Welcome to my collection of writing, aesthetics, and everything that refuses to leave my mind.
Currently centred around A Song of Sea and Fire, but more fandoms to come.
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Welcome 😁😁😁 - Introduction
✧ Fic Masterlists✧
A Song of Sea and Fire HOTD timeline Masterlist - where you’ll find all of my posts related to the HOTD timeline of this fic in one place. (HOTD X PJO)
A Song of Sea and Fire PJO timeline Masterlist - where you’ll find all of my posts related to the PJO timeline of this fic in one place. (HOTD X PJO)
What Was, What Remains, and What Could Be Masterlist - where you’ll find all of my posts related to this universe in one place. (The Hunger Games)
Six-year-old Valora Velaryon decides that if the Iron Throne is going to be hers one day, then she should probably learn how to climb it.
Ser Harwin Strong disagrees.
Rhaenyra is horrified, Laenor is trying not to laugh, Viserys is far too amused, and Valora learns that ruling is dangerous, thrones are sharp, and adults are very difficult.
The Iron Throne had always seemed much larger from below.
Valora Velaryon had seen it nearly every day of her life, looming at the end of the throne room like some great black beast made of swords and shadows. It rose higher than any chair had any right to rise, jagged and wicked and strange, with blades jutting from its sides as though it might decide to bite if anyone came too close.
Most children were frightened of it.
Valora was not.
At six years old, she had already decided that fear was a thing adults made far too much of. Dragons were frightening too, but if one held oneself properly, if one knew where to stand and how to speak and when not to make sudden movements, dragons could be understood.
Surely a chair could not be harder than a dragon.
The trouble was that no one would let her close enough to find out.
“Princess,” Ser Harwin Strong said slowly, sounding caught somewhere between horror and laughter. “That is not a staircase.”
Valora, who had one small hand braced against the lowest melted step and one slippered foot already searching for purchase, did not look back.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Because it looks very much like you are attempting to use it as one.”
Valora frowned at the sword nearest her face. Its edge had dulled with age, blackened by dragonfire and time, but it still looked perfectly capable of cutting through silk, skin, and six-year-old certainty.
She shifted her foot anyway.
Harwin’s amusement vanished at once.
“Princess Valora Velaryon.”
That made her pause.
Not because she intended to obey.
Only because people usually said her full name when they were either very worried or very cross, and she was interested in finding out which one he was.
She glanced over her shoulder.
Ser Harwin stood a few paces behind her, broad-shouldered and tense, one hand held out as if he were already calculating how quickly he could cross the distance if she slipped. Behind him, two servants had frozen near the doors with armfuls of fresh rushes.
Neither looked brave enough to move.
Valora tilted her head. “You look worried, Ser.”
“I wonder why.”
“Have you eaten?”
Harwin blinked.
“What?”
“Mother says people become unreasonable when they do not eat.”
“I am being very reasonable.”
“You sound cross.”
“I am trying not to become cross.”
Valora considered this with great seriousness.
Then she turned back toward the throne.
“That is very kind of you.”
Harwin closed his eyes briefly, as though asking the gods for patience.
“Princess,” he said, gentler now. “Please come down before you hurt yourself.”
Valora’s brows drew together.
“I will not hurt myself.”
“You do not know that.”
“I do.”
“You cannot.”
“I can.”
“How?”
Valora lifted her chin.
“Because I have decided.”
Harwin stared at her.
Then, despite himself, his mouth twitched.
“That is not how falling works, Princess.”
Valora ignored him.
The Iron Throne had been calling to her all morning.
Not truly calling, not the way people called across halls or courtyards, but sitting there in its usual terrible silence, daring her to understand it. Grandfather sat upon it all the time, and he did not look afraid. Tired, yes. Sad, sometimes. But never afraid.
Her other stood before it with her chin lifted and her hands folded neatly in front of her, listening to lords who spoke too much and thought too little.
One day, everyone kept saying, it would be her Mother’s.
And after her Mother, one day, it would be Valora’s.
Grandfather had told her so.
Pay attention, Valora. One day, this will be your seat.
It seemed very silly that a seat meant for her should be forbidden.
Valora lifted her foot again.
Harwin moved instantly.
Not touching her.
Not yet.
But closer.
“Valora Velaryon.”
She paused again.
This time, not because he had used her full name.
Because he had not used her title.
She looked back at him, violet eyes narrowing.
Harwin’s face was serious now.
“You may be very brave,” he said carefully. “But brave girls can still bleed.”
That made her hesitate.
Only a little.
“I am not scared of blood.”
“No,” Harwin said. “I do not imagine you are.”
He took another step closer, slow and careful, the way one might approach a skittish animal or a hatchling dragon.
“But your mother is scared of yours.”
Valora’s hand tightened against the cold metal.
That was unfair.
Very unfair.
Bringing Mother into it changed things.
“I am being careful,” she muttered.
“I can see that.”
“Then why are you worried?”
“Because you are six.”
Valora frowned. “That is not my fault.”
Harwin looked like he was fighting a smile again.
“No. I suppose it is not.”
“I will be older eventually.”
“That is the hope.”
“And when I am older, I must sit there.”
Harwin’s gaze flicked up toward the Iron Throne.
Something changed in his expression then.
The humour softened.
The worry remained.
“Aye,” he said quietly. “Perhaps you will.”
Valora looked up at the twisted seat.
It really was very high.
That only made her want to reach it more.
“What if I cannot get up?”
Harwin’s expression gentled.
“Then someone will help you.”
Valora glanced back at him.
“I should learn myself.”
“You should learn many things,” Harwin agreed. “But perhaps not all in one afternoon.”
Valora considered that.
Then her sleeve caught.
It was a tiny sound.
Barely more than a whisper.
A rip of delicate fabric against old steel.
Valora froze.
Slowly, she looked down.
Her pale lavender sleeve, embroidered with tiny silver seahorses, had torn at the cuff.
For a moment, the throne was forgotten entirely.
Her lower lip trembled.
Harwin saw it at once.
“Princess?”
Valora stared at the tear.
“Mother is going to be upset.”
Harwin’s face softened so quickly that it almost hurt to look at.
“I think your mother would be far more upset if you lost a finger.”
Valora’s eyes widened in horror.
Harwin immediately winced.
“That was the wrong thing to say.”
“My finger?”
“No one is losing a finger.”
“You said…”
“I should not have said.”
Valora looked at her hand.
Then at the throne.
Then at Harwin.
“You think it wants my finger?”
Harwin pressed his lips together, very clearly battling several responses at once.
“No,” he said finally. “I think the throne does not want anything. Which is precisely why you should not trust it.”
That sounded wise enough that Valora briefly forgot to be offended.
Then another voice, warm and familiar, drifted across the throne room.
“And why, exactly, is my daughter discussing whether the Iron Throne wants her fingers?”
Valora went very still.
Harwin straightened at once.
Rhaenyra Targaryen stood at the entrance of the throne room with Laenor Velaryon beside her, both having arrived quietly enough that no one had noticed them until it was far too late.
Rhaenyra’s expression was calm.
Too calm.
That was never good.
Laenor, on the other hand, looked from Valora to Harwin, to the throne, and then visibly struggled not to laugh.
“Valora,” Rhaenyra said.
Valora immediately tried to stand straighter, forgetting for one unfortunate second that she was balanced halfway up the lower edge of the Iron Throne.
Her foot slipped.
Harwin lunged.
Rhaenyra inhaled sharply.
Laenor swore under his breath.
Harwin caught her around the waist before she could fall more than an inch, lifting her away from the throne with the kind of effortless strength that made it seem as if she weighed no more than a rolled tapestry.
For a moment, no one moved.
Then Valora, hanging beneath Harwin’s arm like a very dignified sack of grain, said, “I had it under control.”
Laenor made a choked sound.
Rhaenyra turned her head toward him.
He looked away very quickly, though his shoulders shook.
Harwin set Valora carefully on the ground and released her as if she were made of glass.
“Forgive me, Princess,” he said to Rhaenyra at once. “I was attempting to talk her down.”
Valora lifted her chin. “He was doing very well.”
Rhaenyra’s gaze shifted to her.
Valora straightened.
“I made the choice myself.”
“Yes,” Rhaenyra said, walking closer. “That is rather what concerns me.”
Valora frowned. “But Grandfather says it will be my seat one day.”
Rhaenyra stopped.
Laenor’s amusement faded slightly.
Harwin’s expression softened behind them.
The throne room seemed to quiet.
Valora looked between them, suddenly less certain than she had been a moment ago.
“He says I must pay attention,” she explained. “And I do. But how am I meant to sit on it one day if I cannot even climb it?”
Rhaenyra’s expression changed.
“Oh, my sweet girl.”
She knelt before her, ignoring the cold stone floor beneath her gown.
Valora immediately stepped closer.
Rhaenyra reached out and took her daughter’s hands, turning them over carefully to check for cuts. There were none. Only a faint smudge of dust across one palm and a tiny thread from her torn sleeve clinging to her fingers.
“The throne is not something you conquer by climbing it,” Rhaenyra said gently.
Valora blinked. “It is not?”
“No.”
Laenor came closer then, crouching beside them. “And preferably not by bleeding on it either.”
Valora glanced back at the throne.
“It has many swords.”
“It does,” Laenor agreed.
“That seems unsafe.”
“It is famously unsafe.”
“Then why does Grandfather sit there?”
Laenor opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Looked at Rhaenyra.
Rhaenyra sighed.
“Because the throne is meant to remind those who sit upon it that ruling is dangerous,” she said after a moment. “Power can wound. Even those born to it. Especially those born to it.”
Valora considered that with all the seriousness of a child who understood more than adults wished her to.
“So it is a lesson.”
Rhaenyra smiled faintly. “Yes.”
“A sharp lesson.”
Harwin coughed into his fist.
Laenor’s mouth twitched.
Rhaenyra tried very hard not to smile.
“Yes,” she said. “A very sharp lesson.”
Valora looked down at her torn sleeve again.
“I did not mean to ruin it.”
Rhaenyra touched the tear gently. “A sleeve can be mended.”
“Can thrones be mended?”
That made every adult go still.
Valora looked up at them with wide violet eyes, not yet aware of the weight of the question she had asked.
Rhaenyra’s fingers tightened slightly around hers.
“Sometimes,” she said softly. “If the right people are careful enough.”
Valora nodded as though this answer had satisfied some private concern.
“Then I shall be careful.”
“You shall also not climb it again,” Rhaenyra said.
Valora hesitated.
Rhaenyra lifted a brow.
Valora sighed. “Not without permission.”
“Not at all.”
“What if there is an emergency?”
Laenor chuckled.”
Rhaenyra gave him a look before turning back to Valora. “What emergency would require you to climb the Iron Throne?”
“That is what Ser Harwin asked.”
Harwin lifted both hands slightly. “And I remain curious.”
Valora frowned thoughtfully.
“I have not decided yet.”
Laenor laughed then, unable to stop himself.
Rhaenyra pressed her lips together, but even she could not fully hide her smile.
Valora looked offended.
“It could happen.”
“I am sure it could,” Laenor said. “But until it does, perhaps we leave the throne where it is and keep you where you are.”
Valora glanced up at the throne again.
It still loomed above her, black and jagged and impossible.
But it looked different now.
Not smaller.
Never smaller.
Only less like a thing to be climbed and more like a thing to be understood.
Rhaenyra brushed a loose strand of silver hair away from her daughter’s face.
“There will be time enough for crowns and thrones later.”
Valora leaned into the touch.
“I wanted to see what Grandfather sees.”
Rhaenyra’s face softened.
Laenor’s expression did too.
Harwin looked away for a moment, his jaw tightening faintly with something almost like sadness.
For a moment, the three of them stood beneath the shadow of the Iron Throne, the child between those who loved her, the future sitting heavy and unseen around them.
Then Laenor held out his hand.
“If you want a better view, little seahorse, I can manage that without risking your limbs.”
Valora narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “How?”
Laenor grinned.
A moment later, Valora shrieked with laughter as he lifted her high onto his shoulders.
“Father!”
“There,” he said, steadying her small hands where they gripped his hair. “Higher than the first step and considerably less bloody.”
Valora looked out across the throne room.
From here, the hall stretched wide before her.
The long path between the doors and the throne.
The towering pillars.
The painted windows.
The empty space where lords would stand with their petitions, their grievances, their schemes, their hopes.
For once, she was tall enough to see it all.
Her laughter quieted.
Rhaenyra watched the change come over her daughter’s face.
That bright curiosity settling into focus.
That childish delight sharpening into thought.
It was there already, even at six.
The weight of care.
The need to understand.
The instinct to look at a room and wonder what could be fixed.
Valora rested one hand lightly on Laenor’s head and stared down the length of the hall.
“It is very big,” she said softly.
“The throne room?” Laenor asked.
Valora shook her head.
“The realm.”
Rhaenyra’s breath caught.
Harwin lowered his eyes.
Laenor’s hands tightened around his daughter’s legs, holding her securely.
“Yes,” Rhaenyra said after a quiet moment. “It is.”
Valora looked down at her mother.
“Will you teach me all of it?”
Rhaenyra smiled, though there was something fragile in it.
“As much as I can.”
“And Grandfather too?”
“Yes.”
“And Father?”
Laenor nodded. “Everything I know.”
Valora seemed pleased by that.
Then she looked at Harwin.
“And Ser Harwin can teach me how not to fall off things.”
Harwin blinked.
Laenor laughed again.
Rhaenyra finally allowed herself to smile fully.
“I believe Ser Harwin has already begun that lesson.”
Valora gave the knight a solemn nod. “You did well.”
Harwin bowed his head with equal solemnity, though his mouth twitched.
“I am honoured, Princess.”
Rhaenyra rose and smoothed her skirts.
“Come along. We should leave before your grandfather finds out.”
At that exact moment, the side doors opened.
King Viserys entered with a small cluster of attendants trailing behind him, pausing when he saw his granddaughter perched on Laenor’s shoulders, her sleeve torn, her cheeks flushed, and her parents standing far too innocently beneath the throne.
His gaze moved from Valora to the Iron Throne, to Harwin’s carefully blank face.
Then back to Valora.
“Ah,” Viserys said.
Valora smiled brightly.
“Grandfather.”
Viserys looked as though he were trying very hard not to understand what had happened.
Rhaenyra closed her eyes.
Laenor murmured, “Too late.”
Viserys approached slowly, his expression caught somewhere between concern and amusement.
“And what, may I ask, has occurred here?”
Valora answered before anyone else could.
“I was learning.”
Rhaenyra gave a soft, defeated sigh.
Viserys’s brows rose. “Learning?”
“Yes.” Valora pointed at the throne. “Mother says it is a sharp lesson.”
Laenor turned his face away.
Harwin looked at the ceiling as though begging the gods for mercy.
Viserys looked at Rhaenyra.
Rhaenyra looked back at him.
Then, to everyone’s surprise, Viserys laughed.
Not loudly.
Not mockingly.
Just a warm, helpless sound that filled the throne room and softened the hard edges of it for one brief moment.
“My little dragon,” he said, stepping closer. “Most people wait until they are grown before the throne cuts at them.”
Valora frowned. “It did not cut me.”
“Good.”
“It only tore my sleeve.”
“Even better.”
“Mother says it can be mended.”
Viserys smiled at Rhaenyra, then at Valora.
“Yes,” he said gently. “Many things can be mended.”
Valora looked down at him from her place on Laenor’s shoulders.
“Grandfather?”
“Yes?”
“When I am queen, may I put cushions on it?”
The silence that followed was absolute.
Then Laenor broke first.
He laughed so hard that Valora had to grab his hair to stay balanced.
Rhaenyra pressed a hand over her mouth.
Harwin turned sharply away, shoulders shaking.
Even Viserys, king of the Seven Kingdoms, looked up at the monstrous seat of swords and seemed, for one glorious second, to imagine it covered in purple cushions.
“I do not believe anyone has ever asked that before,” he said.
Valora nodded, satisfied. “Then I shall be the first.”
Rhaenyra reached up and lifted her daughter down from Laenor’s shoulders, settling her safely back onto the floor.
“That,” she said, brushing Valora’s hair back into place, “is a decision for when you are older.”
Valora sighed. “Adults say that when they do not want to answer.”
“Because adults are wise.”
“Because adults are difficult.”
Laenor grinned. “She has you there.”
Rhaenyra shot him a look, but there was no heat in it.
Viserys held out his hand.
Valora took it at once.
Together, they stood before the Iron Throne.
The old king and the little princess.
The present and the future.
Viserys looked down at her, something soft and proud moving through his face.
“One day,” he said quietly, “you may sit there.”
Valora looked up at the throne again.
Then she looked at her mother.
Then her father.
Then Harwin, who still looked as though he would personally remove every blade from the thing before allowing her near it again.
Finally, she looked back at her grandfather.
“Not today,” she decided.
Viserys smiled.
“No,” he agreed. “Not today.”
Valora squeezed his hand.
“But one day.”
Rhaenyra’s eyes softened.
Laenor’s smile gentled.
And above them, the Iron Throne waited, dark and sharp and silent.
Valora stared at it for one more moment, not with fear, but with promise.
Then she turned away from it and tugged on Viserys’s hand.
“Can we go see the kitchens now?”
Viserys blinked. “The kitchens?”
“I have learned enough sharp lessons today.”
Laenor laughed again.
Rhaenyra shook her head fondly.
Harwin followed a step behind them, still watching Valora with that careful, protective warmth he could never quite hide.
Because if it cannot be named, it cannot be fought.
So she makes a decision.
A reckless one.
A dangerous one.
She becomes the test.
Viseron refuses to let her fall.
Maella refuses to let them get away with it.
Apollo refuses to let his children destroy themselves in the name of saving others.
And somewhere in the middle of it all…
a cure begins.
The sickness had no proper name yet.
That, more than anything, was what Shaenyra hated about it.
If it had a name, it could be hunted. Faced. Broken apart and understood. But the illness that had been spreading through King’s Landing and beyond the city walls remained a shifting thing, a plague of fevers and weakness and burning lungs that seemed to take one person gently and another brutally. Maesters argued. Healers guessed. The septs prayed. None of it had been enough.
Which was why Shaenyra stood in a locked solar in the Red Keep with her sleeves rolled to her elbows and a deeply unreasonable expression on her face.
“This is a terrible idea,” Viseron said for perhaps the seventh time.
“It is a necessary idea,” Shaenyra corrected.
“It is both.”
She ignored that, which was rude but unsurprising.
At fourteen, Shaenyra had grown into all quick movement and bright sharp edges, her silver hair hastily braided and already half falling loose because she never had the patience to keep it neat for long. She stood at the table surrounded by scrolls stolen borrowed from maesters, notes in her own hand, dried herbs, bowls, small vials, and one candle burned so low it was mostly wax and stubbornness now.
Viseron stood opposite her with his arms crossed, expression grim.
Unlike his twin, he looked as though he had actually considered brushing his hair that morning. His sleeves were rolled as well, though more neatly, and his attention remained fixed not on the table but on her, as if by glaring hard enough he might stop what was about to happen.
“You do realise,” he said slowly, “that I am still capable of physically removing you from this room.”
Shaenyra looked delighted. “You are welcome to try.”
Viseron did not move.
That was answer enough.
Shaenyra turned back to the parchment spread open before her. “The fever begins high. Then the lungs worsen. The body tries to fight it, but not well enough. Something in it changes too quickly.”
“Yes,” Viseron said tightly. “And your solution to this is to infect yourself.”
“Our solution.”
“No. Do not drag me into your bad decisions after the fact and call it ours.”
She glanced up. “You’re here, aren’t you?”
“That is because if I left you alone for more than ten minutes, I would return to find you dead on principle.”
Shaenyra grinned.
It vanished a moment later when she uncorked the small glass vial on the table.
The room fell quieter.
Even she did not look quite as flippant now.
Viseron’s jaw tightened. “We could still stop.”
Shaenyra looked at the vial, then at the notes. Then at him.
“No,” she said softly. “We couldn’t.”
For a long moment they simply looked at one another.
They had been old enough by now to know how fear changed shape. It did not always look like panic. Sometimes it looked like anger. Sometimes stubbornness. Sometimes like a boy standing too still because if he moved at all, he might shatter.
Shaenyra’s voice gentled, only slightly.
“Vis.”
He hated when she did that.
“If this works,” she said, “we could actually help people. Not just ease it after it begins. Not just pray they survive. We could understand it. We could cure it.”
He looked away first.
That was how she knew she had him.
“It might not take,” Viseron muttered.
“Then we learn from that.”
“It might take badly.”
“Then you fix it.”
His gaze snapped back to hers. “That is not funny.”
“I wasn’t joking.”
That was worse.
Viseron stared at her for another heartbeat, then dragged a hand down his face. “I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“No,” he admitted. “Unfortunately.”
Shaenyra’s smile came back, smaller this time. Realer.
Then, before either of them could reconsider, she tipped the vial back.
Viseron swore.
The bitter tincture was gone in seconds.
Shaenyra winced immediately. “That is disgusting.”
“Oh, good,” Viseron said flatly. “I’m glad that is your concern.”
She set the vial down carefully, breathing once, twice.
Then the waiting began.
At first nothing happened.
Shaenyra paced.
Viseron reordered the already ordered notes twice, then started grinding herbs into powder with far more force than strictly necessary.
The candle guttered.
Outside the shuttered window, distant voices moved through the corridor and faded.
Then Shaenyra stopped moving.
Viseron looked up at once.
She had gone pale.
Not dramatically. Not yet. But enough.
“Shae.”
Her hand went to the edge of the table. “I’m fine.”
