance.”
His expression shifted at once—horrified first, then faintly affronted, as if you had suggested he take up the harp in the middle of a siege.
“I do not dance.”
You tilted your head, studying him. “You survived battles. You survived the courts. You survived our mad half brother.” Your gaze softened just a fraction, your voice dropping to a tender murmur. “Surely you can survive one song.”
He did not answer at once. The breeze tugged at his hood, shifting and making the silver of his hair catch the light. His red eye lingered on yours, calculating the weight of his refusal.
“I would look ridiculous,” he said at last.
“Then we shall look ridiculous together,” you replied with an easy, radiant smile.
The corner of his mouth twitched despite himself, the ghost of a real smile finally threatening to break through his stoic mask. He let out a long, defeated sigh, his hand tightened affectionately at your waist.
“We’ll see,” he conceded, which, coming from the Bloodraven, was as good as a promise.
You stepped closer, hope warming your expression. “Does that mean you will attend?”
He looked down at you then, at the expectancy he could never quite withstand. “As if I would refuse you,” he muttered.
Your smile brightened, but past his shoulder, you caught sight of Shiera. She was gliding toward the two of you, her mismatched eyes locked on Brynden with a predatory grace. You felt your shoulders stiffen, the warmth of the moment cooling instantly.
Noticing the shift in your mood, Brynden's gaze sharpened immediately. “What’s wrong?” he asked quietly.
You swallowed, forcing the edge from your expression before turning back to him. “Nothing.”
Despite knowing Brynden and Shiera had once been… entangled—knowing the way she had looked at him and the way he had once answered in kind—some small, treacherous part of you wondered. Even though he had chosen you, though he stood at your side now, you wondered if he ever missed his time with her, or if he might one day seek to rekindle that old flame.
He turned his head just enough to catch Shiera’s approach before looking back at you. “I chose you,” he said simply, “There is no reason for you to feel threatened.”
Your eyes narrowed slightly. “Who said I’m threatened?” you scoffed.
His lips twitched faintly. “Is this frown not because you are jealous of the past I share with her?”
The words were purposefully provoking, and part of you knew it. You bit the bait anyway.
Your fingers, which hadn’t stopped tracing the edge of his cloak, suddenly fisted the heavy, dark fabric. With a firm tug, you yanked him down toward you until his face was barely an inch from yours.
“What is there to be jealous of?” you demanded softly, your voice low and edged with the warning. “I am a storm-born dragon, and you are my treasure.”
Your grip did not loosen as you felt his breath hitch in surprise.
“It would be foolish of her,” you continued, your chin lifting just slightly as Shiera drew closer. “To think she could take what has already been claimed. Unlike her, I do not share.”
For a heartbeat, his expression stilled. Then, he smirked. “It’s a good thing, I do not intend to be shared.”
He leaned closer, the hood of his cloak casting a deeper shadow across his pale features. His voice dropped further, “You seem to be forgetting one thing, ñuha prūmya. You are not the only one with the blood of the dragon,” he murmured. “You are mine just as I am yours.”
His gloved hand slid to your waist again; this time, the gesture was overtly possessive, as if staking a claim for whoever might be watching. “It would be foolish of her,” he finished, his red eye glinting faintly beneath the hood, “to even attempt to take me away from you.”
His thumb pressed lightly into your side, a silent tether between you.
“Ñuha prūmia iksis iā.” My heart is yours.
Your gaze softened at once, the last remnants of doubt dissolving beneath the absolute certainty in his voice. Without hesitation, you rose onto your toes and pressed your lips to his, showing the world that you could be every bit as possessive as he was.
He did not hesitate.
Brynden’s hand tightened at your waist as he returned the kiss with a sudden, fierce hunger that ignored the approaching footsteps. When you finally parted, his forehead rested briefly against yours, his breath warm against your skin.
“Never doubt the love I have for you,” he said quietly.
A sharp, pointed throat-clearing forced the two of you to reluctantly part. Turning, you found Shiera standing a few paces away. Her posture was immaculate, her expression a mask of effortless perfection, yet the slight tightness at the corners of her mouth, and the fire burning in her gaze betrayed the emotion she fought to conceal.
Jealousy did not suit her.
Still, it was there, and you could not deny the faint stir of smugness at the sight of it.
For a long moment, the two of you regarded one another wordlessly. Shiera Seastar stood draped in pale ivories and silvers that shimmered like moonlight—an echo of the sea and the name she bore. You stood as her opposite, a vision in blood-red and gold and no less alluring.
Brynden’s arm remained firm around your waist, an unspoken declaration you did not resist. You were content to remain tucked against his side as the tension between you and Shiera stretched as taut as a drawn bowstring.
“Brother,” she greeted smoothly, her voice polished to a fine edge. She chose to ignore your presence entirely, her focus fixed solely on him. “I had wondered when you would grace us with your return. The court has been quite dull without your company.”
“Shiera,” he replied. His tone was perfectly even—neither warm nor cold. The fire he had once felt for her had long since burnt to ash, leaving behind nothing but indifference.
Her mismatched eyes drifted downward, lingering on the place where his gloved hand curved possessively against your hip. For the briefest instant, her composure faltered. A faint shadow of resentment darkened her features before her face smoothed into a mask of porcelain apathy once more.
“Do you plan to compete in the tourney tomorrow?” she asked him, her voice drifting like silk.
“I do.”
Shiera’s smile deepened, and her voice dropped to a low, suggestive purr. “Mhm. You were always so... insatiable after a match.”
Your fingers tightened in the dark fabric at Brynden’s side—the only outward sign that the remark had struck its mark. Otherwise, you remained the picture of regal composure.
In fact, your smile widened.
“Really?” you asked, sounding genuinely intrigued. “How interesting.”
You tilted your head slightly, studying her with open, almost playful curiosity. “I find myself able to keep up with him quite easily.” There was no bite in your tone, only the faintest lilt of innocence. “If you found it difficult,” you continued pleasantly, “I’ve heard the septas sometimes prepare a restorative tea for such… fatigue. Perhaps you should ask for the recipe if you are struggling to preform.”
For a moment, Shiera did not move. Her mouth parted, then closed again as though the perfect retort had fled her entirely.
Beside you, Brynden made an abrupt, strangled sound. He turned his head sharply away, one gloved hand rising to cover his mouth, though the tell-tale shake of his shoulders betrayed him. He attempted to disguise the outburst as a cough, but the effort was transparent. The laughter in his eye was unmistakable.
Shiera’s gaze flicked toward him, then snapped back to you. A faint flush of colour rose along her throat before she forced her smile to settle into something more composed.
“Oh,” she said lightly, the edge beneath the softness sharpening to a razor’s point. “Is that what you use to aid you? Tonics and teas?”
“Dear gods, no.” You placed a hand against your chest in gentle protest. “If that were the case, I’m afraid Brynden and I would never have found the strength to leave the bed.”
Whatever advantage she had intended to claim slipped neatly from her grasp and was returned to her, wrapped in sweetness and delivered without visible effort.
Brynden cleared his throat again, mastering himself with an arduous effort. He straightened, his composure returning in measured degrees, though the faint curve at the corner of his mouth refused to disappear entirely. His red eye moved briefly between the two of you, shimmering with dark amusement.
Shiera inhaled slowly, reclaiming the serenity she wore like armour. When she spoke again, her voice had regained its smooth cadence, but something brittle lingered beneath the surface.
“You are… refreshingly candid,” she observed, her voice tight.
You offered a small shrug, as though the matter were of no particular consequence. “I see no reason for a dragon to mimic the modesty of the sheep we so often find ourselves surrounded by,” you replied with effortless ease. “Though I suppose court life does encourage such habits. Everyone becomes so… agreeable.” Your gaze met hers directly, unblinking. “Isn’t that so, sister?”
Her gaze lingered a moment longer, before looking to Brynden as if hoping he might step in—perhaps expecting him to chide your sharp tongue or offer a shred of the gentlemanly defence he had once afforded her.
But Brynden did not step in. He did not offer her a single grain of the validation she sought. Instead, he simply adjusted his grip on your waist, pulling you a fraction closer until your shoulder was tucked firmly against his chest.
Her gaze dropped to where Brynden’s thumb traced a slow, rhythmic circle against your silk-clad hip.
Shiera’s nostrils flared, the only crack in her porcelain mask. For years, she had been the sun around which he orbited, the one woman who could command his attention with a mere glance of her mismatched eyes. To be dismissed so casually—to be treated as an observer to his devotion rather than the object of it—was a blow she wasn't prepared to handle in the mud and dust of a tourney ground.
At last, she inclined her head, the whisper of pale fabric following the movement as she stepped back with tense grace. “Enjoy the tourney tomorrow,” she said, her tone light but brittle at its edges. “I should hate for Ashford to lack excitement.”
“I do not believe that will be a concern,” Brynden replied mildly, though the trace of restrained laughter still threaded through his voice.
Shiera gave him one last stare, searching for any lingering spark of the man who had once composed poetry for her. Finding only the hard, red gaze of the Bloodraven, she turned on her heel and retreated toward the tents of the high lord, her silver silks snapping like a whip in her wake.
When she finally disappeared into the crowd, the tension that had quietly coiled between the three of you finally unwound.
Brynden looked down at you, no longer bothering to conceal the amusement warming his expression.
"Restorative tea?" he repeated, his voice thick with amusement. “Quite merciless of you to suggest such a thing.”
You lifted your chin without apology. “She began it.”
The shadow of his hood concealed his face from prying onlookers, but you could see the pleased grin he wore quite clearly. His hand, still firm at your waist, drew you a fraction closer.
“Yes,” he murmured, the words too low for any listening ears, “and you finished it.” His red eye held yours, sparkling with unmistakable fondness. “My vicious storm dragon.”
The day of the tourney dawned bright and merciless.
Sunlight spilled across the lists in a hard, golden glare, reflecting off polished helms and armour. Trumpets blared in the distance, combining the excited mutterings of the gathering crowds.
You fought back a wince.
Your eyes burned, and your head throbbed with every cheer that erupted from the stands. Even the rhythmic flapping of the silk overhead felt like a hammer striking directly behind your temples. Lyonel Baratheon’s celebrations were never modest affairs, and despite your better judgment, you had allowed yourself to be coaxed into drinking far more of the Stormlands' heavy red than you should have.
