white slave for Ebony Goddess

It’s an old northern trick. Head down, shoulders steady, move like a shadow along the wall, a wolf on the prowl unseen but ever watchful. Your father has gone on ahead with the king and his council, leaving you to find your own way back to your chambers. Winterfell’s halls never felt like this. Here, the Red Keep seems to breathe and move around you, full of hot blood and sharper teeth than any wolf. Someone’s sleeve catches on the edge of your own; a jewelled clasp scrapes your wrist, and you jerk back on instinct. You murmur an apology, the words swallowed by the noise, and edge closer to the wall, feeling the rush of bodies pressing past.

That’s when the crowd surges.

The doors behind you open again with a thud, and a fresh crush of courtiers spills out, seemingly all at once. A tall knight in a gilded plate cuts across your path; a lady with a fan like a small battle shield sways into you, chuckling too loudly, flushed from wine. Your shoulder hits stone, and you almost bare your teeth in irritation. The air leaves your lungs in a soft, muffled sound that no one hears. You’re not used to this many people in your space, breathing down your neck, and your neck prickles. 

You don’t see him at first, but you do feel him.

A warm pressure closes around your elbow, steadying you before you can stumble. The grip is sure but careful, fingers splayed so as not to bruise. Before you can turn, that touch slides—down, in, claiming a span of you that no one at court has dared to yet.

His hand finds your waist.

Not a greedy clutch or a drag. But a quiet, decisive claim, palm fitting to the narrowest part of you as if it was always meant to rest there. He doesn’t pull; he guides, the way one might guide a skittish mare out of a tight pen. The heat of his body is at your back, a wall as solid as any of Winterfell’s stones, and suddenly the crowd is no longer pressing you into the wall; he is moving you through it.

“Forgive me, my lady,” a low voice murmurs just behind your ear. “There’s more room this way.”

He steps forward, and you find yourself moving with him, his hand a firm point of balance against your waist. People part without thinking; even in the crush, bodies turn, shoulders dip, conversations falter for half a heartbeat as they register who is passing among them.

Prince Baelor.

You’ve seen him from afar, of course.

At the high table during the welcoming feast, back when you first arrived, where the firelight turned his dark hair copper at the edges. In the training yard, in passing, long-limbed and lethal with a spear, moving with the unhurried grace of someone who knows exactly how dangerous he is and has no need to prove it. Beside the king in council, broad shoulders bent over a table of maps, the Hand pin gleaming across his breast. He carries all three faces with him now—the warrior, the prince, the Hand—as he clears a path for you like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

The southern ladies watch you pass with wide, speculative eyes. Their whispers press in around you like heat, and you know full well what they’re thinking.

A northern wolf on the Crown Prince’s arm.

Not his arm, you think desperately, bones quaking beneath your skin. His hand. His hand is on your—

You barely catch yourself before your feet tangle in the hem of your gown. Baelor’s grip tightens almost imperceptibly, fingers curving more securely into the fabric at your waist. Gentle, still, but not in the least uncertain. The contact steals the rest of your breath. You have been shoved and jostled and knocked sideways plenty of times in the past, but this is something different. 

This is a man who knows the weight of his own body, of his own strength, and chooses—deliberately—to make you feel safe beneath his touch.

It is ridiculous how your bones seem to melt around that realisation.

By the time your thoughts catch up, he has manoeuvred you into a small side gallery off the main corridor—a little alcove open to the night, its stone balustrade looking out over the black curve of Blackwater Bay. The noise of the court drops away like a curtain falling. Only a few stragglers pass the archway, casting you quick, curious looks before hurrying on.

Baelor steps back. His hand leaves your waist, the loss of it sharp as stepping out of a hot bath into cold air. Your skin remembers the shape of his fingers even as his touch fades, phantom-strong still.

“My apologies,” he says, giving you space, and God be good, he even bows a little, as if he hasn’t just steadied and steered you through the throng like you weighed less than a sword. “The crowd was… overzealous.”