“That is already a lie.”
“I said I’m fin…” She broke off with a sharp inhale.
The fever hit like a hammer.
One moment she was standing, the next she was gripping the table hard enough for her knuckles to whiten, breath suddenly too shallow, skin flushing with unnatural heat.
Viseron was at her side instantly.
“Sit down.”
“I can stand.”
“You are swaying.”
“I am not.”
“You are leaning on me.”
That made her blink, as if only just realising that yes, she was.
Viseron half guided, half forced her into the chair beside the hearth. Her skin was already burning beneath his hand.
Too fast.
His stomach dropped.
“Damn it,” he muttered.
Shaenyra tried to speak and dissolved into coughing instead.
It was dry at first. Then harsher. Then terrible.
Viseron knelt in front of her and closed his eyes.
Healing was not clean.
That was something most people failed to understand. It was not waving a hand and making pain disappear. It was listening to the body. Following it. Finding what was wrong and where. Persuading flesh and blood and breath back toward the shape they were meant to hold.
He laid one hand over hers and the other lightly against her throat.
Golden light stirred beneath his skin.
Not blinding. Not wild. Steady.
Shaenyra’s breath hitched.
“There it is,” Viseron whispered.
He could feel it now. Fever burning too high. Lungs tightening. Something in the illness moving like thorns through her, spreading faster than a natural sickness should.
He looked toward the table.
“Read me the second page.”
Shaenyra, to her credit, did.
In between strained breaths and stubbornness, she read out the notes they had pieced together over weeks. Symptoms. progression. herbs that eased the coughing but not the fever. teas that lowered the fever but worsened the weakness. tinctures that soothed one part and inflamed another.
Viseron listened.
More importantly, he felt.
“Again,” he said.
She did.
He adjusted his grip, golden light threading deeper, seeking not just damage now but pattern.
The room smelled of herbs, wax, smoke, and heat.
Then suddenly Shaenyra turned her head away and threw up onto the rushes.
Viseron flinched back just enough to avoid the worst of it.
She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and croaked, “Don’t say anything.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“You were.”
“I was thinking it very loudly.”
“Rude.”
Then she started coughing again.
Viseron’s temper snapped.
Not at her. Never quite at her.
At the sickness. At the risk. At the fact that she was fourteen and burning up in front of him because the adults of the realm had not been able to stop people from dying.
“Enough,” he said.
Shaenyra blinked through fever-bright eyes. “Enough what?”
“Enough guessing.”
He stood too quickly, crossed to the table, grabbed three vials, a mortar, a strip of notes, and returned in one smooth line of motion that looked almost angry.
Shaenyra watched him with the exhausted fascination people often had when he truly lost himself in healing.
Viseron ground herbs. Added drops. Changed his mind. Added others. Used his power not on her this time but on the mixture itself, feeling how each piece reacted, which soothed, which fought, which eased the lungs without feeding the fever.
“No,” he muttered. “Not that. Too slow.”
Shaenyra let her head tip back against the chair. “I love when you talk to plants like they’ve offended you.”
“They usually have.”
He worked faster.
The gold beneath his fingers flared once, twice, then steadied.
There.
He froze.
He had it.
Not the full cure, not yet, but the beginning. Something that would slow the spread through the lungs, break the worst of the fever, force the body back into itself instead of letting the illness consume it.
His heart pounded.
“Vis?” Shaenyra said, and this time there was something frightened in it.
He turned.
Her coughing had worsened.
Far too much.
The sickness had moved faster than he predicted.
For one terrible second, fear hit him so hard he could not breathe.
Then the door slammed open.
Maella stood in the doorway like judgment.
At fifteen, she had inherited all their mother’s stillness and none of her softness when she was displeased. Her silver hair was braided back severely, her eyes sharp and unimpressed, and her expression said very clearly that she had already guessed everything before stepping inside.
Maella took in the table, the notes, the feverish flush in Shaenyra’s cheeks, the golden light around Viseron’s hands, and closed her eyes briefly.
“No,” she said at last.
Shaenyra managed a weak smile. “In our defence…”
“You have none.”
Viseron did not even bother trying. “Fair.”
Maella’s gaze sharpened further. “How long?”
“Not long,” Viseron said.
“That is not an answer.”
“Long enough that I think I have something.”
Maella looked at the half-finished mixture in his hand, then at Shaenyra coughing into her sleeve, then back at her brother.
Her face did something dangerous.
Not panic. Not quite.
That cold family fury meant someone was about to be handled.
“I am telling Patēr.”
Shaenyra sat up too fast. “Maella, no.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t understand.”
Maella laughed once, humourlessly. “I understand perfectly. You infected yourself with a plague.”
“It is not the full plague,” Viseron said.
“That is not the useful distinction you seem to think it is.”
Shaenyra pushed herself upright. “If we wait for permission, people die.”
Maella took one step into the room. “And if you die?”
Neither of them answered.
That was enough of an answer.
Maella went very still.
Then she turned on her heel and strode back into the corridor.
“Maella,” Viseron called.
But she ignored him and continued walking away.
Shaenyra dropped her head back against the chair. “That is not promising.”
“No,” Viseron said faintly. “It really isn’t.”
He turned back to the mixture in his hand, mind racing.
He could still try it.
He should.
But before he could lift it, sunlight exploded through the room.
Not sunlight.
Something much worse for anyone with a conscience.
Golden radiance poured into the solar in a flood, warm and beautiful and utterly terrifying in the way only divine anger wrapped in light could be.
Apollo appeared in the center of it.
Asclepius came with him.
If Apollo was wrath carefully leashed, Asclepius was calm made sacred, dark-eyed and composed, every movement precise. He took one look at Shaenyra and crossed the room without a word.
Apollo, meanwhile, looked at the twins.
He did not raise his voice.
That was how they knew they were in trouble.
“What,” Apollo said very softly, “have you done?”
Neither of them spoke.
That, too, was unusual.
Asclepius knelt before Shaenyra and touched two fingers to her brow.
The fever broke instantly.
Not gradually. Not mercifully. It simply vanished, drawn out of her so cleanly that Shaenyra sucked in one startled breath and then another, eyes widening as her lungs stopped burning.
The flush left her face.
The shaking stopped.
She blinked up at Asclepius. “Well. That was offensive.”
Asclepius’s mouth twitched.
Apollo did not look away from Viseron and Shaenyra.
Maella stood in the doorway now, breath barely uneven, clearly having run only because ordinary walking would not have been fast enough. She folded her arms and leaned against the stone frame with the expression of someone who felt entirely vindicated.
Apollo pointed at her without looking. “You are not in trouble.”
“I know.”
Then his attention returned to the twins.
Shaenyra looked healthier now, which unfortunately gave her enough strength to resume being herself.
“We can explain.”
“I am certain you can.”
Viseron set the unfinished mixture carefully on the table. “Father.”
“No.”
That single word landed like a dropped blade.
Apollo stepped forward.
“You do not infect yourselves with mortal illness to test theories.”
“It was controlled,” Viseron said.
Apollo stared at him.
Then slowly, incredulously, he repeated, “Controlled.”
Shaenyra lifted her chin. “It was.”
“You were coughing blood-adjacent into a sleeve.”
“It was not blood.”
“It was headed there.”
Asclepius rose, taking the mixture from the table and examining it in silence.
Apollo’s eyes flashed.
“You are fourteen.”
“Yes,” Shaenyra said.
“You are not invincible.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?”
That shut her up.
Apollo turned to Viseron next. “And you. Of all my children, I expected better from the one with healing sense.”
Viseron did not flinch, but only because he was trying very hard not to. “I did know better.”
“Then why did you allow it?”
His jaw tightened. “Because she was right.”
The room stilled.
Even Apollo paused.
Viseron took a breath. “People are dying.”
Apollo said nothing.
Viseron went on, quieter now but firmer for it. “The maesters are treating symptoms, not causes. They are guessing. We were too, at first. But if we understood how it moved through the body…”
“You thought the answer was to use your sister as a test subject.”
“I thought,” Viseron said, the words sharp now, “that if it worked, we could stop children from watching their mothers drown in fever. I thought if I could feel what it was doing while it happened, maybe I could build something against it before it took more people.”
Shaenyra straightened in the chair. “And I agreed.”
Apollo looked between them.
The anger did not leave his face, but something in it shifted.
Not softness.
Something more dangerous.
Understanding.
Shaenyra pressed on before he could interrupt. “We are not doing this because we are careless.”
“No,” Apollo said. “You did it because you are your mother’s children.”
That did not sound like praise.
Maella’s expression flickered.
Asclepius finally spoke, still studying the mixture in the vial. “This is not without merit.”
Apollo turned. “Do not help them.”
“I am not helping them,” Asclepius said mildly. “I am preventing you from becoming hypocritical.”
That made Maella look briefly delighted.
Apollo exhaled through his nose.
Asclepius looked to Viseron. “You found the turning point in the lungs.”
“And you stabilised the cooling agents before they could overtake the blood.”
“Yes.”
Asclepius lifted the vial. “Crude. Reckless. Poorly tested. Unacceptable in method.”
Shaenyra looked mutinous. “But?”
Asclepius glanced at her. “Promising.”
The word dropped into the room like a stone into still water.
Viseron’s whole body went taut with stunned hope.
Shaenyra looked unbearably pleased for someone who had very recently nearly coughed herself to death.
Apollo closed his eyes briefly, as though appealing to every force in existence for patience.
When he opened them again, he pointed first at Shaenyra.
“You will never do that again.”
She opened her mouth.
Apollo lifted one brow.
She shut it.
Then he pointed at Viseron.
“You will not use yourself either.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“That was not reassurance.”
“It was accurate.”
Apollo ignored him with visible effort.
Then he looked at both of them together, and when he spoke again the fury was lower, steadier, cut through with something rawer.
“I know why you did it,” he said.
That took the fight out of them more effectively than anger had.
“I know,” Apollo repeated, quieter now. “Do not mistake my anger for blindness. I know what it is to look at suffering and want to tear knowledge out of the world with your bare hands if that is what it takes to end it.”
Neither twin moved.
“But,” he said, and now there was steel in it, “you are not permitted to throw your lives at pain simply because you have decided other people need you. You do not get to make yourselves into sacrifices and call it mercy.”
Shaenyra looked down.
Viseron swallowed.
Apollo’s voice softened only slightly. “There are ways to help that do not begin with losing you.”
For a moment no one spoke.
Then Maella, from the doorway, said, “So they are forgiven.”
Apollo glanced at her. “No.”
“Ah.”
“They are alive.”
“That was not the same question.”
Apollo’s mouth twitched despite everything.
Asclepius stepped toward the table and set down the vial again. “You will both copy every note you made today. Properly. In order. Without gaps.”
Shaenyra blinked. “That is the punishment?”
“No,” Asclepius said. “That is the beginning of your education.”
Viseron stared at him.
Asclepius met his gaze evenly. “If you are determined to chase cures, you will do it under supervision, with structure, and without poisoning infecting yourselves whenever inspiration strikes.”
Shaenyra looked at Apollo hopefully. “So we can keep working?”
Apollo gave her a long look.
Then, very slowly, he said, “You may assist.”
That was not quite yes, but it was close enough that both twins brightened anyway.
Apollo saw it and immediately added, “Under Asclepius.”
Their expressions fell a little.
Maella laughed under her breath.
Shaenyra muttered, “Traitor.”
“I saved your life.”
“You told on me.”
“Yes,” Maella said. “Those two things are related.”
Viseron looked at the notes, then at the vial, then at Asclepius.
“Will it work?” he asked quietly.
Asclepius considered. “Not as it is.”
Viseron’s shoulders sank.
Then Asclepius added, “But it is a beginning.”
That was enough.
It had to be.
Shaenyra exhaled, long and slow, and leaned back into the chair. “Well. Nearly dying was apparently educational.”
Apollo pointed at her again. “Do not make me start over.”
She had the grace to look a little ashamed.
Only a little.
Apollo crossed the room at last and crouched before them both, all anger banked now into something warmer, more dangerous to the heart.
He brushed Shaenyra’s hair back from her face.
Then rested a hand briefly against Viseron’s shoulder.
“You do not have to prove your worth by bleeding for the world,” he said quietly.
That landed deeper than the scolding had.
Viseron looked away first.
Shaenyra’s eyes stung, which was rude and unhelpful and absolutely not something she intended to acknowledge.
Maella, mercifully, said nothing.
Apollo straightened and looked toward the door. “Maella.”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
She inclined her head once, all cool dignity, though the satisfaction in her face remained impossible to miss. “Of course.”
Shaenyra groaned. “She’s never going to let this go.”
“No,” Viseron said. “Probably not.”
Maella smiled faintly. “Correct.”
Asclepius gathered the notes.
Apollo herded his children toward the door with the unmistakable air of a father who had decided the day had already contained enough nonsense for one lifetime.
Behind them, the unfinished cure sat on the table, gold catching in the glass.
Not complete.
Not enough.
But real.
And as they stepped out into the corridors of the Red Keep, with Apollo still muttering about reckless children and Shaenyra already protesting that she had only been a little reckless, Viseron glanced back once at the vial and allowed himself the smallest, fiercest spark of hope.
They had not failed.
Not entirely.
And next time, apparently, they would be supervised.
Shaenyra is not meant to be learning archery here.
Not in a forgotten training yard.
Not with a teacher no one is supposed to see.
But hidden things have a way of becoming the most important.
Because this isn’t just about hitting a target.
It’s about stillness.
Confidence.
And learning to believe in herself…
With a father who can only ever stand beside her in the shadows.
The training yard they used was not one of the main ones.
That had been made very clear.
It sat tucked behind a stretch of stone wall in the Red Keep, half-hidden by climbing ivy and an overgrown fig tree that cast long shadows across the ground. The space was small, quiet, and rarely used, more a forgotten corner than a proper training ground. A single target stood at the far end, worn from use, its painted rings faded by sun and time.
Perfect for a lesson that did not officially exist.
Shaenyra adjusted her grip on the bow, her brow furrowed in concentration.
“No,” the voice behind her said lightly, “if you strangle it like that, it will resent you.”
Shaenyra did not turn.
“I am not strangling it.”
“You are absolutely strangling it.”
She tightened her grip instinctively.
“…I am holding it firmly.”
“Firmly is not the same as desperately.”
Shaenyra huffed and finally glanced over her shoulder.
To anyone else, the space behind her would have looked empty.
To her, it did not.
Apollo leaned lazily against the low stone wall as though he had always been there, sunlight caught in human form despite the shade, his expression bright with amusement that suggested he was enjoying this far more than he should have been.
“I am trying,” Shaenyra informed him.
“I can see that,” he said. “It is a very aggressive attempt.”
Behind them, a few paces back, Cedric stood watch.
Shaenyra turned back to the target.
She inhaled slowly, trying to do exactly as she had been told.
Not too tight.
Not too loose.
Just enough.
She raised the bow again.
Apollo watched, head tilting slightly.
“Better,” he said. “Now, your shoulders.”
“They are fine.”
“They are not.”
She rolled them back with a quiet sigh.
“Now your stance.”
“I am standing.”
“Incorrectly.”
Shaenyra shot him a look.
He smiled, entirely unrepentant.
“Feet apart,” he said, gesturing lazily. “Balance. You are not about to be blown over by a strong breeze.”
“I am not that small.”
“You are that stubborn.”
Shaenyra ignored him and adjusted her footing.
Lifted the bow.
Drew the string back.
The motion was smoother this time, more controlled, though her fingers still trembled slightly with the effort of holding it steady.
Apollo’s voice shifted, just a little.
Still light.
But quieter now.
“Do not fight it,” he said. “Feel where it wants to settle.”
Shaenyra’s eyes narrowed on the target.
Her breathing slowed.
The world seemed to narrow with it.
The scrape of leaves against stone.
The distant call of gulls beyond the walls.
The faint stir of wind against her sleeves.
And the arrow, drawn and waiting.
“Now,” Apollo murmured.
She released.
The arrow flew.
Not perfectly.
But straight.
It struck the outer ring of the target with a solid thud.
Shaenyra blinked.
Then her face lit up.
“I hit it.”
Apollo pushed himself off the wall, clapping once. “You did.”
Shaenyra lowered the bow, turning halfway toward him again, eyes bright.
“I did exactly what you said.”
“Obviously,” Apollo said. “I am an excellent teacher.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You said I was strangling the bow.”
“You were.”
“And now I am not.”
“Yes.”
She crossed her arms. “So I improved.”
Apollo considered her for a moment.
Then nodded once, solemnly.
“You improved.”
She tried very hard not to smile.
Failed.
Then immediately turned back to the target.
“Again.”
“That is the spirit,” Apollo said.
As she moved to retrieve the arrow, he watched her with that same open amusement, but there was something warmer beneath it, too. There always was, with her and her siblings. It lived in the way his gaze followed her, in the softness that lingered at the edges of his smile when she was not looking directly at him, in the impossible tenderness that made him seem less like a god for fleeting moments and more like what he was to her.
Her father.
That truth still sat strangely in her chest sometimes.
Not because she doubted it.
She never had.
Not really.
There were too many little things for doubt to take root. The way sunlight seemed to love him. The ease with which music and warmth and quiet authority settled around him. The way he looked at her, at Viseron, at Maella, with a love so fierce it seemed older than the world.
No, what felt strange was not that he was her father.
It was that he was hers and yet not truly allowed to be.
In the halls of the Red Keep, he was a secret.
A hidden thing.
A truth tucked away beneath silence and careful glances and doors that remained shut. He did not walk beside her openly. He did not stand at feasts with his hand at her shoulder. He was not the one who could praise her in front of courtiers or watch her train in full daylight where everyone might see.
And yet here he was.
In a forgotten yard with ivy creeping up old stone, teaching her to hold a bow properly as if this were the most natural thing in the world.
Maybe, to him, it was.
When Shaenyra returned, she set her feet without being told this time.
Lifted the bow.
Drew.
Apollo watched more quietly now.
There was something different in his expression, something softer beneath the amusement, something that lingered when he looked at her.
“Focus,” he said.
She did.
The second arrow flew cleaner than the first.
Closer to the centre.
Shaenyra exhaled sharply.
“That was better.”
“It was.”
She lowered the bow again, breathing a little faster now, not from effort but from the thrill of getting it right.
“Will I be as good as you?” she asked suddenly.
Apollo did not answer immediately.
Instead, he stepped a little closer, sunlight catching in his hair as he regarded her properly.
“You will be as good as you choose to be,” he said.
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the only one that matters.”
Shaenyra frowned at him.
Then looked back at the target.
“…I want to be better than everyone.”
Apollo’s smile returned, sharper this time.
“Good,” he said.
There was no hesitation in it. No warning that she ought to be humbler, quieter, softer. No gentle attempt to smooth the edges from her ambition.
Just approval.
Shaenyra looked at him then, really looked.
At the pleased glint in his eyes.
At the pride he did not bother to hide.
At the certainty in him, bright and unshaken, as though her wanting great things was not arrogance but simple sense.
Something in her chest straightened.
She lifted the bow again.
This time, she did not need to be corrected.
Not for her stance.
Not for her grip.
Apollo did not speak.
He simply watched.
And when she released the arrow…
It struck closer still.
Not perfect.
Not yet.
But getting there.
Shaenyra lowered the bow slowly.
A smile spread across her face, small at first, then brighter.
Apollo mirrored it at once.
“There she is,” he said softly.
Shaenyra’s smile faltered into something smaller, more uncertain. “There who is?”
“The girl who stops arguing with me long enough to be brilliant.”
“I was not arguing.”
“You have done little else since we arrived.”
“That is because you keep saying things incorrectly.”
Apollo laughed, warm and easy and bright enough that even the quiet little yard seemed to change beneath it.
Shaenyra tried not to smile again.
Failed again.
He stepped closer still now, near enough that she could see the gold threaded through his lashes where the sun touched them. His hand lifted, pausing for a moment as though giving her the chance to pull away, before he reached out and adjusted one of her fingers against the bow.
“Here,” he said. “You keep letting your hand tense at the last moment.”
She watched his hand, then his face.
“You notice everything.”
“Yes.”
“That sounds annoying.”
“It often is.”
She huffed a laugh.
Apollo’s hand dropped away, but his attention did not. “You think too hard right before you let go.”
“I am aiming.”
“You are doubting.”
Shaenyra stilled.
Apollo’s expression softened a fraction.
“Those are not the same thing.”
For a moment, she said nothing.
The breeze tugged lightly at a loose strand of her silver hair. Somewhere above them, a gull cried distant and sharp.
Finally, she looked back at the target. “And if I miss?”
Apollo’s answer came at once.
“Then you miss.”
She glanced at him.
“That is all?”
“That is all,” he said. “You miss. You learn. You lose another arrow. Do not make a tragedy of a single failure, little sunflower. You come from a mother and father far too stubborn for that.”
Little sunflower.
He called her that when no one else could hear.
Never in the halls.
Never where anyone might ask why the title sounded so intimate, so belonging.
Only here, in quiet corners and hidden moments, where he could speak to her like she was wholly his and he was wholly hers.
Shaenyra looked away quickly, though not before he caught the flicker of feeling on her face.
“You like that name,” he said.
“No, I do not.”
“You do.”
“I do not.”
He smiled with unbearable smugness. “You absolutely do.”
Shaenyra decided not to answer because answering would only make it worse.
Instead she reached for another arrow.
Apollo watched her with open delight. “Ah. Silence. The surest sign that I have won.”
“You are impossible.”
“And yet you continue to return for lessons.”
She nocked the arrow a touch too sharply. “Because I like archery.”