Flashes of the night surfaced in scattered, dizzying fragments. You remembered the torchlight flickering wildly and the thunder of Lyonel’s laughter as he demanded the musicians play faster. You remembered dancing in a loose, breathless circle, your skirts swaying and boots thudding in time with a rhythm. Your cousin’s booming voice had carried over the music as the two of you nearly sloshed your wine onto yourselves. There had been no courtly reserve, only the reckless freedom that followed good wine and better company.
At some point, the memory blurred into the sensation of Brynden’s arms sliding around your waist without warning. The world had tilted—the stars and torches swapping places—as he hoisted you over his shoulder to a chorus of Lyonel’s approval and the raucous cheers of the camp. You had protested—or you thought you had—but the sound had dissolved into dizzy laughter as he carried you away from the noise and into the sanctuary of your tent.
Your eyes, which you had not realized had drifted shut against the morning glare, snapped open as the next memory surfaced with mortifying clarity. Back in the privacy of the pavilion, you had abandoned what little dignity remained. Driven by a possessive haze of warmth and wine, you had clung to him with shameless determination, all but mauling him as you pressed your mouth to his throat, his jaw, and his chest—anywhere you decided needed to be marked. You had been intent on leaving no doubt as to whom he belonged, lest Shiera entertain any further illusions of her own.
Heat crept up your neck, rivalling the sting of the morning sun.
You shifted in your seat, smoothing your skirts with trembling hands and willing a mask of regal composure back into place.
You sat in the royal pavilion beside your nephews, Baelor and Maekar Targaryen. The great dragon banners snapped sharply overhead in the relentless wind, the sound like the crack of a whip against your fragile senses.
Maekar let out a rough, knowing chuckle, his eyes fixed on the field but his amusement directed entirely at you. “Fun night?”
You exhaled slowly, pressing two fingers briefly to your temple before lowering your hand. “Never underestimate Stormlands hospitality,” you replied. “It seems their barrels—and their tolerance for wine—are endless.”
Maekar snorted at that.
“Baratheons rarely understand the meaning of moderation,” Baelor said mildly. Though his expression remained as poised as ever, the faint curve of his mouth suggested he found the situation more amusing than scandalous.
“That’s why they throw such fine fucking parties,” Maekar added with a rough barking laugh that rumbled deep in his chest.
The sound struck your aching head like a mallet against a bell.
Baelor noticed the sudden strain in your expression before you could fully mask it. His voice softened, pitched low enough that it did not carry beyond the royal enclosure. “You have my sympathies,” he murmured. “The morning after such revelry is rarely kind. Why not return to your chambers and rest? No one would begrudge you the comfort of some shade and silence.”
You shook your head at once, though the motion sent a sharp pulse of pain behind your eyes. “There would be no rest to be found,” you replied. “Not when I know Brynden rides today.”
Baelor’s gaze shifted toward the lists below, where armoured figures were assembling in gleaming ranks of steel and silk. “He is a skilled fighter and a cunning man,” he said calmly.
“Even so,” you answered, your tone steady despite the lingering thrum in your skull, “knowing his skill does little to ease the worry. Accidents happen—even to the most formidable of warriors.”
Maekar grunted, raising his cup slightly in a grim salute to the truth of your words. “Very true. Steel doesn't care for bloodlines once the horses start galloping.” His gaze drifted to his own son, Aerion, who was riding toward the pavilion at a leisurely pace. “The worry only gets worse once you have sons of your own to watch.”
The young prince pulled his mount to a halt before the stands, his black armour gleaming with dragon sigils of polished ruby. Aerion removed his helm, shaking out his cropped silver-gold hair and sending you a cocky, self-satisfied smile that spoke of entitlement rather than charm.
He inclined his head in mock courtesy. “Father. Uncle,” he called smoothly, before his eyes settled fully upon you. “And my radiant aunt. Perhaps you will grant your favour to a true dragon this day.”
A ripple of laughter moved through the nearby nobles—some genuinely amused by the Prince's boldness, others merely eager for the spectacle of a family spat. Maekar let out a low, irritated sigh, but he didn't silence his son.
Not far away, Shiera, reclined upon her silken cushions, let out a soft scoff edged with jealousy. She adjusted the fall of her lace, clearly displeased that the circle of attention had shifted away from her.
You had just parted your lips to deliver a stinging reply to your nephew when a sudden movement at the edge of the lists drew the crowd’s collective focus.
From the shadowed mouth of the fighters' pavilion, a squire peeked out, eyes wide with dawning panic as he realized his lord had wandered beyond armouring reach. The boy hovered uncertainly at the threshold, clutching a steel vambrace uselessly as he stared after his master.
Unbothered by the young boy’s frantic concerns, Brynden emerged into the light. He was not yet clad in the full weight of his plate; instead, he stood only in his dark riding trousers. The stark simplicity of the garment left the hard, whipcord lines of his lean, powerful torso fully revealed to the morning sun.
The light struck the pale planes of his skin, rendering him almost luminous against the darker canvas of his tent and the mud of the field.
And there, stark against that pale expanse—
Faint, bruised crescents and deep purplish shadows marked the line of his throat and collarbone, trailing lower in a path that disappeared suggestively beneath the waistband of his trousers.
Your breath caught in your throat.
Heat rushed to your cheeks with humiliating speed as memory and evidence collided beneath the relentless sun. You suddenly became acutely aware of every pair of eyes that might follow the same line of sight, every idle lord and lady hungry for gossip.
Maekar made a low sound beside you, a rough, suppressed rumble of amusement. “Quite a night indeed,” he muttered, his voice thick with a dry, soldier’s humour.
Your fingers tightened in the fine fabric of your skirts, anchoring yourself as you willed your composure to remain intact, even as the warmth climbed higher up your throat.
Aerion, however, had not missed a thing. His eyes darted between the marks on his uncle and the flush on your face, his smirk sharpening into something wicked.
“Well,” he drawled loudly, ensuring his voice carried to the surrounding tiers, “it would seem the lists are not the only battlegrounds this week.”
A few nearby lords chuckled, emboldened by the Prince's audacity, and one, less subtle than the rest, let out a low, appreciative wolf whistle that echoed through the tourney grounds.
The squire behind Brynden cleared his throat nervously, still clutching the vambrace as though the tournament might collapse entirely if his lord did not armour himself at once. “My lord,” the boy ventured, his voice tight with urgency, “they’re nearly ready to call the first tilt.”
Brynden did not look away from you.
“A moment,” he replied calmly. For a brief second, you saw his lips twitch with a ghost of a smirk. Your eyes narrowed, but before you could send him a warning look, he turned toward Aerion, his expression snapping back to its usual mask of cold disinterest.
“If you require commentary on my private affairs,” Brynden said evenly, his voice carrying just enough to reach the surrounding nobles without rising to a shout, “I suggest you first prove yourself capable of managing your own.”
Aerion’s smile faltered by a fraction.
“And if you desire my lady’s favour,” Brynden continued, his gaze drifting over the young prince with chilling indifference, “then I suggest you prove yourself worthy of it.”
The meaning was clear, a metaphorical gauntlet thrown in the mud between them.
Aerion’s jaw tightened beneath the gleam of his helm, his pride warring visibly with his caution. The lists lay between them, open and waiting. To accept would mean meeting Brynden in earnest—not in a courtly dance of lances, but against a man whose reputation had not been forged in tournaments alone.
He shifted in the saddle, glancing briefly toward the royal stand where his father sat, then back to Brynden. The calculation flickered plainly in his eyes; Aerion was arrogant, but he was no fool.
“I have no need to prove myself to a bastard,” Aerion replied at last with a forced, hollow scoff.
Brynden’s expression did not change; the slur carried no weight against him or you.
Aerion’s pride flared, but not enough to carry him into a fight he wasn't sure he could win. Instead, he forced a tight, brittle laugh and lowered his helm back into place with more force than necessary.
“I will seek a more worthy opponent,” Aerion declared, wheeling his horse away from the unspoken challenge with a final, desperate attempt at dignity.
Beside you, Maekar exhaled heavily as he watched his son ride off, the sound more weary than surprised.
“A fool he is,” he muttered, rubbing at his jaw with a calloused hand, “but at least he’s a smart enough fool to know when to concede.” His eyes drifted toward Brynden below with a look of begrudging, reluctant respect. “Else he’d find himself courting the god of death before the first tilt.”
You cleared your throat, though your gaze had never left Brynden. Below, he moved with unhurried purpose back toward his pavilion, his stride easy and arrogant, as though the public exchange—and the scandal written in purple across his skin—had been of no consequence at all.
“Excuse me,” you said softly.
Baelor inclined his head in quiet, graceful understanding, his expression unreadable. Maekar only grunted, though the corner of his mouth twitched in a way that suggested he knew exactly where you were going and why.
You rose and descended the steps of the viewing stand. The murmur of the crowd swelled around you like a rising tide before falling away into a respectful, curious hush as you crossed the grounds. Knights, lords, and squires alike made way without being asked, their eyes trailing the fiery sweep of your gown.
The red of your skirts whispered against the trampled grass as you crossed the encampment, leaving the glaring sun and the prying eyes behind. With a steady hand, you pushed aside the heavy silk and slipped beneath the shadowed mouth of Brynden’s pavilion.
Inside, the sudden dimness acted as a balm, cooling the harsh ache that still lingered behind your eyes.
He had not yet dressed.
Brynden stood near the armour stand, bare from the waist up, his pale skin starkly marked by the fading, vivid evidence of the night before. The canvas walls stirred faintly in the breeze, carrying the scent of oiled leather, polished steel, and the man himself.
The squire hovered uncertainly near the table, his hands full of straps and buckles, looking as though he might puke from fear.
“Leave us,” you ordered.
“But my lady—the tournament—”
“Do as she bids,” Brynden drawled, his gaze already locked on yours with a predatory stillness. “That will be all for now, Elmar.”
The squire, looking immensely relieved to be dismissed from the tension, gave a frantic bow and vanished through the secondary flap, leaving you alone in the sudden, heavy silence.