You swallow, trying to coax your voice back into existence. You have faced down freezing storms and hungry wolves. You have stood before your lord father’s council and spoken on matters of grain and garrison. None of that prepared you for Baelor Breakspear looking at you as if you are the only person in all of King’s Landing who matters at this exact moment.

“It was…” You clear your throat, the words scraping on their way out. “Thank you, Your Grace. I was managing well enough.”

One dark brow lifts, visibly amused. “Were you?”

Sensation of heat creeps up your neck, and you’re unsure if it’s embarrassment or anger, or both. 

He does not resemble the Targaryens of the old songs. No otherworldly silver hair, no jittering violet gaze. Baelor is all warm gold skin and midnight hair already catching a few strands of grey, Dornish sun softened by the formidable Valyrian bone structure. The dragon is in the tilt of his nose, the high cut of his cheekbones, the fine line of his mouth and the steely gleam in his dark eyes.

He looks at you steadily, and you have the unpleasant suspicion he can read more in your silence than you’d like.

“I am not accustomed to so many people,” you manage at last, clasping your hands in front of you so he cannot see them fidget. “Winterfell’s halls are quieter.”

“And colder, I imagine.” His mouth curves, but there is no mockery in it, only curiosity. “Your father has told me tales of snows higher than a man’s head, of wolves the size of ponies.”

“They’re only that big when you’re very small,” you say before you can stop yourself. “Or when the men telling stories have had too much wine.”

He laughs. It’s not loud, not like some of the booming, performative mirth you’ve heard at the feast. It’s low and genuine, like the rumble of distant thunder rolling across the fields in high summer.

“So there are no monstrous beasts lurking in your forests?” he asks.

“Oh, there are,” you say quietly. “They just don’t always have four legs.”

His eyes sharpen on your face. You regret the words as soon as they’re out, but you steel your spine and hold his gaze. The north teaches you to stand firm from a young age; the south seems to require it even more.

“Court can be… trying,” he says after a beat, gentling the subject with care. “Even for those born to it. You’ve only been here a week, my lady. It is no failing to find the noise overwhelming.”

You wonder if he finds it overwhelming, too—the heir to a dynasty unlike any other in the world, the half-Dornish boy who grew into a man caught between too many expectations. You have heard the whispers about his mother’s people, the sneers for his sun-dark skin, the grudging admiration for his skill in battle.

You know what it means to be out of place.

“Winterfell is quiet,” you tell him, surprising yourself. “But it’s a good quiet. Solid. The kind that lets you hear your own thoughts.” You glance back toward the corridor, where the hum of voices still spills past. “Here, it feels like my thoughts are drowned before I can have them.”

Baelor nods, slow, as if weighing your words. “You are your father’s heir, are you not?”

“Yes.”

“Then they will not be drowned,” he says simply. “They will learn to swim. And those who would prefer not to hear them will have to learn to listen.”

The certainty in his tone startles you more than the feel of his hand had.

“You sound very sure of that, Your Grace.”

“I try to be.” That hint of humour returns, dimming the intensity of his gaze just enough to let you breathe. “It is expected of me. People are comforted by conviction, even when it’s borrowed.”

“That seems… dangerous,” you say. “To borrow conviction.”

“It can be,” he agrees with a pleased nod. “So it’s important to borrow from the right people.”

His eyes catch yours. For a moment, the air between you feels as thick as honey and twice as warm.

“And who do you borrow from?” you ask curiously, because your mouth is braver than your good sense.

“From those who know how to stand in the cold,” he says softly, “and do not flinch.”

The world narrows in, down to the shape of him against the torchlit stone, the calm weight of his attention. You have never felt so acutely the distance between your body and someone else’s. A step. Less than that, maybe. You remember the heat of his palm through your gown, the steady line of his fingers, the way the crowd parted as if he carried his own weather with him.

There are worse storms to be caught in, you think.

A shout from the main corridor breaks whatever held the moment taut. A serving boy runs past the archway, chased by another, laughter echoing behind them. The spell shivers and eases, dispelling. Baelor straightens a little, the prince’s mantle settling more visibly around his shoulders again.

