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.
✧ Start Here✧
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)
Percy Jackson has known Maya for only a few hours before deciding she's officially his new older sister. Maya quickly discovers that, once Percy adopts someone into his life, there's no escaping, whether it's insisting she sits next to him, saving her the best snacks, or proudly introducing her as family to anyone who'll listen.
Percy had known Maya for exactly four hours.
That was, in his opinion, more than enough time.
She'd helped him beat Pallene at Mario Kart by "accidentally" distracting his sister halfway through Rainbow Road.
She'd given him half of her chips after Pallene claimed he'd already had enough snacks.
And she'd taught him that if you said "scientifically speaking" before any sentence, adults were at least twenty percent less likely to question you.
She was brilliant.
Which was why, as far as Percy Jackson was concerned, "...You're my sister now."
The room went completely silent.
Maya blinked. "...I'm what?"
"My older sister."
"You already have an older sister." Maya retorted as she pointed to Pallene
"I know." He nodded seriously. "Now I have two."
Pallene looked up from where she was sprawled across the sofa. "...Percy."
"What?" Percy turned to her with a frown.
"You can't just adopt people," Pallene told him.
"Why not?" He shrugged.
Pallene laughed slightly. "Because that's not how adoption works."
Percy frowned. "It should be."
Maya slowly looked between the siblings. "...Does he always decide life-changing things in under five seconds?"
"Usually three," Pallene sighed.
Percy ignored them both. "So." He held out his hand. "Sister handshake."
"There isn't a sister handshake." Maya told him.
"There is now." Percy countered.
Maya stared at the offered hand. "...Do I get a choice?"
"No." Percy grinned.
"...That's concerning." Maya pulled a face.
Percy shrugged. "You'll get used to it."
Pallene snorted. "Welcome to my life."
By dinner, Percy had fully committed. "Maya's sitting next to me."
"There are other seats," Sally pointed out.
"I know." He nodded
Sally watched her son in amusement "So why specifically next to Maya?"
"'Cause she's my sister." Percy hummed.
Maya choked on her drink. "I don't remember agreeing to this."
Percy smiled "You don't have to."
"...I'm slightly alarmed." Maya turned to Pallene
"You'll be fine." Percy assured her.
Pallene hid her grin behind her glass.
Sally exchanged an amused look with Adrianna.
"So..." Adrianna asked carefully. "Maya?"
"Yes?" Maya responded, slightly intimidated by the woman.
“Congratulations.” Adrianna teased.
Pallene and Sally laughed slightly as Maya spluttered out a "...Thank you?"
The following Saturday, Maya arrived at the apartment carrying a backpack.
Percy opened the door before she'd even knocked properly. "MAYA!"
He launched himself at her.
She barely managed to catch him. "Hello to you too."
He looked up at her. "I missed you."
"...Percy." Maya laughed slightly.
"You were gone six whole days." Percy pouted.
"I saw you yesterday." Maya reminded him.
"I know." Percy grinned.
The two stared at each other in silence for a moment.
"...You're dramatic." Maya hummed
Percy smiled brightly as he said, "I learned from Pallene."
"I heard that," Pallene called from somewhere inside.
"Good!" Percy called back.
Maya laughed.
She couldn't help it.
She discovered the consequences of Percy's declaration throughout that day.
"Can Maya come?"
"Can Maya watch?"
"Maya likes pizza."
"Maya likes blue food."
"Maya needs a blue cup."
"I saved Maya a cookie."
Every sentence, every plan, every conversation.
Included Maya.
Eventually she leaned over to Pallene while Percy was distracted trying to convince Sally that dessert should happen before dinner. "...He's serious."
Pallene didn't even look up from her book. "Oh, completely."
“I don’t get a say in this, do I?” Maya asked.
The only response she got from Pallene was her laughing.
Pallene finally looked up from her book, one eyebrow raised.
"You know..." she said, marking her page with a finger. "I don't actually think there's been a single person who's successfully escaped one of Percy's friendship adoptions."
"...Friendship adoptions?" Maya repeated.
Pallene nodded solemnly. "There was the pigeon."
"The pigeon?" Maya echoed.
"It kept following him home," Pallene said as if it explained anything.
Percy nodded proudly. "Steven."
"It was absolutely not called Steven." Pallene huffed.
"It was after I named him." Percy corrected.
"It flew away." Pallene reminded him “It didn’t want to be around you anymore.” She teased.
Percy pouted at his sister "He had places to be."
Pallene snorted. "There was also the old lady in Central Park."
Maya blinked. "...He adopted an old lady?"
"I helped her carry groceries once," Percy explained.
"And then," Pallene continued, "he spent three months calling her Grandma Evelyn."
"...She wasn't your grandma?" Maya asked.
"Nope." Pallene laughed.
Percy smiled "She baked me cookies though." He said.
"...Did she know you weren't related?" Maya wondered.
Percy frowned. "I think so."
Pallene shook her head. "I'm honestly still not sure."
Sally laughed from the kitchen. "Evelyn still asks about him whenever I run into her."
"See?" Percy said triumphantly. "It worked."
Maya stared. "...That's somehow even more concerning."
Later that evening, Maya was helping Sally dry the dishes while Pallene and Percy attempted to help Adrianna set up the living room, only for it to devolve into them arguing in the living room over whose turn it was to choose a movie.
"It was my turn!" Percy yelled
"You picked the last one!" Pallene scoffed.
Percy raised his voice as he retorted, "I picked Finding Nemo."
"You always pick Finding Nemo." Pallene sighed
"Because it's good!" The younger boy defended
Pallene groaned "It's been good the last forty-seven times, it’s getting tiring!"
"It's still good!" Percy pouted.
Maya smiled despite herself.
Sally noticed. "He grows on people."
"I can see that." Maya laughed
"He has a very... determined personality." Sally gently said.
Maya nodded "I've noticed."
Sally chuckled. "I'm sorry about the sister thing."
Maya looked over. "You don't have to apologise."
"No?" Sally raised a brow at the young girl
"No." Maya smiled sheepishly. "It's just..."
She searched for the right words. "I've never really had siblings before."
Sally's expression softened. "And now?"
Maya glanced into the living room.
Percy was currently trying to convince Pallene that dolphins would absolutely beat sharks in a race because they were "friendlier." Whilst Adrianna laughed at them.
Pallene looked seconds away from throwing a cushion at him.
"...Now I apparently have one." Maya grinned.
"Two," Sally corrected gently.
Maya blinked. "What?"
"Pallene adopted you as her sister too; she’ll just never say it aloud," Sally told her.
"Movie time!" Percy announced.
Everyone migrated into the living room.
Percy immediately patted the spot beside him. "Maya."
She sighed dramatically. "You're never letting this go, are you?"
Percy looked genuinely confused. "Why would I?"
"Because normal people eventually stop calling complete strangers their siblings." Maya responded.
"We're not strangers." Percy frowned as he tilted his head.
Maya’s face scrunched slightly "We met last week."
"Exactly." Percy hummed.
“That’s not a defence for your side.” Maya groaned.
Weapons: Celestial bronze sword called Adrophagos (meaning Man-eating/Maneater) and a celestial bronze trident called Kymatophagos (meaning Wave-Eater)
Likes:
Hoodies that are too big
Baggy trousers
Strawberries
Milkshakes
Stray Kids
The Hunger Games
Marvel
Studio Ghibli Films
Anime
Dogs
Running on sand
Playing life simulators
Greasy Food
Epic the musical
Dinosaurs
Rainy days
Seashells
Sunsets by the beach
Blue raspberry sweets
Blue food
Freshly washed blankets
Collecting pretty rocks
Hoodies with pockets
Window seats
Campfires
Star gazing
Sea turtles
Bubble tea
Plushies
Dislikes:
Coffee (She's allergic to it)
Mushrooms
Stickers on water bottles
Being interrupted while reading or gaming
Clothes that feel too tight
Loud chewing
Overly spicy food
People walking painfully slowly in front of her
Running out of phone battery
Sunburn
Losing one earbud
Paper cuts
Sticky hands
Warm toilet seats (She will make a big deal out of it)
Socks with holes in them
The smell of cigarettes
The sound of Styrofoam rubbing together
Dry hands
Clothes tags that scratch
Slow Wi-Fi
Ads in the middle of videos
Hair getting stuck in lip gloss
Crumbs in the bed
Empty shampoo bottles being left in the shower
When blankets don't cover her feet
Random Facts:
Has a habit of humming songs without realising it.
Bounces her leg when she's concentrating.
Sleeps with at least one plushie, even if she'll deny it.
Always wears her hoodie sleeves over her hands when she's cold.
Has over a hundred tabs open on her phone browser.
Constantly forgets where she put her phone while it's in her pocket.
Loves making lists, but rarely follows them.
Can fall asleep almost anywhere if she's exhausted.
Will threaten to play the vengeance saga of Epic the musical if Poseidon upsets her.
Has a massive crush on Stray Kids's Bang Chan, much to Apollo's dismay.
Forces everyone close to her to watch the entirety of the Hunger Games franchise if they haven't already watched it.
Has made Apollo do a couples costume of Rogue and Gambit for Halloween
Is that person who points out extra facts or references when watching shows/movies
Usually the designated driver but happily a passenger princess with Apollo
Got drunk once on her 21st birthday, decided she hated the feeling, and hasn't touched alcohol since.
Always has a playlist for literally everything (studying, cleaning, beach days, rainy days, etc.).
Names every plushie she owns and remembers all of their names.
Has a habit of talking to dogs before she talks to their owners.
Will absolutely stop mid-conversation if she spots a sea turtle.
Will absolutely quote movies and songs in everyday conversations.
Falls asleep on long car journeys within ten minutes.
Gives all of her playlists unnecessarily dramatic names.
Always keeps at least one hoodie in the car because she gets cold easily.
Loves aquariums but always spends the longest watching the jellyfish.
Has an uncanny ability to remember random facts but forgets why she walked into a room.
Apollo has banned her from buying any more plushies because "there's no room left." She ignores him.
Has absolutely won arguments with Poseidon by quoting modern memes until he gives up.
Will absolutely use her trident to reach something instead of walking over to get it.
Has attempted to convince Apollo that Stray Kids should perform on Olympus.
Has a running competition with Percy over who can skip stones the furthest.
Knows exactly which Camp Half-Blood cabins give out the best snacks.
Is banned from "just looking" in gift shops because she always leaves with another plushie or seashell.
Has an uncanny ability to guess a demigods godly parent the first time they meet
Small Habits:
Cracks her knuckles without thinking.
Twirls a strand of hair when she's reading.
Bites the inside of her cheek when concentrating.
Paces while talking on the phone.
Keeps her phone on Do Not Disturb most of the time.
Automatically reaches for Apollo's hand when they're walking together.
Will unconsciously lean towards the ocean whenever she's near it.
Uses far too many reaction GIFs and memes in text conversations.
Will randomly say, "Wait, listen to this song," in the middle of a conversation.
Apollo introduces Maella, Viseron, and Shaenyra to the Muses, but while most welcome them with warmth, Clio struggles with the shadow Valora has cast over her sons place in Apollo’s heart.
The hall of the Muses was not quiet.
It never was.
Music lived there as naturally as breath lived in mortal lungs. It drifted between the marble pillars, wound through the gold-threaded curtains, shimmered over the polished floor, and rose up toward the open ceiling, where the sky above Olympus glowed in endless dawn.
Maella noticed the music first.
She always noticed things like that.
Not because she was the loudest of them, or the boldest, but because she had learned young to pay attention. To shifts in voices. To the spaces between words. To the moment a room changed before anyone else realised it had.