Your eyes drifted down Brynden's body, a heady mix of hunger and renewed possessiveness stirring in your chest.
The corner of his mouth lifted into a slow, knowing smirk. “I thought after last night you would have had your fill of me,” he murmured, his voice a low vibration in the small space. “Or do you intend to paint every inch of my body in your marks before the sun sets?”
You scoffed softly, though the sound held more warmth than protest, and stepped closer until the heat radiating from his skin brushed against your silk bodice. Your fingers rose of their own accord, trailing down the center of his chest, tracing the hard lines of muscle and the fading evidence of your boldness.
“You emerged into full daylight wearing those marks for all to see,” you replied, your touch feather-light and agonizingly slow. “If the realm speaks of nothing but our indiscretion today, you will only have yourself to blame.”
His breath slowed beneath your fingertips, his chest expanding as he took you in.
He swallowed, his throat bobbing against the purplish bruise that sat just above his collarbone. “Is that not what you wanted?” he murmured, reaching out to catch your wrist, though he didn't pull you away. “For everyone—Aerion, the lords, our sister—to know exactly who I belong to?”
You nearly preened at the open admission in his words, a fierce satisfaction unfurling in your chest. By evening, you knew the whispers would be spreading like wildfire; the realm’s most unsettling bastard son of the dragon wore a woman’s claim openly upon his skin. Many would speculate it was you—and they would be correct—and no doubt they would carry those whispers further, turning them like a blade to question your honour.
They would be correct in that as well.
You did not care. You never had.
You were both Great Bastards. Even legitimized, the stain lingered in the eyes of those who needed such distinctions to feel superior. You had grown up beneath the weight of scrutiny and the sharp, open whispers of disdain. You could not have given a damn what the realm thought; you had learned long ago to draw strength from the very things meant to diminish you. Where others saw shame, you had found freedom.
Unlike highborn daughters groomed for alliances and bargaining tables, you had never been shaped for political purity. You were not raised to remain untouched, preserved like a relic to secure a treaty or soothe a rival house. Your value had never depended upon an unblemished marriage bed, for in the eyes of the "righteous," you would remain forever tainted regardless.
So, you had forged your worth elsewhere.
The loyalty you amassed had not been handed to you by decree or marriage—you had earned it, piece by piece, across every court you were sent to. And Brynden? Brynden was feared and known throughout the Seven Kingdoms. Together, you did not rely on the approval of the realm because you both understood, far too well, how to rule it from the shadows by bending perception to your collective will.
Outside, a trumpet sounded in the distance, a sharp, brassy note signalling that the first calls to the lists would soon follow.
The sound acted as a bucket of cold water on the simmering heat of the tent. You broke his gaze, clearing your throat softly as you stepped back, smoothing the front of your gown. The moment stretched one heartbeat longer before you reached for the dark linen tunic draped across the chair and tossed it toward him.
“Come,” you murmured, stepping closer again. “I’ll help you get dressed.”
Brynden caught the tunic effortlessly but he did not immediately pull it on. Instead, a slow, wicked smirk curved his mouth, his red eye dancing with a light that made your pulse skip.
“That’s a first,” he observed, his voice dropping an octave. “Usually, it is the opposite.”
You huffed softly, rolling your eyes to mask the fresh heat rising to your cheeks. “Shall I call back the squire? I’m sure Elmar would be much more efficient and far less prone to... commentary.”
You turned as though to leave, your skirts swishing in a mock display of indignation, but you did not reach the tent flap. Before you could take a second step, his hands closed around your hips drawing you back against him in one smooth motion until your spine was pressed against his bare chest.
“Apologies,” he murmured near your ear, the low tenor of his voice sending a thrill straight down your spine. The warmth of his breath brushed your skin. “I would be most gratified for my lady’s assistance. Truly.”
He let his hands linger a moment longer, his thumbs tracing the curve of your hip bones through the silk, before he finally released you to pull the tunic over his head.
You exhaled through your nose, determined not to rise to his bait, and set yourself to the task instead. Your hands moved with calm efficiency, guiding leather and steel into place, fastening straps and settling everything where it belonged. His armour was black, a signal of his Targaryen blood, yet in place of the royal sigil he bore his own arms: a white dragon with red eyes, breathing crimson flames.
Tightening the final strap at his shoulder, you reached for his sword—Dark Sister—resting nearby. But instead of placing it into his waiting hand, you drew it an inch from its sheath. Pale light rippled along the Valyrian steel, the watered pattern shifting like smoke beneath ice.
You tilted the blade slightly, admiring the living shimmer within the metal.
“Such a pretty blade,” you sighed, the note of longing in your voice entirely unashamed.
His hand closed over yours, large and steady, guiding the sword back toward its sheath without force. “If I recall,” he murmured, voice low, “you possess a Valyrian weapon of your own.”
His other hand slid through the hidden slit of your gown, finding the dagger strapped to your thigh with unerring familiarity. His fingers lingered only a heartbeat against the cool metal and warm skin before trailing higher.
You caught his wrist immediately, firmly guiding his hand away before the touch could escalate into something far less innocent. With your other hand, you pushed the sword hilt-first into his grasp.
“Now look who is insatiable,” you said dryly, though your eyes betrayed your amusement.
He used your grip on his wrist to yank you forward instead of releasing you. You collided lightly with his armoured chest, the cold steel of his breastplate a stark contrast to the heat that had been radiating from his skin.
“For you?” he murmured. “Always.”
He leaned in, his breath warm against your skin, the space between you narrowing until it was scarcely more than a promise—
—and then the thunder of galloping hooves shattered the moment.
Both of you turned toward the tent flaps as the sound surged closer. The ground itself seemed to vibrate beneath the weight of the approaching rider.
“Bloodraven!”
The calling roar carried like a war horn, raw and jagged with a lifetime of resentment.
Brynden’s face darkened at the familiar voice. Without a word, he seized his helm and stepped out of the pavilion with a terrifying, icy calm. You followed a heartbeat later, schooling your expression even as unease coiled like a cold weight in your chest.
Aegor Rivers waited astride his great warhorse before the tent, a vision of iron and fury.
His violet eyes burned with flagrant hatred, fixed wholly upon Brynden. Bittersteel did not wait for the formalities of the lists. Instead, he lifted his sword, the blade catching the morning light as he pointed it directly at his half-brother’s heart.
“I challenge you,” Aegor called, his voice ringing across the encampment and drawing the eyes of every gathering spectator. “Let us, for once, settle who is worthy.”
Your blood went cold.
“No,” you said at once, stepping forward to place a hand against Brynden’s armoured chest. You looked up at him, pleading, before turning a venomous glare upon Aegor. “You are worth nothing compared to him, Bittersteel.”
Aegor snarled, his horse sidestepping beneath the tension in its rider, but Brynden had already moved. His arm came around you with quiet firmness, guiding you behind him as he met Aegor’s gaze.
“I accept.”
You felt your stomach drop.
You caught his sleeve before he could step away, gripping the dark fabric tightly.
“You know how this ends,” you whispered fiercely. “You two always end in a stalemate of blood and ruin. Neither of you will leave the field whole.”
His fingers rose to brush your jaw, the gesture impossibly gentle despite the cold, hard steel of his gauntlet. “Not today.”
“You cannot risk yourself for pride,” you hissed.
A faint, chilling smile ghosted across his lips. “It is not pride.”
You searched his face, desperate to understand what he was thinking, but he had already turned. He mounted his horse in one fluid motion as it was brought forward by his trembling squire.
You did not understand…Not yet.
With a frustrated huff, you gathered your skirts and strode back toward the stands, forcing your expression into something resembling composure. The weight of dread settling heavy in your chest. By the time you resumed your seat, you could barely remain still, anxiety gnawing relentlessly at your thoughts.
“Well,” Maekar muttered beside you, voice rough with blunt interest, “we’re finally getting some proper entertainment.” His gaze remained fixed on the field. “This ought to be… memorable.”
You did not dignify that with a response, your jaw set so tight it ached.
At least Baelor had the decency not to agree aloud. His hand settled lightly against your arm in a quiet gesture of reassurance, though his eyes remained focused on the tension mounting below.
“They are both highly skilled,” he said gently, his tone measured. “And neither is foolish enough to throw away their life for a mere tourney tilt.”
You nearly laughed at that, a bitter, jagged sound that died in your throat.
Skill had never been the issue between Brynden and Aegor. Nor was it a matter of foolishness.
It was hatred—pure, distilled, and decades in the making.
“Aegor is a brute,” you replied tightly, your voice barely a whisper above the roar of the crowd. “And seldom does either of them gain true victory over the other. It always ends the same—a stalemate of blood and broken bone. They don't know how to stop until one of them is forced into the dirt, unable to continue.”
You stiffened as both men rode up before the stands, their horses snorting and sidestepping beneath the tension that hung thick in the air. Brynden reached you first.
He didn’t hesitate to extend his lance toward you, the tip steady despite the weight. “May my lady grant me her favour?”
Behind him, Aegor let out a sharp scoff, a sound designed to carry. “Perhaps,” he called, his voice edged with both challenge and a jagged, wounded pride, “the lady would care to favour the true winner for once.”
You did not so much as glance in his direction.
Instead, you fixed Brynden with a look that made your displeasure abundantly clear. Your jaw tightened, and your brows drew together in a hard line. You wanted him to see the danger in this—the needless escalation, the centuries of bad blood he was inviting back to the surface. You wanted him to see that his life was worth more than a moment’s satisfaction against a brother who lived only to hate him.
He held your gaze, his solitary red eye unblinking and eerily calm.
With a measured breath, you rose to your feet, the red silk of your gown spilling like a pool of blood against the stone of the pavilion. The movement drew a fresh ripple of murmurs from the stands. From your wrist, you removed a wreath of dark, woven ribbon, heavy with small golden charms that clinked softly in the wind.
He raised his lance high so you would not have to lean, but you leaned anyway, closing the distance until you were close enough to speak.
“This is folly,” you murmured under your breath, the words for him alone.
“Trust me,” he replied, his voice a low, steady anchor in the storm.
You fought back a grumble, the sound caught somewhere between rising anger and a reluctant, bone-deep faith in him. Your fingers worked quickly, fastening the token just beneath the steel head of his lance, tying the silk in a knot so firm it would take a blade to undo it.