“May I see you safely back to your chambers, my lady?” he asks. “It seems I’ve already half-abducted you from the feast. I’d rather not leave you to brave the crush alone again.”

“That’s not necessary,” you begin automatically. “I won’t wish to trouble you.”

Northerners do not like to seem fragile; Starks, least of all.

He tilts his head. “Indulge me, then.”

You hesitate. You can hear the court whispering already, if you close your eyes. The northern lady on the prince’s arm. The wolf at the dragon’s side. Oh, what tales they’ll spin out of the sight of you side by side, and yet…

You are tired of being a story told by others.

“I suppose,” you say, unable to scrub the wariness out of your voice, “if Your Grace insists…”

The grin that answers you is brief but unexpectedly bright, one quick flash of unguarded warmth that softens the stern, strong angles of his face.

“I do,” he says, offering his arm.

You place your hand on his forearm, careful, aware of every point of contact. The fine fabric beneath your palm, the solid muscle beneath that, the way his skin heats the air between you. When you step back into the corridor, you feel the weight of a hundred eyes. You hold your head high, the way your mother taught you before she died. A Stark does not bow to the weather, you remind yourself. Starks are of old blood, steel and ice, everlasting. 

When you step back into the corridor, the noise washes over you in a hot wave. Laughter, clattering plates, the distant shrill of a pipe. The torches spit and smoke, scenting the air with pitch and singed dust.

You feel every pair of eyes. Every turn of a jewelled head.

Baelor moves as if he does not. As if the crowd is nothing more than a current he’s long since learned to read. A subtle shift of his shoulders here, a courteous incline of his head there, and the sea parts for him in due deference. The hush that follows your wake is thin but perceptible, like the trail of a blade through water. When a young lord, flushed and unsteady, staggers too close, Baelor’s free hand comes up between you and the impending collision. His palm brushes low at your side—just a ghost of contact at your waist as he guides the man past with a quiet word.

It is almost nothing.

Almost.

Your breath slows in your lungs. Your body knows the shape of that hand now; your bones seem to bow under it like a sword under a smithy’s hammer. The place where his fingers rest for that heartbeat feels branded. He does not look down at you right away. It would be too much, you think, to meet his eyes in the same moment his hand is on your body. Instead, he steers you past another knot of courtiers, past a herald arguing with a servant over spilt wine.

Only when the press thins a little does he speak.

“How are you finding the south, my lady?” he asks lightly, as if making idle conversation in a garden instead of cutting a path through a hall of vipers. “Truly. Not the answer you give my father.”

The honest answer rises, sharp and instinctive, before you can dress it in courtesy.

“It’s… overwhelming,” you admit warily. “Too hot. Too loud. Too much of everything, all at once.” The words taste like snowmelt and iron on your tongue. “The walls feel close, and the sky feels far. It smells of roses and rot.”

Baelor’s mouth twitches. “Rot?” he echoes, visibly amused. “I’m not sure the Master of Whisperers has turned that phrase yet. I’ll be sure he hears it.”

Heat flickers up your neck again, this time at your own lack of tact. “I did not mean—”

“I asked for truth,” he cuts in, gentle but firm. “And you gave it to me. It is… rarer here than you might think.”

He glances sideways at you then, eyes catching the torchlight. There’s humour there, yes, but something else coils beneath it, something like relief.

“What does Winterfell smell of?” he asks curiously, keeping an easy, unhurried pace. “When it is not buried in snow tall as a man.”

The corridor takes a slight bend, opening up, awashed in the golden glow of torches. Your skirts whisper against the rushes; your fingers flex once against his sleeve, steadying yourself more than your feet require.

“Pine and smoke,” you answer, unable to keep the wishful note out of your voice. “Wet stone. Horse and leather and cold iron. The kennels, if the wind is wrong.” Your mouth curves despite yourself. “Wet wool, too, in winter. Everything smells faintly of wet wool.”

“And you miss that?” His tone is faintly incredulous. “Kennels and wet wool?”