She stood at Apollo’s left side, tall and silver-haired, with golden eyes that missed very little. At seventeen, she carried herself with the careful grace of a princess raised beneath too many watchful eyes, though there was something softer in the way her fingers brushed absently against the bracelet at her wrist.
Beside her stood Viseron, the older of the twins by only a few minutes, sixteen and watchful, with blonde hair falling loose around his face and purple eyes that moved first to exits, then strangers, then back to Apollo. A small golden lyre charm rested at his throat.
He looked calmer than either of his sisters, but Maella knew him better than that. She knew the way his shoulders tightened when he was unsure.
Shaenyra stood on Apollo’s other side, the younger twin, silver-haired like Maella, chin lifted and violet gaze sharp.
She had their mother’s fire in a way that was impossible to miss. Not loud fire. Not reckless. But the sort that sat beneath the skin, waiting for a reason.
Apollo looked between the three of them.
For all his golden radiance, for all the power resting beneath his skin like sunlight waiting to burn, his expression was gentle.
Almost nervous.
That alone made Shaenyra narrow her eyes.
“You are acting strangely,” she said.
Apollo blinked.
Viseron’s mouth twitched.
Maella turned her head slightly. “She is right.”
Apollo placed one hand over his heart. “My own children, conspiring against me before introductions have even begun.”
“You look nervous,” Viseron said quietly.
Apollo’s smile softened.
For a moment, he looked not like a god of sun and prophecy and song, but like a father bringing the most precious pieces of his life before people whose approval he wished for far more than he wanted to admit.
“I am not nervous,” he said.
Shaenyra raised an eyebrow.
Apollo sighed. “Perhaps a little.”
That pulled the smallest smile from Maella.
Apollo’s gaze lingered on it, warm and fond, before he turned toward the far end of the hall.
Nine women waited beneath an arch of laurel and flowering vines.
The Muses.
Maella had heard of them all her life, in stories, in songs, in the quiet spaces of Apollo’s temples where mortals prayed for art, memory, music, poetry, and inspiration. They were beautiful, yes, but not in the same way. Each held herself differently. Each seemed to carry a world of her own.
Calliope stood at the front with calm authority, her expression already softening as she looked at the three young demigods.
Erato watched them with open warmth.
Euterpe seemed barely able to keep from smiling.
Thalia looked delighted before anyone had even spoken.
Terpsichore shifted lightly on her feet, as if resisting the urge to move to music only she could hear.
Urania’s eyes held the stars.
Polyhymnia’s presence was quiet and peaceful.
Melpomene’s gaze was grave, but not unkind.
And Clio stood apart.
Only slightly.
But Maella noticed.
Apollo noticed too.
His golden warmth did not fade, exactly, but it sharpened. The hand resting near Maella’s shoulder lowered, almost casually, until he stood a little more in front of all three of them.
It was subtle.
Protective.
Shaenyra noticed at once.
Her gaze flicked from Apollo to Clio.
Viseron’s fingers brushed the lyre charm at his throat.
Calliope stepped forward first, her smile gentle. “So these are them,” she said softly.
Apollo’s expression changed.
It was not pride alone, though pride was there.
It was love, overwhelming and unguarded.
“Yes,” he said. “These are my children.”
The hall seemed to grow warmer around the words.
Apollo turned slightly toward them. “My loves,” he said, “these are the Muses. They have been my companions, my friends, and at times the only beings in creation willing to endure my more dramatic moods.”
Thalia let out a laugh. “More dramatic moods? Apollo, you once composed an entire hymn because your sandal broke.”
“It was an excellent hymn.”
“It was eleven verses.”
“It was a tragic sandal.”
Viseron blinked.
Shaenyra looked unimpressed.
Maella smiled despite herself.
Euterpe pressed a hand over her mouth, clearly delighted.
“Oh, I like them already,” Thalia declared.
“You have barely met us,” Shaenyra said.
“Yes, and already I can tell you are the fun one.”
Shaenyra’s eyes narrowed. “I am not the fun one.”
“That is exactly what the fun one would say.”
Apollo pinched the bridge of his nose, but he was smiling.
Erato moved forward next, her gaze gentle as she studied them.
“We have heard so much about you,” she said.
Viseron glanced at Apollo. “Have you?”
Apollo suddenly looked fascinated by the ceiling.
Thalia grinned. “Constantly.”
“Not constantly,” Apollo protested.
Calliope’s mouth curved faintly. “Often.”
Euterpe hummed. “Very often.”
Shaenyra turned slowly to Apollo. “What have you told them?”
“Only flattering things.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the answer I am giving.”
Maella’s golden eyes narrowed with quiet amusement.
Apollo looked between all three of them and sighed. “I told them you were clever, brave, stubborn, and determined to make me worry before breakfast.”
“That sounds accurate,” Viseron said.
Shaenyra looked almost pleased.
Erato’s expression softened further. “And he told us of your mother.”
The warmth in the hall changed.
Not vanished.
Changed.
Apollo went still.
The Muses had never met Valora.
Maella knew that. Apollo had told them once, quietly, that Valora’s mortal life had been hidden from so many parts of his immortal one. The Muses knew her through his words only. Through songs he had never finished. Through poems he refused to share. Through the way his voice changed when he spoke her name.
That was all.
But sometimes, Maella thought, being loved by her father meant becoming known even by those who had never stood in the same room as you.
Calliope looked at Maella with careful warmth. “He said she carried herself like a queen even when she was young.”
“And like someone who would argue with fate if it displeased her,” Thalia added.
Shaenyra lifted her chin slightly. “That sounds like Mother.”
Apollo’s gaze dropped.
“Yes,” he said softly. “It does.”
Near the edge of the hall, Clio’s fingers tightened around the scroll she held.
Apollo saw the smile on his face did not change but something in his eyes sharpened.
Before Clio could speak, he turned smoothly toward Calliope.
“Calliope,” he said lightly, “would you show them the eastern alcove? I believe Maella would appreciate the old epics, and Viseron has been pretending he is not curious about the lyres since we arrived.”
Viseron blinked. “I have not been pretending.”
Shaenyra looked at him. “You absolutely have.”
“I was being polite.”
“You were staring.”
Thalia grinned. “Oh, he is definitely Apollo’s.”
Apollo placed a hand over his chest. “I am choosing to take that as praise.”
“You always do,” Melpomene said.
Calliope’s gaze flicked briefly from Apollo to Clio.
She understood her expression remained warm as she stepped toward the three young demigods.
“Come,” she said. “There are things here even your father forgets we keep.”
Apollo gasped. “I forget nothing.”
Clio’s mouth tightened.
Calliope ignored both of them with impressive grace.
Maella hesitated only briefly.
Her golden eyes moved from Apollo’s face to Clio’s stillness.
Apollo smiled at her.
It was gentle reassuring.
“Go on,” he said. “I will join you shortly.”
Maella did not look entirely convinced, but she inclined her head.
Viseron followed Calliope first, glancing once over his shoulder.
Shaenyra lingered longest, her violet eyes narrowed slightly. “Do not do anything dramatic.”
Apollo looked offended. “I am never dramatic.”
Every Muse in the hall made some version of a disbelieving sound.
Shaenyra’s mouth twitched.
Then she turned and followed her siblings.
The other Muses followed with them.
Thalia immediately fell into step beside Shaenyra, still talking. “Now, if Calliope shows you the epics first, she will make them sound dignified, but I can tell you which poets were actually insufferable.”
Calliope sighed. “Thalia.”
“What? It is important historical context.”
Euterpe guided Viseron toward the alcove where the instruments were kept, already explaining the differences between the lyres with the careful enthusiasm of someone who knew he was pretending not to be interested.
Erato walked beside Maella, speaking softly enough that her words did not carry, though Maella’s guarded expression eased slightly as she listened.
Terpsichore drifted after them with Polyhymnia, Urania, and Melpomene, their presence forming a gentle wall of warmth between Apollo’s children and the tension they were being led away from.
One by one, the Muses disappeared beneath the eastern archway.
All except Clio.
Apollo waited until the last traces of their voices faded.
Waited until even Shaenyra’s sharp reply to something Thalia said could no longer be heard.
Waited until the hall was empty of everyone but himself and the Muse of History.
Only then did the warmth leave his face.
Not all of it.
Never all of it.
But enough.
The hall of the Muses seemed to dim without the children there.
Apollo turned to Clio.
“You will not do that again.”
Clio lifted her chin. “I did nothing.”
“No,” Apollo said quietly. “Because I stopped you.”
Clio’s grip tightened around her scroll. “You bring them here,” she said, voice low, “and expect me to smile?”
“I expected courtesy.”
“Toward her children?”
Apollo’s eyes flashed. “Toward mine.”
Clio flinched, but only slightly.
Apollo took one step closer. “They have done nothing to you.”
“They exist,” Clio said, and the words came out harsher than she seemed to intend.
Apollo went utterly still.
When he spoke again, his voice was terribly calm. “Choose your next words with care.”
Clio’s face paled but grief was an ugly thing when cornered, and hers had been festering for centuries.
“My son was yours once,” she said, voice trembling now. “Your beloved. Your grief. Your greatest love. His name was carried in your songs. His death shaped your music. His flower still blooms because you could not bear to let him vanish.”
Apollo’s expression shifted, pain, old and deep but he did not look away. “I have never denied that.”
“No,” Clio said. “You simply replaced it.”
Apollo’s jaw tightened.
“You speak of Valora as though no love before her had ever mattered,” Clio continued. “You sing of her as though she remade you. You mourn her as though she was the first wound you ever took. And now her children stand in this hall wearing your light, carrying pieces of her, and you expect me to welcome them like history has not been rewritten in front of me.”
“Valora did not rewrite history.”
“She became it,” Clio snapped. “At least to you.”
The words echoed.
Apollo closed his eyes briefly.
When he opened them again, the anger in them was quieter, Sadder. “Hyacinthus is not forgotten because Valora meant more.”
Clio went still.
Apollo’s jaw tightened, as though the truth had cut him on the way out.
He had not meant to say it so plainly but he would not take it back.
Clio’s face twisted. “Then you admit it.”
Apollo held her gaze. “Yes,” he said softly. “Valora meant more, she still means more. Not because Hyacinthus meant nothing. Not because I did not love him. I did. I loved him enough that his death changed the shape of me for centuries.”
Clio’s breath trembled.
“But Valora was different,” Apollo continued. “She did not simply become a love of mine. She became home. She became the life I reached for. She showed me what it meant to be more than a god, to be a father, to be a lover, to choose a life that was not defined by worship or distance. And I found that I wanted it. I found that I loved it.”
He looked toward the eastern archway, where his children and the other Muses had gone. “And she gave me them.”
His voice softened. “That does not erase your son. But I will not pretend the loves were equal simply because the truth hurts.”
Clio’s mouth trembled. “He was my son.”
“I know,” Apollo said, the words were soft enough to ache. “I know he was your son. And I loved him. I love him still. That has never changed.”
Clio’s eyes shone.“Then why does it feel as though it has?”
Apollo looked toward the eastern archway, where his children and the other Muses had gone, though they were too far away to hear him.
“Grief tells you that every new love is betrayal,” he said. “It tells you that if another name is spoken tenderly, the old one is being erased. It tells you that healing is abandonment.”
Clio’s breath hitched.
Apollo turned back to her.“I know because I believed it once.” His voice lowered.“For centuries after Hyacinthus died, I thought loving anyone too deeply again would be another way of losing him. As if grief was loyalty. As if pain was proof.”
Clio’s face crumpled, just slightly.
“Then Valora came,” Apollo continued, “and she did not replace him. She did not take his place in a song, or a shrine, or my heart. She found me in a life where I did not remember all of myself, and somehow she still loved every broken part of me.”