Aegor’s knuckles whitened around his own weapon, his horse shifting restlessly beneath him as he watched the intimacy of the exchange.
You stepped back to your seat without sparing him so much as a glance.
He scoffed loudly, a sound brittle with resentment, but if he had hoped to draw your attention, he was disappointed. Rebuffed and radiating a cold, jagged fury, he gave a sharp tug on his reins, wheeling his horse toward Shiera’s place in the stands.
Aegor drew up before her and raised his lance in an unmistakable, aggressive invitation. “My lady,” he called, his voice ringing with a pride sharpened by spite, “I would ride in your honour. For there is no other in these Seven Kingdoms worthy of the title of Queen of Love and Beauty.”
Shiera did not rise immediately. She allowed her mismatched eyes to drift briefly toward Brynden, searching for some flicker of jealousy or regret—but he gave her nothing. Jaw clenching, she returned her gaze to Aegor. Only then did she stand, pale silks spilling around her.
If she felt the sting of being the second choice, a mere instrument for Aegor’s retaliation, she did not show it. With practiced, delicate fingers, she removed a slender ribbon of silver from her sleeve and tied it to Aegor’s lance, her gaze lingering on him with a smile that was as beautiful as it was hollow.
Below, Brynden had already turned his horse toward the far end of the lists, his focus locked entirely forward. He did not look toward Shiera. He did not look toward Aegor, who was now riding back into position, his violet eyes blazing with murderous intent beneath his helm.
You resumed your seat slowly, lowering yourself with a measured grace that belied the unrest thrumming beneath your ribs. Your fingers curled into the folds of your gown, gripping the fabric as if to anchor yourself against what was to come.
Across the lists, the brothers took their places at opposite ends.
The murmurs of the crowd swelled to a fever pitch and then abruptly died away, anticipation settling over the field like a held breath.
Banners snapped overhead.
Finally the trumpets sounded.
Lances met shields with a crack that echoed across the lists like a thunderclap, splintering wood and scattering sharp fragments into the rising dust. Horses screamed, their hooves tearing deep gashes into the earth as the sheer force of the impact reverberated through both rider and mount. The crowd erupted in a roar that seemed to swallow the morning air.
They wheeled and rode again.
And again.
Neither yielding.
The rivalry between them was older than this field, older than this tourney. It had been whispered in halls and shouted in taverns for a generation—Bloodraven and Bittersteel. Blackwood and Bracken. Targaryen and Blackfyre. It was a hatred inherited as much as it was earned, sharpened through decades of pride, ancient history, and far more personal grievances.
On the third pass, Aegor struck true.
His lance hit Brynden square against the center of his shield. The force of the strike shuddered through the black armour, the sound of protesting steel and wood sharp enough to make you flinch. For a terrifying heartbeat, Brynden was nearly jarred clean from the saddle, his body tilting precariously as his horse stumbled under the weight of the blow.
A collective, jagged gasp rippled through the stands.
But Brynden did not fall alone.
Even as Aegor’s blow connected, Brynden adjusted with a cold, terrifying calculation. He angled his own strike as he fell, his lance splintering against Aegor’s chest plate with enough force to shift the man’s center of gravity.
In a heartbeat, both men were thrown.
They struck the ground hard, armour clanging violently against the packed earth as their horses thundered past, riderless and panicked. A thick cloud of dust rose from the impact, obscuring the two figures as they lay motionless in the dirt.
The crowd erupted, a wall of sound as spectators screamed their encouragements for the champion they supported.
Through the choking haze, Aegor was the first to move. He rolled and sprang upright with a roar that cut through the noise, his voice raw with a singular, focused fury. “My sword!” he bellowed, his hand already reaching toward his squire.
Across the field, Brynden was already rising, slower but no less steady. His squire rushed forward, hands shaking visibly as he presented Dark Sister.
From the stands, your nails bit painfully into your palms, the sharp sting the only thing keeping you grounded. The brothers now faced one another on foot, swords drawn. This was no longer a tournament; the hatred between them was no longer restrained by the courtly rules of a tilt. This was the ancient, bloody heart of their feud laid bare for all to see.
Steel rang sharp and unforgiving as the brothers closed the distance between them.
Aegor struck first.
There was no ceremony in his movements now, no pretence of sport. His blade came down in a brutal arc meant to crush through guard and bone alike, fuelled by the raw strength of his resentment. Brynden pivoted just enough for the strike to glance off his pauldron; sparks spat where the metal met metal, the sheer force of the blow driving him half a step sideways into the churned earth.
Aegor did not hesitate. The second blow followed almost immediately, heavier than the first.
Brynden answered it.
Dark Sister moved unlike common steel. In his grasp, the Valyrian blade seemed almost alive—light and lethal, its edge slicing cleanly through the space between them as he turned Aegor's strike aside with a flick of his wrist, returning a blow of his own.
Aegor fought with brute strength, each swing designed to overwhelm by sheer power. Brynden, by contrast, was lighter on his feet, fluid in motion, almost dancing around the heavier man. He gave ground only when it suited him, his boots carving careful arcs through the dust as he slipped just beyond the reach of those crushing, bone-deep blows.
The crowd roared with every clash, every near-miss that skimmed armour or bit shallowly into leather. Lords leaned forward in their seats, their voices lost in the din. Knights shouted encouragement for the man they supported.
Blackwood and Bracken.
Bloodraven and Bittersteel.
The names collided as fiercely as the swords.
Aegor’s blade caught Brynden across the thigh—not too deep but enough to score the armour and draw a sharp hiss of breath through his teeth. The impact rang out in an ugly, screeching scrape of steel that made those nearest to the lists wince.
Across from him, Aegor’s grin split wide beneath sweat-damp strands of hair, his violet eyes blazing with savage, unadulterated satisfaction.
“Bleed for me, bastard,” he snarled, circling like a wolf, his sword held loose but ready.
Brynden did not dignify the taunt with an answer. Instead, he lowered his stance by a fraction, centering his balance as though settling into himself. Dark Sister angled slightly downward in his grip, the point steady, poised for what would come next.
Aegor charged again, putting every ounce of his brute force behind the swing. His blade cut through the air in a savage diagonal, once again meant to break armour and bone in one final, crushing stroke.
Brynden did not meet it head-on. At the last possible breath, he stepped aside, his boots shifting cleanly in the dust as the heavier blade cleaved through nothing but air and empty space.
In the same motion, Dark Sister flicked upward. The Valyrian edge found the narrow seam where armour parted at the joint, slicing across Aegor’s forearm with the ease of a razor through silk.
Blood answered immediately.
Aegor roared, more in rage than pain. He lunged again, recklessness bleeding into his technique. Each strike grew heavier than the last, powered now by fury rather than discipline. He fought like a hammer, determined to batter through Brynden's resistance by sheer force of will.
Brynden moved like water around stone.
He pivoted around Aegor’s weight as he slipped in and out of range. He yielded inches only to reclaim them in the next breath, letting Aegor’s strength carry him just slightly too far, forcing his half-brother to burn through his stamina with every frustrated, empty swing.
Aegor’s blade slashed wildly. Desperation bled into his movements as he overextended in his need to land something decisive—to finally crush the infuriating, calm composure of the man in front of him.
He lunged once more, committing too much of his weight to the strike.
Brynden met it. He twisted his wrist, locking their blades in a shriek of grinding metal that set everyone's teeth on edge. For a suspended heartbeat, they stood chest to chest, faces inches apart, their breath hot and ragged behind the narrow slits of their helms.
Hatred radiated between them, thick enough to choke the air.
Aegor’s lips curled into a jagged, bloody snarl. “When I win,” he breathed, his voice low and venomous, meant for Brynden’s ears alone, “I’ll finally take our pretty little sister as my prize. And I’ll make sure she forgets your name in my bed.”
The pressure between their locked blades increased, the steel groaning under the strain of two men who shared a father but nothing else.
“I’ll make her scream for me,” Aegor continued, violet eyes blazing through the narrow slit of his visor, “loud enough for you to hear it from wherever you fly off to next.”
Something in Brynden went utterly still.
It was not a fiery rage that answered Aegor’s provocation, but something far more frightening. An icy fury settled over Brynden’s features, cold and ancient as winter in the North. The red of his eye burned darker, like banked coals stirred to life by a sudden, lethal wind.
The bind between their blades broke with terrifying control.
Brynden shifted his weight and drove his knee sharply into Aegor’s midsection, the impact forcing the breath from him in a ragged grunt. As Aegor folded forward, Brynden brought the pommel of Dark Sister across the side of his helm with a crack that snapped his head sideways. The sound of teeth breaking carried sickeningly clear even above the roar of the crowd; fragments of white scattered onto the dirt as blood sprayed hot against black armour.
“You will not speak of her,” Brynden warned, his voice dangerously low, each word carved from ice.
Aegor staggered but did not fall. Fury and humiliation drove him onward. He swung blindly, catching Brynden across the shoulder and forcing him back a pace, metal shrieking on metal as the blow glanced off armour.
Brynden did not falter. Dark Sister flashed low in a blur of pale steel, slicing behind Aegor’s knee where armour thinned. The Valyrian edge cut clean through leather and flesh alike. Aegor screamed as his leg buckled beneath him, blood spilling freely down his greave. Before he could recover, Brynden followed through with a sweeping strike to the chest that knocked the heavier man flat onto his back, the impact sending up a cloud of dust.
Aegor tried to rise—gods, he tried—spitting blood and clawing for his sword where it had fallen just out of reach. His fingers scraped uselessly against the churned earth. Brynden scoffed and kicked the sword back into Aegor’s grasp.
Gasping, Aegor tried to swing one last time.
Brynden parried the desperate move and struck. The sharp Valyrian blade sliced through muscle and bone with terrifying ease. An ugly, guttural scream tore through Aegor’s throat as he clutched at his arm, staring in sheer, unadulterated horror at the stump where his hand used to be.
The crowd let out a horrified gasp.
"Nor will you touch her," Brynden stated, standing over him like a pale god of vengeance, “ever again.”