You think of empty courtyards glazed with frost; of dark pine branches loaded with snow, bending but not breaking. Of the comforting roughness of your father’s cloak around your shoulders, scratchy and heavy and honest because back home, words and oaths are sacred. The weight of awareness you get whenever you sit next to the weirwood trees, feeling like every Stark whose come before you is pressing their attention into your skin, urging you forward. 

“Yes,” you say simply. “Very much.”

His smile softens, the sharp edges of his face easing for a moment into something almost boyish despite the faint brushes of grey you glimpse across the scruff on his face and temples.

“You sound homesick, Lady Stark.”

“I am,” you admit, more bare than you would care to admit. “But I suppose homesickness is easier to bear than being foolish.”

“Foolish?”

“To be offered a place at court and complain that the tapestries are the wrong colour,” you say dryly. “The south has… beauty. Even if it shouts it.” Your gaze snags on a high-arched window, on the spill of moonlight over red stone. “I don’t know yet if I like it. But I can’t say it’s dull.”

A low huff of laughter escapes Baelor. “That may be the kindest thing anyone has said about King’s Landing in years. Not dull. I’ll inform the small council that we can put it on the banners.”

You hazard a sidelong look at him, emboldened by your own honesty. “And what does it feel like to you, Your Grace?” you wonder aloud, scanning the mighty stone structure. “This city. This court. You were not born to it either, not entirely.”

His jaw moves, a small shift beneath sun-browned skin. The hand on your arm remains steady, heavy weight.

“It feels,” he replies slowly, “like standing in a room where everyone is shouting in a language you learned late. You know the words. You know what to say. But some part of you is always listening for a cadence that never comes.”

“Dorne,” you say softly.

“My mother,” he corrects, just as soft. “And the Marches. And the men I fought beside in the Stepstones who never cared what name my grandfather bore. Here, everything is flattery and intrigue. There, it was whether you held the line.”

You imagine him not in a gilded plate but in plain mail gone tacky with salt and blood; imagine that same steady hand closing around a spear instead of your arm, ending lives instead of preserving them. A man who knows the weight of his own strength, and the weight of others’ lives in it.

“That sounds lonely,” you say before you can stop yourself.

His gaze flicks to your face. “It is,” he admits, much to your surprise. “Sometimes. But then, I suppose any place where you must be two things at once is lonely.”

You swallow.

“I know something of that. Stark and heir. Daughter and—” You cut yourself off, teeth closing on the word. Lady. The one who will have to be hard enough for both, a placeholder until you marry and your sons inherit Winterfell instead. “The hall looks very different when you sit in your father’s chair instead of standing before it.”

He hums, a thoughtful, rumbling sound. “Do you miss being only one thing?” he questions, but you can tell it’s not an attempt to pry, and more so genuine curiosity he’s indulging in.

You consider his question properly, rather than offering him the fabricated response that would be safer. You’re nearing the quieter wings now, where guest chambers sleep behind thick doors, and the clamour of court is more blissfully muffled, giving you a moment to hear each other properly.

“I miss,” you say at last, “having room to make mistakes where fewer people could see.”

He laughs again at that, a warm, surprised sound that feels less like thunder and more like the crackle of a hearth catching.

“You may find,” he retorts, a smile in his voice, “that most of us are still making mistakes. We’re just better at pretending they were intentional.”

“That sounds very southern,” you say primly.

“Oh, it is,” Baelor agrees with a low huff. “We dress our errors in silk and call them a plan.”

A smile tugs at your mouth, reluctant but real. “In the north, we bury ours in the snow and pretend they were never there.”

“I’ve heard,” he says mildly, “that the things buried in the north have a way of walking again.”

You meet his eyes properly then, the weight of his words settling between you like a stone dropped in deep water. For a heartbeat, you think you see something there—a question, perhaps, or a warning, or recognition.

“That depends,” you say, voice low, “on what you put in the ground.”

His gaze lingers on you. The world tilts, just slightly. Then he exhales, the moment easing.

“I see,” he murmurs thoughtfully. “I shall try not to offend your gods, then. I’m told they prefer honesty as well.”