“Mm.”
“And because I wish to improve.”
“Of course.”
“And because when I am better than everyone, I will enjoy reminding my siblings of it.”
Apollo pressed a hand dramatically to his chest. “Cruel. But understandable.”
That made her laugh outright.
The sound surprised even her.
Not because laughter was rare.
But because this sort of laughter was.
Easy. Unwatched. Unmeasured.
Not the kind she gave Maella when trying to coax her from a bad mood, or Viseron when he said something ridiculous, or the small careful smiles expected of a princess.
This was different.
And maybe Apollo heard it too, because his whole expression gentled at once.
For a moment neither of them said anything.
Then Apollo nodded toward the target. “Again.”
Shaenyra drew in a breath and obeyed.
She set her feet.
Lifted the bow.
Drew the string.
This time, when she held the arrow ready, Apollo did not correct her immediately. He moved around her slowly, more presence than sound, the warmth of him at her shoulder without the world seeing him there.
“Good,” he murmured.
She held steady.
“Do you feel that?”
“What?”
“The moment right before the release,” he said. “The stillness.”
Apollo’s voice dropped softer still. “It is yours. Claim it.”
The words slid through her more cleanly than any correction about posture ever had.
Yours.
Claim it.
She released.
The arrow flew.
It struck just outside the centre.
Shaenyra gasped softly.
Apollo smiled like the sunrise.
“There,” he said.
Her face turned toward him so quickly it was almost childish. Almost. “Did you see?”
“I did.”
“That was nearly the middle.”
“It was.”
She looked back at the target, then at him again, her excitement too bright to hide now. “Again.”
Apollo laughed. “Greedy.”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
He liked that too.
She could tell.
Apollo never seemed to want his children smaller than they were. Never asked them to quiet the sharpest parts of themselves. Where others might have called ambition dangerous, he treated it like fire in winter, something to tend carefully rather than extinguish.
Shaenyra loved him for that in ways she did not always know how to say.
Perhaps he knew anyway.
She moved to fetch the arrows herself this time, quicker now, more eager than before. When she returned, Apollo was no longer leaning against the wall. He stood waiting for her near the centre of the yard, bright and beautiful and impossible in that careless way only he could manage.
“You are smiling,” he observed.
“I know.”
“You look pleased with yourself.”
“I am.”
“As you should be.”
She paused at that.
Something in the simplicity of it caught her off guard.
No teasing.
No clever turn.
Just that.
As you should be.
Shaenyra looked down at the arrows in her hand for a brief moment before asking, more quietly than before, “Are you?”
Apollo blinked.
Then his expression changed so quickly and so fully that it made her chest ache.
Pride.
Not mild.
Not distant.
Not careful.
Radiant and immediate and utterly certain.
“Shaenyra,” he said, as though the answer ought to have been obvious, “I have been proud of you since before you could hold your head up properly.”
She stared at him.
The yard seemed to go very still.
Even the wind felt quieter.
Apollo stepped forward then and reached out, brushing a loose strand of silver hair back from her face with a gentleness that never failed to undo her a little.
“You are clever,” he said. “And fierce. And stubborn enough to argue with a god over the correct way to hold a bow.”
“You were wrong.”
He smiled. “Naturally.”
Her mouth twitched.
His hand lingered for only a moment before falling away again.
“And you are yours,” he finished softly. “Never forget that.”
Shaenyra swallowed.
There were a hundred things she might have said.
That he was unfair for speaking like that.
That he made it difficult to remain properly composed.
That she did not always know what to do with how much she loved him, especially when that love had to live in hidden places.
Instead, she only nodded once.
Apollo, as ever, understood more than she said.
His expression brightened deliberately a heartbeat later, easing the weight of the moment before it could grow too large.
“Now,” he said, stepping back, “show me whether all my excellent teaching has created a menace.”
Shaenyra let out a breath that might almost have been a laugh.
Then she lifted her chin.
Notched another arrow.
And drew the bow again.
This time, when Apollo smiled at her, he was not only amused.
It was proud.
Openly.
Unmistakably.
And Shaenyra, feeling that pride settle around her like sunlight, loosed the arrow with steadier hands than before.
Valora Velaryon had reached the end of her patience.
One good choice had not made the process bearable.
It had only made everything that followed worse.
Too many girls.
Too many careful answers.
Too many echoes of what they thought she wanted to hear.
By the time the final name is called, Valora expects nothing more than another disappointment.
The solar had begun to feel less like a room and more like a test of endurance.
By the time Emanda Tully had been shown out, accepted, welcomed, and swept into the first duties of her new position, the relief Valora had felt lasted all of a minute.
Then the next parchment had been set before her.
And the next.
And the next.
She had chosen one.
One should have been enough for the day.
Apparently, no one else agreed.
Valora sat back in her chair, staring at the growing neatness of the remaining stack as though it were a personal insult. The sea beyond the windows had shifted beneath the late afternoon light, no longer silver-bright but darker now, rougher, the waves striking Dragonstone’s cliffs in long, steady rhythms.
It suited her temper.
Marissa, who had resumed her place behind her, looked entirely too composed for someone aiding in a quiet campaign against her peace. Matila stood near the side table with a cup in hand, her expression the picture of calm amusement.
Valora did not care for either of them in that moment.
“I have done my part,” she said at last.
Marissa’s voice came gentle and entirely unhelpful. “You have done half.”
“That is my part.”
“No,” Matila said, taking a measured sip, “that is half of your part.”
Valora’s eyes narrowed. “I liked you both far better this morning.”
“That is because this morning you had not yet been forced to speak to Lady Agnes Celtigar for nearly half an hour about the spiritual importance of decorative sleeves,” Matila replied.
Valora closed her eyes.
“She had theories,” Marissa added.
“She had nonsense,” Valora corrected. “And Lady Rowena Buckler was worse.”
Matila hummed. “The one who said loyalty meant never disagreeing with you?”
“The very one.”
Marissa’s mouth twitched. “You frightened her.”
“I asked whether blind agreement had ever improved a foolish decision.”
“You asked it,” Marissa said, “in the same tone you use when someone has tracked mud across your floor.”
Valora opened her eyes and looked between them both. “Perhaps because she had.”
That, traitorously, made Matila laugh.
Valora exhaled through her nose and dropped her head back against the chair. Since Emanda’s departure, she had sat through Lady Agnes, who thought embroidery and piety could compensate for a complete lack of practical thought; Lady Rowena, who would have agreed with the sky being green if Valora had said it sharply enough; Lady Bethany Staunton, who smiled so constantly Valora had been half convinced her face would crack; Lady Ellyn Fell, who had burst into nervous tears when asked how she would calm a dispute between two vassals; and Lady Moryn Rosby, who had spent most of her audience speaking not of service, but of how often her father had dined with important men.
Valora had not cared for that one either.
Every girl had come polished.
Every girl had come prepared.
And almost every one of them had felt wrong within minutes.
Emanda alone had not.
Emanda had spoken like a person rather than a performance.
That was likely why the contrast had made the rest so much worse.
“I shall say no to them all,” Valora announced.
Marissa did not even blink. “No, you shall not.”
“I shall.”
“You already agreed.”
Valora turned her head just enough to fix her with a flat look. “Do you enjoy saying that to me?”
“More than is kind,” Matila answered for her.
Valora let out a short, disbelieving laugh and rose from her chair, too restless to sit another moment. She crossed toward the window, clasping her hands behind her back as she stared out at the sea below.
The chamber was quieter now than it had been all day. The earlier sunlight had softened, gold fading gradually toward evening. Candles had been lit though it was not yet dark, their flames wavering in the breeze that slipped in from the open casement.
Behind her, she heard Marissa moving the next parchment into place.
The sound alone irritated her.
“How many remain?” Valora asked without turning.
Matila answered. “Enough.”
“That is not a number.”
“No,” Matila said. “It is a warning.”
Valora turned then, expression cool. “If one more girl tells me she wishes only to obey me unquestioningly, I shall throw myself from the window.”
Marissa’s brows rose. “You would survive.”
“That is not the comfort you think it is.”
Matila set down her cup and crossed her arms. “Then do not ask questions that terrify them.”
Valora stared. “I ask sensible questions.”
“You ask the sort of questions most men would save for council.”
“Yes,” Valora said, as though that were obvious. “And if they are to stand in my company, they ought to have minds fit for it.”
Marissa smiled slightly. “Then perhaps you should take comfort in the fact that you have already found one who does.”
That gentled something in Valora’s expression, but only slightly.
Emanda.
Yes. One.
And still one more was required.
Valora moved back toward the desk and looked down at the next parchment. She did not immediately pick it up.
“Who is this one?”
Marissa glanced at the page. “Lady Alayne Merryweather.”
Valora made a face. “The one whose mother interrupted me twice at supper three nights ago?”
“The very same.”
Valora looked toward the ceiling for strength she did not feel. “Send her in. Let us be done with it.”
Lady Alayne Merryweather swept into the room with all the confidence of a girl who had been told from birth that charm could mend anything. She was lovely, golden-haired, bright-eyed, and entirely too pleased with herself.
Within three minutes Valora knew it would not do.
Within seven, she was certain.
Within ten, she was deciding how quickly she could end it without being openly rude.
Lady Alayne was not foolish. That, perhaps, made it worse. She was clever enough to disguise ambition beneath sweetness, but not enough to hide that every answer she gave was calculated for effect.
When Valora asked what she valued in a company, Alayne smiled and said, “Harmony, Princess. It is important that those around you reflect only your strength.”
Valora leaned back slightly. “Only?”
Alayne’s smile did not falter. “A united image is everything.”
“And truth?”
At that, the girl hesitated.
Only for a moment.
But Valora saw it.
“Truth matters too, of course,” Alayne said.
“Of course,” Valora repeated.
The audience did not last much longer.
When the door closed behind her, Valora did not bother disguising the exhaustion in her sigh.
“I hate harmony,” she muttered.
Matila snorted.
Marissa moved to refresh the wine that had gone untouched for most of the day and offered it wordlessly.
Valora took it this time.
She drank, then handed the cup back.
“Next.”
And so it continued.
Lady Perra Royce, who knew a great deal about hunting and almost nothing about restraint. Lady Ceryse Hardyng, who was pleasant enough until she began quoting her father’s opinions as though they were sacred law. Lady Jonquil Darklyn, who answered every question cautiously and with the distinct air of a girl trying not to step on a trap.
None were disasters.
None were right.
By the eighth after Emanda, Valora had begun to wonder if perhaps there simply was no right girl left to be found.
By the ninth, she was certain her mother had set this upon her as a punishment for something not yet discovered.
By the tenth, her patience had become a fine, brittle thing.
The chamber had darkened further. Candles now cast most of the light. Outside, the sea had gone nearly black.
Marissa had removed two untouched plates of cakes and replaced them with fresh ones no one wanted. Matila had long since abandoned any pretence that this was not amusing her at least a little.
Valora remained seated only by force of will and breeding.
The tenth girl of the second round, Lady Helena Sunglass, had just departed after a painfully long conversation in which she had managed to speak at length without once saying anything honest.
When the door shut, Valora folded her arms on the desk and rested her forehead against them.
Neither Marissa nor Matila spoke at first.
At last, Matila said, “That looked uncomfortable.”
Valora’s muffled voice came back. “I would rather face a war council.”
“Be careful,” Marissa murmured. “Someone may hear you and hold you to it.”
Valora lifted her head enough to glare at them both. “If there are more than ten left, I am going to bed.”
Marissa looked at the stack and then back at her. “There is one more.”
Valora went still.
“One?”
“Yes.”
Something like suspicion crossed her face. “Truly?”
“Truly.”
Valora sat up properly. Her eyes moved to the final parchment set apart from the rest.
The room had grown so quiet she could hear the wind against the stone.
“Who?”
Marissa glanced down.
“Lady Georgine Oakheart.”
Valora repeated the name inwardly.
Oakheart.
A Reach house. Respectable. Old. Useful, no doubt, or her mother would not have considered it.
But at this point usefulness alone was not enough. She had suffered enough usefulness for one day.
Still, there was only one left.
One.
Valora drew in a slow breath and straightened in her chair. She adjusted the fall of her sleeves, smoothed the front of her gown, and schooled her face back into calm.
Whatever else she was, she was still the future heir to the Iron Throne.
She would not meet the final girl of the day looking defeated.
“Very well,” she said.
Marissa’s expression softened, just slightly, in approval.
Matila moved back to her place near the wall, watching with keen interest now that the end was finally in sight.
Valora rested one hand lightly on the arm of her chair.
“Send her in.”
The door opened.
And Lady Georgine Oakheart stepped into the room.
Lady Georgine Oakheart stepped into the room without flourish.
That was the first thing Valora noticed.
No rustle of silk designed to draw the eye. No bright, practised smile placed carefully upon her face. No sweeping entrance that tried too hard to announce confidence before a word had been spoken.
She simply entered.
Her gown was a deep green, rich but not ostentatious, with narrow lines of gold worked into the sleeves and collar. Her dark hair had been pinned neatly back, though not so severely as to seem stiff. She was pretty, certainly, but not in the polished, fragile way some of the others had been. There was a steadiness to her instead. Something grounded.
She curtsied.
Properly. Cleanly. Without excess.
“Princess.”
Valora did not bid her sit at once.
She let the silence settle first.
She had learned a good deal from silence over the course of the day. Some girls rushed to fill it. Some wilted beneath it. Some mistook it for kindness and some for cruelty.
Georgine did neither.
She simply waited.
Valora’s eyes narrowed, not in displeasure but in sharpened interest.
“Sit,” she said at last.
Georgine obeyed.
Marissa, behind Valora, had gone still in that subtle way she did when she was paying close attention. Matila too looked more alert now, her earlier amusement quieted into curiosity.
Valora folded her hands loosely atop the desk.
“What do you enjoy, Lady Georgine?”
Georgine considered the question.
Not too long. Not so quickly that it felt rehearsed.
“Watching those who believe themselves higher realising they’re not.” She answered honestly catching Valora by surprise.
“Pardon?” Valora found herself asking.
Georgine’s expression did not shift.
Not with embarrassment. Not with nerves. Not with the hasty backtracking Valora had come to expect from girls who realised they had spoken too plainly.
Instead, the Oakheart girl held her gaze and answered as if the question itself were expected.
“I enjoy watching pride meet reality, Princess,” she said, her tone even. “Particularly when the proud believed reality would be kinder to them.”
That was not the answer of a timid girl.
It was not the answer of a fool, either.
Valora leaned back slightly in her chair, her interest properly caught now for the first time in what felt like hours.
“And this brings you joy?”
Georgine’s mouth curved, but only faintly. “Not joy, perhaps. Satisfaction.”
Matila, at the wall, had gone entirely quiet.
Marissa’s stillness sharpened.
Valora studied Georgine more closely.
The girl met scrutiny well. She did not try to soften herself beneath it. Neither did she challenge it. She simply remained where she was, composed and self-possessed, as though she had no intention of pretending to be smaller than she was.
That alone distinguished her from half the girls Valora had seen that day.
“And who,” Valora asked, “has disappointed you most of late?”
Georgine did not answer at once.
Good.
She thought before she spoke.
“Men who confuse inheritance with merit,” she said at last. “And women who help them do it because they think standing beside arrogance makes them powerful too.”
Valora’s fingers stilled against one another.
There was something sharp in that answer. Personal, perhaps. Or simply honest.
“Strong words.”
“I have found weak ones rarely improve anything.”
That startled a laugh from Matila before she could stop it.
Georgine’s gaze flicked toward the sound, then back to Valora.
Valora’s mouth twitched despite herself.
Better.
So much better.
“What does your father think of you speaking so?” she asked.
Georgine’s expression shifted only slightly. “My father thinks I ought to speak less in rooms full of men. My mother thinks I ought to smile more while doing it. My brothers think I ought not to do it at all.” She paused. “I have disappointed them all equally, which I consider one of my more balanced achievements.”
Marissa had to look down to hide her reaction.
Valora did not bother to hide hers.
She smiled.
Not a great one.
But real.
“You speak as though you enjoy making yourself difficult.”
“No, Princess,” Georgine said. “Only as though I object to making myself agreeable at the cost of sense.”
There it was again.
Not rebellion for its own sake.
Not cleverness displayed like jewellery.
Conviction.
A measured sort of wit.
The kind that came from paying attention rather than performing intelligence.
Valora tilted her head.
“And why seek a place here, then? You do realise my company is unlikely to reward meekness.”
Georgine’s eyes sharpened, just a little. “That is one of the reasons I seek it.”
Valora did not speak.
Georgine continued, quieter now, but no less steady.
“You ask questions no one else asks. The girls before me left this room looking as though they had come expecting a dance and found themselves in a lesson instead.” Her mouth almost curved again. “I thought that promising.”
Matila snorted softly.
Valora’s brow lifted. “You thought being interrogated promising?”
“I thought being taken seriously was.”
The room fell still.
Outside, a gust of wind struck the casement, making the candle flames tremble.
Valora looked at her for a long moment and saw no tremor in her. No calculated sweetness creeping in to soften the answer. No hurried attempt to recover and flatter.
Only truth.
Perhaps not all of it.
But enough to matter.
“What is a lady in waiting to you?” Valora asked.
Georgine folded her hands in her lap, her posture remaining exact without becoming rigid.
“A companion, if she is fortunate. A witness, always. A shield at times. A second mind, if she is of any use.” Her gaze did not waver. “And occasionally, the only person in a room who can say what no one else dares.”
Matila’s brows rose.
Marissa looked faintly impressed.
Valora’s expression gave little away, but inwardly something tightened into sharper focus.
“And if the princess she serves does not enjoy hearing what no one else dares?”
“Then the lady must decide whether comfort or truth is more necessary.”
Valora leaned forward now, one elbow braced lightly against the carved arm of her chair.
“And how would you decide?”
Georgine met her eyes.
“By asking whether the consequence of silence is merely displeasure,” she said, “or damage.”
Valora did not answer straight away.
She held Georgine’s gaze and let the silence linger, testing whether the girl would rush to soften her words now that they had fully landed.
She did not.
Interesting.
The candles trembled again in the draft from the open casement, throwing shifting gold over the dark green of Georgine’s gown. Somewhere beyond the walls, the sea broke against the rocks below in a heavy, distant rhythm. The room felt smaller than it had a moment ago.
Not stifling.
Focused.
“Damage,” Valora repeated at last.
“Yes, Princess.”
“And who decides what counts as damage?”
Georgine’s answer came without hurry. “The one with the most to lose ought to have the first claim. The one with the clearest sight ought to have the second.”
Matila’s brows rose at that.
Marissa remained still, though the look in her eyes sharpened further.
Valora tilted her head. “And if those are not the same person?”
“Then the wiser of them ought to listen to the other.”
Valora’s mouth twitched, not quite a smile. “You assume wisdom will be present.”
“I hope for it,” Georgine said. “I do not depend upon it.”
That nearly made Valora laugh.
Nearly.
Instead, she folded one leg neatly over the other and studied the girl with renewed care. “You speak as though you have been disappointed by a great many people.”
Georgine’s expression did not alter much, but something in it cooled. “I think most people are disappointing when first given too much room to prove themselves.”
“A grim view.”
“A tested one.”
Valora let that sit between them.
This was no frightened girl trying to stumble her way into favour. Nor was she one of the polished creatures who mistook charm for substance. Georgine Oakheart sat as though she had long ago accepted that being liked was less useful than being clear.
“Lady Georgine.” Valora finally spoke.
Georgine straightened just slightly. “Princess?”
“I think,” Valora said slowly, “that half the realm would despise you within a fortnight.”
That earned, at last, a real smile.
Small. Quick. But unmistakable.
“Then I suppose it is fortunate I am not applying to serve half the realm.”
Matila made a choked sound that might have been laughter swallowed too quickly.
Marissa lowered her head, though it did not fully hide the smile at her mouth.
Valora stood.
Across from her, Georgine rose at once.
The air in the room seemed to shift with it, the audience no longer feeling like an audience at all but something closer to a decision already half made.
Valora descended the shallow distance between her chair and the desk, coming to stand before the other girl. Not close enough to crowd her. Close enough to matter.
“Most of the girls who sat where you are sitting today wanted to be chosen,” Valora said.
Georgine waited.
“Some because of ambition. Some because of family pressure. Some because they thought proximity to me would raise their own importance.” Valora’s gaze did not leave her face. “You want the place too. But not in the same way.”
Georgine held her gaze. “No, Princess.”
“No,” Valora agreed softly.
Valora folded her hands lightly before her and let the silence stretch one final time, not as a test this time but as acknowledgment. Of the day. Of the process. Of the fact that, somehow, against all likelihood, the last girl called had proven worth the whole weary ordeal.
Then she said, “If you are willing, Lady Georgine Oakheart, I would have you as the second of the two ladies in waiting I was required to choose.”
For the first time since entering the room, Georgine’s composure cracked.
Not badly.
Not enough to embarrass her.
But enough for the surprise to show.
Good.
That meant the reaction was real.
It lasted only a heartbeat before she curtsied, precise and deep.
“I would be honoured, Princess.”
There was relief in the words, though well-contained.
Valora found that she liked that too. No gushing. No stunned, foolish gratitude. Only sincerity.
“That is well,” Valora said, with a calm she no longer had to force. “Because I have no wish to begin this day again.”
That won a quieter, warmer smile from Georgine.
“Then I am glad I came last.”
Matila laughed outright this time.
Marissa stepped forward at last, grace returning to the room in a more familiar shape now that the choice had been made. “Welcome, Lady Georgine.”
Georgine turned slightly and inclined her head. “Thank you.”