From where you stood, the world seemed to narrow until it held only the two of them. For one terrible heartbeat, you thought Brynden might finally end it—that he might drive his pale blade through helm and skull alike to finish the feud once and for all. The hatred between them had cost the realm too much already; one decisive stroke could silence it forever.
Brynden stepped forward, raising Dark Sister, he brought his blade down in a brutal strike with the flat of the steel against the side of Aegor’s helm. The impact was a sickening, metallic thud that resonated through the entire stand.
Aegor’s body went slack.
Disturbed dirt settled slowly around him as he lay unmoving, his blood seeping into the parched earth beneath his broken form. Brynden remained standing over him for a moment longer, his chest rising and falling in a steady, lethal rhythm. He kept the point of the Valyrian blade angled downward, ready should the fallen man so much as twitch.
Silence fell like a heavy curtain across the lists, the thousands in attendance held captive by the sheer brutality of the exchange.
From your place in the stands, your fingers had curled so tightly into the fabric of your gown that your knuckles had gone pale. You didn’t even realize you had risen to your feet until the silence stretched too long to bear.
“And the winner is… Lord Bloodraven!”
The announcer’s voice cracked through the hush, and only then did you feel the breath leave your lungs in a ragged rush. The tension slipped from your body, leaving you lightheaded.
The roar that followed was deafening. The stands erupted in thunderous applause and frantic shouts. Nobles rose from their seats, and knights pounding fists against shields in approval. The name Bloodraven rolled through the crowd in waves,
Below, Brynden did not raise his arms in triumph. He did not acknowledge the praise.
Instead, he turned. Dark Sister sliding back into its sheath, as he lifted his gaze—not to the cheering lords, not to the royal stand—
—but to you.
You did not hesitate.
The world around you blurred into noise and colour as you gathered your skirts and descended the steps of the stand without care for decorum. Someone called your name—Baelor perhaps—but you did not slow. Behind Brynden, squires were already hauling Aegor’s limp, mangled form toward the healers’ pavilion, a dark crimson streak marking the churned earth in their wake. Further down the lists, men were already moving to reset the barriers, preparing for the next joust to come.
But none of it mattered.
Not to you.
Brynden crossed the remaining distance in three long strides. Dust clung to the crevices of his black armour, and a thin line of blood traced a path from his temple into his pale hair where he had struck the ground, the red stark against the white. Strands of hair clung damply to his brow, and yet his eye burned with something fierce and resolute.
He stopped before you.
Then, before the princes, the lords, and the gathered thousands of Ashford, Brynden Rivers—Lord Bloodraven, the most feared of the Great Bastards—dropped to one knee in the blood-stained dirt.
The field quieted as realization rippled outward.
From within his gauntlet, Brynden drew forth a golden ring. A dragon wrought in fine detail wrapped protectively around a deep crimson ruby, the stone catching the sun so that it seemed to burn from within.
Your hands flew to your lips, your breath hitching in your throat.
“Ñuha prūmia,” he murmured softly. My heart.
“I have stood alone most of my life,” he continued, and though his voice remained steady, it was stripped of the cool distance he wore before the realm. “But with you, I am not alone.”
He drew in a slow breath, as though gathering something far harder than courage—vulnerability.
“Nyke jorrāelagon ao hen ñuha lēkia,” he said, the ancient tongue of your ancestors vibrating in the air. I would conquer the world with you at my side.
A faint, private smile touched his mouth, there and gone in a heartbeat, meant only for you to see.
“Nyke iā sȳndor,” he said quietly. I am a shadow. “Se ao ōños.” And you are flame.
The ruby between his fingers caught the sunlight and flared brilliantly, red light dancing across his pale skin and dark armour alike.
“Without you,” he said, his gaze unwavering, “I am only half of what I could be.”
His voice lowered then, intimate despite the watching realm.
“Vezof iā morghūltas,” he murmured. There is but one death. “Nyke dōrī ao ñuha jīvi.” I offer you my life. “It is yours, if you wish it.”
Your heart pounded so fiercely you feared the entire field might hear it.
“Skori se iā dārys ziry?” he asked, the High Valyrian rolling from his tongue like velvet drawn over steel. For who else would I face that death with?
He lifted the ring slightly in offering, not as a trophy, not as a claim—but as a vow.
“Be my wife,” Brynden finished, his voice low yet carrying clearly across the hushed lists. “Stand with me—through blood, through fire and shadow, through whatever else may come.”
His gaze never left yours, his red eye burning with a devotion that bordered on worship.
“And I will stand with you,” he said, softer now, though no less certain. “Until that one death finds us both.”
Your eyes stung, but you did not look away. You were nodding before he had even finished speaking, your heart had answered long before he even finished speaking.
“Yes,” you breathed. The word trembled, barely more than a ghost of air between you before growing stronger, fuelled by the conviction in your chest. “Yes. Yes!”
Cheers broke out at your acceptance.
A bright, genuine smile transformed Brynden’s face. For many watching, it would be the first and only time they would ever see the fearsome Bloodraven smile so openly. The icy severity that defined him fell away, replaced by a radiance that was unmistakably happy.
He rose to his feet and slid the golden ring onto your finger. His hands, though calloused from the sword and still stained with the dust of the lists, were perfectly steady.
Somewhere through the deafening cheers, you heard a young voice shrieking louder than the rest. You glanced toward the sound and saw little Aegon—Egg—perched triumphantly atop the massive shoulders of Ser Duncan the Tall, his small fists raised high in pure, unadulterated celebration.
And then, cutting through the chaos with all the subtlety of a summer storm, your cousin’s voice boomed across the field with booming delight.
“This calls for a celebration!” Lyonel Baratheon roared, his laughter infectious and grand.
Laughter rippled outward at once.
Brynden gave a quiet, disbelieving snort at the mention of yet another Baratheon celebration, as though the notion amused him far more than it tempted him. His gaze flicked briefly toward the direction of your cousin before returning to you.
Then, without warning and without the slightest regard for the thousands of prying eyes or the rigid decorum of the royal court, he bent and swept you cleanly off your feet.
You gasped, your hands instinctively flying to his shoulders—one hand pressing against the cold, hard steel of his gorget. One of his arms secured itself beneath your knees, the other braced firmly at your back, he lifted you as though you were no heavier than silk. A ripple of laughter and startled gasps followed the gesture, but he paid them no mind.
Intent was written plainly in every stride as he turned toward his pavilion. As Brynden carried you across the field, his gaze lifted briefly from you and swept the gathered nobles.
It found Aerion.
The young prince’s face had gone noticeably pale beneath the gilt edges of his helm, the arrogance that had dripped from him earlier nowhere to be found. His violet eyes flicked once—just once—toward the place where Aegor had fallen, where the dirt was still dark with blood and pieces of teeth remained.
Aerion swallowed hard. Then, stiffly, he dipped his head. There was no challenge to be found now, only a silent, terrified concession.
Meanwhile, from your vantage over Brynden's shoulder, the field stretched wide and sunlit behind him—and your gaze caught on pale silk standing still amidst the noise.
Shiera.
Her composure remained immaculate as ever, yet envy burned in her mismatched gaze, a heat she could not quite extinguish. For the first time, she was the spectator in a story she did not control.
You could not help the slow, satisfied smile that curved your lips as Brynden carried you toward the shadowed mouth of his tent. The ruby on your finger flashed like a drop of dragon’s blood, and the roar of the crowd began to fade behind you like a distant, retreating storm.
Among the many paths the gods had laid before you and Brynden, you had both chosen to step upon the one that led to each other.
Not because it was easy.
Not because it was expected.
But because it was yours.
If given the choice again—to walk willingly into shadow and storm, into blood and fire, until the road narrowed and the world fell away and there was only him and only you—you would not hesitate.
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Summary: A noble lady from a disgraced house that supported Blackfyres is married off to Lord Bloodraven as a reward for his loyalty and prowess in battle. But he prefers to occupy his time with duties as the Hand of the King. Comfortable but lonely, she befriends one of his ravens. Warnings: arranged marriage, yearning, angst, fluff, Westeros politics, Shiera.
The raven was a greedy, ungrateful beast, and you loved it dearly.
You had named him Pebble, for no greater reason than the smooth grey of his breast feathers, which reminded you of the stones along the Mander where you had played as a child. He came to your windowsill each morning, croaking his hoarse demands, and you obliged him with crumbs of bread and shreds of cold meat saved from your supper. In return, he permitted you to stroke the ruff of his neck and mutter your foolish secrets into the space between his blinking black eyes. It was a small, pitiful comfort.
The Tower of the Hand was a cold place, despite the braziers that burned in every chamber. You had been given rooms near the top, close enough to the Hand’s own solar that you might, in theory, encounter your husband on the winding stair. In practice, you saw his servants more often: the silent men in their grey wool cloaks, the Raven’s Teeth who guarded his door with bows strung across their backs. They nodded to you when you passed, respectful but distant, as though you were a ghost they had been instructed not to disturb.
You were a ghost, in a way. A shade drifting through the Red Keep in your pale gowns, your House’s green and gold folded away in chests because wearing them felt like a provocation. Oakheart. The name sat heavy on your tongue these days, a fruit gone bitter on the branch. Your father had played his double game during the rebellion and lost, and you were the price of his redemption, a trueborn daughter gifted to a legitimized bastard, a man who had not wanted you, who had asked for another woman’s hand a thousand times and been refused, and who had accepted you as a lord might accept a parcel of land he had no intention of farming.
You tried not to think of Shiera Seastar. It was impossible.
Her name was everywhere in the Red Keep, whispered by serving girls and sung by minstrels, painted in miniature on ivory pendants that his paramours wore at their throats. The most beautiful woman in the Seven Kingdoms, they called her, and when they said it in your hearing, their eyes would dart to you with something between pity and amusement. See the Oakheart girl, their glances said. See how plain she looks beside the memory of Seastar’s shimmer.
Back in the Reach, you had been called beautiful. You had believed it. Here, you were a candle held up against the sun. Back in the Reach, you were praised as a proper lady, and Shiera was called a shameless whore with nothing more than derision. But King's Landing valued influence, the ability to captivate and draw interest, which Shiera had in abundance.