Apollo swallowed.
“She became my home, Clio. Not because Hyacinthus was nothing. Not because he mattered less. But because there are some bonds even gods do not choose. Some loves arrive like prophecy already fulfilled, and no amount of history can make them smaller.”
Clio looked down.
Apollo’s voice hardened again, only slightly. “And Maella, Viseron, and Shaenyra are not symbols of your loss. They are not insults to your son. They are my children. They are grieving their mother too, even if they carry it differently than you carry Hyacinthus.”
Clio’s fingers loosened around the scroll.“You think I would hurt them?”
“I think you already wanted to.”
She looked away.
Apollo stepped back, the sharp edge in him dimming into something weary. I will not ask you to like them,” he said. “I will not ask you to forgive Valora for a crime she never committed against you. I will not even ask you to understand what she was to me.”
Clio’s eyes flicked back to him.
“But you will not wound them,” Apollo said. “Not with history. Not with silence sharpened into contempt. Not with a grief that belongs to me and you, not them.”
For a long moment, Clio said nothing then her shoulders lowered.“I am not ready to be kind.”
Apollo’s face softened by a fraction.“Then begin with being fair.”
Clio’s throat moved.
The hall held its breath.
Finally, she nodded once. “I can try.”
Apollo watched her.“You will do more than try if you speak to them.”
Clio almost smiled, though there was no humour in it.“You sound like a father.”
Apollo’s expression changed again. “I am.”
That seemed to wound Clio more than anything else.
But this time, she did not lash out.
After several long moments, Apollo turned toward the eastern alcove.
When he stepped through the archway, his face had softened again.
No trace of the confrontation remained by the time Maella looked up from an old scroll and met his gaze.
Still, she studied him for a moment.
Apollo smiled. “Finding anything interesting?”
Maella’s golden eyes narrowed faintly. “Plenty.”
Shaenyra stood nearby with Thalia, holding a comedy mask as though she was judging whether it could be used to strike someone.
Viseron stood with Euterpe, a slender flute of pale wood and gold in his hands. “I was given this,” he said.
Apollo’s expression brightened. “Were you?”
Euterpe smiled. “He has good hands for music.”
Viseron looked down, pleased despite himself.
Apollo looked at him as though the words had touched something tender. “Of course he does.”
Maella noticed the softness.
So did Shaenyra.
Neither commented.
When they returned to the main hall, Clio was still there.
Still apart.
But not quite as cold as before.
The visit continued.
Erato gave Maella a ribbon, purple threaded faintly with gold.
Apollo had once told the Muses that Valora loved purple.
He must have.
Because Erato could not have known otherwise.
“Your father said your mother favoured the colour,” Erato said gently.
Maella swallowed before nodding.“She did.”
Shaenyra glanced at the ribbon, then at Apollo, whose expression had turned distant with memory.
She looked quickly away, as if giving him privacy.
Terpsichore managed, after much persuasion and an alarming amount of bargaining, to convince Viseron into one dance. Then Maella, because she knew her brother would feel less embarrassed if she joined him.
Shaenyra refused.
Firmly.
Repeatedly.
Until Thalia called it a shame, because surely the daughter with the fiercest stare must have inherited the sharpest footwork.
Shaenyra’s head turned slowly.
Apollo muttered, “Oh no.”
Shaenyra stepped forward. “One dance.”
Thalia looked delighted.
Shaenyra lifted one finger. “And I am only proving a point.”
“Of course,” Terpsichore said solemnly.
Viseron leaned toward Maella. “She is going to enjoy it.”
“She will deny it forever,” Maella murmured.
“She is still going to enjoy it.”
Shaenyra did.
She moved with a warrior’s precision rather than a courtier’s grace, but Terpsichore adapted easily, turning the dance into something quicker, sharper, almost like a spar beneath music.
Apollo watched, bright-eyed and smiling.
For a while, the hall was warm again.
Calliope asked Maella about the stories she liked best.
Erato spoke gently of love without making it feel like something fragile or foolish.
Euterpe listened to Viseron try the flute and praised every careful note.
Thalia made Shaenyra laugh.
Clio remained near the laurel arch.
She did not join them.
But she did not leave either.
Maella noticed.
Of course she did.
After a while, Viseron’s flute slipped from his fingers and rolled across the marble.
It stopped near Clio’s feet.
The hall quieted slightly.
Clio looked down at it.
Then she bent, picked it up, and held it out to him.
Viseron approached carefully.
“Thank you,” he said.
Clio’s gaze moved over his face.
Not warmly.
Not yet.
But with something less closed than before.
Clio stepped back again, but the distance was different now.
Still there.
Still careful.
But no longer made entirely of stone.
Apollo only inclined his head.
Clio returned the gesture.
It was not forgiveness.
It was not peace.
But it was restraint.
For today, that was enough.
By the time they left, they did not leave as strangers.
Calliope kissed Maella’s brow.
Euterpe promised Viseron another lesson.
Thalia told Shaenyra she expected a rematch.
Shaenyra said nothing then, after a pause, she nodded.
Apollo looked insufferably pleased by this.
As they reached the golden doors, Maella glanced back.
Clio stood beneath the laurel arch, scroll pressed to her chest.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
Then Clio inclined her head again.
Maella returned it.
Apollo saw.
He said nothing.
He only rested a hand briefly against Maella’s shoulder, then looked to Viseron and Shaenyra with the kind of love that had survived death, grief, history, and the cruel turning of fate.
“Come,” he said softly. “Let us go home.”
And behind them, in the hall of music and memory, Clio remained silent.
When eleven-year-old Princess Valora Velaryon hears that children are starving in Flea Bottom, she does not run into danger recklessly.
She brings Ser Cedric.
And then she organises food distribution, bullies bakers into cooperation, uncovers suspicious missing charity coin, creates a queue three streets long, and earns herself a title no one on the small council approved.
Viserys is horrified.
Daemon is delighted.
Rhaenyra is furious and proud.
Otto Hightower experiences what may or may not be stress-induced chest pain.
Princess Valora Velaryon did not disappear often.
This was because, despite what certain members of the court believed, she was not a reckless child.
She did not wander into danger without thought.
She did not sneak into places she could not escape.
She did not leave the Red Keep without a plan, a purpose, and, most importantly, Ser Cedric Caswell walking two steps behind her with the long-suffering expression of a knight who had learned far too young that sworn shields were not always in command of the person they were sworn to protect.
Unfortunately, none of that made King Viserys feel better when he discovered his granddaughter had been gone since shortly after breakfast.
“She is where?” Viserys asked.
The servant standing before him went pale.
The small council chamber had fallen into a silence so complete that even Lord Beesbury stopped shuffling parchment.
Otto Hightower sat at the king’s right hand, his expression carefully controlled, though one hand had gone very still against the table.
Daemon Targaryen, who had arrived late and looked utterly unrepentant about it, leaned back in his chair with immediate interest.
The servant swallowed.
“Flea Bottom, Your Grace.”
Viserys stared.
Then he blinked.
Then he stared harder, as though the word might change into something less horrifying if he looked at it with enough royal disapproval.
“Flea Bottom,” he repeated.
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“My granddaughter,” Viserys said slowly, “is in Flea Bottom.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“My eleven-year-old granddaughter.”
The servant looked as if he wished the floor would open beneath him.
“Yes, Your Grace.”
Viserys rose from his chair so quickly that Lord Beesbury startled and nearly dropped his ledger.
“She is eleven!”
Daemon’s mouth twitched.
Otto closed his eyes.
That was never a good sign.
“She did not go alone, Your Grace,” the servant added hastily.
Viserys froze.
Rhaenyra, who had been seated nearby with Laenor at her side, went very still.
Laenor’s hand tightened on the back of her chair.
“With whom?” Rhaenyra asked.
“Ser Cedric, Princess.”
There was a shift in the room then.
Not relief.
Not quite.
But something close to the first breath after nearly drowning.
Rhaenyra shut her eyes briefly.
Laenor exhaled through his nose.
Viserys pressed a hand to his chest.
Daemon’s smile widened.
“Ah,” Daemon said. “So she did not disappear. She mounted a campaign.”
Otto’s eyes opened.
“A campaign,” he repeated flatly.
Daemon looked at him. “Would you prefer invasion?”
“I would prefer,” Otto said, voice clipped, “that the king’s granddaughter not be wandering the worst streets of King’s Landing as though she were inspecting a garden.”
“She likely is inspecting something,” Daemon replied.
Rhaenyra shot him a look. “Daemon.”
“What? It is Valora.”
That, infuriatingly, was difficult to argue with.
Because it was Valora.
Valora, who listened to petitions from behind her grandfather’s elbow and remembered names weeks after grown men forgot them.
Valora, who asked questions at council meetings that made older lords shift uncomfortably in their seats.
Valora, who collected problems like dragon eggs and sat on them until they hatched into plans.
Valora, who had once been found in the kitchens at dawn, arguing with the steward about wasted bread.
Rhaenyra’s stomach twisted.
“What is she doing there?” she asked the servant.
The servant hesitated.
Viserys’s face tightened. “Speak.”
“She is… organising food distribution, Your Grace.”
Silence.
Daemon stared.
Then, very slowly, he began to smile.
Rhaenyra covered her mouth with one hand.
Laenor closed his eyes and muttered something under his breath.
Otto’s hand moved to his chest.
Viserys looked as though someone had informed him his favourite dragon figurine had come alive and joined a rebellion.
“She is doing what?” the king demanded.
The servant winced. “Food distribution, Your Grace. Bread, broth, apples, salted fish. Ser Cedric sent word once he realised matters had become… larger than expected.”
“Larger than expected?” Otto echoed.
“Yes, Lord Hand.”
“How large?”
The servant looked deeply uncomfortable.
“There is a queue.”
Daemon laughed.
It burst out of him before he could stop it, sharp and delighted. Rhaenyra turned to glare at him, but even she could not entirely smother the stunned, horrified amusement threatening to break across her face.
Viserys pointed at Daemon. “Do not laugh.”
Daemon made no attempt to look sorry.
“Brother, your granddaughter has occupied Flea Bottom with bread.”
Otto’s hand pressed harder against his chest.
“That is not amusing.”
“It is incredibly amusing.”
“She could cause unrest.”
“She is feeding children,” Daemon said.
“That,” Otto replied tightly, “is often how unrest begins.”
Daemon’s grin turned knife-sharp. “With full bellies?”
“With expectations,” Otto snapped.
The room cooled.
Rhaenyra’s eyes moved to Otto.
Laenor’s did too.
Viserys, for all his fear, noticed.
Daemon’s smile faded into something far more dangerous.
Before anyone could speak, Rhaenyra stood.
“I am going to my daughter.”
Laenor immediately moved with her. “As am I.”
Viserys drew himself up. “I am coming as well.”
Otto looked stricken. “Your Grace, I would advise…”
“I did not ask,” Viserys said, with rare firmness.
Daemon rose lazily from his seat.
“Well. This should be worth seeing.”
Otto’s jaw tightened.
Then, because the gods were cruel and Daemon was worse, the rogue prince glanced at him.
“Coming, Otto?”
The Hand looked as though he would rather walk into dragonfire.
But he stood.
“Someone must ensure this does not become a political catastrophe.”
Daemon clapped him on the shoulder as he passed.
“Mind your chest.”
Otto went rigid.
Flea Bottom was noise.
It was shouting from windows, laughter from alleys, crying babes, barking dogs, rattling carts, splashing gutters, and the constant press of people living too close to hunger to care about courtly quiet.
The smell hit first.