Matila pushed away from the wall and crossed her arms, looking the Oakheart girl up and down with frank interest. “You have done us all an enormous service.”
Georgine’s gaze flicked to her. “By being tolerable?”
“By being more than that,” Matila replied.
Valora glanced toward the desk, where the final parchment lay alone no longer as a threat but as something finished. Completed. The sight of it brought a satisfaction so deep it was nearly absurd.
Valora Velaryon expected the process to be unbearable.
Too many girls.
Too many rehearsed smiles.
Too many empty answers dressed as loyalty.
She had endured it all before, and she knew exactly how this would go.
More echoes.
More performances.
More reasons to regret being forced into choosing again.
And for a time, she is proven right.
Until Lady Emanda Tully walks into the room and does something no one else has managed all day.
Princess Valora Velaryon found herself seated in her solar like a queen receiving petitions, though she suspected this particular process was far crueler than most petitions could ever be.
The room had been arranged to feel formal, though not cold. The fire had been lit despite the mildness of the day, and the windows had been opened just enough to let in the sharp sea breeze from Dragonstone. A tray of fruit, cakes, and watered wine sat untouched near the side table.
Valora had, against her better judgement, taken her mother’s advice.
She wore deep sea-blue, nearly black in the shadows, with silver embroidery at the sleeves and throat. Her hair had been braided back from her face in a style that left her looking older, sharper, more severe. One would have thought she was preparing for battle rather than conversation.
Perhaps, in a way, she was.
Marissa stood slightly behind and to her left. Matila stood to her right.
Both looked far too calm for Valora’s liking.
“You are both enjoying this entirely too much,” Valora muttered without moving her mouth.
“Smile,” Marissa murmured back.
Valora’s expression did not change. “I would rather not.”
“Exactly why you should.”
Before Valora could retort, the door opened.
The first girl was announced with all the ceremony of a court appearance, and from the moment she stepped inside, Valora knew it would be dreadful.
Lady Alys Mooton was pretty in the polished way of girls raised to know precisely how to curtsy, how to smile, and how to lower their lashes at the correct angle. She moved with perfect grace. She also looked as though a strong opinion might kill her.
Valora watched her perform the proper greeting and then gestured to the chair opposite her.
“Sit, Lady Alys.”
The girl sat.
There was a moment of silence.
Valora decided to be merciful.
“What do you enjoy doing?”
Alys brightened at once. “Embroidery, Princess. And singing. And I have long admired the beauty of courtly life.”
Valora felt Marissa go very still behind her.
Matila, traitor that she was, looked like she might laugh.
“Have you?” Valora asked.
“Yes, Princess. I think there is something so wondrous in the elegance of it all. The gowns, the feasts, the dances, the marriages that unite great houses…”
Valora blinked once.
Then twice.
She had said, quite clearly, that if a girl began speaking of embroidery and marriage prospects within her first breath, she was leaving.
Yet here she was. Trapped by her own promise.
“How fortunate,” Valora said evenly, “that there is so much more to ruling than gowns.”
Alys faltered. “Of course, Princess.”
Valora folded her hands in her lap. “Tell me, if a lord in your father’s lands was found to be increasing rents upon his smallfolk during winter while his own granaries remained full, what would you advise?”
The poor girl stared at her.
Marissa lowered her gaze to hide the beginnings of a smile.
Alys recovered slowly. “I... would advise kindness.”
Valora waited.
That, apparently, was all.
“Kindness,” Valora repeated.
“Yes, Princess.”
Valora nodded once, a movement so slight it may as well have been a dismissal. “How noble.”
The meeting did not improve.
By the time Lady Alys left, Valora felt as though part of her soul had withered.
The second was no better.
Lady Jeyne Sunglass entered with confidence enough for three people and the sort of smile that had calculation written all over it. She was not witless, Valora would grant her that. But she spoke as though every sentence had been polished beforehand.
When Valora asked what she thought made a good lady in waiting, Jeyne answered, “Loyalty, grace, and an understanding of the importance of appearing united in all things.”
“Even when one disagrees?” Valora asked.
Jeyne’s smile did not waver. “Especially then. Public harmony matters more than private opinion.”
Valora’s expression cooled by the second.
“And if your princess were wrong?”
Jeyne hesitated only briefly. “Then it would be a lady’s duty to guide her quietly back to the proper course.”
Matila’s brows rose.
Marissa looked unimpressed.
Valora, for her part, leaned back slightly in her chair and studied the girl as though seeing her properly for the first time.
“And whose proper course would that be?” she asked. “Mine? Yours? Or your father’s?”
The silence that followed was answer enough.
Jeyne left shortly after.
When the door closed behind her, Valora let her head fall back against the carved wood of her chair.
“I despise everyone.”
“That is not true,” Marissa said.
Valora looked at the ceiling. “It feels true.”
Matila crossed her arms. “The first was hopeless. The second was dangerous. There is a difference.”
Valora turned her head slightly. “You say that as though it comforts me.”
“It should. One was a fool and the other a snake. Better to know it now.”
Valora exhaled through her nose. “I would rather the next be neither.”
The gods, perhaps pitying her at last, chose that moment to grant her something reasonable.
Lady Emanda Tully did not enter like a girl stepping onto a stage.
She entered like someone who had been told to come and intended to make a proper showing of herself without turning the thing into theatre.
Her gown was handsome but not overdone, in deep river-blue with silver stitching at the cuffs. Her auburn hair had been pinned back neatly, though one loose curl near her temple suggested she had either rushed or did not care to fuss over it endlessly. Her eyes, clear and steady, moved over the room quickly before settling on Valora.
She curtsied correctly.
No fluttering. No simpering. No performance.
“Princess.”
“Lady Emanda,” Valora replied, already more interested than she had been the entire afternoon. “Sit.”
Emanda obeyed with composed ease.
Valora studied her for a moment.
Emanda did not squirm beneath it.
That alone was promising.
“What do you enjoy doing?” Valora asked, deciding to begin where she had with the others.
Emanda considered the question seriously enough that Valora almost smiled.
“Riding,” she said at last. “Reading when the maester sends something worth reading. Watching arguments at court, when allowed. And listening when men think no one expects sense from me.”
Matila’s mouth twitched.
Marissa looked down.
Valora felt the first true spark of amusement she had had all day.
“And what have you learned from that?”
“That most men speak too quickly when they believe themselves the cleverest in the room,” Emanda replied. “And that some grow very careless if they think a lady is only half listening.”
Valora’s fingers stilled against the arm of her chair.
That was better.
Much better.
“And do you only listen?” she asked.
“No, Princess. But I prefer to know what sort of fool I am dealing with before I answer him.”
For the first time that day, Valora smiled outright.
Small, but real.
Emanda noticed.
So did Marissa and Matila.
Valora leaned slightly forward. “If a lord in your father’s lands was found increasing rents during winter while his granaries stayed full, what would you advise?”
Emanda did not pause long.
“A warning first, if there is hope he has more greed than sense. If not, an audit of his accounts, a reduction enforced by his liege, and grain distributed before hunger turns to unrest.”
Valora tilted her head. “And if he protested that the grain was his by right?”
“Then I would remind him that dead smallfolk pay no taxes and starving ones are quicker to riot.”
Matila coughed suspiciously into her hand.
Marissa, shameless creature that she was, looked very pleased.
Valora’s smile deepened by a fraction.
“Practical.”
“I try to be.”
Valora studied her more carefully now. “Were you coached to say that?”
Emanda met her gaze without flinching. “No, Princess. My mother suggested I speak sweetly. My father suggested I speak carefully. My brother suggested I agree with everything you say. I decided all three sounded tiresome.”
There it was.
Valora laughed.
An actual laugh, brief and bright and surprised out of her.
Behind her, Marissa and Matila exchanged a look.
Emanda’s shoulders eased slightly at the sound, though not enough to become casual.
Good, Valora thought. She knows when to relax and when not to.
“What do you think a lady in waiting should be?” Valora asked.
Emanda’s answer came more slowly this time.
“Not an echo.”
The room went still.
Valora said nothing.
Emanda continued.
“She should know when silence is wiser, and when it is cowardice. She should be loyal, but not mindless. Useful, not ornamental. And she should never mistake proximity to power for power itself.”
Marissa’s brows rose.
Matila looked impressed despite herself.
Valora said, very softly, “Go on.”
Emanda did.
“If the princess she serves wishes only to be flattered, then she can have any fool in a pretty gown. But if she wishes to rule well, she ought to have at least a few people near her who can think.”
The silence that followed was not awkward.
It was weighty.
Measured.
Valora held the girl’s gaze for a long moment, and saw no false modesty there, no rehearsed sweetness, no desperate ambition shining too brightly behind the eyes.
Emanda wanted the place, yes. That much was obvious.
But she wanted it as herself.
That mattered.
“And why do you want it?” Valora asked at last.
Emanda’s expression shifted then, only slightly, becoming more open.
“Because I think you are serious,” she said plainly. “About the work. About what a princess ought to be. Most people in court speak of power as though it exists only for itself. You do not. I would rather stand beside someone building something than someone merely trying to sit the highest.”
Something tightened and settled all at once in Valora’s chest.
Not because it was flattery.
Because it was not.
It was observation.
That was rarer.
Valora leaned back in her chair, considering her.
Then she asked one final question.
“If you serve me, Lady Emanda, what happens when you believe I am wrong?”
Emanda did not look away.
“I would tell you in private. Once plainly, and once more if I thought the matter grave. After that, if you still chose your course, I would do my duty and help you carry it as well as possible.”
Valora’s expression did not change, but inside, the answer landed exactly where it ought to.
Not an echo.
Not a rebel for the sake of it.
Not a coward.
She glanced, just once, toward Marissa.
Marissa’s face remained composed, but her eyes were warm with quiet approval.
Matila, too, gave the smallest nod.
Valora looked back to Emanda.
“Lady Emanda.”
“Yes, Princess?”
“I believe,” Valora said, with calm she did not entirely feel, “that I have heard enough.”
For the first time, true uncertainty flickered over Emanda’s face.
Good. She was not made of polished stone after all.
Valora rose.
Emanda immediately stood as well.
The two girls faced one another across the small distance between them, all courtliness and quiet assessment, though the air felt very different now from the brittle nonsense of the earlier meetings.
Valora folded her hands lightly before her. “I do not enjoy this process.”
That startled a faint smile from Emanda. “I had gathered as much.”
“Be careful,” Valora warned, though there was no real sting in it.
Emanda dipped her chin. “As you wish, Princess.”
Valora let the moment hang for just long enough to make her wonder.
Then she said, “You need not attend any further meetings.”
Emanda blinked once.
Then understanding dawned.
Marissa smiled openly at last.
Matila looked smug, as if she had known.
“You would have me?” Emanda asked, and for the first time there was something younger in her voice. Hope, unguarded and sincere.
Valora’s gaze held hers.
“Yes,” she said simply. “If you are willing, Lady Emanda Tully, I would have you as the first of the two additional ladies in waiting I am required to choose.”
Emanda’s expression shifted with quick, bright relief, though she recovered herself enough to curtsy properly.
“I would be honoured, Princess.”
Valora inclined her head, but there was satisfaction curling warm and quiet beneath her ribs now, and it softened something in her posture.
“Good,” she said. “Because I would rather not begin again from the start.”
That earned a soft laugh from Emanda.
A good laugh, Valora thought. Not shrill. Not affected.
Promising.
Marissa stepped forward then, smiling as she came to stand nearer. “Welcome, Lady Emanda.”
Matila followed with a nod of greeting. “You have spared us all at least one more disastrous conversation.”
Emanda’s mouth twitched. “I am glad to be of service already.”
Valora let out a faint breath through her nose that might have been amusement and turned toward the window, where the late afternoon light had begun to turn the sea below to molten silver.
One chosen.
One still to go.
It was not, perhaps, the torment she had expected.
At least not entirely.
And behind her, as Marissa began quietly explaining some matter of rooms and expectations while Matila inserted dry commentary where she pleased, Valora allowed herself the smallest, most private smile.
Because for all her protests, for all her mother’s relentless pushing, for all the politics twisted through every corner of it, this one at least did not feel like a compromise.
Marissa, with her patience.
Matila, with her precision.
That should have been enough.
But at fifteen, being the future queen means nothing is ever just enough.
When Rhaenyra arrives with calm words and an already-made decision, Valora knows immediately what is coming, and she hates it.
Rhaenyra had only meant to begin the conversation gently.
That was how she entered Valora’s solar, anyway, with calm in her face and patience in her step, as if this would be nothing more than another lesson, another duty, another thing her daughter would accept with only a little protest.
It was a mistake she realised almost immediately.
Valora, at fifteen, had grown far too perceptive to be soothed by a soft tone when she knew there was something behind it.
Her chambers in Dragonstone were lit by the last honey-gold wash of evening. A fire burned low in the hearth, warming the dark stone walls, while candlelight danced over the clutter of Valora’s desk. Maps, petitions, unfinished letters, and a half-open ledger sat in carefully managed disorder. Near the window, her embroidery frame had been abandoned in favour of more serious work. It was a room that belonged unmistakably to a princess being shaped into a ruler.
And at the centre of it sat Valora herself, silver hair unbound, violet eyes narrowed slightly as she looked up from the parchment in her hands.
Rhaenyra did not miss the way her daughter’s gaze flicked once over her face and sharpened.
“You want something,” Valora said.
There was no accusation in it. Only weary certainty.
Rhaenyra huffed a faint laugh through her nose. “Is it so impossible that I simply wished to see my daughter?”
Valora set the parchment down. “No. But if you had simply wished to see me, you would have come with wine, or news, or gossip about Daemon annoying someone. You have come with that expression.”
Rhaenyra raised a brow. “That expression?”
“The one you wear when you are about to tell me something you have already decided and would prefer I not argue with.”
For one brief, helpless moment, Rhaenyra saw the child Valora had once been, solemn-eyed and too observant for her age. Then the illusion vanished, replaced by the poised young lady before her.
Gods, she was too sharp.
Rhaenyra crossed the room and lowered herself into the chair opposite her daughter. “I do not always come to overrule you.”
“No,” Valora allowed. “Only when you believe I am being difficult for unreasonable reasons.”
Rhaenyra gave her a long look. “You say that as though it has never once been true.”
Valora’s mouth twitched, but only slightly. “What is it, Mother?”
There it was. Straight to the heart of it.
Rhaenyra folded her hands in her lap. “You are nearly sixteen.”
Valora blinked once. “I am aware.”
“And,” Rhaenyra continued, ignoring that, “you have only two ladies in waiting.”
Valora’s face remained still for half a beat.
Then she leaned back in her chair.
Ah.
So she did know where this was going.
“I have enough,” Valora said flatly.
“No,” said Rhaenyra just as flatly, “you do not.”
Valora’s eyes narrowed. “Marissa and Matila are more than capable.”
“I did not say they were not.”
“Then what exactly is lacking?”
Rhaenyra held her daughter’s gaze. “Numbers. Reach. House connections. Presence. You are the future heir to the Iron Throne. When you turn sixteen, every eye in the realm will sharpen further upon you. Your company must reflect your position.”
Valora exhaled slowly, already displeased. “My company is not a parade.”
“No,” Rhaenyra agreed. “It is a court.”
The words settled between them like a challenge.
Valora looked away first, though only just, rising from her seat to pace toward the fire. Her pale gown whispered across the floor, and in the flicker of firelight she looked older than fifteen for a moment. Older and tired.
“I already chose once,” she said. “And then again. I sat through endless daughters of lords smiling as if they wished to be my friend when their mothers had coached every word out of them beforehand. Half of them wished to serve me. The other half wished to use me.”
“That will never cease being true.”
Valora turned sharply. “Exactly.”
Rhaenyra’s expression softened, though her voice did not. “That is not a reason to leave your company lacking.”
Valora laughed once, without humour. “Incomplete. I have women I trust. Women who know me. Women who care for my children to come, my future, my work, my reputation. What you mean is that I do not have enough girls from powerful enough families standing prettily behind me.”
“What I mean,” Rhaenyra said, calm and cutting all at once, “is that when you enter a hall, the realm should see not only Princess Valora, but the future queen surrounded by the daughters of houses wise enough to bind themselves to her.”
Valora went quiet at that.
The silence stretched.
Rhaenyra let it.
She knew better than to rush her now.
At length, Valora moved back toward the desk, bracing both hands against its edge. “So this is politics.”
“This was always politics.”
Valora gave her a look sharp enough to draw blood. “You let me choose Matila because I liked her.”
“And because House Frey is useful,” Rhaenyra replied.
Valora stared.
Rhaenyra did not flinch.
After a beat, her daughter let out a soft, disbelieving breath. “You could at least pretend a little.”
“I am done pretending with you, Valora. You are too old for it, and too clever.”
That, more than anything, seemed to land.
Valora looked down at the desk for a moment, at the papers under her hands, at the life she was already trying to build in bits and pieces. When she finally spoke again, her voice was quieter.
“I hate it.”
Rhaenyra’s face softened properly then.
“I know.”
“I hate that every kindness must be measured for advantage. I hate that every friendship is weighed against a banner. I hate that every girl brought before me is not only herself, but her father’s ambitions and her mother’s calculations and her house’s expectations.”
Rhaenyra stood.
Crossed to her.
Stopped just in front of her daughter.
“And yet,” she said softly, “you must learn to see all of it. Not because it is fair. Not because it is kind. But because if you do not, others will use it against you.”
Valora’s eyes lifted to meet hers, bright with frustration but not tears. Not yet.
“How many?”
“Two.”
Valora closed her eyes briefly, as if mastering herself.
“Two,” she repeated.
“Yes.”
“And if I refuse?”
Rhaenyra’s expression did not change. “You will not.”
Valora let out a breath that was very nearly a laugh. “That’s it.”
“That’s it,” Rhaenyra agreed.
For one heartbeat, they simply looked at one another. Mother and daughter. The heir and her heir. Two dragons too alike in temperament to ever make surrender easy.
Then Valora stepped away, restless energy returning to her limbs. “You have already chosen the houses, haven’t you?”
“I have considered several.”
“Of course you have.”
“Would you prefer I had not?”
Valora gave her a pointed look over her shoulder. “That depends. Have you chosen girls who can think, or only girls who can curtsy?”
Rhaenyra’s lips twitched despite herself. “I did not raise you to tolerate fools. Why would I place them in your company?”
“That has never stopped other people trying.”
“No,” Rhaenyra said dryly. “It has not.”
That earned the faintest huff from Valora, not quite a laugh but close enough to count.
Rhaenyra took the victory where she could.
She moved to the table near the window, where she had set down a small stack of parchment before entering. Names. Houses. Notes. Possibilities.
Valora saw them and looked instantly offended.
“You truly came prepared for battle.”
“I came prepared for you.”
“That is worse.”
Rhaenyra ignored that and rested a hand over the pages. “You will meet them. You will question them as you like. You will challenge them as you always do. And from them, you will choose two.”
Valora folded her arms. “And if they are all dreadful?”
“Then you may say so, and I will find you others.”
That surprised her.
It showed only for a moment, but Rhaenyra saw it.
“You would?”
“I am forcing the choosing, not the mistake.”
She looked at the parchments for a long moment before finally saying, “I want to pick them myself.”
“You will.”
“No interference.”
Rhaenyra raised a brow. “Within reason.”
Valora looked unimpressed.
Rhaenyra sighed. “You will pick them. I reserve the right to object only if there is a truly serious concern.”
“Such as?”
“Such as a girl who would report every word you say back to a father half in love with treason.”
Valora considered that. “That seems fair.”
“It is generous.”
“Debatable.”
Rhaenyra let that pass and watched her daughter carefully. The sharpness was still there, the reluctance too, but the wall had cracked.
Good.
Valora moved closer at last, looking down at the stack of names as though it were a list of future inconveniences personally crafted to torment her. “When?”
“This moon.”
Valora made a face. “You are relentless.”
“I am your mother.”
“You say that as though it explains everything.”
“Often, it does.”
That almost got a smile out of her.
Almost.
Valora picked up the top parchment, eyes scanning the first name with open suspicion. “If one of them begins speaking to me about embroidery and marriage prospects within the first breath, I am leaving.”
“You will stay.”
“I will mentally leave.”
“That,” Rhaenyra said, “I cannot prevent.”
A silence followed, lighter now.
“Fine I’ll meet them.” Valora sighed.
“Good,” Rhaenyra replied. “I have already told your ladies to have the solar prepared for the first meeting on the morrow.”
Valora finally looked up, horrified. “Tomorrow?”
Rhaenyra smiled with infuriating calm. “You wished to suffer efficiently.”
“I most certainly did not.”
“You implied it.”
“I did nothing of the sort.”
But Rhaenyra was already halfway through the doorway, and only paused long enough to look back at her daughter with open, unrepentant amusement.
“Wear something intimidating.”
Valora blinked. “Mother.”
“It will save time.”
And then she was gone.
Valora stared at the empty doorway for a beat before dropping her head back with a groan so dramatic that Marissa, who had only just entered from the adjoining chamber, immediately paused.
“That bad?” Marissa asked.
Valora lowered her head and gave her a flat look. “Mother has decided I require two more girls to trail after me and look politically useful.”
Marissa shut the door behind her and crossed the room with all the ease of someone who had long since learned that Princess Valora’s dramatics were best met with composure rather than alarm.
“Well,” she said, “you do.”
Valora looked betrayed. “You too?”
Matila, who had entered behind Marissa with a folded length of embroidery silk in her hands, snorted softly. “You cannot say your mother is wrong simply because you dislike hearing it.”