“Yes,” you say, fingers tightening briefly on his sleeve. “They do.”

You turn another corner together. The torches here burn lower; the stones are cooler underfoot. The murmur of the feast has dulled to a distant roar, like the sea against cliffs. He slows as you reach the stretch of corridor that leads to your chamber. You recognise the heavy-carved door at the far end, the two guards posted discreetly beyond it—Stark men, standing a little straighter as the prince approaches.

Baelor comes to a halt a few paces short, so you are not under their direct gaze. Only then does he gently disengage his arm, leaving your hand suspended stupidly in the air for an instant before you recall it to yourself. The loss of contact is abrupt, like stepping out from under a fur cloak into naked winter wind. You feel the awareness of him along your skin where he is not touching you.

“Here we are,” he says quietly. “Unabducted, as promised.”

You huff, the sound almost a laugh. “I don’t recall giving you leave to abduct me in the first place, Your Grace.”

His eyes glint. “Ah, but I recall saving you from assault by silk and steel in the king’s own hall. We might call it a kidnapping in your defence.”

You dare a little tilt of your chin. “If you wished to impress a northern lord, Your Grace, I fear you would have to drag me over your shoulder rather than lead me politely by the arm.”

The grin that flashes across his face is quick and wicked, gone almost before it fully forms, a glint of heat entering andleaving his gaze in a blink.

“Duly noted,” he murmurs, and there is something in his tone that makes your stomach dip. “I will revise my tactics should the need arise.”

You hold his gaze, somehow impossibly darker in the shadowed hall, but it does not frighten you. There’s no ill will to be found on his face, and while you’re well aware men can be deceitful and hide their intent well, there’s something in the prince’s expression that eases your hackles down. 

For a heartbeat, neither of you moves, your gazes locked. 

“Thank you,” you say finally, because Stark courtesy runs as deep as Stark stubbornness. You dip your head in a grateful half-bow. “For your help. And for asking how I fare and not how my father thinks I fare.”

“You are very welcome,” he returns promptly, unblinking as his gaze slides across the planes of your face. “It is… a relief, Lady Stark, to speak to someone who does not answer every question with flattery or a calculation.”

You hesitate, then venture, “You seem to me a man who does many calculations, Your Grace.”

“Oh, I do,” Baelor admits, amused again, skin around his eyes crinkling like he’s pleased you noticed. “But every now and then I like to remember what it is to simply listen.”

Something in your chest loosens at that. “I hope, then,” you say, “that I did not disappoint.”

His gaze sweeps your face again, and you feel it like a touch—cool across your brow, warm along your cheek, skimming over the curve of your lips so swiftly you would have missed it had you not been watching him just as closely.

“On the contrary,” he murmurs. “You have given me more to think on than half the lords I’ve spoken with this fortnight.”

Your throat feels too dry, but you still force yourself to speak. “That seems unwise,” you manage after a beat. “To let a homesick northerner trouble the mind of the king’s Hand.”

Baelor inclines his head thoughtfully. “Perhaps,” he says, a small wrinkle appearing between his strong brows. “Or perhaps that is exactly the mind I should be troubled by.”

The words hang there, a small, bright spark in the dim corridor. You glance away first, pulse thrumming in your ears while you fight to keep your expression perfectly schooled. 

“We have kept late enough hours,” you begin, retreating a half step into politeness because you can feel the ground tilting under your feet. “I should not take more of your time, Your Grace.”

One corner of his mouth lifts. “Baelor,” he says, almost too low to hear.

You blink. “…Your Grace?”

“If we are to be honest with one another,” he continues, a glint back in his eye, “it seems unfair that you have given me snow and rot and wet wool, and I have given you only titles. You may call me Baelor when we are not being watched, if you wish.”

Your heart gives a single, startled thud. “That would be… irregular,” you acknowledge faintly.

“Nearly everything worth doing is,” he replies quietly, then his tone gentles. “But I will not press it upon you, my lady. I know wolves walk slowly with their trust.”