Smoke, fish, ale, old straw, damp stone, sweat, and broth.
The broth was new.
Viserys stepped out of the carriage with visible horror.
Rhaenyra followed, gathering her skirts out of the muck with one hand while searching the crowd with the desperation of a mother trying not to appear desperate.
Laenor remained close beside her.
Daemon looked around with far more ease than any prince had a right to possess.
Otto looked as though every breath cost him a year of life.
Gold Cloaks stood at either end of the street, though they looked less like men controlling a crisis and more like men uncertain whether they had accidentally been assigned to guard a festival.
A crowd had gathered.
Not an angry crowd.
That, somehow, made Otto look more alarmed.
People stood in organised lines along the street. Women with tired faces held bowls. Old men leaned on sticks. Children clustered in groups, some barefoot, some carrying baskets, some watching the food with hollow-eyed focus that made Rhaenyra’s throat close.
And there, at the centre of it all, was Valora.
She stood on an overturned crate with a scrap of parchment in one hand and a piece of charcoal in the other.
Her silver hair had been tucked beneath a plain scarf, though several bright strands had escaped and made the disguise utterly useless. Her dress was simple brown wool, but the stitching was too fine, the boots too sturdy, and the child wearing it far too commanding to pass for anything other than exactly what she was.
A princess pretending she was not a princess.
Beside the crate stood Ser Cedric Caswell.
He looked tired.
Very tired.
One hand rested on the pommel of his sword, his eyes constantly moving over rooftops, alleys, hands, doorways, windows, shoulders, shadows. He had placed himself close enough to reach Valora before anyone else could. His cloak was muddied near the hem, his hair slightly wind-tossed, and his expression contained the resigned misery of a man who had spent the day arguing with a dragon hatchling and losing every single time.
Valora pointed with the charcoal.
“No, Mistress Helly. The smallest children first. If they wait too long, half of them will be too tired to eat properly.”
A woman stirring a large cookpot snorted. “You hear that? Princess says I don’t know how to feed children.”
“I said no such thing,” Valora replied. “I said hungry children become sleepier when they wait too long, and sleepy children spill broth.”
“That she did,” Cedric muttered.
Valora glanced down at him. “Thank you, Ser.”
Cedric gave her a look.
It was a look Rhaenyra recognised immediately.
It was the look every adult who loved Valora eventually learned.
The you are correct, but I am still very upset with you look.
Daemon leaned closer to Viserys.
“She has command of the field.”
Viserys did not answer.
His eyes were fixed on his granddaughter.
Valora turned sharply toward two boys carrying a basket of apples.
“Not that way,” she called. “Tom’s lot are in that alley.”
One of the boys blinked. “How do you know?”
“Because Tom tried to steal the last basket.”
Cedric’s face tightened. “And received a warning.”
Valora nodded solemnly. “A very firm warning.”
Cedric looked at her. “You threatened him with Dragonpit duty.”
“It was effective.”
“You are eleven.”
“He was stealing from starving children.”
Cedric opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Looked skyward.
Daemon grinned.
Rhaenyra pressed her lips together, though her eyes were wet.
Then Valora noticed them.
Her entire body stilled.
For one brief heartbeat, she was no longer the fierce little organiser of Flea Bottom.
She was simply a child who had been caught somewhere she knew she was not supposed to be.
Cedric noticed the change immediately and followed her gaze.
The moment he saw the king, the princess, Laenor, Daemon, and Otto, his face became the image of a man prepared to meet his execution with dignity.
He stepped down from beside the crate and bowed.
“Your Grace. Princess.”
Valora climbed down after him with as much dignity as she could manage.
Her boot slipped slightly in the mud.
Cedric caught her elbow without looking, steadying her before she could fall.
Viserys saw it.
Rhaenyra saw it.
Even Otto saw it.
Valora gently pulled her arm free and folded her hands in front of her.
“Grandfather.”
Viserys stared at her.
Then at Cedric.
Then back at her.
“You have been here all day?”
Valora hesitated.
Cedric answered before she could decide how honest to be.
“Yes, Your Grace.”
Valora gave him a betrayed look.
Cedric did not flinch.
Viserys turned to the knight.
“And you allowed this?”
Cedric’s jaw tightened.
“No, Your Grace.”
Otto’s brows drew together. “No?”
Cedric’s expression remained carefully respectful. “I advised against it repeatedly.”
Daemon looked delighted already.
Valora frowned. “Repeatedly is an exaggeration.”
Cedric looked down at her.
“Princess, I advised against entering Flea Bottom. I advised against approaching the first baker. I advised against standing on the crate. I advised against arguing with the butcher. I advised against threatening Tom with Dragonpit duty. I advised against creating runners out of street children. I advised against sending word only after the queue reached three streets.”
Valora paused.
Then she said, “Fine. Repeatedly.”
Rhaenyra made a strangled sound.
Laenor turned his face away.
Daemon laughed under his breath.
Viserys looked caught between fury and relief.
Otto did not look relieved at all.
He looked like each word had hammered a nail into his coffin.
Valora lifted her chin.
“Ser Cedric did not fail in his duty. He stayed with me the entire time.”
Cedric’s expression softened for the briefest moment.
Then he ruined it by saying, “After Her Grace made it impossible to return her to the Red Keep without physically carrying her.”
Valora gasped. “You would not have dared.”
Cedric looked at Viserys. “I considered it.”
Daemon laughed properly this time.
Rhaenyra closed her eyes.
Valora turned pink with outrage.
“I had work to do!”
Otto stepped forward. “Princess, your work is not to descend into Flea Bottom and create public spectacles.”
The street quieted slightly.
Valora’s head turned toward him.
Cedric’s hand shifted subtly closer to his sword, not because Otto was a physical threat, but because every instinct in him seemed to recognise that Valora’s temper had teeth.
“My work,” Valora said, very carefully, “is to learn how to rule.”
Otto’s mouth tightened.
“Ruling requires order.”
“Yes,” Valora agreed. “That is why I made lines.”
A child nearby giggled.
Daemon’s eyes gleamed.
Otto’s jaw flexed.
“Ruling also requires restraint.”
Valora looked past him to the line of hungry children.
Then back.
“Does it require looking away?”
The words landed with quiet violence.
Rhaenyra’s face changed.
Viserys looked stricken.
Laenor’s hand gently settled against Rhaenyra’s back.
Cedric’s expression, for all its exhaustion, filled with fierce pride.
Otto went still.
Valora’s fingers tightened around the parchment.
“I heard the servants speaking this morning,” she said. “About a child who collapsed near the lower market. They said it as if it were sad, but ordinary. As if children fainting from hunger is simply something that happens.”
Her voice wavered only slightly.
“When I asked why no one helped, I was told the city is large. That hunger is difficult. That it is not so simple.”
She looked at Viserys then.
“So I came to see what was difficult.”
Viserys swallowed.
“And?”
Valora’s eyes shone with anger.
“It is difficult,” she said. “But not impossible.”
A murmur passed through the crowd.
Cedric looked at the king.
“She asked questions, Your Grace. That is how it began.”
Valora nodded quickly, seizing the opening.
“The bakers throw away loaves they cannot sell by evening. Some are stale, but not spoiled. The fishmongers discard pieces that can still flavour broth. The kitchens in the Red Keep waste enough scraps to feed at least one street if organised properly. Mistress Helly already cooks for children when she can, but she cannot afford enough barley. There are widows doing the work of the crown with empty cupboards.”
Otto looked pained. “Princess…”
“I wrote it down,” Valora said, thrusting the parchment forward.
Viserys took it automatically.
The parchment was smudged with charcoal and fingerprints, but it was full.
Names.
Streets.
Quantities.
Problems.
Solutions.
A child’s handwriting, yes.
But not a child’s thoughtlessness.
Valora pointed to one section.
“If the crown gives protection to bakers who donate unsold bread, the guild cannot punish them for lowering prices. If donations are announced publicly, lords will compete to have their names praised. If the Red Keep kitchens are ordered to set aside usable scraps before waste is thrown out, that can begin tomorrow. If the Gold Cloaks patrol the distribution spots, fewer men will steal from children.”
Cedric added quietly, “She also identified three men skimming from previous charity collections.”
Otto’s head turned.
Valora looked sharply at Cedric. “I was going to mention that later.”
“You should mention that immediately.”
“It needed evidence.”
“You have evidence.”
“I have statements.”
“From seven witnesses.”
“One was five.”
“He was very convincing.”
Daemon looked as though he had found his new favourite entertainment in the world.
Viserys stared at the two of them, then down at the parchment.
“You have been investigating corruption?”
Valora frowned.
“I have been asking why food does not reach hungry children.”
“That,” Daemon said, “is often how one finds corruption.”
Otto shot him a look.
Daemon smiled back.
Rhaenyra stepped closer to Valora, crouching slightly despite her skirts.
“You frightened us.”
Valora’s anger softened at once.
“I know.”
“You should have told me.”
“You would have said no.”
“Yes,” Rhaenyra said immediately.
Valora looked down.
Rhaenyra’s voice trembled. “Because you are my daughter. Because you are eleven. Because Flea Bottom is dangerous, and because even with Cedric beside you, something could have happened.”
Cedric bowed his head slightly, guilt flickering across his face.
Valora saw it and quickly said, “Nothing happened because Ser Cedric was with me.”
Rhaenyra glanced at Cedric.
The knight looked miserable.
“I did not allow anyone near her without passing me first, Princess.”
Rhaenyra nodded once.
A silent acknowledgement.
A silent warning.
A silent thank you.
Valora swallowed.
“I am sorry I frightened you,” she said. “But I am not sorry I helped.”
Rhaenyra’s eyes softened painfully.
“No,” she whispered. “I know you are not.”
Viserys lowered himself slowly to one knee before Valora.
The entire street seemed to stop breathing.
Otto looked horrified.
Daemon’s expression shifted, amusement giving way to something quieter.
The king held up her parchment.
“Show me what must be done.”
Valora stared at him.
“You mean it?”
“I do.”
Otto took half a step forward. “Your Grace, perhaps this matter is better brought before the council in a more suitable—”
“No,” Viserys said.
Otto stopped.
Viserys did not look away from Valora.
“The council has had many years to discuss hunger in my city,” he said. “Today, my granddaughter has done more than discuss it.”
The crowd murmured again.
Valora’s face lit with something so bright it made Rhaenyra ache.
Then, because she was Valora, she immediately turned serious and pointed at the parchment.
Valora continued, “And Mistress Helly needs a proper pot. This one is cracked.”
Mistress Helly waved a ladle. “Still works.”
“It leaks.”
“Only a little.”
“It leaks broth,” Valora said, scandalised. “That is the worst thing for a broth pot to leak.”
Viserys, helplessly, laughed.
It sounded surprised out of him.
Rhaenyra smiled despite herself.
Even Laenor’s mouth twitched.
Otto did not laugh.
Otto looked like he was developing a headache behind his eyes and a chest pain beneath his ribs.
Daemon noticed.
“Otto,” he said pleasantly, “you look unwell.”
“I am perfectly well.”
“You are clutching your chest.”
Otto lowered his hand immediately.
Valora looked concerned. “Are you ill, Lord Hand?”
Daemon’s grin became wicked.
Otto forced his expression into something resembling calm. “No, Princess.”
“You should sit if your chest hurts.”
Daemon had to turn away.
Rhaenyra gave him a warning look, but it came too late. His shoulders were already shaking.
Otto looked as though death might be preferable.
They stayed until the food was distributed.
Viserys did not intend to.
Rhaenyra certainly did not intend to.
Otto looked like he would have sold half his soul to leave within the first five minutes.