Valora looked from one to the other in dawning outrage. “Do the two of you take pleasure in my suffering?”
“Sometimes,” Matila admitted.
Marissa, more merciful, merely smiled. “Only when you are being impossible.”
Valora turned away before either of them could see the reluctant twitch threatening at her mouth and instead fixed her gaze on the stack once more.
✧ A Song of Sea and Fire PJO timeline Masterlist ✧
Welcome to the A Song of Sea and Fire masterlist!
Here you’ll find all fics related to the Percy Jackson section of my A Song of Sea and Fire universe, spanning different moments, relationships, and timelines within the story.
✧ Moodboards/Others✧
✧ Fics Key✧
📖 — Published
📝 — Unpublished
🔞 — Smut
🤍 — Fluff
💔 — Angst
🎉 — Just some fun
✧ One Shots✧
You Took My Crayon - 📖🤍 🎉 how a stolen crayon, a bad horse drawing, and mutual stubbornness turned into a lifelong best friendship (aka: the origin story of chaos).
Valora Velaryon has learned to expect very little from court.
Especially from certain names.
By thirteen, she knows exactly what a Frey is meant to be:
ambitious, agreeable, and carefully polished into something useful but hollow.
So when Matila Frey is presented to her, Valora expects another performance.
Another girl who will nod, smile, and echo whatever she wishes to hear.
She is wrong.
Because Matila does not flatter.
She does not soften her answers to please.
And she does not confuse kindness with foolishness.
She thinks.
And for Valora, who has spent far too long surrounded by echoes,
being wrong about someone might just be the best reason to choose them.
Of all the girls presented to her that year, Matila Frey was perhaps the one Valora expected the least.
That alone nearly disqualified her.
At thirteen, Princess Valora Velaryon had already spent enough time at court to know what the name Frey usually brought with it. Ambition, first and foremost. Thinly disguised greed, second. Smiles that never quite reached the eyes. Lords who counted advantage faster than affection. Daughters taught to curtsy before they were taught to think and to flatter before they were taught anything useful at all.
So when Matila Frey was announced, Valora had to school her expression into something politely blank.
Her solar had once again been arranged for the occasion, every cushion straightened, every chair placed with careful precision, a tray of fruit and cakes laid untouched beside the fire. Spring sunlight spilled through the windows, pale and soft, catching on the sea-blue and crimson embroidery worked into the cushions. The room was lovely.
Valora was tired of it.
This was the second time she had been made to choose another lady in waiting.
The first time had ended well enough. Marissa Royce had proven precisely what Valora had hoped for, thoughtful, composed, willing to think before she spoke and not so foolish as to confuse flattery with loyalty. But one lady was not enough, or so her mother had insisted with that patient tone that usually meant Valora was going to lose the argument.
So the process had begun again a year later.
And Valora had discovered that being thirteen did not make noble daughters any less irritating.
The latest one had spent nearly half the meeting praising Valora’s poise, Valora’s beauty, Valora’s dragon, Valora’s intelligence, and, somewhat bizarrely, Valora’s handwriting.
Before that there had been one who answered every question by invoking what her father thought.
Before that, another who had smiled warmly and declared that the smallfolk were “simple creatures” who only required strong rule and full bellies to remain content.
Valora had ended that meeting very quickly.
Now she sat in her carved chair by the hearth, one leg tucked neatly behind the other, fingers resting against the armrest, while Cedric Caswell stood near the door with his usual infuriating calm.
At eighteen, Cedric had only become more difficult to surprise and more annoyingly skilled at hiding amusement when she was displeased.
“She’s a Frey,” Valora muttered before the girl was brought in.
Cedric wisely did not say anything for a moment.
Then, “She might still surprise you.”
Valora gave him a look. “You sound optimistic.”
“I sound cautious.”
“You sound as though you expect me to be unfair.”
Cedric’s mouth twitched. “Would you like me to lie and say otherwise?”
Valora huffed and looked away before he could see the reluctant flicker of amusement on her face.
A knock came at the door.
The servant bowed. “Princess, Lady Matila Frey.”
Valora straightened. “Send her in.”
The servant stepped aside.
Matila Frey entered with none of the nervous fumbling Valora had come to expect.
She was near Valora’s age, perhaps a little older, with dark auburn hair braided back neatly and clear, watchful eyes that missed very little. Her gown was good quality but not ostentatious, in muted blue-grey rather than anything especially grand. She curtsied properly, respectfully, and when she rose there was nothing simpering in her face.
That, at least, was a point in her favour.
“Princess Valora,” Matila said.
“Lady Matila.”
Valora gestured to the chair opposite her. “Sit.”
Matila obeyed without fuss.
For a moment, Valora simply studied her.
The girl did not rush to fill the silence. She did not begin praising the room or declaring the honour of the invitation. She waited.
Interesting.
Valora folded her hands in her lap. “You know why you are here.”
“Yes, Princess.”
“And why do you wish to serve as my lady in waiting?”
Matila answered with less hesitation than most. “Because it is a place of trust, and I would rather hold such a place honestly than chase one through empty compliments.”
Cedric glanced at the ceiling.
Valora noticed.
So did Matila, she thought, though the girl was polite enough not to show it.
“Honesty,” Valora repeated.
“Yes, Princess.”
Valora tilted her head slightly. “That is easily claimed.”
“It is.”
No defensiveness. No flustered insistence. Just agreement.
Valora’s interest sharpened despite herself.
“Very well,” she said. “Let us test it.”
She leaned back in her chair.
“Say there is a district in King’s Landing where the smallfolk have gone hungry after a poor season. Bread grows scarce. Tempers rise. I decide the quickest answer is to have the Crown purchase grain at whatever price merchants demand, then distribute it freely through the city until the unrest settles.”
That would have sounded merciful to half the girls she had already met.
Matila did not immediately praise it.
Instead, she frowned slightly.
Valora’s pulse gave the faintest stir of interest.
“At first glance,” Matila said slowly, “it sounds generous.”
“At first glance?” Valora repeated.
Matila met her gaze. “Merchants would hear that the Crown is desperate and raise prices even further. If they believe fear and unrest earn them greater profit, they have every reason to let matters worsen before they improve.”
Cedric’s expression remained perfectly neutral, which meant he was definitely listening.
Valora’s fingers stilled on the armrest. “Go on.”
“You would feed people for a time,” Matila said, “but you might also teach every greedy trader in the city that scarcity is worth manufacturing.”
That was not the answer Valora had expected.
And yet she could not find fault in it.
“What would you suggest instead?”
Matila thought for a moment. “Set a fixed price before the Crown buys a single sack. Any merchant charging beyond it loses the right to trade within the city for a time, or loses access to royal contracts later.” She paused. “Then buy what is needed. Quietly, if possible, before panic grows.”
Valora watched her more closely now.
“And if that is not enough?”
“Then speak to the houses nearest the city and call in duty rather than charity.” Matila’s voice remained composed, but there was something practical in it, something sharp. “Not because they are kind, but because no lord wants word spreading that the capital starved while his granaries stayed full.”
A faint smile almost pulled at Valora’s mouth.
Not kind.
Practical.
Useful.
She asked, “And what of the smallfolk themselves?”
Matila answered at once. “They should be fed.”
Valora’s eyes narrowed, not in displeasure but in scrutiny. “That sounds obvious.”
“It should be obvious,” Matila replied.
There was no hesitation in it. No contempt. No indulgent softness either. Only certainty.
“If the city starves, the realm suffers for it,” Matila continued. “The people in Flea Bottom may not wear silk or possess names worth tracing through history books, but they are still your people. A ruler who sees hunger beneath her and not within her responsibility is a fool.”
The silence that followed was not uncomfortable.
Cedric shifted his weight ever so slightly near the door.
Valora did not look at him.
Instead, she asked, “And yet you did not agree with my first solution.”
“No, Princess.”
“Why?”
Matila’s answer came steady and direct. “Because caring for the smallfolk and choosing the wisest method are not always the same thing.”
That one landed.
Cleanly.
Exactly.
Valora held her gaze for a long moment.
Most girls bent themselves around her words like river reeds in the wind, eager to please, eager not to offend, eager to be chosen for their gentleness or beauty or obedience. Matila had done none of that. She had not contradicted her for the pleasure of it either, which mattered just as much.
She had simply thought.
Valora rose and crossed slowly toward the window, looking out over the distant stretch of King’s Landing beyond the walls. From here the city looked almost soft in the afternoon light. Stone and smoke and sun. But she knew what lay beneath that beauty. Crowded alleys. Empty stomachs. Children with no titles and no one to speak their names in council chambers.
After a moment, she said, “Most girls either pity the smallfolk or dismiss them.”
Matila did not answer at once.
When she did, her voice was quieter.
“Both are easy,” she said. “Respect takes more effort.”
Valora turned back toward her.
There it was.
Not sweetness. Not polished court language. Something steadier.
Respect.
Not for her.
For the people most nobles forgot existed until they became inconvenient.
“And do you respect them?” Valora asked.
“Yes.”
The answer was simple enough that Valora believed it.
She looked to Cedric then, just briefly.
His face gave away almost nothing, but there was the slightest glint in his eyes. He approved.
Of course he did.
Valora returned her gaze to Matila. “You are not what I expected.”
Matila did not take the bait by asking whether that was good or bad.
Instead, she said, “No, Princess?”
“No.”
Valora moved back toward her chair but remained standing beside it. “You are a Frey.”
At that, the first real shift crossed Matila’s face. Not anger. Not shame. Something more resigned.
“Yes, Princess.”
Valora watched her carefully. “Do you know what people say of your house?”
“I imagine I have heard most of it.”
“And?”
Matila’s shoulders stayed square. “Some of it is deserved. Some of it is not. But none of it changes what I say in this room.”
That earned her another point.
Valora sat at last, slower this time, more thoughtful than before. “And what is it you think I need in a lady in waiting?”
Matila’s gaze flickered over her, assessing, but not rudely. “Someone who does not waste your time.”
Cedric let out the faintest breath through his nose.
Valora ignored him with effort.
Matila went on, “Someone who can understand what you mean, not only what you say. Someone who knows when to speak plainly and when to hold her tongue. And someone who remembers that serving a future queen is not the same as worshipping one.”
That nearly did it.
Nearly.
Valora kept her expression composed, though inside something in her settled.
Because that was it. Exactly it.
Marissa had given her thought and steadiness. Matila, she suspected, would give her sharpness of a different kind. Less gentle, perhaps. Less polished. But no less valuable.
Useful in different ways.
Necessary in different ways.
At last Valora said, “If I choose you, I will expect sense, not performances.”
“You shall have no performances from me, Princess.”
“I expect loyalty.”
“You would have it.”
“I do not mean blind agreement.”
Matila’s mouth curved very slightly. “Then that is fortunate, because I have never been especially good at pretending to be blind.”
Cedric looked down at the floor at once, shoulders suspiciously still.
Valora stared at Matila for one beat and then, despite herself, smiled.
Small. Sharp. Real.
Yes.
This one would do.
“Very well,” Valora said. “I think I have heard enough.”
Matila rose at once.
Valora let the silence stretch just enough before delivering the words.
“If my mother approves, you will remain.”
For the first time, Matila looked genuinely startled.
Then she dropped into a deep curtsy. “Thank you, Princess.”
Valora inclined her head. “Do not thank me yet. You may discover I am difficult.”
This time Matila’s smile was easier to see.
“I had already assumed as much.”
Cedric made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a cough.
Valora shot him a look sharp enough to warn him against laughing outright, then turned back to Matila.
When the girl had gone and the chamber doors shut behind her, Cedric waited exactly three heartbeats before speaking.
“So,” he said mildly, “a Frey.”
Valora leaned back in her chair, her earlier weariness gone, replaced by something quieter and far more satisfied.
“A surprising one.”
Cedric folded his hands behind his back. “You liked her.”
Valora lifted one shoulder. “She has sense.”
“That is high praise from you.”
“It should be.”
Cedric’s mouth twitched.
Valora turned her gaze toward the closed door again, thoughtful now.
Marissa challenged with patience. Matila challenged with precision. Different strengths. Different tempers. Both useful. Both real.
And after enduring so many painted echoes of noble daughters, real was worth more than all the perfect curtsies in the realm.
“Yes,” Valora said at last, more to herself than to Cedric. “Matila Frey will do very well indeed.”
Unfortunately, healing lessons require patience, focus… and not swinging his foot every three seconds.
With Asclepius guiding him and Apollo providing entirely unhelpful commentary, what starts as restless fidgeting turns into something more meaningful.
Because for Viseron, this isn’t just about herbs and bandages.
It’s about learning how to fix things.
The way she used to for him.
Viseron had never liked being told to hold still.
Unfortunately for everyone around him, healing lessons seemed to involve a great deal of standing still, sitting still, and apparently not touching things unless instructed.
Which was, in his opinion, a deeply flawed system.
“You are fidgeting again,” Asclepius said without looking up.
Viseron, seated on a cushioned chair beside a long table, immediately stilled for all of two seconds.
“I am not.”
Asclepius finally lifted his gaze from the wooden box of salves, bandages, and dried herbs set open beside him. His expression was calm in the particular way only he seemed capable of, patient, composed, faintly amused and entirely unfooled.
“You are swinging your foot.”
Viseron glanced down.
His foot was, in fact, swinging.
He stopped it at once and folded his arms. “That is not fidgeting. That is thinking.”
“Asclepius,” came an amused voice from nearby, “he is three heartbeats away from climbing the walls.”
Apollo lounged near the tall arched window as though the chamber had been built solely to suit him, all effortless sunlight and bright amusement, one shoulder resting against the carved stone. He had claimed he was not interrupting the lesson. Viseron had already decided this was a lie.
Asclepius did not so much as blink at the interruption. “Then he may climb them after he learns the difference between feverfew and willow bark.”
Viseron’s face fell at once.
Apollo laughed.
The room they had taken over sat in one of the quieter stretches of the Red Keep, likely meant for reading or private work rather than medicinal instruction, though it had long since surrendered to the lesson. Afternoon light poured through the high windows and pooled gold across the stone floor. A fire burned low in the hearth despite the mild day, and the air smelled of rosemary, lavender, and the faint sharper bitterness of crushed herbs. Shelves along one wall held jars, folded cloths, mortar and pestles, and several neatly stacked books Viseron had already been warned not to touch unless invited.
He thought that expectation was unfair as well.
Still, he was trying.
Mostly because Asclepius never laughed when he asked questions, never waved him away, and never spoke to him as though he were too young to understand. He simply expected Viseron to listen properly, and somehow that made Viseron want to.
Even now, as he sat with his little golden lyre charm at his throat and his silver hair falling half into his eyes, he was trying very hard to look serious.
It was not entirely working.
Asclepius selected two small bundles from the open box and placed them on the table between them.
“Tell me which is which.”
Viseron leaned forward immediately, all earlier restlessness momentarily forgotten. He stared at the herbs as though they might rearrange themselves if he looked hard enough.
One bundle was darker, with narrow leaves and a sharp, bitter scent. The other was paler, softer, almost silvery at the edges.
He narrowed his eyes.
“That one is feverfew,” he declared, pointing at the paler bundle.
“And why?”
Viseron hesitated.
“Because it looks like it should be feverfew.”
Apollo made a strangled sound that was definitely laughter.
Asclepius, infuriatingly composed, only said, “An inventive answer. Try again.”
Viseron huffed and leaned closer, this time actually picking the bundle up and sniffing it the way he had been taught. He wrinkled his nose.
“It smells greener.”
Apollo turned his head slightly. “Greener.”
“Yes,” Viseron said, with the dignity of someone being very misunderstood. “That is a real smell.”
“It is,” Asclepius said smoothly before Apollo could speak again. “And?”
Viseron looked between the two bundles, concentrating so hard his brow furrowed. Then his face brightened.
“Willow bark is for pain and fevers,” he said slowly, thinking through it. “And feverfew is used for headaches and swelling and… some kinds of fever too.”
Asclepius gave the smallest nod of approval.
“So?”
Viseron blinked.
Then he looked at the herb in his hand. “So this one is not feverfew.”
“No.”
He pointed decisively at the darker bundle. “That one is.”
Asclepius’s mouth curved faintly. “Correct.”
Viseron straightened immediately, glowing with satisfaction.
Apollo clapped once from his place by the window. “A miracle. He can be taught.”
Viseron beamed at him before turning back to Asclepius. “I knew that.”
“You reasoned it out,” Asclepius corrected. “That is better than guessing.”
Viseron considered that.
He liked the sound of it. Better than guessing.
The lesson continued that way for a while, with herbs and roots and little glazed jars, with Asclepius asking quiet questions and Viseron answering some correctly, some almost correctly, and some with such alarming confidence that Apollo had to hide his face in his hand twice.
By the time they reached poultices, Viseron had a smear of green on his fingers, another on his cheek, and a growing sense that healing involved far more crushing and mixing than he had expected.
“This is messy,” he informed them.
“Yes,” Asclepius said.
Viseron eyed the bowl suspiciously. “I thought healing would look more impressive.”
Apollo snorted.
Viseron gestured at the bowl. “I just thought there would be more glowing.”
“There can be,” Apollo said.
Asclepius finally looked up at him. “Do not encourage impossible standards.”
Apollo looked deeply offended. “I am his father. Encouraging impossible standards is half the job.”
Viseron grinned.
Then the grin faded as Asclepius reached for his hand.
The older boy turned Viseron’s palm upward with gentle care. There was a small scrape across the heel of it, not deep, but fresh enough to still be pink. Viseron had earned it that morning, climbing where he had specifically been told not to climb, a fact that had apparently followed him into the lesson, whether he liked it or not.
Asclepius examined it without comment.
Viseron shifted slightly. “It does not hurt.”
“It did earlier.”
Viseron tried for dignity. “Only a little.”
Apollo, from the window, said, “He announced to the entire corridor that he was dying.”
“I did not.”
“You absolutely did.”
“I said I was grievously wounded.”
“That is not better.”
Asclepius’s shoulders moved once with what might have been a silent laugh.
He reached for the salve Viseron had just spent the better part of ten minutes helping make. Then he paused and looked at him.
“You may do it.”
Viseron blinked. “Me?”
“You made it.”
A different kind of stillness came over him then, one that had nothing to do with being told. He glanced at the bowl, then at his brother, then back at his own hand.
Carefully, with a seriousness that had entirely replaced the earlier fidgeting, he dipped two fingers into the salve and spread it over the scrape.
It was cool against his skin.
He frowned in concentration, making sure he covered the whole cut the way Asclepius had shown him earlier. Once he was done, Asclepius handed him a clean strip of linen.
Viseron wrapped it once. Then twice. Then paused.
“It looks ugly.”
“It is a bandage,” Asclepius said.
“Yes, but I could do better.”
“As could most people on their first attempt,” Apollo offered.
Viseron glared at him.
Asclepius took the linen gently and redid it, slower this time so Viseron could watch properly. His movements were precise, efficient, careful without ever seeming delicate.
When he finished, the bandage sat neat and secure around Viseron’s palm.
“There,” he said. “Again.”
Viseron held out his hand at once.
This time, when he wrapped it, it came out crooked but functional.
He looked at it, then at Asclepius.
“It is still ugly.”
“It will hold.”
That, apparently, mattered more.
Viseron smiled a little.
For a moment, the chamber fell quiet again. Firelight flickered low at the edges of the room, and beyond the windows the distant sounds of the Red Keep carried faintly inward, footsteps in a corridor, a muffled voice somewhere far below, the far-off cry of gulls from Blackwater Bay.
Apollo watched them both with an expression that had gone softer than before, bright amusement easing into something warmer, something touched through with pride.
Viseron noticed because he noticed everything where his family was concerned, even when people thought he did not.
He looked back at his hand, then at the array of herbs and jars and cloth on the table.
“So if Shaenyra scrapes her knee,” he began carefully, “I could help.”
Asclepius nodded once. “Yes.”
“And if Maella cuts her hand on parchment again because she refuses to stop writing when she is angry…”
Apollo laughed outright.
Asclepius merely said, “Yes.”
Viseron’s gaze drifted downward for a moment, to the little bandage, to the green smudge still staining one finger.
His voice, when he spoke again, was quieter.
“And if Mama were here…”
The words trailed off.
Silence settled gently this time.
Apollo did not move.
Asclepius did not rush to fill it.
He had not known Valora that well, not really. His lessons with his younger siblings had only begun a few months before she was murdered, and most of his memories of her were brief ones.
A passing smile in a corridor. A warm word when she found him with one of the twins or Maella. A quiet thanks, spoken as she meant it, when he helped settle Shaenyra after one of her many falls.
She had never treated him as an afterthought, never spoken to him as though he were only an extension of Apollo or a curiosity to be placed neatly at the edges of her family.
There had been kindness in her, easy and unforced, the sort that did not call attention to itself because it was simply part of who she was.
And then there had been his father.
Asclepius had known Apollo in all his many moods. Brilliant, vain, radiant, sharp-tongued, wounded, impossible. He had seen infatuation before. Desire. Fleeting devotion that burned hot and then vanished into memory as quickly as it had come.
But Valora had been different. With her, Apollo had not merely burned. He had stayed. He had softened in ways Asclepius had not thought his father capable of sustaining. He had listened more than he spoke. He had lingered. He had looked at her as though the world grew quieter in her presence.
Even after her death, there had been no true ending to it. Grief still lived in him, not loud as it had once been, but deep and permanent, woven into the shape of him.
So Asclepius did not speak at once.
Viseron kept his eyes on his hand. “She would have liked this, I think.”