You draw in a breath that tastes of stone dust and something else. Metal, maybe, or dragonfire, that these halls still recall from the age when dragons still flew through the skies.

“Then you must allow me a compromise,” you hear yourself say. “It would not do for word to spread that I address the Crown Prince like an old friend after a single walk down a hallway.”

“Of course not,” he says solemnly, though you can see laughter waiting at the edge of his mouth.

“So instead,” you continue, feeling oddly reckless, “you’ll have to endure something only a little less improper.”

His brows rise, waiting patiently. You give him the full weight of your Stark gaze, cool and steady, and bow your head just enough that it could be courtesy or defiance.

“Good night,” you say, every word measured, “my Lord Prince.”

The title should sound stiff, far too formal on your tongue. It does not. It sounds like a jest between the two of you alone, like you’ve taken his rank and wrapped it in something warmer. For a heartbeat, he just scrutinises you. Then that smile breaks over Baelor’s face again—real and surprised and vividly, disarmingly pleased, making him look moons younger. It softens the battle-hardened angles of his handsome face, turns him from statue, a fable, to man, flesh and blood.

“Lady Stark,” he answers, and now it is you who feels seen, the words settling over your shoulders like a cloak sewn to your exact measure. “Sleep well. Try not to dream too unkindly of our rot and roses.”

“I shall do my best, my Lord Prince,” you say dryly. “Though I make no promises about the roses.”

He laughs, low and delighted. It feels like a secret you’ve earned. He steps back then, just enough to bow properly. It is not the deep, sweeping gesture he gives the queen or the king, but neither is it the perfunctory nod you’ve seen him grant lesser lords. It is something in between, tailored to fit this narrow stretch of corridor and the strange, fragile thing that has grown between you in it.

When he straightens, he looks briefly, dangerously as if he might say more, ask more. But the guards at the end of the hall shift, armour chinking, and the spell trembles, coming apart at the seams.

“Good night,” he says again, more composed. “May the gods—old and new—watch your rest.”

You incline your head once more, fingers curled tight in your skirts to keep from fidgeting, then turn toward your door before your resolve can crack.

You feel his gaze on your back all the way to the threshold.

Only when the door has shut behind you, and you are alone with the banked fire and the distant, muffled roar of the city, do you let yourself sag against the wood. Your heart beats high and wild in your throat, like a trapped bird. You cross to the window on unsteady legs. Blackwater Bay lies beyond, a dark, glimmering curve, torchlight from the harbour pricking its surface like fallen stars. The night air that slides in is cooler, but still heavy compared to home. It smells of salt and smoke and something metallic underneath.

You press your palm to your waist, to the place where his hand rested. Your fingers span only half the space his did; the memory of his touch burns in the gap between, forcing a shiver.

It is absurd, how it unsettles you. How a single hand at your waist, a single walk down a crowded hall, a single traded jest—Lady Stark. My Lord Prince—can make the Red Keep feel… altered. Tilted, as if someone has shifted its weight on the hill by a fraction of an inch. 

The south is still too bright, too loud, too hot. The air still feels crowded. You still miss the honest cold of Winterfell with a dull ache that never quite leaves your bones. But tonight, when you close your eyes, you do not only see red stone and leering gargoyles and tapestries heavy with dust and history of blood and fire. You see a prince who moved through a crush of bodies as if they were nothing but reeds in a current, who put his hand between you and the world and did not once pretend you were a burden to bear.

You hear his low voice sounding out Lady Stark as if it is a name he chose for himself, not one sewn onto you at birth. You hear your own, reckless tongue calling him my Lord Prince as if the words can both tease and test at once.

Later, much later, you will understand that this was the first time you spoke to one another not as pieces on a board—north and crown, wolf and dragon—but as two people standing in the same crowded, suffocating hall, both trying to remember how to breathe.

For now, you only know this:

In a place that still does not feel like yours, under a sky that feels too far away, someone reached out and steadied you without demanding anything in return.

If dragons can learn to move carefully, you think, fingertips pressed to the phantom mark of his palm, perhaps wolves can learn to bear the heat.