But Valora insisted that if she left before the final bowls were handed out, Master Hewett would attempt to hide the better loaves for paying customers, and Cedric, with the solemn air of a man confirming battlefield intelligence, admitted that she was probably right.
So they stayed.
The king stood in Flea Bottom while his granddaughter directed bakers, fishmongers, widows, children, and Gold Cloaks like a general commanding troops.
Cedric remained at her side the entire time.
Sometimes he corrected her path with a quiet, “Not that alley, Princess.”
Sometimes he stepped between her and someone who moved too quickly.
Sometimes he took baskets from children carrying too much.
Sometimes he murmured reminders that princesses should drink water after standing in the sun all day.
Valora ignored that last one twice.
The third time, Cedric simply handed her a cup and stared.
She drank.
Daemon saw and laughed.
“She obeys him better than you,” he told Rhaenyra.
Rhaenyra sighed. “That is because he asks less often.”
Laenor smiled. “And because he looks more disappointed when she refuses.”
At one point, a thin little girl with tangled hair approached Valora and held up a bruised apple.
“For you,” the child said.
Valora blinked.
“Oh. No, sweetling, you keep that.”
The girl shook her head stubbornly. “You’ve been working too.”
Valora stared at her.
Then, slowly, she accepted the apple like it was a treasure.
“Thank you.”
The girl smiled shyly and ran off.
Valora looked down at the bruised fruit in her hand.
Cedric’s face softened.
Rhaenyra had to look away.
Viserys did not.
By the time the sun began to lower, half the street knew Valora’s name.
The other half had given her a new one.
It began with a boy missing one front tooth.
He accepted a heel of bread from Cedric, looked at Valora standing on her crate again, then shouted, “Make way for the Queen of Flea Bottom!”
Valora nearly dropped her parchment.
“I am not…”
“The Queen of Flea Bottom!” another child yelled.
Then another.
Then an old woman laughed and lifted her bowl. “Aye, the little queen!”
The chant spread faster than Valora could stop it.
“The Queen of Flea Bottom!”
“The Queen of Flea Bottom!”
Valora’s face turned scarlet.
Cedric looked like he was trying very hard not to smile.
Daemon did not try at all.
Viserys stood frozen, overwhelmed and horrified and proud all at once.
Otto looked like he was hearing the first notes of his own funeral dirge.
“This is dangerous,” he murmured.
Daemon, beside him, smiled at the cheering crowd.
“No,” he said. “This is loyalty.”
Otto’s gaze sharpened.
Daemon looked at him sidelong.
“And she earned it with broth.”
The carriage ride back to the Red Keep was quiet at first.
Valora sat between Rhaenyra and Laenor, exhausted enough that she was leaning into her mother’s side without protest. The plain scarf had been removed, leaving her silver hair tangled around her shoulders. There was dirt on her cheek, charcoal on her fingers, and the bruised apple resting carefully in her lap.
Cedric rode separately with the guards, though not before Valora had apologised to him.
Properly.
With only minimal prompting.
“I am sorry I made your duty difficult,” she had said.
Cedric had looked at her for a long moment.
Then he bowed his head.
“I am not sorry I was there, Princess.”
Valora had smiled at him, small and tired.
Now, in the carriage, Viserys sat opposite her with the parchment in his hands.
Daemon lounged beside him.
Otto sat rigidly near the door, looking like a man who had aged five years in one afternoon.
Viserys glanced at Valora.
“You will not do this again without permission.”
Valora opened her mouth.
Rhaenyra said, “Valora.”
She shut it.
Viserys continued, “You will not go into the city without informing your mother, your father, or me. You will not take it upon yourself to organise Flea Bottom without royal authority. You will not frighten half the Red Keep because you have decided the adults are moving too slowly.”
Valora looked down.
“Yes, Grandfather.”
A pause.
Then she added, “But may I continue helping?”
Otto shut his eyes.
Daemon’s lips twitched.
Viserys looked at the parchment again.
“Yes,” he said quietly.
Valora’s head lifted.
Rhaenyra turned toward him.
Otto opened his eyes in alarm.
Viserys folded the list carefully.
“But properly. With guards. With supplies. With oversight. With your mother informed of every step.”
Valora nodded quickly.
“And Ser Cedric?” she asked.
Viserys looked at her.
Valora lifted her chin.
“He knows the streets better now. And people listen to him when he looks disappointed.”
Daemon coughed.
Rhaenyra covered her smile with one hand.
Laenor failed entirely to hide his.
Even Viserys smiled.
“Yes,” the king said. “With Ser Cedric.”
Valora relaxed.
Otto did not.
“Your Grace,” the Hand said carefully, “I must caution against encouraging the smallfolk to form personal attachments to individual members of the royal family in ways that might undermine formal structures of governance.”
Daemon stared at him.
“That is the most joyless way anyone has ever described feeding children.”
Otto ignored him.
Valora frowned thoughtfully.
“But should they not feel attached to the crown?”
Otto looked at her.
Valora tilted her head.
“If the crown is meant to rule them, protect them, tax them, judge them, and ask their sons to fight in wars, should they not believe the crown knows they exist?”
The carriage went still.
Viserys looked down at the parchment again.
Rhaenyra’s hand tightened gently around Valora’s.
Daemon watched Otto over steepled fingers, delighted beyond measure.
Otto said nothing.
Valora leaned back against Rhaenyra, too tired to realise she had just silenced the Hand of the King.
The carriage rolled on toward the Red Keep.
By morning, the servants would be whispering.
By noon, the city would be laughing.
By the end of the week, all of King’s Landing would know the story of how Princess Valora Velaryon went down into Flea Bottom with her sworn shield at her side, found hungry children, bullied bakers, organised broth, uncovered missing coin, and returned with dirt on her face, a bruised apple in her lap, and a title no one on the small council had approved.
The Queen of Flea Bottom.
And somewhere beside the gates, Ser Cedric Caswell quietly realised that protecting Princess Valora would never simply mean standing between her and danger.
Sometimes it would mean following her straight into it.
And making absolutely certain the danger regretted being there first.
68th Hunger Games Tributes in What Was, What Remains, And What Could Be
I thought it would be fun to introduce all twenty-four tributes for the 68th Hunger Games! Here's the full tribute roster, along with the face claims I've chosen for each of them. I hope you all enjoy putting faces to the names you'll be seeing varying amounts of throughout the Games once I finally publish What Was, What Remains, And What Could Be!
District 1
Sofia Carson as Prima and Lucky Blue Smith as Zephyrine
District 2
Lily-Rose Depp as Beatrix and Tye Sheridan as Lazarus
District 3
Julia Butters as Tabbie and Iain Armitage as Remy
District 4
Isabela Merced as Mackenzie and Archie Renaux as Koi
District 5
Quvenzhane Wallis as Venus and Asher Angel as Pascal
District 6
Vivien Lyra Blair as Cali and Woody Norman as Phoenix
District 7
Ariana Greenblatt as Delilah and Noah LaLonde as Yewan
District 8
Nikki Roumel as Isolde Weaver and Asa Butterfield as Tartan Brooks
District 9
Lola Tung as Hazel and Julian Hilliard as Soya
District 10
Xochitl Gomez as Dolly and Logan Lerman as Lennox
District 11
Marsai Martin as Pandora and Jaden Michael as Bramble
Act 1 of What Was, What Remains, And What Could Be Cast
I thought it would be fun to introduce the main cast you'll be following throughout Act 1 of What Was, What Remains, And What Could Be! Here's the face claims I've chosen for each of the major characters (or in some cases the temporary face claims for the young cast) you'll be meeting. I hope you all enjoy putting faces to the names before the story officially begins!
✧ What Was, What Remains, And What Could Be Masterlist ✧
Welcome to the What Was, What Remains, And What Could Be masterlist!
Here you'll find everything related to the story, from face claims to bonus content, one-shots, and other extras set throughout the 68th Hunger Games and beyond.
✧ Face Claims ✧
📖 Cast of Act 1 Face Claims (68th-69th Hunger Games)
📝 Cast of Act 2 Face Claims (70th-75th Hunger Games)
📝 Cast of Act 3 Face Claims (The rebellion)
📝 Cast of Act 4 Face Claims (Epilogue)
📖 68th Hunger Games Tribute Face Claims
📝 All Hunger Games Victors (1st Games to 25th Hunger Games)
📝 All Hunger Games Victors (26th Games to 50th Hunger Games)
📝 All Hunger Games Victors (51st Games to 74th Hunger Games)
Everyone in the Red Keep knows Princess Valora Velaryon is King Viserys’s favourite.
No one says it too loudly, of course.
But between the extra apple cakes, the way he lets her sit on the Iron Throne, and the council meetings he completely forgets the moment she starts talking, even the servants cannot pretend not to notice.
And Otto Hightower?
Otto Hightower is internally screaming.
Everyone in the Red Keep knew Princess Valora Velaryon was the King’s favourite.
No one said it too loudly, of course.
The Red Keep survived on careful tongues, lowered eyes, and the sort of gossip that travelled beneath doors faster than ravens could fly. Servants learned early which truths could be spoken in kitchens, which truths could be whispered in laundry rooms, and which truths were dangerous enough to keep behind one’s teeth.
But some truths were so painfully obvious that pretending not to notice them became its own form of comedy.
And the King’s love for his eldest granddaughter was one of them.
It began, according to Mina from the kitchens, with the apple cakes.
Or rather, with the extra apple cakes.
The royal family always received desserts after supper, naturally. Sweet creams, honeyed fruits, spiced cakes, sugared almonds, little tarts shaped like flowers if the kitchen girls had time and patience.
Princess Valora’s plate, however, had a habit of looking rather different.
“Two apple cakes for the Princess,” Cook would say.
“Two?” someone would ask.
Cook would look at them flatly. “Did I stutter?”
“But the Queen only requested one for each child.”
“The King requested two for Princess Valora.”
That was usually the end of it.
No one argued with the King’s requests.
Especially not when they involved his granddaughter and apple cakes.
The first time Mina carried the plate herself, she had been nervous enough to nearly trip over her own feet. She was only fourteen then, still new to the Red Keep, and terrified of doing something foolish in front of anyone with a title.
She entered the royal dining chamber with her eyes lowered and the tray balanced carefully in both hands.
Princess Valora sat beside her mother, her silver hair braided neatly over one shoulder with a purple ribbon tied at the end. She was still young then, perhaps ten or eleven, though she already carried herself with a strange little dignity that made Mina stand straighter without meaning to.
King Viserys looked exhausted.
That was not unusual.
Even before his illness grew crueler, there had always been something tired about him, something weighed down. But when Valora leaned closer to whisper something to him, his whole face softened.
Mina noticed it immediately.
So did the footman beside her, because his mouth twitched as if he were fighting a smile.
The King laughed.
Not loudly. Not with the forced merriment he sometimes used when lords made jokes too dull for any sane man to enjoy.
This was a true laugh.
Warm.
Fond.
Almost boyish.
Valora smiled up at him, pleased with herself.
Then Mina placed the dessert before her.
Valora blinked at the extra apple cake.
“Grandfather,” she said, turning toward the King with suspicion, “Mother says I am not to have two every evening.”
Viserys immediately looked toward Rhaenyra with the face of a man caught in terrible wrongdoing.
Rhaenyra arched one brow.
The King cleared his throat.
“Well,” he said, as though addressing a matter of state, “I am the King.”
Valora’s lips twitched.
Rhaenyra sighed. “Father.”
“It is one extra cake.”
“It is always one extra cake.”
Viserys leaned toward Valora and lowered his voice in a whisper that every servant nearby could hear. “Eat quickly.”
Valora laughed into her hand.