Apollo’s expression changed at once, the laughter leaving it but none of the warmth. Something older, deeper, touched his face then, grief long carried and love never once diminished.
“Yes,” he said softly. “She would have.”
Viseron swallowed.
“She always fixed things.”
Asclepius looked at him steadily. “Then it is a good thing,” he said, calm and certain, “that you wish to learn how.”
Viseron lifted his head.
His older brother’s expression had not changed. Still patient. Still steady. Still treating him as though this mattered, as though he mattered, enough to be answered plainly.
Something in Viseron eased.
He nodded once.
Then, after a second, he looked at the box again with renewed purpose. “Can I learn stitches next?”
Apollo made a noise of startled disbelief. “He cannot even sit still through tea.”
“I can if tea is interesting.”
“It has never once been interesting.”
Asclepius was already reaching for another folded cloth. “Not today. Today you will learn how to clean a cut properly before you decide to sew someone together.”
Viseron brightened at once anyway. “That means I do get to learn.”
“Yes.”
He smiled, pleased down to his bones, and leaned forward again as Asclepius set out the next things he would need.
Apollo watched them for a long moment before tipping his head back lightly against the stone beside the window.
“My sons,” he said to no one in particular, voice threaded with lazy pride, “one terrifyingly competent, the other moments away from turning first aid into a personal quest.”
Viseron did not even look up. “I heard that.”
“I intended for you to.”
Asclepius placed a fresh cloth in front of him. “Focus.”
Viseron grinned and obeyed.
And for once, for nearly a full quarter of an hour, he did not fidget at all.
Plans to finalise.
Decisions to make.
A realm that did not wait simply because she was tired.
Apollo, as always, disagrees.
What begins as an interruption becomes something else entirely when he drags her away from King’s Landing and onto sacred ground, where the weight of duty cannot follow quite so easily.
Because Valora does not know how to stop.
And Apollo has never been particularly patient when it comes to reminding her how.
Warnings
⚠️Explicit sexual content (18+)
⚠️Graphic sexual scenes
⚠️ Possessive/dominant behaviour
⚠️Intense physical intimacy
⚠️Rough sex
⚠️Praise & devotion themes
⚠️Implied marking/claiming dynamics
⚠️Overstimulation & loss of control themes
⚠️Emotional vulnerability post-intimacy
Valora’s chambers had settled into something close to stillness, broken only by the scratch of her quill against parchment.
Candles burned low around her desk, wax pooling at their bases, their light flickering over the spread of plans before her.
Maps.
Sketches.
Notes written, crossed out, rewritten again.
She leaned over the parchment, brow furrowed in concentration, one hand smudged faintly with ink as she adjusted the lines of a structure that refused to behave the way she wanted it to.
“The walls need to be wider…” she muttered to herself. “Or the support beams will…”
A breeze brushed across the back of her neck.
Valora stilled.
The windows were closed.
Slowly, she looked up.
Golden light spilled across the room before she even fully turned.
Apollo stood near the balcony doors like he had always been there.
Radiant, effortless, sunlight caught in human form even in the dead of night. His hair gleamed like molten gold, his presence filling the room with a warmth that had nothing to do with the candles.
He took one look at the desk.
At her.
At the mess of parchment surrounding her.
And his expression shifted.
“…No,” he said simply.
Valora blinked at him.
“No?” she repeated.
“No,” Apollo said again, walking forward and plucking the quill straight from her fingers.
“Hey…”
“You have been working for hours.”
“I have been working productively,” she corrected.
“You have been working stubbornly,” he countered.
Valora leaned back in her chair, unimpressed. “There is a difference.”
“There is not,” he said easily, already stacking her parchments into something resembling order.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I am not finished.”
Apollo glanced down at the plans briefly, then back at her.
“You will be,” he said, entirely unconcerned, “after you remember that you are, in fact, a person and not a machine built solely to fix the realm.”
Valora opened her mouth.
Closed it.
Then tried again. “The orphanage…”
“Will still be there in the morning.”
“The funding…”
“Will not vanish overnight.”
“The design…”
“Will not collapse because you stepped away from it for a few hours.”
He stepped closer, placing both hands flat on the desk and leaning down just enough to catch her gaze fully.
“You,” he said more quietly, “are exhausted.”
Valora held his gaze for a long moment.
Then she sighed.
“…I was close,” she muttered, though there was no real heat behind it anymore.
Apollo’s expression softened immediately, the sharp edge of his interruption fading into something gentler.
“I know,” he said.
He reached out, brushing a stray strand of silver hair back from her face, his touch warm, grounding.
“And you will get there,” he added. “But not tonight.”
Valora looked at him, studying him now instead of arguing.
“…You came all this way just to stop me working?” she asked.
A faint smile tugged at his lips.
“No,” he said. “I came to steal you.”
Her brows lifted slightly. “Steal me.”
“Yes.”
“From my own chambers.”
“Yes.”
“How daring of you.”
“I am very bold.”
She huffed a quiet laugh despite herself.
Then she glanced once more at the desk.
At the plans.
At the work, she had been so determined to finish.
And for once…
She let it go.
“…Fine,” she said, pushing back from the chair.
“You’ll enjoy it” Apollo cut in easily before she could change her mind, already reaching for her hand.
The moment their fingers brushed…
The world shifted.
Warmth swallowed everything.
Light.
Sound.
The heavy air of King’s Landing vanished in an instant and was replaced with something entirely different.
Salt.
Soft wind.
The distant sound of waves against stone.
Valora blinked.
They stood on Delos.
Moonlight stretched across the island, silver and soft, the sky above them wide and endless, scattered with stars that seemed brighter here than anywhere else in the world.
The air was warmer, lighter.
Easier to breathe.
Valora exhaled slowly, her shoulders loosening without her even realizing it.
“…You play unfairly,” she murmured.
Apollo smiled slightly. “I have many advantages.”
She glanced around, taking in the quiet beauty of it.
“…You brought me here to rest,” she said.
“I brought you here,” he corrected, “because you forget how to.”
Valora gave him a look.
“…I do not forget.”
“You absolutely do.”
She huffed again, but there was no real argument in it this time.
Apollo turned, gesturing lightly toward the trees beyond.
“Come on.”
She followed.
The path was familiar beneath their feet, even if she could not have said why. The island felt like something remembered rather than discovered, like a place that had always existed somewhere just out of reach.
They walked in comfortable silence for a while.
No court.
No expectations.
No weight pressing down on her shoulders.
Just the sound of their footsteps and the quiet hum of the night.
Eventually, the trees opened.
And the lake came into view.
Still.
Clear.
Reflecting the stars above it like a perfect mirror.
Valora slowed slightly.
“…You planned this,” she said.
Apollo tilted his head. “I plan everything.”
“That explains a lot.”
He stepped closer to the water’s edge, glancing back at her.
“Are you coming,” he asked lightly, “or are you going to stand there and overthink it?”
Valora raised a brow.
She stepped forward and kicked off her shoes.
Apollo laughed softly as she moved past him, already pulling the pins from her hair and letting it fall loose down her back.
“You say that like it’s a flaw,” she said, glancing over her shoulder.
“It is,” he replied. “But I am fond of it.”
She rolled her eyes.
Then stepped into the water.
It was cool, but not cold.
Just enough to make her inhale sharply before the tension in her body began to melt away.
Apollo followed a moment later, the water barely disturbing around him.
For a while, neither of them spoke.
The water rippled around Valora’s waist, cool and silken against her skin, but the heat radiating from Apollo was a far more potent force.
He waded closer, the liquid parting effortlessly around his frame until he stood just before her. The distance between them vanished, swallowed by the lapping of the lake against the stone shore.
Apollo reached out, his hand surfacing from the water to cup her cheek. His thumb traced the line of her jaw, his touch impossibly gentle despite the power coiled in his frame.
He looked at her as if she were the only star in the sky that mattered, a worshipful intensity that never failed to undo her.
“Better?” he murmured, his voice a low rumble that vibrated through her chest.
Valora leaned into his touch, her eyes fluttering shut as the last of the tension drained from her body. "Much," she admitted, the word barely a whisper against the night air.
The contrast of the cool water and the burning heat of his skin was intoxicating, a sensory dichotomy that grounded her firmly in the present moment.
She reached up, covering his hand with her own, and turned her head to press a kiss into his palm. It was a tender gesture, but the spark that ignited in his eyes at the contact promised that the night was far from over.
The atmosphere shifted, the air suddenly heavy with something thicker than just humidity. Apollo’s hand slid from her cheek down to the nape of her neck, his fingers tangling in her wet hair as he pulled her closer.
Their bodies brushed beneath the surface, the water creating a frictionless glide between them that made every point of contact hyper-sensitive.
He didn't wait for permission, didn't ask for confirmation; he simply lowered his head, capturing her lips in a searing kiss that stole the breath from her lungs and left her clinging to his shoulders to stay upright.
The kiss deepened rapidly, shedding all pretense of gentleness. Valora parted her lips with a soft gasp, granting him the access he demanded, and he took full advantage.
His tongue swept against hers, tasting, claiming, stoking a fire low in her belly that the lake water couldn't hope to quench.
Her hands roamed over the wet planes of his chest, feeling the heavy thrum of his heart beneath her fingertips, matching the frantic rhythm of her own.
The world narrowed down to the slick slide of skin against skin, the salt-scented breeze, and the overwhelming, golden presence of the god holding her as if she were his entire universe.
Apollo’s grip tightened on her hips, hauling her flush against him until there was no space left between their bodies, the water lapping at their chests.
The heat of him was scorching against the cool night air, a brand that seared straight through her skin to the marrow of her bones.
His hands roamed with a deliberate, possessive reverence, mapping the curve of her spine and the dip of her waist before sliding down to grip the backs of her thighs.
With a fluid, effortless motion that spoke of his divine strength, he lifted her, urging her to wrap her legs around his waist.
Valora didn’t hesitate, locking her ankles at the small of his back, the sudden shift in gravity making her gasp into his mouth as the water sloshed around them, disturbed by their frantic movement.
The friction of his wet clothes against her inner thighs was a maddening tease, a rough barrier that she suddenly needed gone.
Valora tugged at the laces of his breeches, her fingers slipping on the wet knots but driven by a desperate, clawing need.
Apollo groaned low in his throat, a sound of pure, unadulterated hunger that vibrated against her lips. He assisted her, his hand covering hers to speed the process, and when the fabric was finally pushed aside, the hard, heavy length of him sprang free, brushing against the slick heat of her core.
The contact was intense, a jolt of pleasure so sharp it made her head fall back, breaking the kiss as she arched her spine, offering herself up to him completely.
He didn’t make her wait. With a guttural sound that was half-prayer, half-curse, Apollo guided himself to her entrance and surged forward, burying himself deep inside her in one powerful stroke.
The sensation was overwhelming, a sudden, intense fullness that stole the breath from her lungs and forced a cry from her throat.
He stretched her perfectly, the angle allowing him to hit a place deep inside that made her toes curl. Apollo stilled for a fraction of a second, his forehead resting against hers, his eyes burning with a fierce, golden light as he let her adjust to the invasion.
Once he was sure she felt no discomfort, his control snapped. He withdrew almost entirely, only to slam back into her, setting a ruthless, driving rhythm that turned the water around them into a churning storm of waves and foam.
The lake around them transformed into a chaotic swirl of white foam and displaced energy, driven by the ferocity of Apollo’s movements.
Each thrust was a deliberate, powerful possession, claiming her body with a reverence that bordered on worship.
Valora clung to him, her fingernails digging into the golden skin of his shoulders, anchoring herself against the tidal wave of pleasure cresting within her.
The cool water did nothing to quell the feverish heat building between them; instead, the contrast seemed to amplify every sensation, making the friction of his body against hers feel incendiary.
She could feel the heavy thud of his heart against her chest, matching the frantic cadence of her own, a primal rhythm that drowned out the soft lapping of the shore and the rustle of the wind in the trees.
The scent of ozone and crushed jasmine bloomed in the air around them, the raw byproduct of a god’s power fraying at the edges as he lost himself in her.
He was burning, literally. The water steamed where it touched his skin, rising in thick, curling plumes of mist that enveloped them in a private, white-hot world.
He drove into her again, a deep, grinding thrust that forced a ragged sob from her throat. The sound seemed to snap something inside him.
"Look at me," he commanded, his voice a low growl that vibrated through her chest.
The authority in his tone was absolute, a compulsion she felt in her marrow as much as her mind. Valora forced her eyes open, her vision swimming with unshed tears of ecstasy, locking her gaze onto his.
His eyes were no longer merely the warm gold of the sun; they were blinding, eclipsing the stars above, burning with a terrifyingly beautiful intensity that stripped her bare.
He wasn't looking at her as a lover, or even as a partner; he was looking at her as a god looked at a creation he was determined to remake, to fill, to mark so irrevocably that the universe itself would know who she belonged to.
"I want you to feel everything," he rasped, his grip bruising on her hips as he pulled her down to meet each punishing thrust.
The water churned violently around them, slapping against the shore in time with their rhythm, but the chaos only grounded the moment, making the frantic slide of their bodies the only stable thing in existence. "Every inch. Every heartbeat. I want to ruin you."
The possessiveness in his voice washed over her, dark and addicting, stoking the fire low in her belly into an inferno.
She clung to his shoulders, her fingers digging into the hard muscle of his back, her body arching instinctively to take him deeper.
"Apollo," she gasped, the sound breaking on a moan as he shifted his angle, hitting a spot that made white sparks explode behind her eyelids. "Please... I…"
The word dissolved into a sharp cry as he drove into her with a renewed, devastating force. The water around them had gone from a gentle lap to a frantic roil, steam rising in thick, opaque clouds that blanketed them in a private, sweltering world.
It wasn't just the heat of his body; it was the sheer, unfiltered power of the sun bleeding out of him, turning the lake into a tepid bath that mirrored the inferno building inside her veins.
"You what?" Apollo growled, the sound vibrating against her chest, resonating in the hollow of her bones.
He didn't slow down. If anything, the challenge in her voice, the breathless plea, only seemed to spur him on.
He gripped her thighs harder, his fingers digging in with a bruising pressure that grounded her even as the rest of the world spun away.
"I want..." Valora gasped, her head falling back, exposing the long, pale column of her throat to the night air.
She felt powerless, small in the best possible way, pinned against the relentless strength of him. "I want everything. Give me everything."
A guttural sound tore from his chest, part groan, part snarl, raw and untethered. He stopped holding back.
The rhythm he set became punishing, a relentless, driving force that claimed her with every stroke.
The water splashed violently around them, soaking their clothes, plastering her hair to her skin, but neither of them noticed.
The world had narrowed down to the friction of his body inside hers, the tight, hot slide that dragged a broken sob from her lips with every thrust.
She was dimly aware of the water steaming, the lake around them growing hot as if he were boiling it with sheer proximity, a tangible manifestation of the burning sun god losing control.
"You have everything," he gritted out, his voice rough, strained with the effort of his restraint, or the lack thereof.
He buried his face in the crook of her neck, inhaling her scent, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin there in a way that made her shiver violently.
"My strength. My worship. My ruin. Take it." His hips snapped forward, grinding deep, forcing a high, thin cry from her throat that she couldn't contain.
It was too much, the intensity of him overwhelming her senses, flooding her with a pleasure so sharp it bordered on pain.
She could feel the storm of his magic building, crackling in the air around them, raising the hair on her arms, making the very atmosphere hum with static.
He was pouring himself into her, leaving nothing behind, demanding that she do the same.
Her body tightened around him, an involuntary reaction to the overwhelming stimulation.
She could feel the coil in her belly winding tighter and tighter, a knot of pure heat that begged to be released.
The friction was exquisite, dragging against every sensitive nerve ending, pushing her higher and higher until she felt weightless, suspended in the golden haze of his aura.
"Apollo," she breathed, his name a prayer on her lips, a plea for mercy or for more, she wasn't sure which.
She could feel the rhythm faltering, his control splintering, the divine façade cracking to reveal something hungrier, something ancient and possessive that wanted to devour her whole.
He was close. She could feel it in the way his muscles bunched beneath her hands, in the way his breathing turned ragged and harsh against her skin.
And with that realisation came the thrilling certainty that she was going to fall apart with him.
Apollo’s rhythm faltered, the controlled precision shattering into a ragged, desperate cadence.
He withdrew almost entirely, the loss of his heat a sudden, chilling void, only to drive back in with a force that stole the air from her lungs and dragged a ragged scream from her throat.
The water around them erupted into a churning frenzy of steam and spray, boiling under the influence of his unchecked power, but he seemed oblivious to anything except the place where their bodies joined.
His eyes burned into hers, wild and unrecognizable, the golden irises swallowed by the deep, expanding black of his pupils as the last of his restraint evaporated.
He wasn't just taking pleasure; he was demanding it, seizing it with a ferocity that terrified and thrilled her in equal measure.
"Take it," he snarled, his voice cracking on a groan that sounded more like a roar than human speech.
"Take all of me. Let me fill you until you can't hold anymore, until there's no part of you that hasn't been touched by me." The words were a dark, possessive litany, a vow spoken, and they hit Valora with the force of a physical blow.
She could feel him swelling inside her, the thick, hard length of him pulsing with a heat that seemed to burn straight through her core.
The friction was relentless, dragging against every sensitive nerve ending, pushing her higher and higher until she felt weightless, suspended in a golden haze of pure sensation.
Her body was no longer her own; it was a canvas for his desire, and the surrender was absolute.
The coil in her belly snapped. Her orgasm tore through her with the violence of a tidal wave, crashing over her senses and shattering her vision into white.
She cried out, her fingers digging into his shoulders hard enough to draw blood, her body arching violently against his as the pleasure ripped a confession from her lips she didn't know she was holding.
"Yes…Apollo, please!!" The words hung in the steam-filled air, raw and desperate, a plea for everything he had offered and more.
It was the final spark in a powder keg. With a hoarse shout that sounded like the sun exploding, Apollo buried himself to the hilt and held her there, his hips jerking erratically as he found his own release.
He flooded her, a scorching torrent of heat that marked her from the inside out, fulfilling the primal promise he had whispered in the dark.
He held her through the aftershocks, his face buried in her neck, his body shuddering with the force of his release, until the only sound in the world was their ragged breathing and the gentle lap of the water against the shore, the storm finally giving way to peace.
For a long moment, the only sound in the world was the ragged cadence of their breathing and the gentle, rhythmic lapping of the water against the shore.
The steam that had engulfed them began to dissipate, drifting in lazy tendrils toward the starlit sky, carrying with it the scent of ozone and heated skin.
Valora remained locked around him, her body twitching with the occasional aftershock, her forehead resting heavily against his shoulder.
She felt drained, hollowed out in the most exquisite way possible, as if he had reached inside her chest and carefully rearranged the pieces of her soul until they fit together better than they had before.
Apollo held her with a grip that was still slightly too tight, his face buried in the crook of her neck, inhaling her scent as if to ground himself back in reality.
The frantic, desperate energy of their coupling had faded into a heavy, sated contentment that felt vast and impenetrable.
Slowly, carefully, Apollo lifted his head to look at her. His eyes were still glowing with that faint, luminescent warmth, though the ferocity had softened into something infinitely tender.
He reached up, brushing a damp strand of silver hair away from her cheek with a thumb that trembled ever so slightly.
"You are magnificent," he murmured, his voice rough with use but thick with a reverence that made her chest ache.
He didn't set her down immediately. Instead, he held her there, waist-deep in the cooling water, cradling her against his chest as if she were the most precious thing in existence.
The possessiveness hadn't vanished; it had simply settled into something deeper, a steady, burning assurance that radiated from his skin.
He studied her face, his gaze tracing the line of her jaw, her kiss-swollen lips, the flush that still painted her pale skin, memorising the aftermath of his devotion.
"I meant what I said," he added quietly, a fierce intensity returning to his tone. "Everything. I want to give you everything."
Valora smiled as she lead in and pressed a soft kiss to his lips.
Valora Velaryon has been called stubborn more times than she can count.
Unyielding. Particular. Difficult, when she chooses not to bend.
Choosing a lady-in-waiting proves no different.
After six carefully polished noble daughters give her the answers they think she wants to hear, Valora finds herself with a simple, growing frustration:
She does not want agreement.
She wants sense.
And when one girl finally answers honestly instead of correctly, Valora does what she always does when she knows she is right.
She chooses her.
Because stubbornness, when paired with instinct, can look an awful lot like wisdom.
Valora had endured six noble daughters by the time she decided she disliked the entire process.
Her solar in the Red Keep had been made presentable for the occasion. Fresh rushes had been laid. A tray of lemon cakes and watered wine sat untouched near the window. The fire crackled softly despite the mildness of the day, and every chair had been arranged with deliberate care so that each meeting might feel equal, measured, proper.
It all felt terribly false.
At twelve, Princess Valora Velaryon already knew how court worked well enough to recognise when she was being managed.
Her mother had called it an important choice. Her grandfather had said it was good training. Even her father, with much more gentleness than the others, had told her that the lady she chose would one day stand beside her in rooms where every word mattered.
Valora had agreed.
She had meant to take it seriously.
That was precisely the problem.
The first girl had curtsied too low and smiled too quickly.
“Princess, it would be the greatest honour of my life to serve you.”
Valora had smiled politely. “And what would you do, if I were wrong about something?”
The daughter of some river lord blinked once, then recovered. “I would trust that you were not, Princess.”
That had been answer enough.
The second girl had been older and more poised, with pearls in her hair and the sort of composed expression that looked practised in a mirror.
When Valora asked what she thought of the crown’s handling of grain stores in Flea Bottom, the girl had hesitated only long enough to judge which answer would please her best.