You did not hate her. Hatred required energy you did not possess. But you feared her. You feared the day she would return to court, trailing silk and scandal behind her, and you would have to stand beside your husband and watch his single eye follow her across the hall. You feared the quiet, courteous dismissal that would surely follow. You had married a man who loved another woman. It was a common enough fate for highborn ladies, you knew, but knowing it did not make your marriage bed any warmer.
You spent your days wandering. The gardens, with their rose trellises and marble fountains, their sharp-scented herbs and imported lemon trees shivering in the sea wind. The library, where you read histories of the Seven Kingdoms until the words blurred before your eyes. The sept, where you knelt before the Maiden and asked for guidance that never came. And the stairway that spiraled up to the Hand’s solar, where you would sometimes sit on the cold stone steps with a book open on your lap, close enough to hear the murmur of voices beyond the iron-banded door, the scratch of a quill, the rustle of parchment. You never knocked. You were too afraid of being turned away.
It was on one of those steps, three moons into your marriage, that Brynden Rivers finally spoke to you about the raven.
You had Pebble on your knee, feeding him strips of roasted capon you had wrapped in a napkin and smuggled from the kitchens. The bird was growing stout, you could see it in the way his breast swelled over his claws, the way he waddled rather than hopped when he moved along the windowsill. You had noticed but you had not cared. You had to keep feeding him so he wouldn't leave you as well.
“What am I doing, Pebble?” you whispered. “What am I doing here? My husband does not want me. The court does not see me. My family’s name is a jest and a warning both. I am a wife in name only, and I do not know how to become anything more. I was not taught how to be a wife to a man like him. I was taught how to be a wife to a lord who wanted a gentle lady to manage his household and bear his children. But Lord Bloodraven has a household that manages itself and no desire for children of his body, or so they say.” You paused, your fingers stilling on the raven’s feathers. “Perhaps he would want children if they were Shiera’s.”
The raven croaked.
You stroked the raven’s feathers again, and your voice cracked. “I am even afraid that you will leave me, Pebble. You are the only friend I have in this place. Please do not fly away.”
The door to the solar opened. You scrambled to your feet, the napkin falling from your lap, capon scattering across the stone. Pebble let out an indignant caw and flapped onto the windowsill, his wings laboring under his weight.
Lord Bloodraven stood in the doorway.
His hair, silver-white, fell straight to his shoulders, and his skin was so pale it seemed to drink the light. The red birthmark that crept up his neck and cheek, the source of his name, was vivid as a splash of wine against snow. He wore black, and the eye that fixed on you now was the deep, unsettling red of dying embers.
The other eye was gone. A pale, smooth scar ran from brow to cheekbone, and beneath it, a dark hollow that seemed to see more than any living eye could.
“My lady wife,” he said. His voice was quiet, precise, each word placed as carefully as a stone on a cyvasse board.
“My lord.” You dropped into a curtsy, your heart hammering. You had not expected him to emerge. He rarely did before the hour of the bat. “Forgive me, I did not mean to disturb you. I was only...”
His gaze had moved past you to the raven. Pebble was worrying at a shred of capon, his beak tearing at the meat with smug contentment. Bloodraven’s expression did not change, but the air shifted, a faint tightening like the pause before a thunderclap.
“That is my raven,” he said.
“Yes, my lord. I hope you do not mind. He comes to my window, and I...”
“He is fat.”
The words fell like a stone into still water. You felt heat rise to your cheeks, the familiar burn of mortification. Your fingers twisted in the folds of your skirt, a pale lavender silk, pretty and demure. Here in the grey light of the tower it seemed washed-out and childish. You were a woman grown, a wife, and yet you felt like a girl being scolded by her septa for some minor transgression.
“I have been feeding him,” you admitted in a small voice.
Bloodraven stepped forward. His movements were unsettlingly smooth. He lifted one long-fingered hand, and the raven, your Pebble, your greedy, ungrateful Pebble, fluttered up to perch on his wrist without the slightest hesitation, as though you had never existed.
“A raven of the Tower must be lean,” Bloodraven said, stroking the bird’s breast with one pale thumb. Pebble closed his eyes in bliss. “He must fly swiftly over distances that would exhaust a lesser bird. He must carry messages through weather that would kill a hawk. He must be quick, clever, and sharp as a blade.”
He turned that burning red eye back to you.
“You have made him useless.”
The words struck harder than they should have. You had not thought yourself capable of tears, you had not wept once since leaving the Reach, not at your wedding, not on your wedding night when your husband failed to come to your bed, not in all the lonely days that followed, but now your throat tightened and your vision swam. You blinked rapidly, fighting it down, but a single tear escaped and traced a burning path down your cheek.
You ducked your head, hoping he had not seen. The silence stretched, unbearable.
“I am sorry,” you whispered. “I did not know. He came to me. He seemed friendly. I only offered him kindness.”
“Friendly.” He said the word as if it were a foreign concept. His blood-eye seemed to gleam in the half-light, and for a moment you could have sworn you saw the raven’s reflection in it, a dark bird within a darker pool. “Ravens are tools, my lady. They are not pets. This one has been made useless by your kindness.”
The word useless stung again. You dropped your gaze to the floor again, studying the worn flagstones beneath your slippers. “I apologise. I will not feed it anymore.”
You did not wait for a response. You gathered your skirts and fled down the winding stair, your slippers slapping against the stone, your breath coming in short, hitching gasps. You did not stop until you reached your chambers, where you threw yourself onto the great empty bed and buried your face in the pillows and wept until there was nothing left inside you.
You did not go to the Tower the next day, nor the day after that. You kept to your rooms, claiming a headache when your maids inquired. You took your meals alone, the food tasteless on your tongue. You did not open your shutters, though you heard the scratch of claws on the sill more than once. You could not bear to see Pebble, to see the raven who had abandoned you as easily as breathing, who had flown to his master’s hand without a backward glance.
It was on the third day that a servant knocked at your door and informed you that the Hand of the King required your presence in his solar.
You dressed carefully, your hands trembling on the laces of your gown. You chose a dress of pale green, the color of new leaves, the closest you dared come to the Oakheart colors. You pinned your hair up in a simple coil and pinched your cheeks to bring some color back into them. You looked, you thought, like a woman preparing for an execution.
The solar was warm, lit by a fire in the great hearth and by candles in iron holders. Books lined the walls, more books than you had ever seen in a private chamber, their spines cracked and worn from use. Maps and charts covered a long table, and in the corner, a perch held three ravens, their heads tucked under their wings.
Bloodraven sat behind a desk of dark oak, a quill in his hand. He did not rise when you entered, but he set the quill down and gestured to a chair across from him.
“Sit,” he said.
You sat. Your hands folded in your lap, the picture of a well-bred lady. You had been trained for this, after all: to be still, to be silent, to be pleasing. It was the only weapon you had ever been given.
Bloodraven regarded you for a long moment. In the firelight, the port-wine stain on his cheek seemed to shift and writhe like something alive. His eye, that terrible red eye, seemed to see straight through you, past the careful composure and the pretty dress and into the hollow ache at your center.
“You have not been to the Tower,” he said.
“I did not wish to disturb you, my lord.”
“You have not been to the gardens, either. Nor the library. Nor the sept.” He leaned back in his chair, steepling his long fingers. “My birds tell me things.”
Your heart lurched. The ravens. Of course. You had forgotten, in your misery, the whispers that surrounded your husband like a cloak of shadows. He could see through the eyes of his birds, they said. He could watch the whole of the Seven Kingdoms from his Tower, and nothing escaped his notice. You had thought it a fanciful tale, a legend spun to explain the unerring accuracy of his spy network. But the way he looked at you now made you wonder.
“I have been tired,” you said, which was not entirely a lie.
“You have been crying.”
The words were blunt, without softening. You flinched, your gaze dropping to your hands.
“My lady,” Bloodraven said, his tone had shifted. It was not kind, you did not think kindness was in his nature, but it was less cold than before. “Look at me.”
You raised your eyes.
“The raven,” he said. “You named him.”
It was not a question. You nodded anyway.
“Pebble,” you said, your voice barely above a whisper. “Because of his breast feathers. They reminded me of home.”
Bloodraven was silent for a moment. Then he rose from his chair and crossed to the window, his back to you, his silver hair catching the firelight.
“I have had many ravens,” he said. “Hundreds, over the years. I breed them in the Tower, train them, dispatch them across the realm. They are tools, nothing more. I have never given one a name.”
He turned, his single eye finding you again.
“No one has ever named one of my ravens before.”
You did not know what to say. You sat frozen, your heart beating a nervous rhythm against your ribs.
“He is not useless,” Bloodraven said, and there was something akin to curiosity in his voice. “I examined him this morning. He is plump, yes, but he is healthy. His plumage is glossy. His eyes are bright. He is more docile than the others, more accustomed to human touch. There are uses for such a raven.”
He took a step toward you, then another, until he stood before your chair, looking down at you with an expression you could not read.
“I have been a poor husband,” he said.
Your mouth opened but no sound came out.
“I did not ask for this marriage,” he continued, “and neither did you. We were both bound by the king’s will, and I have not made the binding easier for you. I have been…absent. Preoccupied.” He paused. “Unkind.”
“My lord, you have been...”
“Do not,” he said, lifting a hand to stop your protest, “be polite. I am surrounded by polite people. I find it exhausting.”
You closed your mouth.
Bloodraven lowered his hand. “I loved Shiera,” he said, and the name was a blade between your ribs. “For many years. I asked for her hand more times than I can count. She always refused. Perhaps she was wise.” His jaw tightened, a flicker of old pain crossing his pale features. “But she is not my wife. You are.”
He reached down, and before you could react, his fingers closed around your hand. His skin was cool, dry. But his grip was steady.
“I cannot promise you love,” he said. “I am not a man given to tender feeling. The whispers about me are not all false. I am a sorcerer, of a kind. I do see through the eyes of my ravens. I have done things that would make you flinch to hear, and I will likely do more before I am through. I have little patience for the courtly games that fill the days of most highborn ladies.”
He paused, and his thumb brushed once across your knuckles.