Mina nearly dropped the tray.
Not because she was shocked by royal indulgence. She had seen Prince Aegon receive wine he was too young for and pastries he did not ask for simply because he whined loudly enough. She had seen nobles demand entire meals remade because a garnish offended them.
No, what startled her was the look on the King’s face.
He looked delighted.
As if conspiring with his granddaughter over an apple cake was the happiest part of his day.
From then on, the kitchens knew.
If Princess Valora was dining with the King, there were to be extra apple cakes.
No written order was needed.
No lord had to command it.
Cook would merely glance at the serving tray and say, “Add another for the Princess.”
And if anyone forgot, the King noticed.
Once, a boy from the kitchens carried out the dessert plates and returned pale-faced, whispering, “His Grace asked where the second cake was.”
Cook slammed both hands onto the worktable. “Seven save us.”
The second cake was sent immediately.
By the time Valora turned twelve, the matter of her desserts had become one of the Red Keep’s quieter rituals.
The gardeners joked that His Grace loved the girl enough to bankrupt the castle in apples.
The kitchen girls said if Princess Valora ever asked for a whole tray, Viserys would hand her the royal treasury and tell her to purchase the orchards herself.
The cupbearers swore that once, when Queen Alicent looked pointedly at the extra apple cake beside Valora’s plate, the King simply moved it closer to his granddaughter.
No one could prove it.
Everyone believed it.
But the desserts were only the beginning.
The throne was worse.
At least, it was worse for the Hand.
Servants were not meant to stare in the throne room.
That was the first rule.
Eyes down. Hands steady. Mouth shut.
You learned to move like furniture with a pulse.
Still, everyone saw things.
Everyone saw the day Princess Valora sat on the Iron Throne.
Not beside it.
Not near it.
On it.
Technically, she had sat on Viserys first.
That was how it began.
The court had gathered for petitions, a miserable line of land disputes, tax complaints, inheritance quarrels, and one particularly loud argument involving goats. The King had been in a better mood than usual that morning because Princess Valora had returned from the Dragonpit after riding Naelys and had come directly to him, still wind-flushed and bright-eyed.
He had stopped her from rushing straight to her lessons by taking her hand and leading her to the throne room instead.
“Come with me,” he had said. “Why don’t you help with today’s petitions?”
That alone had been enough to set the servants whispering.
Little Princess Valora, summoned to petitions as if she were already half a queen.
Then it worsened.
Viserys sat upon the Iron Throne and settled Valora on his lap.
On his lap.
There were grown men in that room who had spent their entire lives dreaming of standing close to that chair, and Princess Valora was perched upon it like a child at supper.
The King leaned down to murmur in her ear.
“Pay attention, Valora. One day, this will be your seat.”
The footman near the wall went very still.
The cupbearer beside him stared so hard at the floor that he probably learned the pattern of the stones by heart.
Otto Hightower stood at the foot of the throne with his face carved into careful patience, but Talla, who served wine during councils, later swore she saw his left eye twitch.
“His eye did not twitch,” said Lysa from the laundry.
“It did,” Talla insisted. “Like a dying candle flame.”
“Men like Ser Otto do not twitch.”
“They do when the King puts Princess Rhaenyra’s daughter on the Iron Throne.”
That shut everyone up for half a second.
Then they all burst into whispers again.
Because it was true.
The King had not merely allowed it.
He had encouraged it.
A petitioner that morning, some minor lord with a beard too large for his face, began speaking about boundary stones. He addressed the King, then hesitated when he realised the child on the King’s lap was watching him with the full severity of someone twice her age.
He stumbled over his words.
Valora tilted her head.
Viserys leaned down. “What do you think, little dragon?”
The hall went silent.
Otto’s fingers tightened around the head of his cane.
The lord blinked. “Your Grace?”
Viserys waved a hand. “The Princess is listening.”
The Princess was, indeed, listening.
Valora looked at the petitioner for a long moment before saying, “If both houses claim the stones were moved, then someone should ask the people who farm the land. They would know where the boundary has been for longer than either lord has cared about it.”
There was a pause.
A very long pause.
Then Viserys smiled so widely that several servants exchanged looks.
“There,” he said proudly. “A sensible answer.”
Otto looked as though he had swallowed a nail.
The petitioner bowed quickly. “A wise suggestion, Princess.”
Valora’s cheeks flushed pink.
Viserys looked pleased enough to order another feast.
By the time the session ended, the servants’ corridors were alive.
“She answered a petition.”
“The King asked her.”
“He asked her in front of Ser Otto.”
“Ser Otto looked ready to throw himself onto the swords.”
“Which ones?”
“All of them.”
The story spread before supper.
By the next morning, the stableboys knew.
By the afternoon, the laundresses had added enough embellishment that Valora had apparently settled six disputes, named three traitors, and ordered a goat into royal custody.
The truth was funny enough without improvement.
But the Red Keep never did know when to leave a good story alone.
The council meetings were the worst of all.
At least in the throne room, Valora sitting with the King could be dressed up as education. She was Rhaenyra’s heir. One day, if the gods were kind or cruel depending on who was speaking, she would sit where he sat.
But the council chamber was different.
That was where men liked to believe they were important.
Princess Valora disrupted that belief simply by existing.
She did not always attend.
When she did, it was usually because Viserys had invited her.
And when Viserys invited her, everyone knew the meeting would take twice as long and somehow accomplish both more and less than intended.
More, because Valora asked questions that forced men to explain the parts they hoped to hide.
Less, because Viserys forgot the entire agenda whenever she spoke.
Talla saw it happen more than once.
The council would be deep in discussion about ships, coin, alliances, grain stores, border disputes, or whatever disaster the Stepstones had decided to become that week. Lord Tyland would be droning on about costs. Lord Beesbury would be squinting at figures. Otto would be watching everyone as though each breath in the room belonged to him personally.
Then Valora would speak.
Only a small comment.
A question, perhaps.
“Would the smallfolk near the ports be compensated if their boats were taken for royal use?”
Or, “If the Triarchy is attacking trade routes again, should the Crown not build permanent defences rather than pay each time they return?”
Or, “Why are we discussing the cost of preventing war as if war itself would be cheaper?”
And Viserys would turn toward her as though the Seven themselves had descended to give counsel through his granddaughter.
“Yes,” he would say, delighted. “Yes, that is an excellent point.”
Then the meeting would tilt.
Every time.
Otto would inhale.
Alicent would press her lips together.
Tyland would shuffle his parchments.
The King would ask Valora to continue.
And Valora, who always seemed to realise a moment too late that powerful men disliked being corrected by young girls, would straighten in her chair and speak carefully.
Talla had once stood by the wall holding a pitcher of watered wine for nearly half an hour while the council was supposed to discuss a dispute between riverlords.
Instead, they listened to Princess Valora explain that charitable works were not merely kindness but strategy.
“Hungry people grow desperate,” she said, hands folded over the edge of the table because her feet still did not quite reach the floor. “Desperate people become angry. Angry people become easy for ambitious lords to use. If the Crown wishes loyalty, it should be seen giving protection before it demands obedience.”
The room had gone quiet.
Viserys looked nearly tearful.
Otto looked like he was being murdered slowly.
“Very good,” the King said softly.
Valora ducked her head, embarrassed.
“My mother said something similar once.”
“Then your mother was right,” Viserys said at once.
Alicent’s cup touched the table a little too sharply.
Talla heard it.
So did everyone else.
No one reacted.
That was the second rule of serving in the Red Keep.
Notice everything.
React to nothing.
Afterwards, in the servants’ hall, Talla placed both hands on the table and said, “Ser Otto is going to combust.”
Mina frowned. “What does that mean?”
“It means one day Princess Valora will say something clever, and the Hand will simply burst into flame from the effort of not screaming.”
Cook snorted into her stew.
“He’d deserve it.”
“Cook!”
“What? I didn’t say I’d light the fire.”
The most famous incident happened during a meeting Valora was not even meant to attend.
That was what made it so perfect.
The council had been gathered for some miserable discussion about tariffs, ship repairs, and a lord from the Westerlands who believed his pride was a matter of royal concern.
Princess Valora had only come to return a book.
That was it.
She slipped into the chamber quietly, Ser Cedric Caswell just behind her, holding a leather-bound volume against her chest. She was young, though already spoken of in the halls as if she were half a princess and half a prophecy.
The King saw her immediately.
Of course he did.
He could overlook half a council chamber when he wished, but never Valora.
“Ah!” Viserys brightened. “There you are.”
Otto closed his eyes.
Only for a moment.
But Talla saw.
Valora paused near the door. “Forgive me, Grandfather. I was only returning the history you lent me. I did not mean to interrupt.”
“Nonsense,” Viserys said. “Come here.”
Valora glanced at the council table, clearly uncertain.
Several lords pretended not to look annoyed.
Otto did not bother pretending.
“Your Grace,” he began carefully, “we are in the midst of…”
“Yes, yes,” Viserys said, waving him off. “Tariffs.”
Lord Tyland looked pained. “Ship repairs, Your Grace.”
“Ship repairs, yes.” Viserys turned back to Valora. “Did you enjoy the book?”
Valora’s face lit up despite herself.
Talla felt the mood of the room change instantly.
Not soften.
Never that.
More like every man present realised, with dawning horror, that the next quarter hour had been lost.
“It was fascinating,” Valora said, stepping closer. “Though I think the author was unfair to Queen Alysanne.”
Viserys sat up. “Unfair how?”
Otto’s jaw tightened.
Valora hesitated. “I can tell you later.”
“You can tell me now.”
“Your Grace,” Otto tried again.
Viserys did not look at him.
Valora shifted the book in her arms. “Well… the passage praised King Jaehaerys for the reforms that followed their progresses, but barely mentioned that Queen Alysanne was often the one listening to the women and smallfolk who brought the issues forward. It made it seem as though wisdom only mattered once a king repeated it.”
Silence.
Deep, beautiful silence.
The kind that made servants want to hide behind tapestries just to grin safely.
Viserys stared at her.
Then he smiled.
Not amused this time.
Proud.
Painfully, obviously proud.
“You noticed that?”
Valora frowned slightly. “Was I not meant to?”
“No,” he said warmly. “You were.”
Across the table, Otto Hightower looked like a man clinging to the last thread of his patience while someone set fire to the rope.
The King forgot the ship repairs entirely.
For twenty-three minutes, according to Talla, they discussed Queen Alysanne, women’s courts, roads, wells, orphanages, and whether royal progress through the realm was best used for ceremony or investigation.
Princess Valora, by the end, had somehow convinced Viserys to ask after reports on Flea Bottom’s foundling homes.
Lord Tyland never got to finish his figures.
Otto did not speak again until Valora left.
When she finally curtsied and excused herself, Viserys watched her go with such open fondness that even Lord Beesbury smiled.
The door closed behind her.
The chamber remained quiet.
Then Viserys sighed happily.
“Bright girl.”
Otto’s smile was a masterpiece of restraint.
“Indeed, Your Grace.”
Talla poured wine and thought, He is going to scream into a pillow tonight.
That evening, the servants repeated the tale in whispers.
“She stopped a council meeting with a book.”
“No, the King stopped it.”
“Because she had a book.”
“Because she had an opinion.”
“Because she breathed near him.”
“That too.”
Mina shook her head, laughing as she kneaded dough. “The King would abandon a war council if Princess Valora came in asking about ribbon colours.”
“He nearly did,” said Arren, one of the footmen.
Everyone turned to him.
Arren froze.
Cook narrowed her eyes. “Explain.”
So he did.