“Whatever Your Highness believes is wisest, I am sure I would agree.”
Valora had nearly sighed aloud.
By the third meeting, she began to test them.
Not cruelly. Simply honestly.
“Do you think dragonkeepers should answer to the crown more directly?”
“Yes, Princess, if that is your view.”
“Even if it led to confusion in the chain of command?”
The girl had faltered, then smiled. “I trust you would prevent confusion.”
By the fourth, Valora was leaning back in her chair, fingers tapping once against the carved armrest as another noble daughter promised loyalty, admiration, devotion, and a complete absence of any independent thought.
The fifth was the worst.
She was lovely and elegant and so obviously terrified of making a misstep that she answered every question as though it were a trap hidden beneath silk.
“What books do you enjoy?” Valora asked, trying for something simple.
“Whichever books please you, Princess.”
Valora stared at her.
The girl flushed. “I mean… I am certain your taste is excellent.”
Of course you are, Valora thought.
By the sixth, she had stopped pretending not to be disappointed.
The daughter of a Reach lord sat opposite her with folded hands and a bright eager face.
“Would you ever disagree with me?” Valora asked plainly.
The girl laughed as if it were a charming jest. “Oh, never, Princess.”
Valora’s expression cooled. “Never?”
The girl’s smile weakened, but she clearly mistook the question for one of etiquette rather than substance.
“It would not be my place.”
That was the end of that.
When the chamber doors closed behind her latest visitor, Valora remained exactly where she was, staring at the fire.
Her sworn protector, Ser Cedric Caswell, stood near the door with the patient stillness he seemed to wear as naturally as his sword belt. He had been ordered to remain for the meetings, though he had wisely kept silent through all of them.
Now, after a moment, he said carefully, “You are frowning hard enough to frighten the furniture, Princess.”
Valora glanced at him.
At seventeen, Cedric had already mastered the dangerous art of sounding respectful while still speaking to her like a person rather than a title. It was one of the many reasons she liked him.
“They are all dreadful,” she declared.
Cedric’s mouth twitched. “Dreadful is a strong word.”
“It is the correct one.”
She pushed back from her chair and rose, beginning to pace.
“They do not answer questions. They listen for what I want and then hand it back to me wrapped in ribbons.” Her violet eyes flashed with frustration. “How am I meant to trust a girl who agrees with me before I have even finished speaking?”
Cedric watched her quietly. “Many would think agreement the safest thing to offer a future queen.”
“I am not asking for safety.” Valora turned sharply. “I am asking for sense.”
The words rang in the room.
Cedric said nothing to that, which was likely wise.
Valora resumed pacing. “If I choose wrongly one day, I want someone who will tell me so before the mistake is made. Not someone who smiles and lets me walk into it because she thinks obedience matters more than honesty.”
That, at least, made Cedric smile properly.
“Yes,” he said. “That does sound more useful.”
Valora huffed and crossed her arms. “Mother said a lady in waiting must be loyal.”
“I doubt Princess Rhaenyra meant witless.”
That won the faintest hint of a grin from her.
“If I wanted someone to agree with me I would talk to a mirror.” Valora groaned pulling a snigger from Cedric.
A knock came at the door.
One of the servants stepped inside and bowed. “Princess, the next young lady has arrived.”
Valora almost said send her away.
The words reached the tip of her tongue and stopped there. She had already endured six. She would endure one more. Then she would inform her mother that she preferred no lady at all to one who behaved like an embroidered echo.
“Fine,” she said. “Send her in.”
The servant bowed and withdrew.
A moment later, the girl entered.
She was perhaps a year older than Valora, dressed well but without the excess some of the others had worn. Dark hair framed a composed face, and her bearing was proper without feeling rehearsed to death. She curtsied low enough to be respectful, but not so low it felt theatrical.
“Princess Valora,” she said. “I am Marissa Royce.”
Valora studied her.
There was grief in the girl’s eyes. Not fresh enough to break through her composure, but old enough to have settled there. More than that, there was steadiness. The kind Valora had been searching for all afternoon.
“Sit,” Valora said.
Marissa obeyed.
There was no immediate flood of praise. No nervous babble. No declaration that being near Valora was the greatest privilege ever bestowed by gods or men.
Already, she was improving upon the others.
Valora folded her hands in her lap. “You know why you are here.”
“Yes, Princess.”
“And why do you wish to be my lady in waiting?”
Marissa considered the question for an actual moment.
At that, Valora’s interest sharpened.
“Because it is an honour, Princess,” Marissa said at last. “And because serving the future queen should mean more than standing prettily behind her chair.”
That earned the faintest twitch from Cedric near the door.
Valora did not smile, though the answer pleased her more than the others had. “Should it?”
Marissa met her gaze. “I think so.”
Valora leaned back slightly in her chair, studying her. “Very well.”
Her voice shifted, turning cooler, more measured.
“Let us say King’s Landing has a harsh winter. Flea Bottom suffers most. The crown cannot feed everyone at once, and the noble houses begin complaining that too much coin is being spent on people beneath them.” She paused. “I decide the complaints do not matter and order grain taken from storehouses meant for several lesser houses so it can be handed directly to the smallfolk of the city.”
That would have been enough to make the others nod eagerly and call her generous.
Marissa did not.
Instead, she frowned ever so slightly.
Valora noticed at once.
“Well?” the princess asked.
Marissa chose her words carefully. “I would say your heart was in the right place.”
Valora’s eyes narrowed. “And?”
“And that it may still be unwise.”
The room went still.
Cedric looked very studiously at the wall again.
Valora’s chin lifted. “Explain.”
Marissa folded her hands in her lap, though there was no fear in the gesture, only thought. “If the lesser houses lose stores meant to carry them through winter, then their own people may go hungry as well. Or their lords may turn resentful and refuse future aid when it is truly needed. You would save one part of the realm today by planting anger in another tomorrow.”
Valora said nothing.
Marissa continued, more certain now that she had begun.
“The smallfolk matter, Princess. They should always matter. But if aid is given in a way that humiliates those sworn to the crown or leaves them feeling plundered rather than called upon, then you may win gratitude in the streets and lose cooperation everywhere else.”
Cedric’s mouth twitched.
Valora noticed. She ignored him.
“And what would you do instead?” she asked.
Marissa answered more quickly this time. “I would make the houses part of the remedy.”
Valora’s gaze sharpened. “How?”
“Call for contributions rather than confiscation. Publicly, if needed.” Marissa tilted her head slightly. “Let the lords and ladies give grain in the crown’s name, but have their names recorded and thanked. If they are as prideful as most nobles tend to be, many will give simply to avoid being seen as less generous than their rivals.”
That, more than anything, nearly made Valora smile.
Because it was exactly the sort of answer she had wanted all day. Not cruelty. Not softness without thought. Not blind obedience.
Sense.
“You would turn charity into competition,” Valora said.
Marissa’s expression remained composed. “If it fed people through winter, yes.”
Cedric made a small sound that might have been approval.
Valora rose from her seat and began to pace again, though this time not in frustration.
“And if some still refused?”
Marissa watched her. “Then you would know precisely who values coin over duty, and you could act accordingly without punishing those who did not deserve it.”
Valora stopped.
For a moment she simply looked at the older girl.
The fire crackled softly between them. Outside, somewhere deeper in the Red Keep, voices drifted faintly through the corridor and disappeared again.
At last Valora asked, “Do you think many nobles care nothing for the smallfolk?”
Marissa did not rush to answer. “I think many care only when it is convenient. Others care more than they admit. But most have simply never had to think too long about hunger, or cold, or what it means when one poor harvest is the difference between enduring winter and burying children before spring.”
Something in Valora’s expression shifted then. Not softer, exactly. But deeper.
“And you have thought on it?”
Marissa’s face changed very slightly. That old grief Valora had noticed before moved nearer the surface.
“Yes, Princess,” she said quietly. “I have.”
Valora did not press. She did not need to. Whatever sat beneath those words was real enough without being dragged into the light.
Instead, she said, “The others all agreed with me.”
That finally seemed to catch Marissa off guard. “Even when you were wrong?”
“Yes.”
A pause.
Then, before she could seem to stop herself, Marissa said carefully, “That sounds dangerous.”
Cedric let out a short breath through his nose, suspiciously close to a laugh.
Valora turned away so they would not see the satisfaction threatening at the corners of her mouth.
When she faced Marissa again, her expression was composed.
“It is,” she said. “Very.”
Marissa inclined her head. “Then I am glad you asked better questions than they deserved.”
That one did make Valora smile, small and sudden.
“You are bold.”
Marissa lowered her eyes just enough to remain proper. “Only truthful, Princess.”
Valora crossed slowly back to her chair but did not sit. “If I choose you, I will expect more of the same.”
Marissa looked up at that.
Valora continued, “Not rudeness. Not insolence. But thought. I have no use for another girl who mistakes silence for loyalty.”
Marissa held her gaze. “Then I would do my best not to disappoint you.”
There it was again. Not a promise to oppose. Not some grand declaration of defiance. Only the quiet assurance that she would think before she spoke and speak when it mattered.
That, Valora thought, was worth far more.
She glanced once toward Cedric.
His face remained perfectly respectful, but there was a knowing look in his eyes that said he had already guessed the outcome.
Valora looked back to Marissa.
“I think,” she said slowly, “that you are the first girl today who answered the question I actually asked.”
Marissa blinked. Just once.
Then she rose and dropped into a curtsy, graceful and sincere. “That is kindly said, Princess.”
“It was not kindness.” Valora’s smile returned, sharper now, pleased. “It was observation.”
Marissa straightened, and though her expression remained proper, Valora caught the flicker of relief there.
Yes.
This one would do.
“Very well,” Valora said. “If my mother agrees, you shall remain.”
Cedric’s posture shifted slightly at the door, not surprise, only quiet approval.
Marissa bowed her head. “Thank you, Princess.”
Valora studied her for one final moment, then said, “One day I will sit in rooms full of men who think pity is enough for the poor and coin too precious to be spent on those without titles. When that day comes, I would rather have someone beside me with sense than someone who only knows how to nod.”
A stillness followed the words.
Marissa’s answer came softly, but without hesitation.
“Then I will make certain I am useful to you, Princess.”
Valora gave a single nod.
That was enough.
And when the door finally closed behind Marissa a little while later, Cedric looked at her and said, “So. Not dreadful, then?”
Valora sat back down at last, the first true ease she had felt all afternoon settling into her shoulders.
“No,” she said, glancing toward the door Marissa had just passed through. “Not dreadful.”
Then, after the briefest pause, she added,
“She thinks before she speaks, not on how I would take it but on the actual question she was asked. That alone puts her above half the court.” Valora smiled slightly.
The Dragonpit has seen countless riders claim their dragons.
Valora Velaryon steps forward.
Before her stands Naelys, waiting. Watching. Choosing.
And when fire meets fire, when fear gives way to something stronger, the bond is sealed in flame and sky.
Because some are not taught to fly.
Some are born for it.
The Dragonpit had never felt so large.
Or perhaps it was simply that Valora Velaryon had never felt so small within it.
The cavernous dome stretched endlessly overhead, the air thick with heat, ash, and the low, ever-present rumble of dragons shifting in their chains. The scent of smoke clung to everything. It filled her lungs with every breath, sharp and unfamiliar, yet not entirely unpleasant.
Exciting.
Terrifying.
Perfect.
Eight-year-old Valora stood at the edge of the pit’s inner ring, her small hands clenched tightly at her sides, violet eyes fixed on the dragon before her.
Naelys.
She was not the largest dragon in the pit, nor the most fearsome to an outsider’s eye. But to Valora, she might as well have been the greatest creature in all the world.
Sleek and elegant, Naelys’ scales shimmered in deep shades of black and molten crimson, catching the torchlight like living embers. Smoke curled lazily from her nostrils as she shifted, her long tail dragging against the stone with a low scrape.
Waiting.
Watching.
For her.
Valora swallowed.
“You do not have to do this today, Princess.”
The voice came from just behind her, steady and calm.
Ser Cedric Caswell.
Seventeen, newly sworn, and already shadowing her every step like he had been born to the role. He stood a pace behind her, hand resting lightly on the pommel of his sword, though his attention was not on threats.
It was on her.
Always on her.
But Cedric was not the only one watching.
A short distance away, Rhaenyra stood with one hand pressed lightly over her lips, unable to hide the nervous pride in her eyes. Beside her was Laenor, trying very hard to appear calm and failing rather spectacularly. His smile came and went in restless flashes, his gaze never leaving his daughter for even a second.
Near them, six-year-old Jacaerys was practically vibrating with excitement, looking between his sister and Naelys with bright, eager eyes, while three-year-old Lucaerys clung stubbornly to Laenor’s hand, too young to fully understand the enormity of the moment but aware enough to know that something important, and perhaps a little frightening, was happening.
King Viserys stood nearby as well, leaning slightly upon his cane, his expression softer than any of the dragonkeepers had ever seen it. There was pride there, deep and glowing, and something almost awed, as though seeing his granddaughter before her dragon made the future feel briefly, beautifully certain.
And just beside one of the pillars stood nine-year-old Helaena, quiet and still as ever, her head tilted slightly as she watched Valora with wide, thoughtful eyes. Unlike the others, she said nothing. She simply observed, fingers loosely clasped before her, as if she were listening to something no one else could hear.
Valora didn’t turn around.
“If I do not do it today,” she said, voice quieter than she would have liked, “I will simply have to do it tomorrow.”
Cedric huffed softly, almost amused.
“That is… unfortunately true.”
That made her smile, just a little.
From behind, Jace whispered far too loudly, “She’s going to do it.”
“She is,” Viserys murmured, and though his voice was quiet, it carried absolute certainty.
Luke looked up at his father. “Lora fly?”
Laenor squeezed his little hand gently. “Yes, my love,” he said softly, eyes fixed on Valora. “Your sister is going to fly.”
Helaena’s gaze remained on Valora and Naelys. “She won’t fall,” she said softly.
The adults turned at that, but the young princess only kept watching the dragon.
Valora took a step forward.
The dragonkeepers stood at a respectful distance, watching carefully but saying nothing. This was not their moment to command.
This was hers.
Valora approached slowly, her heart pounding so loudly she was certain everyone could hear it. Each step echoed against the stone, far too loud in her ears.
Naelys’ head shifted.
Her great, molten eyes fixed on the small girl approaching her.
For a moment, the world seemed to still.
No sound.
No breath.
Just dragon and rider.
Behind her, Rhaenyra’s hand tightened around one of the rings on her fingers. Laenor moved half a step closer to her without realising it. Even Viserys straightened slightly.
Valora lifted her chin.
“Naelys,” she murmured softly, slipping into High Valyrian as naturally as breathing. “Dohaerās.”
Serve.
The dragon’s nostrils flared.
A thin stream of smoke curled between them.
Behind her, Cedric tensed slightly, though he did not move.
Jace held his breath so dramatically that Laenor had to briefly put a hand on his shoulder.
“Breathe, Jace,” he muttered.
“I am breathing,” Jace whispered back, without actually doing so.
Valora stepped closer.
Closer.
Close enough now that she could feel the heat radiating from Naelys’ scales, like standing beside a living flame.
She reached out.
Her hand hovered for only a second before pressing gently against the dragon’s snout.
Warm.
Alive.
Real.
Naelys let out a low rumble, deep and resonant, vibrating through Valora’s bones.
But she did not pull away.
Valora smiled.
“There you are,” she whispered.
The dragon lowered her head slightly.
Submission.
Acceptance.
Bond.
Behind her, Cedric let out a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding.
“Well,” he muttered under his breath, “that answers that.”
Rhaenyra’s eyes filled at once with relieved pride. Laenor laughed softly, the sound bright with disbelief and joy.
“She accepted her,” he said, unable to stop smiling.
“Of course she did,” Viserys said warmly. “That is my granddaughter.”
Jace looked delighted beyond reason. “I knew she would. I knew it.”
Luke, encouraged by everyone’s smiles, clapped his little hands once and beamed. “Lora!”
Helaena’s lips lifted in the faintest, quietest smile.
Valora didn’t hear any of them.
She was already moving.
The dragonkeepers stepped forward to assist, but Valora shook her head firmly.
“I can do it.”
There was a brief hesitation.
Then they stepped back.
Cedric moved closer instinctively, ready to catch her if she slipped, but he stopped himself just short of interfering.
Valora grasped the saddle straps, her small hands steady despite the way her heart raced.
She pulled herself up.
It took effort.
More than she had expected.
But she did not falter.
Not once.
Jace bounced on his feet. “Look at her. Look at her!”
“She has your stubbornness,” Laenor murmured to Rhaenyra, though his eyes shone with pride.
Rhaenyra laughed softly. “Only mine?”
And then Valora was there.
Seated atop Naelys.
For a moment, she simply… breathed.
The world looked different from here.
Higher.
Wider.
Like she could see everything.
Like she could be anything.
Cedric stepped forward, unable to stop himself this time.
“Princess,” he called, a hint of something almost like pride threading through his voice, “try not to fall.”
Valora laughed.
Actually laughed.
“I will do my best, Ser Cedric.”
That finally drew a helpless laugh from Rhaenyra too, some of her fear loosening.
Viserys smiled so broadly it nearly transformed him. “She sounds as though she has been doing this for years.”
Valora’s hands tightened instinctively on the saddle.
Fear flickered.
Sharp and sudden.
Then excitement swallowed it whole.
“Rytsas,” she whispered.
Forward.
Naelys moved.
Slow at first.
Deliberate.
Each step heavy against the stone.
Valora’s breath caught.
She was moving.
She was actually moving.
“Good,” she murmured, more to herself than the dragon.
Then, louder, more certain, “Sōvēs.”
Fly.
Naelys’ wings unfurled.
Massive.
Powerful.
The air shifted with the force of it, wind whipping through the pit, sending dust and ash spiralling into the air.
Cedric took an instinctive step back, one arm lifting slightly to shield his face as he looked up.
“Gods…” he breathed.
Rhaenyra smiled joyfully at the scene.
Laenor stepped in front of Luke on instinct, though the boy only peered around him with wide, fascinated eyes. Jace grinned so hard it looked almost painful.
Viserys stared upward, wonder plain across his face.
And Helaena simply watched, completely still.
Naelys leapt.
The ground dropped away.
Valora gasped, fingers gripping tight as the sudden lift stole the breath from her lungs.
Rhaenyra made a small, startled sound.
Laenor reached blindly for her hand and found it at once.
For a heartbeat, pure terror surged through Valora.
Then the wind rushed past her face.
The pit opened beneath them.
The sky above.
And something inside her…
Clicked.
She laughed again, louder this time, wild and free.
“Naelys!”
The dragon roared in response, flames flickering briefly between her teeth as she soared upward.
Below, Jace actually shouted in triumph.
“She’s flying! She’s flying!”
Luke jumped up and down in place, chanting the only thing he could think to say. “Lora fly. Lora fly.”
Laenor was laughing now too, bright and unguarded, while Rhaenyra looked on with tears in her eyes and pride blazing across her face.
Viserys’s expression turned almost reverent as he watched his granddaughter circle above them.
Helaena clapped gently for her niece.
Below, Cedric stood rooted to the spot, staring up at the girl who had, only moments ago, seemed so small.
Now she looked like something else entirely.
Something untouchable.
Something born for the sky.
“She’s done it,” one of the dragonkeepers murmured in quiet awe.
Cedric didn’t respond.
His eyes followed her as she circled the pit, silver hair whipping behind her like a banner.
His princess.
His charge.
His… responsibility.
A slow smile tugged at his lips.
“Of course she has,” he said quietly.
High above, Valora leaned forward slightly, her fear gone, replaced by something fierce and bright.
Freedom.
Power.
Belonging.
She patted Naelys’ neck gently.
“Thank you for the ride, my Naelys,” she whispered, the words instinctive, familiar, as though they had always belonged to her.
The dragon answered with a low, pleased rumble as they soared together, rider and dragon, bound at last.
Below, her family watched her with love, awe, and no small amount of relief.
And in the heart of the Dragonpit, beneath smoke and flame and old stone, the future seemed to take wing with her.
Too certain. Too unyielding. Too unwilling to be guided when she has already made up her mind.
Choosing her sworn protector is no different.
In a yard full of knights more experienced, more suitable, more expected… she chooses none of them.
She chooses him.
And though no one quite understands it yet, though it seems like nothing more than childish insistence…
It may be one of the most important decisions she had ever made.
The training yard had never felt so serious.
Not because of the knights.
Not because of the swords.
But because eight-year-old Princess Valora Velaryon stood in the centre of it all with her arms crossed… and a look on her face that meant she had already made up her mind.
And everyone else simply hadn’t realised it yet.
Rhaenyra Targaryen stood just off to the side, watching her daughter with narrowed, thoughtful eyes.
“This is not a game, Valora,” she said carefully. “Choosing a sworn protector is not like choosing a ribbon or a book.”
Valora did not look at her.
“I know.”
Her voice was small.
Firm.
Unmoving.
Rhaenyra sighed softly.
Around them stood a handful of knights, all older, all experienced, all far more appropriate choices for a royal princess.
Men with years of service.
Men with proven loyalty.
Men who had expected this to be simple.
It was not.
Because Valora pointed.
Straight past all of them.
"I choose him."
Silence fell.
Every head turned.
Seventeen-year-old Cedric Caswell froze where he stood at the edge of the yard.
Young.
Too young, some would say.
Still not long knighted.
Certainly not the obvious choice.
Even he looked confused.
“…Princess?” he said cautiously.
Valora turned fully toward him now.