“But I am not cruel without cause. I do not take pleasure in suffering. And I have watched you these three moons, my lady. Through the eyes of my ravens, yes. I have seen you in the gardens, sitting alone on the stone benches. I have seen you in the library, reading the same page over and over because your mind is elsewhere. I have seen you feeding my raven, speaking to him as though he were a friend, because you had no one else to speak to.”
Your face was burning. You wanted to look away, to hide, but his eye held you as surely as a pin holds a butterfly.
“I did not intend to spy,” he said, and there was a note in his voice that might have been regret. “At first, I was merely curious. Then I was...concerned. You are withering, my lady. Like a flower deprived of light. And I am the one who has kept you in the dark.”
He released your hand and stepped back.
“I would like to propose a truce,” he said. “A beginning. I will not pretend to be something I am not. I will always be busy with the affairs of the realm, always be strange, secretive and perhaps a little frightening for your liking. But I will make an effort to be present. To speak with you. To…know you.” He tilted his head, a gesture eerily reminiscent of his ravens. “If you will permit it.”
You stared at him, your heart pounding so loudly you were certain he could hear it. This was not what you had expected. This was not the cold dismissal, the polite abandonment, the quiet return to separate lives. This was an opening, a crack in the armor.
“I would like that,” your voice came out steadier than you had hoped. “My lord.”
“Brynden,” he corrected. “If we are to attempt this, you may as well use my name.”
You swallowed. “Brynden.”
The corners of his mouth twitched, the barest suggestion of a smile. “See? Not so difficult.”
He returned to his desk and picked up his quill, but he did not dismiss you. Instead, he gestured toward a smaller table near the fire, where a tray of fruit and cheese and a pitcher of wine had been laid out.
“Stay,” he said. “Eat. You have been hiding in your rooms for three days, and I suspect you have not been eating properly.”
You rose from your chair, your legs unsteady beneath you. As you crossed to the table, you saw a perch near the window, separate from the others. On it sat Pebble, his head cocked, his black eyes fixed on you with reproach.
“He has been sulking,” Brynden said, not looking up from his parchment. “He does not understand why you stopped coming.”
You reached out a trembling hand and stroked the raven’s breast. Pebble made a soft sound and pressed his head against your fingers.
“I am sorry,” you murmured to him. “I am here now.”
Behind you, you heard the scratch of the quill pause for just a moment, and then resume.
From that day, you took your evening meals in the solar with Brynden, sitting at the small table by the fire while he worked at his desk. He did not speak much, but he answered when you asked questions, and sometimes he would pause in his writing to ask one of his own. Small things at first: how you found the Red Keep, whether the sea air agreed with you, what books you had been reading. You answered honestly, and he listened with a focus that was almost unnerving, his eye fixed on you as though every word you spoke were a piece of intelligence to be filed away.
Then he started inquiring about your life, so you told him. Your father had pledged fealty to both King Daeron and Daemon Blackfyre, sending one gold and the other men. King Daeron had kept his crown, and House Oakheart's reputation had suffered. Instead of emerging unscathed either way, as Lord Oakheart had intended, the King inflicted punishments on him. His eldest son, your older brother, was assigned to become a Kingsguard. He had to refute his title, land and future of marriage and instead serve as a guard to the same King he had fought against. You, the eldest daughter, were given to Hand of the King as a reward he didn't ask for. A legitimate lady to solidify his standing. Your mother had acted as if everything was fine, which you suspected it was for your sake, although you didn't want such strained treatment. And you scarcely saw your brother since arriving in King's Landing, even though you both lived at the Red Keep.
You learned things about him in return. He had been born with the birthmark, with hair already white, and his mother had wept when she first saw him. He had been a poor swordsman as a boy, too thin and frail, so he had turned to the bow out of desperation. He loved his Blackwood sisters. He did not sleep well. He never had.
One evening, a fortnight after your conversation in the solar, you gathered your courage and asked the question that had been burning in your throat since the day you arrived.
“Do you wish I were her?”
The quill stopped. The fire crackled in the silence. Pebble, perched on the back of your chair, shifted his weight from one claw to the other.
Brynden set the quill down slowly. “That is a foolish question.”
“I am not afraid of the answer.” You were, of course. You were terrified. But you had spent months living in the shadow of a ghost and you could not do it any longer.
He rose from his desk and came to stand before the fire. The flames cast his face in red and gold, the birthmark nearly invisible against the glow. His back was to you.
“I wished for many things,” he said at last. “I wished for her to love me. I wished for her to choose me, just once, over all the others. I wished for a great many foolish things that a wiser man would have let go long ago.” He turned to look at you. “But I do not wish you were her. You are not her. You are nothing like her, and that is…not a bad thing.”
“I have heard she is the most beautiful woman in the Seven Kingdoms,” you said, and you hated the smallness of your voice, the jealousy that crept in despite your best efforts.
“She is,” Brynden said, and your heart sank. “But beauty is a strange thing. Shiera’s beauty is like wildfire: brilliant, consuming, and utterly indifferent to what it destroys. I spent years burning in it, and I have the scars to show. You are different. Your beauty is like…” He paused, searching for the word. “Like the first green shoots after winter. Blooming. Steady. Something that grows rather than blazes.”
You did not know what to say. Your face felt hot.
“I am not good at this,” Brynden said with a flicker of frustration in his voice. “I am no poet. I do not know how to court my own wife.”
A laugh bubbled up in your throat, unexpected and slightly hysterical. You pressed your hand to your mouth, trying to stifle it, but it escaped anyway, a small, surprised sound that made Brynden’s eye widen a fraction.
“I do not know how to be courted,” you admitted. “I was taught to be a lady, not a wife. No one ever told me what to do with a husband who did not want a wife.”
“I never said I did not want a wife.” He took a step toward you. “I said I did not ask for this marriage. There is a difference.”
“Is there?”
Another step. He was close enough that you could smell the faint scent of ink and old parchment that clung to his clothes. Close enough that you could see the tiredness around his eye.
“I am learning,” he murmured, “that I may have wanted something I did not know I did.”
His hand rose, and this time, he did not stop at your fingers. His cool palm cupped your cheek, his thumb brushing the corner of your mouth with a gentleness that contradicted everything you had heard about him: the cold sorcerer, the ruthless spymaster, the man who had killed Daemon Blackfyre and his sons with arrows guided by dark magic. In this moment, he was only a man, touching his wife’s face for the first time.
“You are trembling,” he said.
“I am afraid.”
“Of me?”
“Of this ending.” Your voice cracked. “Of Shiera returning. Of waking up tomorrow and finding that you have remembered you do not want me after all.”
His eye searched your face. You had the unsettling sensation that he was seeing more than your skin and bone, more than the fear in your eyes. Seeing into you, the way he saw through the eyes of his ravens.
“Shiera is in Lys,” he said. “She left months ago, before our wedding. She may return someday, she always does, but she is not here now, and she has no claim on me. Whatever I felt for her, it is done. I have been a fool for her long enough.”
He leaned closer, his forehead nearly touching yours.
“As for waking up tomorrow,” he murmured, “that is simple. You shall wake up in my bed.”
Your breath caught.
“The bedding ceremony was waived,” he continued, “because I requested it. I did not think it fair to subject you to the court’s crude jests when we were strangers. But we are not strangers now. Not entirely. And I find that I am tired of sleeping alone in my cold solar while my wife sleeps alone in her cold tower.”
His thumb traced the line of your jaw.
“If you are willing,” he added, and the hesitation in his voice, the faint uncertainty, undid you completely.
“I am willing,” you whispered.
He kissed you. His lips were cool, like his hands. The kiss was cautious, almost experimental, as though he were tasting a new wine and trying to decide if he liked the vintage. But it deepened, slowly, his hand slid from your cheek to the back of your neck. You felt a knot of tension loosen in your chest.
When he pulled back, his breathing was slightly unsteady.
“You will not be alone.” He took your hand again, this time, he laced his fingers through yours. “I have a thousand eyes. Some of them will always be watching over you.”
It was perhaps the strangest declaration of affection any woman had ever received. But you found yourself smiling anyway, a real smile, the first you had worn since leaving the Reach.
That night, you did not return to your lonely tower rooms. You slept in the Hand’s bed, in the Hand’s arms, and though he did not sleep, he had told you he rarely did, he held you in the darkness, his fingers tracing idle patterns on your shoulder.
In the morning, you woke to find him already dressed, standing at the window with the pale dawn light on his hair. He turned when he heard you stir.
“Good morning, my lady.”
“Good morning, Brynden.”
He crossed to the bed and sat on its edge. From behind his back, he produced a single winter rose, its petals white as fresh snow, its center a deep, vivid blue.
“There are no winter roses in King’s Landing,” you said, taking it with trembling fingers. “How did you...?”
“I have my ways,” he said, the faint smile on his lips was no longer tentative. It was the smile of a man who had unraveled a mystery and found the answer rather pleasing.
You lifted the rose to your nose and breathed in its sweet, cold scent. Through the window, you saw a raven circling against the pale sky, not Pebble but another, its black wings cutting the air with swift precision. It was returning home, carrying something in its beak.
“What is he bringing?” you asked.
“A letter,” Brynden said. “From the Arbor. Lord Redwyne is plotting something tedious involving wine tariffs.” He paused. “Would you like to watch me unravel it?”
“Yes,” you said. “I would like that very much.”
He offered you his hand, you took it.
Pebble, watching from his perch, let out a satisfied croak and followed you and your husband up the winding stair to the solar.
Part 2: coming soon...
a/n: Please don't let this flop guys, I have an entire series planned out.
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a/n: Comment if you'd like to be added to the series taglist. Rn I'm tagging those who went along with my freaky birdman propaganda.
Hiii 💖 I was wondering if you could please do a through the darkness follow up where reader is in the gardens playing with her children finally and gets lost and very upset.
A/N: oh my poor little heart, but yeah, I’ll absolutely write some hurt/comfort!! Writing about these two is really helping my escape at the moment so I’m happy to take any request for them lol!
Through the Darkness, I am found
Maekar Targaryen X Blind!Wife!Reader
Tags: Hurt/comfort, reader gets lost due to blindness, baby egg exists, children are left unsupervised for a short period of time, insecurity, self doubt, Maekar being somewhat deceitful in the name of overprotectiveness (but wifeys to smart to not catch on)
WC: 2.2k
Summary: Just when life seems to be setting back to normal you and Maekar get a scary reminder that things really are different now!