Apparently, three weeks prior, the King had been meeting with Lord Lyonel and several others when Valora appeared at the door with two ribbons in hand, one purple and one blue. She wished to know which would better suit her gown for supper, because her mother favoured the blue but she preferred the purple.
Viserys considered the matter seriously.
So seriously that Lord Lyonel had to wait with a parchment in hand while the King asked whether the gown had silver stitching.
“It did,” Arren said solemnly.
“What did he choose?” Mina demanded.
“Purple.”
“Of course he did.”
“Why?”
“Because she preferred purple.”
That was another thing everyone knew.
The King did not choose what was best.
He chose what made Valora smile.
This was not entirely fair to him.
Sometimes, he did choose what was best.
It was only that, when Valora was involved, he tended to convince himself that what made her smile and what was best for the realm were naturally the same thing.
A dangerous habit in a king.
A sweet one in a grandfather.
The servants saw both.
They saw how Viserys’s face changed when Valora entered a room.
They saw how his voice softened when he called her “little dragon.”
They saw how he listened when she spoke, even when lords twice her age had already been dismissed.
They saw how he kept small carved dragons for her on his table, how he let her inspect them, how he explained histories to her with a patience he rarely showed anyone else.
They saw him ask whether she had eaten.
Whether her lessons had gone well.
Whether Naelys had behaved.
Whether her brothers were troubling her.
Whether Rhaenyra was letting her rest.
Once, Mina overheard him tell Valora, “You work too much for a girl your age.”
Valora had replied, “You work too much for a man of yours.”
The King laughed so hard he coughed.
A maester was called.
Valora looked horrified.
The King waved everyone away, still smiling.
“It was worth it,” he wheezed.
That story spread too.
Everything did.
Not to mock her.
Not truly.
There were some in the Red Keep who disliked Princess Valora, of course. Queen Alicent’s ladies spoke with tight mouths. Ser Criston looked at the girl as if her very existence offended him. Otto Hightower watched her with the grim calculation of a man who saw a political obstacle where others saw a child.
But among the servants?
Valora was liked.
More than liked, perhaps.
She remembered names.
That was enough for most.
A princess who remembered names was a dangerous thing to love.
She thanked the maids who lit her fires. She apologised when she stepped into a freshly mopped corridor. She once helped a page gather dropped parchments while the poor boy looked like he might faint from terror.
When Cook’s youngest took ill, Valora sent broth and coin without being asked.
When a scullery girl burned her hand, Valora noticed the bandage three days later and asked if the maester had given her salve.
Small things.
But servants lived on small things.
Small cruelties. Small kindnesses. Small signs of who a person truly was when no lord was watching.
So when the King spoiled her, the servants did not resent it.
They enjoyed it.
It became a sort of performance.
The King adored his granddaughter. Princess Valora pretended not to know how much. Everyone else watched the farce with deep personal investment.
Especially when Otto was present.
Otto Hightower’s suffering became, in the servants’ hall, a cherished pastime.
No one admitted this beyond the lower levels.
But it was true.
There was a particular joy in watching a man so composed be slowly undone by a girl with violet eyes and a grandfather wrapped around her little finger.
Once, during a feast, Valora asked Viserys whether the Crown could sponsor repairs to a sept near the fish markets, because the roof leaked and the children sheltering there were getting sick.
Otto began, “The royal accounts are already committed to…”
Viserys interrupted, “A roof cannot cost so much.”
Otto’s hand tightened around his cup.
Valora leaned forward earnestly. “I have drawn up a possible estimate, though I would need someone more familiar with building costs to correct it.”
From beneath the table, she produced a folded parchment.
A full estimate.
At supper.
Mina, standing near the wall, nearly choked on air.
Otto stared at the parchment like it had personally insulted his bloodline.
Viserys took it and looked delighted.
“You came prepared.”
Valora smiled sheepishly. “I thought it better than asking without knowing the cost.”
“A fine habit,” Viserys declared. “Otto, see that someone reviews this.”
Otto’s face did not move.
“As you command, Your Grace.”
Later, in the kitchens, Cook wiped tears of laughter from her eyes.
“She brought accounts to supper.”
“She ambushed the Hand with charity.”
“She’s twelve.”
“She’s terrifying.”
“She’s his favourite.”
That was the refrain.
Always.
Whenever the King allowed something ridiculous.
Whenever Valora got an extra apple cake.
Whenever she sat too close to the throne.
Whenever she interrupted a council meeting and somehow left with three royal promises and Otto looking ten years older.
She’s his favourite.
There were other grandchildren, of course.
Jacaerys was a good boy, earnest and brave, forever trying to stand taller than he was.
Lucerys was sweet-faced and nervous, quick to smile and quicker to hide behind his siblings.
Joffrey was still small, more babe than boy.
And Alicent’s children had his blood as well.
Aegon, Aemond, Helaena.
Daeron away in Oldtown.
But with Valora, it was different.
The servants could not say when it had begun.
Perhaps the day she first toddled into his chambers and demanded to see his dragon models.
Perhaps the first time she called him Grandfather instead of Your Grace.
Perhaps when he realised that Rhaenyra’s daughter had inherited not only silver hair and violet eyes, but the same bright, stubborn spark her mother had.
Whatever the cause, the result was unmistakable.
Princess Valora Velaryon could get away with nearly anything.
Not everything.
She was too well-mannered to test it often.
That made it worse.
Had she been spoiled and petulant, perhaps people would have rolled their eyes and moved on. But Valora used the King’s favour like a tool she was faintly embarrassed to possess.
She used it for extra apple cakes sometimes, yes.
But more often she used it for orphanages, food stores, dragonkeeper wages, repairs in neglected parts of the city, smallfolk petitions that had gone unanswered too long.
That was what worried Otto.
The servants understood that too.
A favourite child was one thing.
A favourite child who paid attention was another.
A favourite child who could make the King laugh, then convince him to spend money on the poor before Ser Otto could redirect the conversation?
That was dangerous.
That was power.
And everyone in the Red Keep knew it.
One afternoon, Talla passed near the council chamber just as the doors opened and Otto stepped out looking pale with controlled fury.
Inside, Valora’s voice carried faintly.
“Thank you, Grandfather.”
Viserys answered warmly, “Anything for you, little dragon.”
Otto stopped in the corridor.
For one perfect second, his face shifted.
Not enough for a lord to notice.
More than enough for a servant.
Talla lowered her eyes immediately.
But later, in the servants’ hall, she described it in detail.
“He looked like he wanted to scream.”
“He always looks like that.”
“No, this was different. This was internal screaming.”
“What does internal screaming look like?”
“Ser Otto Hightower.”
That became a phrase.
Dropped tray? Ser Otto Hightower.
Burned bread? Ser Otto Hightower.
The cooks, finding out the King had requested six extra apple cakes because Princess Valora visitors? Ser Otto Hightower.
Even years later, servants would remember those days with a strange mixture of fondness and dread.
The realm was already cracking then.
Anyone with ears knew it.
The Queen’s side and the Princess’s side. Green gowns and black loyalties. Whispers about bastards. Whispers about succession. Whispers about war before anyone dared call it that.
But in the middle of it all, there were these moments.
A girl on her grandfather’s lap, listening to petitions.
A King sneaking her apple cakes.
A council forgotten because Valora had an opinion about Queen Alysanne.
Otto Hightower staring at the ceiling as though praying for patience and receiving none.
It was easy, in the servants’ corridors, to laugh.
To whisper.
To turn royal favour into a joke light enough to carry.
But sometimes, when Mina saw the King looking at Valora, the laughter caught strangely in her throat.
Because there was something heartbreaking in it too.
Viserys loved many people poorly.
That was the thought she never said aloud.
He loved softly when firmness was needed. He loved blindly when truth stood before him. He loved by ignoring rot, by smoothing over wounds, by pretending a family could be held together if he simply refused to see the fractures.
But he loved Valora openly.
That much was true.
He loved her with extra desserts and throne-room lessons.
With softened eyes and interrupted councils.
With faith so obvious that even servants carrying wine could see it.
Perhaps that was why everyone noticed.
Because in a Keep full of secrets, schemes, and careful performances, the King’s adoration for his granddaughter was one of the few things that did not bother hiding.
One evening, after supper, Valora passed through the servants’ corridor by mistake.
She had taken a wrong turn looking for her mother’s chambers, or perhaps one of Maegor’s passages had led her somewhere unexpected. Ser Cedric was with her, looking amused rather than concerned.
The servants froze.
Princesses did not usually appear there.
Valora blinked at the sudden silence.
Then she smiled.
“Forgive me,” she said. “I appear to have gone the wrong way.”
No one moved.
No one breathed.
Then Mina, older and braver by then, curtsied quickly. “This passage leads toward the kitchens, Princess.”
Valora’s eyes brightened slightly. “Oh.”
Ser Cedric sighed. “Princess.”
“I said nothing.”
“You looked.”
“I am allowed to look.”
Mina fought a smile.
Valora glanced toward the kitchen doors. “Would the cooks happen to have any apple cakes left?”
There was a pause.
Then every servant in the corridor seemed to remember, all at once, exactly who stood before them.
The King’s favourite.
Mina smiled.
“I believe they may, Princess.”
Valora looked delighted.
Ser Cedric looked resigned.
And somewhere upstairs, Otto Hightower probably felt a chill down his spine without knowing why.
Eleven-year-old Princess Valora Velaryon has been taught how to rule, how to listen, and how to smile at men who would rather see her replaced. But she has never truly seen King’s Landing.
So, naturally, she steals a servant’s dress, drags Ser Cedric Caswell into her terrible plan, and sneaks out of the Red Keep.
By afternoon, she has mud on her hem, hay in her hair, and a stableboy calling her stupid to her face.
She likes him immediately.
Princess Valora Velaryon had been told many things in her eleven years of life.
She had been told how to sit.
How to stand.
How to hold her chin when lords spoke over her and how to lower her lashes when old women stared too closely at her hair, her eyes, her mother’s face in her features.
She had been told how to listen without looking too eager, how to speak without sounding too clever, how to smile at men who would rather see her replaced by one of her uncles and how to make them believe she had not noticed.
She had been told that one day, the Iron Throne would be her mother’s.
And then, one day, hers.
She had been told this often enough that most grown men expected it to make her vain.
It had mostly made her tired.
It had also made her curious.
Because for all that Valora had been told about ruling, she had been shown very little of the people she would one day rule.
She saw them in petitions, of course. A line of tired faces below the throne, voices shaking as they spoke of broken boundary stones, stolen sheep, unpaid debts, dead sons, ruined harvests, and lords who took more than they gave. She saw them from carriage windows when the curtains were drawn back just enough for her to glimpse the city beyond the wheelhouse: muddy streets, huddled children, fishmongers shouting over one another, women with baskets balanced on hips, boys darting between horses like they feared neither hoof nor wheel.
She saw King’s Landing.
But she did not know King’s Landing.
That, Valora decided, was a problem.
And Princess Valora Velaryon did not like leaving problems unsolved.
Which was how she ended up standing in front of a polished bronze mirror before dawn, dressed in a plain brown servant’s gown that itched at the wrists and smelled faintly of soap, smoke, and someone else.
Behind her, Ser Cedric Caswell stood with his arms folded, looking as if he was deciding whether knighthood required him to physically drag the future queen of the Seven Kingdoms back into bed.
“Princess,” he said carefully.
Valora tucked a loose strand of silver hair beneath a rough-spun kerchief and gave him a look through the mirror. “That is not my name today.”
Cedric closed his eyes.
It was never a promising sign when her sworn protector closed his eyes.
“Valora” he amended, with the sort of patience people used around wild animals and very old kings. “This is a terrible idea.”
Valora turned around. “It is an excellent idea.”