“That one.”
Rhaenyra pinched the bridge of her nose briefly.
“Valora,” she tried again, softer this time, “there are knights here with far more experience. Men who have served your grandsire, men who…”
“I don’t want them.”
The interruption was immediate.
Sharp.
Final.
Rhaenyra blinked.
That tone.
That was not childish stubbornness.
That was something else.
Valora stepped forward.
Closer to Cedric.
Her violet eyes locked onto him with unsettling certainty.
“He will do.”
Cedric straightened instinctively under the weight of her gaze.
“You honour me, Princess,” he said, though there was hesitation there, “but I am not...”
“Yes, you are.”
Again, immediate.
Again, certain.
Rhaenyra studied her daughter more closely now.
“…Why?” she asked.
A simple question.
A necessary one.
Valora hesitated.
Just for a second.
“He won’t lie to me.”
The answer came quietly.
But it echoed.
The knights shifted uncomfortably.
Rhaenyra’s gaze flicked briefly to them… then back to her daughter.
“And you believe the others would?” she asked.
Valora didn’t look away from Cedric.
“They would say what they are meant to say.”
A pause.
Then, softer…
“I can tell he would say what is true.”
Cedric inhaled slowly.
He understood then.
Not fully.
But enough.
“I am not the most skilled here,” he admitted carefully. “There are better swords. Better men.”
Valora finally looked at her mother again.
“I don’t need the best sword.”
She lifted her chin slightly.
“I need mine.”
The words settled heavily in the air.
Rhaenyra felt it then.
That instinct.
That same instinct that had guided her own choices, right or wrong, since she was a girl.
Valora was not guessing.
She was choosing.
Rhaenyra exhaled slowly.
“…You understand what this means?” she asked her daughter.
Valora nodded once.
“He protects me.”
“Yes.”
“And I trust him.”
Rhaenyra’s gaze softened, just slightly.
“…And you will listen to him, when he tells you something you do not wish to hear?”
A beat.
Valora hesitated.
“…Yes.”
Rhaenyra turned to Cedric.
“You are young,” she said plainly.
“I know, Princess.”
“You will be responsible for her life.”
His posture straightened further.
“I understand.”
“You will stand between her and every danger this world holds.”
“I will.”
No hesitation this time.
Rhaenyra held his gaze for a long moment.
Measuring.
Weighing.
Then—
“…Very well.”
The shift was immediate.
Valora’s shoulders relaxed.
Only slightly.
But enough.
Rhaenyra noticed.
Cedric dropped to one knee.
“I swear it,” he said, voice steady now. “My sword, my life, my loyalty. I will guard you, Princess, with all that I am.”
Valora stepped closer.
Too close for most royals.
Close enough to look directly at him.
“I know.”
Rhaenyra watched the exchange carefully.
And something in her chest tightened.
Because this…
This was not a child making a stubborn choice.
This was something deeper.
Something that would echo far beyond this moment.
Years later, it would be said that till the day she died Ser Cedric Caswell never left Valora’s side.
That he stood beside her.
In court.
In fire and blood.
That he was not simply her guard…
But her shadow.
Her shield.
Her constant.
But in that moment…
He was just a seventeen-year-old knight.
And she was just an eight-year-old girl who had decided without reason anyone else could understand…
Lucaerys Velaryon is born into a family already waiting for him.
An elder sister who understands her role without question.
A brother determined to do right by him.
Before Luke can speak, before he can walk, before the realm can place its weight upon him, something else is decided first:
He'll be loved and protected by those who came before him
The birthing chambers were warm with candlelight and the soft murmur of voices, though the sharp edge of labour had finally passed.
Rhaenyra lay propped against her pillows, pale with exhaustion but glowing all the same, her silver hair loose around her shoulders. In her arms rested her newborn son, wrapped securely in soft crimson and sea-blue blankets, his tiny face half-hidden against her chest.
Beside the bed stood Laenor, looking as though he was trying very hard to appear calm and dignified while failing rather miserably at hiding his joy.
Near the doorway, five-year-old Valora Velaryon stood with all the solemn importance of a child who understood that something very significant had happened. Her long silver hair had been carefully braided back, though a few strands had already escaped, and her bright purple eyes were fixed entirely on the small bundle in her mother’s arms.
At her side stood three-year-old Jacaerys, who was trying his best to be serious as well, though he kept shifting from foot to foot with poorly concealed excitement.
The moment the nursemaid opened the door wide enough for them to enter, both children hurried in, though Valora slowed herself just before reaching the bed, lifting her chin as though reminding herself she was the elder and must therefore behave accordingly.
Jace nearly walked straight into her back before stopping himself.
“Careful,” Valora whispered without looking at him.
“I am being careful,” Jace whispered back.
“You stepped on my gown.”
“I did not.”
“You nearly did.”
Rhaenyra, hearing them, looked up with a tired but fond smile.
“There are my darlings,” she murmured.
At once, both children abandoned any attempt at whispered dignity and rushed to the bedside.
Valora stopped just close enough to peer down at the babe in Rhaenyra’s arms, her expression immediately softening into wonder. Jace had to lean slightly against the side of the bed to see properly, his eyes wide.
The baby was very small.
Very pink.
And, in Jace’s opinion, not doing very much at all.
Valora, however, looked wholly enchanted with her newest brother.
Jace blinked. “He’s tiny.”
Laenor let out a quiet laugh. “That is generally how newborn babes work, yes.”
Jace ignored him, still staring. “Will he stay that tiny?”
“No,” Rhaenyra said, amusement flickering in her voice.
“I can help,” Jace offered immediately.
Valora cast him a look. “You are three.”
“And?”
“And you drop things.”
“I do not.”
“You dropped your wooden dragon in the fish pond yesterday.”
“That was different.”
Laenor coughed to hide his smile. Rhaenyra simply shook her head fondly.
Valora leaned a little closer, careful not to jostle the bed. “What is his name, Mother?”
Rhaenyra looked toward Laenor, and he smiled before answering.
“Lucaerys,” he said. “But I think we shall call him Luke.”
Jace repeated it at once, testing it carefully. “Luke.”
Valora smiled. “It suits him.”
For a moment, both children simply stared at their new brother, the room hushed around them save for the faint crackle of the fire and the soft little sounds the babe made in his sleep.
Then Jace straightened suddenly, as though remembering something vitally important.
He turned at once to Valora with complete seriousness.
“Thank you.”
Valora blinked, pulled from her careful observation of the baby. “For what?”
Jace looked almost offended that she needed to ask.
“For letting me pick Luke’s egg.”
The room went still for a brief second, all the adults’ attention shifting to the two children.
Valora’s expression softened immediately.
“You were meant to,” she said simply.
Jace shook his head, curls bouncing. “But you let me.”
Valora frowned faintly. “No. It is the rule.”
Laenor folded his arms, smiling as though he already knew exactly where this was going.
Jace, still wholly earnest, pressed on. “You picked mine.”
“Yes,” Valora said.
“And so you could have picked Luke’s too, because you’re the eldest.”
Valora drew herself up a little straighter at that, clearly pleased by the acknowledgement, but she still shook her head.
“That is not how it works. I chose your egg because you were the next babe after me. And now Luke comes after you, so you choose his.”
Jace looked back at the sleeping infant, then at his sister, and his small face brightened with pride.
“I picked a good one.”
“You did,” Valora agreed at once.
Jace beamed, then added, “I made sure it was warm.”
Laenor laughed softly. “Did you?”
“Yes,” Jace said with all the confidence of a prince making a formal report. “And I told it Luke would need a dragon because he is our brother.”
At that, even Rhaenyra let out a quiet laugh.
Valora nodded as though this were perfectly sensible. “That was wise.”
“I know,” Jace said.
Valora reached out then and took his hand briefly, giving it a small squeeze. “It was kind too.”
Jace looked ridiculously pleased with himself.
Rhaenyra watched the two of them with a look so tender it almost hurt. Exhaustion still weighed on her, but there was something deeply soothing in seeing her children like this, her daughter so composed and loving already, her son so eager to do right by his little brother.
Laenor’s gaze moved between all three of them, his smile quieter now, fuller somehow.
“Well,” he said after a moment, “I think Luke is fortunate indeed. An elder sister who watches over everyone, and a brother who chooses him a dragon before he has even opened both eyes.”
Valora glanced at the baby again, then at her parents.
“We shall both watch over him,” she declared.
Jace nodded immediately. “Yes.”
Valora looked down at Luke with all the fierce seriousness a five-year-old princess could muster. “No one will trouble him.”
Rhaenyra smiled faintly. “I pity the person who tries.”
Jace puffed out his chest. “I can be frightening.”
Valora gave him a long look.
“You cried because the kitchen cat hissed at you.”
“He was fierce unexpectedly,” Jace said with dignity.
Laenor laughed outright then, and even Rhaenyra had to lower her head for a moment, smiling against Luke’s soft hair.
Valora, apparently deciding her brother had suffered enough, turned her full attention back to the baby.
“May I hold him?”
Rhaenyra hesitated only long enough to shift carefully against the pillows. “For a moment.”
Valora climbed up onto the edge of the bed with great care, sitting still as Rhaenyra gently settled the newborn into her arms. At once, Valora went utterly motionless, as though afraid even breathing too hard might disturb him.
Jace stared at her with naked envy.
“I want to hold him.”
“You may when you are bigger,” Valora said.
“That is not fair.”
“It is true.”
Luke shifted slightly in her arms, letting out the tiniest noise, and both children froze.
Then Valora smiled down at him, soft and radiant.
“Hello, Luke,” she whispered. “I am your sister.”
Jace quickly leaned closer, unwilling to be left out. “And I am Jace. I picked your egg.”
Laenor turned away slightly, one hand rising to his mouth in a failed attempt to hide his smile.
Rhaenyra only watched, her eyes shining faintly.
Jace frowned after a moment and looked to Valora again. “Do you think he knows?”
Valora looked very thoughtful at that.
“Yes,” she decided. “I think he does.”
Jace seemed satisfied with this answer. He rested his chin carefully on the edge of the mattress, studying his baby brother with solemn devotion.
Then, in a quieter voice, he said, “I’m glad you picked mine.”
Valora looked at him in surprise.
Jace shrugged one shoulder. “Because then I got Vermax.”
Valora smiled, and this time, there was something almost teasing in it despite her age. “So this is not truly about Luke at all. It is about your dragon.”
Jace gasped. “No.”
Laenor raised a brow. “A likely tale.”
Jace flushed. “It is about both.”
“That is better,” Valora said gravely.
The room fell quiet again after that, warm and peaceful, full of the kind of joy that felt too delicate to disturb.
Rhaenyra leaned back into her pillows, watching her children gathered around their newest brother. Laenor stood at her side, one hand resting lightly against the bedpost, his expression softer than usual.
And there, in the gentle golden light of the chamber, with Luke sleeping in Valora’s careful arms and Jace keeping watch at her side as though he had already sworn himself to the task, the family felt fuller in that fleeting, precious moment.
No children. No chaos. No interruptions.
Only silence… and everything left unsaid between them.
Valora has spent years learning the shape of him, the way he moves, the way he takes control without asking.
But tonight is different.
Tonight, she chooses.
What follows is not just desire, but something deeper, a shift in balance, in trust, in the quiet understanding of two people who know each other too well to pretend anymore.
Not everything is taken.
Some things are given.
⚠️ mature content
⚠️ explicit sexual content
⚠️ nsfw
⚠️ dominant/submissive dynamics (consensual)
⚠️ power dynamics / control shift
⚠️ strong language / sensual themes
Valora's bed chambers were quiet in a way they rarely were anymore.
No small footsteps, no distant laughter, no soft cries in the night.
For the first time in what felt like years, the world beyond the doors had stilled.
Their children slept, and the silence they left behind was… different.
Heavier.
Full.
Valora stood near the edge of the bed, fingers resting lightly against the carved post, her gaze drifting over the room as if she were seeing it anew. The candles burned low, their golden light catching in the dark waves of her hair, in the faint curve of her lips that hadn’t quite decided whether to smile.
Behind her, she felt him before he spoke.
She always did.
“Quiet,” Apollo murmured, his voice low, threaded with something softer than his usual teasing edge.
Valora exhaled slowly. “Strange, isn’t it?”
His footsteps were unhurried as he crossed the room. “You say that like you don’t enjoy it.”
“I didn’t say that.”
There was a pause.
Then, closer now, his voice again, warmer.
“You’re thinking too much.”
Valora huffed a quiet laugh, though it lacked its usual bite. “I have three children. Thinking too much is part of the job.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
His presence settled behind her, close enough that she could feel the heat of him, the quiet pull of something familiar and dangerous all at once.
Once, that closeness had been overwhelming.
Now?
Now it was something she understood.
Something she *chose*.
Valora turned slowly, her gaze lifting to meet his.
There was no rush in the movement.
No uncertainty.
Just… intention.
Apollo stilled slightly at the look in her eyes.
That alone was enough to shift the air between them.
“You’re different tonight,” he said, softer now, studying her.
Valora tilted her head faintly. “Am I?”
“Yes.”
A beat passed.
“Good.”
It was quiet. Simple.
But it landed.
Something flickered in his expression then, something sharper, more aware, like he was recalibrating in real time.
Valora stepped closer.
Not hesitantly.
Not waiting.
The distance between them disappeared because she chose it to.
Her hand came up, slow and deliberate, resting against his chest, feeling the steady rhythm beneath her palm. She didn’t look away from him, not once.
“Usually,” she said, her voice softer than before but far more dangerous for it, “you decide how this goes.”
Apollo didn’t interrupt.
Didn’t move.
Didn’t breathe*, it seemed.
Valora’s fingers curled slightly in the fabric of his tunic.
“Not tonight.”
There it was.
Clear.
Unmistakable.
The shift.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
Then...
A slow smile ghosted across his lips, but it wasn’t smug this time. It was something else entirely.
Recognition.
Interest.
“Is that so?” he asked quietly.
Valora didn’t answer with words.
Instead, she stepped closer again, closing what little space remained, her other hand coming up to rest lightly at his jaw, guiding his attention exactly where she wanted it.
Her control wasn’t forceful.
It didn’t need to be.
It was calm. Certain.
Earned.
“Two years,” she murmured, almost thoughtfully. “And you still think I don’t learn.”
Apollo let out a quiet breath, something softer slipping through his usual composure.
“I never said that.”
“No,” she agreed, her thumb brushing lightly along his jaw, “you just act like it.”
Another step.
Another shift.
Now he was the one being backed toward the bed, slow enough that it felt intentional, not reactive.
Valora’s gaze never left his.
“Tonight,” she said softly, “you’re not in control.”
The words settled between them like a promise.
Or a challenge.
Apollo’s hands twitched slightly at his sides, as if resisting instinct.
Then slowly, deliberately, he let them fall still.
“Alright,” he said, voice lower now, rougher in a way that had nothing to do with anger. “Show me.”
Valora’s lips curved faintly.
Not soft.
Not shy.
Certain.
And when she leaned in...
it wasn’t a question this time.
It was an answer.
The kiss wasn't the collision of storms it usually was. It was a slow tide.
Valora’s mouth moved against his with a deliberate, languid precision, tasting the familiar shape of him, salt and skin and the lingering scent of steel.
She felt the moment his instinct surged, the tension in his shoulders coiling tight as his hands came up to grip her waist, ready to flip them, to take the weight he was so used to carrying.
She didn't pull away, but she pressed her palms flat against his chest, a signal that was felt rather than heard, and pushed him firmly backwards.
He went, yielding to the pressure, the backs of his knees hitting the edge of the mattress. He sank down onto the furs, eyes never leaving hers, his breathing already shallower, faster.
Standing over him, Valora felt a rush of power that had nothing to do with crowns or conquests, and everything to do with the way he looked at her, like she was the only star in a sky he had spent his life studying.
She followed him down, placing one knee on the bed between his thighs, then the other, straddling his hips without settling.
Her fingers went to the laces of her sleepwear, and she undid them with agonising slowness, the fabric whispering as it parted.
Apollo’s hands moved to her hips, his thumbs stroking the curve of her waistbone, but he made no move to rush her. He waited, watching the candlelight catch the pale skin she revealed, his gaze so heavy it felt like a physical weight against her.
Leaning forward, Valora caught his wrists in a firm grip, guiding his arms up until they rested against the pillows above his head. She didn't need to tie him; the unspoken command in her eyes was enough to keep them there.
She lowered herself then, hovering just out of reach, letting her hair fall like a dark curtain around their faces, isolating them in a world of their own making. "You're going to lie there," she whispered against his mouth, a mere breath away from contact, "and you're going to let me."
Apollo’s jaw tightened, the muscles flickering as he fought the urge to close the distance between them. His gaze darkened, heavy with a desire that was equal parts frustration and reverence, but he nodded once, a sharp, jerky movement of assent. It was a surrender that tasted sweeter than victory; to see the man who moved suns and caused plagues content to simply be under her hands was a heady thing.
Valora didn't make him wait long. She shifted her hips, finally lowering herself against him, a slow, deliberate friction that tore a ragged groan from his throat. She set the pace immediately, a languid, rolling rhythm that was designed to unravel him, forcing him to match her cadence or be left behind in the wake of her pleasure.
She watched him closely, cataloguing every flicker of emotion that crossed his face, the way his brow furrowed when she slowed, the desperate arch of his neck when she ground down harder. She was chasing her own release, prioritising the heat building low in her belly, but his reaction to it was a potent fuel.
The sounds he made were uninhibited now, low curses and gasped pleas that he muffled against the curve of her shoulder when she leaned down to offer it. His hands remained fisted in the furs above his head, knuckles white with the effort of restraint, and seeing him hold back solely because she had asked him to, that display of trust sent a jolt of electricity through her veins that was sharper than any touch.
The friction between them built, a slow, intoxicating heat that threatened to sear the air from Valora’s lungs. Every roll of her hips was calculated, a deliberate drag against him that sent shockwaves spiralling up her spine. She could feel the tension in his thighs, the way his muscles quivered beneath her as he fought the instinct to surge upward and take control.
It was a battle of wills, played out in the space between their skin, and Valora was winning. Her head fell back, her breathing fracturing into ragged gasps as the coil in her belly wound tighter and tighter. The power of it was dizzying, not just in the command she held over him, but in the way her own body responded so fiercely to the restriction, to the denial of his hands.
"Look at me," she demanded, her voice husky and breathless. Apollo forced his eyes open, his gaze bleary and dark, locked onto hers with an intensity that was almost painful. The connection snapped between them, invisible and electric, and the pleasure spiked sharply, riding the edge of too much and not nearly enough.
She slowed then, torturously, rolling her hips in a deep, grinding circle that wrenched a guttural sound from deep in his chest. It was a test, a way to see how far she could push him before the last of his control frayed apart.
Sweat slicked his skin, glistening in the dim light, and Valora couldn't resist leaning down to taste the salt of it, dragging her tongue along the line of his jaw. He shuddered violently beneath her, his hips bucking involuntarily, a desperate reflex that she instantly punished by pulling away just enough to leave him aching.
The protest died in his throat, replaced by a harsh intake of breath as she sank back down, taking him fully, enveloping him in heat and tightness that left them both trembling.
The room felt incredibly small, the air heavy with the scent of musk and sex, the silence of the castle outside their chambers amplifying the wet, slick sounds of their joining. It was a slow-motion fall, a dizzying spiral where time seemed to warp and stretch, each second an eternity of sensation.
By the time the coil finally snapped, Valora was shaking, her thighs burning with the exertion of maintaining the rhythm. The cresting wave didn't crash; it rolled over her, a seismic shift that stole her breath and whited out her vision.
Valora cried out, a sharp, broken sound that Apollo swallowed as he finally, finally moved, his hands breaking free from their imaginary bonds to grip her waist, holding her steady as she rode out the aftershocks.
The feel of his fingers digging into her skin was the catalyst she needed to push her higher, wringing every last ounce of pleasure from the moment until she was left hovering in the lingering haze.
Above her, or perhaps beside her, she had lost the ability to orient herself. Apollo was panting heavily, his eyes wild, his body straining upward as he hovered on that same precipice, waiting for her to bring him home, completely at the mercy of her pace, her desire, her will.
The sight of him teetering on that razor's edge, abandoned to the rhythm she dictated, was the most intoxicating vision Valora had ever beheld. A sheen of sweat glistened on his brow, and his chest heaved with every ragged breath, muscles coiled tight with the strain of holding back. He was waiting, no, aching, for her permission, his eyes burning with a desperation that was entirely for her.
Valora slowed the roll of her hips to an agonising crawl, savouring the broken sob that tore from his throat, feeling the way his fingers bit into her skin not to steer her, but simply to anchor himself to the earth.
She leaned down, capturing his lips in a searing, possessive kiss that swallowed his moans, tasting the raw surrender on his tongue. It was a power unlike any she wielded in the daylight hours, silent and absolute, and she decided in that breathless span of heartbeats exactly when his waiting would end.
With a deliberate shift of her weight, she snapped the tenuous thread of his restraint, increasing the tempo just enough to send him hurtling over the brink. Apollo’s control shattered like glass struck by a stone; his back bowed off the mattress, a guttural cry tearing from his chest as he came, pulsing deep inside her.
Valora held on through the force of it, her name falling from his lips like a prayer or a curse, the sound raw and ragged in the quiet room. She didn't stop moving, milking every aftershock from him, drawing out the pleasure until his shudders began to subside into soft, gasping breaths. Even then, she didn't pull away, remaining joined with him in the heavy, humid silence, the only movement in the room the rise and fall of their chests as they fought to reclaim the air they’d lost.