Series in chronological order: Prequel, One, Drabble, Drabble
“Mother, Egg drooled on my book!” Aemon whined. He was a good little boy, and really only got upset when his reading was disturbed.
“Egg is six moons old my love…all he can really do is drool and roll about.” You explained kindly, “but I will bring him over here.” You assure him. Putting down the flowers you were currently collecting in your hands, Daella was pulling them right out of the soil and you gladly let her, you had no idea what a mess it made the garden look, you just knew she mused about how pretty they were and clapped every time she added a new one to the bouquet you held.
“Come here,” you leaned across the blanket to pull your youngest from where he had crawled to the far corner. “You’re suppose to stay right here my little wiggly dragon.” You felt his little chunky legs and then scooped him back to your lap. “Right here.” You kissed his bald head and positioned him against your skirts with his back to your stomach.
Aegon was born two moons after his sisters first nameday and he was already a mischievous little boy. Maekar had made many a comments about him being the last. You weren’t so convinced. Your husband said you both had been spoiled with Aemon and Daella and he’d forgotten how difficult babes could be. He wasn’t difficult, he was just spirited, and you thought that it suited him considering everybody had taken to calling him by quite the humorous nickname. Egg. Daeron and Aerion had started to use it as a playful taunt, he was the only one of the child born without a spec of hair on his head. You, and all of your fresh motherly emotions had been throughly upset by this taunting. Cuddling the boy close to you in bed and admitting to Maekar through your exhausted tears that your newborn babe was being bullied by his own brothers before he could even sit up on his own. Maekar had taken your hand, eased it over Aegon’s big round head and kissed your temple as he admitted to you, that your son did indeed look remarkably like an egg! Everybody, including you, took to using the nickname after that.
You turned your chin up slightly to feel the sun on your face, it felt warmer then it had a bit ago, either time was moving quicker than you had realized or the sun had been perpetually behind a cloud all morning. You wanted Daeron and Aerion to join you once their lessons in the training yard were done. If it was midday already then they should long be done and your oldest boys should be with you picking at tarts and little cheese sandwiches for the rest of the afternoon in the garden. Maekar had even said he would join after handling some additional tasks in the training yard.
“aemon, is the sun in the middle of the sky?” You asked working your way up to your feet, shifting egg to your hip and smiling when you felt the weight of Daellas hands pulling at your skirt.
“Um, yes just about.” He informed you and then his nose was back in his book.
“they’ll not get out of this-“ you grumble to yourself, the older two were at those particular ages when they felt too mature to play in the gardens with their mother and siblings. But you knew any boys who found the name egg as hilarious as they did were very much still little boys themselves. You wanted this time with them. “Stay here on the blanket with your brother.” You untangle your daughter’s hands from your skirt and position her closer to where you knew Aemon was. “Watch her.” You instructed before taking a few steps on the path.
There had been stone paths that were put in around most of the gardens and yards of Summerhall. Physical directions for you to follow and adhere to. It was ways to leave the keep, set out in the direction of the stables and just ensure your footing stayed on the stones. It worked well, normally, so long as the stones did not get shifted about.
Today, of course, the stones had shifted.
A full hour had not even come to pass before the staff of the hall realized something was amiss when Aemon came inside half dragging Daella in his hold.
“Lady Targaryen is not in the garden.” A maid informed maekar rushing through the hall, she did not even stop to properly greet him or field his questions because she was headed to the garden to look herself
“Ser Farland accompanied her this morning to the yards. He is still stood within the gardens gates.” That was the rule. It was Maekar’s rule, one that he did not think you knew about. A guard remained somewhere near, lingering whenever you were outside of the keeps walls.
“My prince,” the woman stopped, her face softened to an apologetic look. “Your lady wife knows of Ser Farland.” Maekar’s jaw tensed and he was standing suddenly only half of his armor off from training.
“excuse me?” He blinked and his eyebrow cocks. “My wife knows of this and you all know she is aware and I have not been informed?!” He barked.
The maid opened her mouth, closed it and when Maekar stormed closer she swallowed down her fear. “Forgive me, the lady forbid us from informing you.”
“Fucks sake!” He snapped and moved from the room with haste heading towards the gardens.
“you-“ he points to the knight who stood just inside the hall with Aemon and Daella. A nurse maid now held the upset little girl and was soothingly running her fingers through the young intelligent boys hair. “You left your post?!” He slammed the white cloak against the stone wall, despite the man being inches taller than him. Nobody in this keep was as strong as the anvil and that gap grew larger when he was enraged… even larger when he was fearful.
“the lady bid me to leave her be-“ he explained groaning when his head was knocked back against the wall. “My prince please-“
“Mother doesn’t like to be watched.” Aemon piped up, hesitantly looking up at his father. “She always tells the guards and maids to leave us be.” He explained and the knight nodded quickly, greatful that this little prince was vouching for him.
“Y-your lady wife can be quite insistent m’prince.” The man sputtered out.
He knew that was true, he knew it in his bones.
Maekar gripped the man’s jaw making him look at him. “You wear a white cloak yet are bending to the wills of a woman?!” It wasn’t that he thought your words should not be followed it was just that he’d arranged this secrecy so you would remain safe and not feel like a child being looked after. “Bloody fucking useless.” He released the man tearing out the doors and down the steps to the garden. “I want men out along the perimeter!” He demanded not even looking to over his shoulder.
You had no idea how long you’d been wandering around, for at least half the time you had convinced yourself you weren’t lost, that the path from the garden to the training yard was just longer than you had recalled. But when you ran into a thick tree and could feel the grass starting to grow taller you knew that you were lost and far beyond the gardens and stables and the training yard.
“shhh, shh.” You comfort Egg rubbing the back of his head and keeping him close to your chest, “I’ll find our way back.” You promise him.
After a while longer of walking, and feeling your feet sink into the ground a bit you decided that walking seemed ill advised. You could just be making yourself more lost. So you backtracked the way you came and stayed under the trees shade. Humming to egg to manage you anxiety, until you heard a noise, panting, and heavy thuds of feet.
“hello?!” You called, startled when a hand grabed your head. “Let go of me!” You bark twisting away shielding egg.
“you will make my heart give out.” Maekar’s arm wrapped around you from behind and he pulled you back into his frame. You instantly calmed. Turned to him at once and let go of egg with one hand to feel the side of your husbands face.
“Thank the gods…” you exhale and then the tears begin at once.
“I’ve half a mind to paddle your arse. All this insolence fussing at the maids and guards? You could truly not have just forgotten they were there!?” He kissed your temple. “Let me keep you safe. Gods sake, don’t fight me on it anymore.!” He sighed, the worry clear in his voice. He was scared, scared enough to put those safety nets in place and he became terrified know that even those had not been enough!
You were a mess of tears and shaking hands and struggled breaths. This had been the most scared you ever were. Lost, wandering, you infant on your hip and two of your children abandoned in the gardens. “Daella? She was will aemon-are they okay?” You hiccuped “gods forgive me…forgive me Maekar.” Anything could have happened to you or to them. You cared not for his panicked scolding you just needed reassurance that all was alright.
“Breathe. They are both alright, unharmed.” He instructed but you just continued to ramble on. Mind racing.
“I’m not fit t-to be a mother. I cannot do this. I can’t even look after myself. Gods I’m a bloody fool!” You sob. Things had been going so well, you’d managed expertly but something like this was bound to eventually happen. You just had not anticipated it being this terrifying! “I-I, fucks sake,” you sniffled hard. “I was wrong-I can’t do this. Your right,” you whisper, jaw shaking “no more babes, I can hardly mother the ones we have.” He was appalled. He had never seen you so worked up, so self doubting. His hand cooled the heat of your swollen under-eye and he shook his head.
“no.” You were a good mother, a loving mother, and you had done well with Daella and Egg despite your limitation. He hated that his hesitation to grow the family large was now being used in your campaign against yourself!
“I’m useless-“
“none of that,” it came out harsh. Which wasn’t all that odd, he wasn’t a man who cooed often unless it was at the newest babe snuggled into your breast. The only time he’d truly been that gentle with you was the day you wed and he’d so gently taken your maidenhead, and while you’d been sick with the blinding fever. He hadn’t intended for his words right now to come out so brash.
“Shh,” his thumb wiped under your eye, getting rid of the tears. “There is no need to spiral my love.” He assured you, gentler this time. “I’ll not hear any of that nonsense, incompetence and inability are two words that have no place in anybody’s mouth when it comes to you.” He took egg from your hip, cradling the bald boy in the crook of his elbow and Maekar smushed you into his shoulder with his other hand. “Least of all should it come from your own lips.” He warned pressing a firm kiss to the back of your head.
“but what if I’d wandered further? Egg is just a b-babe he cannot be out here overnight.” You were worked up, all your anxiety finally coming to the surface now that you felt safe. Now that you did not feel like you needed to focus on practical things.
“I’d of found you.” He pushed your hair down your back. “Or do you doubt me now too?” His brow raised looking down at you and you shook your head against his chest.
“N-no I-“ you wiped your jaw because some tears dripped over the edge of it. “I’m just scared.” You whisper, your other hand still gripping to his vest. Not daring to let go.
“There’s no reason for that anymore, you are well, our son is grand, and you’ve raised a smart enough boy that he took Daella in and alerted a guard when you’d been gone a while.” Maekar pulled you back in and his hand dropped from your head and scooped up under your bum lifting you up and you instantly wrapped your legs around his side.
“Maekar-“ you objected, though your face was already nuzzling into his neck face hidden by his skin and beard and your arms looped around his neck. “I should walk, what will people think?”
“they’ll think whatever i desire them to.” He said plainly as he began to walk about towards the hall, you in one arm and Aegon in the other.
“don’t ever scare me like that again-” He whispered to you and pressed another tender kiss to your temple before you were back in the gardens. “Now I think I was promised a picnic with my family.” He hummed gently settling you down and you felt egg be deposited into your lap.
“yes, I do think something like that was promised.” You sniffled and kissed eggs head.
“stay here, breathe, I’ll go fetch the rest of our brood.”