“You are attempting to sneak out of the Red Keep disguised as a servant.”
“Yes.”
“Without informing your mother.”
Valora winced slightly.
Cedric pointed at her. “That. That face means you know I am right.”
“My mother would say no.”
“Because Princess Rhaenyra possesses sense.”
“My mother would say no because she worries.”
“She worries because she possesses sense.”
Valora ignored that, which was what one did when Ser Cedric became irritatingly correct.
She moved toward the small table beside her bed and picked up the folded scrap of parchment she had been working on the night before. It was not one of her proper project plans, not like the notes she made about orphanages, wells, bakeries, drainage, or city guards. This was smaller. Simpler.
A map.
Not a very good one, admittedly, but enough.
Cedric stared at it.
“Is that meant to be Flea Bottom?”
“It is meant to be the route to the Street of Seeds.”
“That line goes directly through the Dragonpit.”
Valora looked down at the parchment.
Then she turned it the other way around.
Cedric rubbed a hand over his face. “Seven save me.”
“I do not need saving,” Valora said, stuffing the parchment into her sleeve. “I need to see the city.”
“You have seen the city.”
“From a carriage. With curtains. Surrounded by guards. That is not seeing.”
“It is safer.”
“Safer is not always better.”
Cedric stared at her for a long moment. His expression softened in a way that made Valora immediately suspicious. He only looked at her like that when he was remembering she was still a child.
She hated it when people remembered that only when they wanted to stop her.
“You are ten and one,” he said gently.
“I am aware.”
“You do not need to carry the realm today.”
Valora looked away first.
That was annoying too.
Because Cedric was very good at finding the soft places in an argument and pressing on them until they hurt.
“I am not carrying it,” she muttered. “I am looking at it.”
Cedric sighed.
“Princess…”
“Not today.”
He paused.
Valora lifted her chin. The servant’s kerchief slipped slightly, and she pushed it back into place with as much dignity as one could manage while dressed like a scullery maid who had stolen shoes half a size too large.
“Today, I am...” She hesitated.
Cedric’s brow lifted.
Valora glanced around her chamber, searching for inspiration.
Her eyes landed on the half-finished bowl of berries from supper.
“Bessa,” she announced.
Cedric stared.
“Bessa?”
“Yes.”
“You chose that because you saw berries.”
“No.”
“You absolutely did.”
Valora sniffed. “It is a fine name.”
“It is a fruit bowl with ambition.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you coming or not?”
Cedric looked toward the door. Then back at her.
He was silent for so long that Valora almost thought he would refuse.
Then he exhaled.
“I am your sworn protector,” he said at last. “Where you go, I go.”
Valora smiled.
Cedric lifted a finger. “But if we are discovered, I am telling your mother this was entirely your idea.”
“It is entirely my idea.”
“And somehow I will still be blamed.”
“That is because Mother likes me more.”
“Everyone likes you more,” Cedric muttered darkly, opening the hidden servant’s passage behind the wall tapestry. “That is half the problem.”
Valora grinned and slipped past him.
The Red Keep was different through servants’ corridors.
It was narrower.
Warmer.
Less grand.
There were no polished floors here, no heavy tapestries stitched with dragons, no great windows overlooking Blackwater Bay. The walls were close and plain, lit by thin slits of torchlight. The air smelled of wax, dust, bread, laundry steam, and the faint sourness of old stone.
Valora loved it immediately.
No one bowed.
No one stared at her as if trying to measure the crown that did not yet sit on her head.
No one whispered Princess as though the word was half blessing, half accusation.
A kitchen boy carrying a basket of onions nearly collided with her, cursed, then caught sight of Cedric behind her and paled.
“Watch it,” Valora said quickly, pitching her voice lower.
The boy blinked.
Cedric’s mouth twitched.
The kitchen boy scurried off without bowing.
Valora turned to Cedric, delighted. “He cursed at me.”
“Yes, I heard.”
“He did not know who I was.”
“That is rather the point of a disguise.”
“It worked.”
“Unfortunately.”
Getting out of the Red Keep was both harder and easier than Valora had expected.
Harder because Cedric insisted on avoiding any gate where a knight might recognise him.
Easier because the Red Keep was full of people who had somewhere to be and very little interest in one more servant girl carrying a bundle of folded linen.
The bundle had been Cedric’s idea.
“It gives you a reason to look harried,” he had said.
“I do not look harried.”
“You look like you are plotting.”
“I often am.”
“Yes. That is the problem.”
By the time they passed beyond the outer yard and into the city proper, the sun had climbed high enough to burn the morning mist from the streets.
King’s Landing hit Valora all at once.
Noise first.
Endless, layered, impossible noise.
Vendors shouting about oysters and onions. A fishwife arguing with a man over copper coins. Cart wheels grinding through mud. A baby crying somewhere nearby. Bells ringing from a sept. Dogs barking. A woman laughing so loudly that three pigeons burst from the roof above her in alarm.
Then the smell.
Salt air from the bay.
Horse dung.
Smoke.
Sweat.
Frying onions.
Rotten fruit.
Fresh bread.
Fish.
Too many people pressed too close together.
Valora stopped in the middle of the street.
Cedric nearly walked into her back.
“Bessa,” he said pointedly.
She blinked.
Right.
Not Princess.
Not Valora.
Bessa.
A man shoved past her with a crate balanced on one shoulder. “Move, girl!”
Cedric’s hand went instinctively to the dagger hidden beneath his plain cloak.
Valora caught his wrist.
The man kept walking, unaware he had almost been introduced to Ser Cedric Caswell’s temper.
Valora smiled.
“He called me girl.”
Cedric looked pained. “Yes.”
“I rather like it.”
“You would.”
They walked for hours.
Or perhaps it only felt like hours because every street demanded Valora’s attention.
She saw a woman selling ribbons from a basket and stopped to admire a faded purple one.
She watched three children chase a chicken through an alley while an old man shouted encouragement to the chicken.
She listened as a baker complained that flour prices had risen again because a lord’s steward had bought more grain than he needed and driven up the cost.
She saw a girl younger than Luke carrying a bucket nearly half her size.
She watched a boy with bare feet and a split lip steal an apple from a cart, only to be caught by the seller and cuffed hard enough to send him sprawling.
Valora moved before she thought.
Cedric caught the back of her sleeve.
“No.”
Her eyes flashed. “He hit him.”
“And you cannot reveal yourself every time someone is cruel.”
“Why not?”
Cedric’s expression tightened.
“Because today you wanted to see the city as it is.”
Valora looked back at the boy, who had scrambled up and vanished into the crowd.
The apple had rolled beneath a cart.
Her hands curled.
Cedric lowered his voice. “Remember it.”
That, somehow, was worse.
Valora did.
She remembered the alley with no drainage where filthy water pooled ankle-deep.
She remembered the woman counting three copper stars twice before deciding she could only afford half a loaf.
She remembered the children who watched pastry stalls with hungry eyes.
She remembered the stable near the Street of Seeds because that was where the horse nearly kicked her.
It happened very quickly.
One moment, Valora was peering into the stable yard because she had heard a terrible string of curses from within and wanted to know what could make someone so creative with the word “mule.”
The next, a nervous chestnut gelding reared back, hooves striking the air as a bucket clattered across the cobbles.
Valora froze.
Cedric’s arm shot out.
But before he could pull her back, someone grabbed her by the back of her servant’s gown and yanked her hard enough that she stumbled into a pile of hay.
“Are you stupid?”
Valora blinked up.
The boy standing over her looked about thirteen, maybe fourteen, with messy brown hair, sleeves rolled past his elbows, and a smudge of dirt across his cheek. He was thin in the way many city children were thin, all sharp wrists and quick movements, but there was a wiry strength to him as he turned back toward the startled horse.
“I asked,” he said, not looking at her, “are you stupid?”
Cedric went very still.
Valora, sitting in hay, stared.
No one had ever asked her that before.
Not directly.
Not with such genuine irritation.
The stableboy clicked his tongue softly, voice lowering as he approached the horse. “Easy, Copper. Easy, lad. No need to take her head off, even if she was offering it up like a cabbage.”
Valora’s mouth fell open.
Cedric made a strangled sound behind her.
The stableboy reached for the horse’s reins and stroked the animal’s neck with surprising gentleness.
“There,” he murmured. “Good boy. All noise and no murder today, eh?”
The horse huffed.
Valora slowly stood, brushing hay from her skirts.
“I was not offering my head like a cabbage.”
The boy glanced back at her.
His eyes flicked over her plain gown, her scuffed shoes, the kerchief hiding her silver hair.
“Could’ve fooled me.”
Cedric took one step forward.
Valora stepped on his foot.
He stopped.
The boy did not notice. He was busy leading the horse toward a stall, muttering under his breath.
Valora followed.
Cedric hissed quietly, “Princess.”
She ignored him.
“Bessa,” she called instead.
The stableboy looked over his shoulder. “What?”
“My name is Bessa.”
“Didn’t ask.”
Valora paused.
Then, strangely, smiled.
The stableboy frowned. “Why are you smiling?”
“You are very rude.”
“You nearly got kicked by a horse and I’m rude?”
“Yes.”
He stared at her.
Then he snorted. “You must work in the Keep.”
Valora’s stomach tightened.
Cedric’s hand shifted beneath his cloak.
She kept her face blank. “Why would you say that?”
“Only Keep servants get offended like nobles. The rest of us are too busy.”
Valora considered this.
It was an insult.
Probably.
But an interesting one.
“I am not offended.”
“You look offended.”
“I look thoughtful.”
“You look like someone just told you water was wet and now you’re considering writing a law about it.”
Cedric coughed into his fist.
Valora turned sharply toward him.
He looked away.
The stableboy jerked his chin toward a stack of buckets. “Since you’re standing there being thoughtful, make yourself useful.”
Valora blinked. “Useful?”
“Aye. Pick up that brush.”
“I do not work here.”
“Clearly. No one who works here would stand behind Copper when he’s in a mood unless they had a death wish or an empty skull.”
Cedric’s face went red.
Valora picked up the brush before her protector could commit treason in a stable yard.
“How do I use it?”
The stableboy stared at her.
“You don’t know how to brush a horse?”
“I know how to ride.”
He looked deeply unimpressed. “That wasn’t the question.”
“I have people who prepare the horses.”
“Course you do,” he muttered. “Keep servant.”
Valora bit the inside of her cheek.
It was becoming very difficult not to laugh.
The stableboy stepped closer and snatched the brush from her hand.
“Like this,” he said, demonstrating along the horse’s flank. “Firm, but not like you’re scrubbing pots. Follow the coat. Don’t stand where he can kick you. Don’t poke him in the eye. Don’t scream if he moves.”
“I would not scream.”
“You looked like a screamer.”
“I do not.”
“You absolutely do.”
Cedric made another choked noise.
Valora decided, with great dignity, that Ser Cedric was not to be trusted on these runaway trips.
She took the brush back and copied the movement. Copper shifted slightly beneath her hand, warm muscle moving under chestnut hide.
Valora stilled.
The horse tossed his head but did not kick.
The stableboy watched her.
“Huh.”
“What?”
“You’re not entirely useless.”
Valora looked at him.
He said it like praise.
Terrible praise.
But praise.
“Thank you,” she said solemnly.
The boy squinted. “That wasn’t much of a compliment.”
“I know.”
“Then why’d you thank me?”
“Because I wanted to see what you would do.”
He stared at her for a long moment, then shook his head. “Keep servants are strange.”
“My protector says the same.”
“Your what?”
Cedric made a warning sound.
Valora quickly corrected, “My... older cousin.”
The stableboy looked at Cedric, who stood in a plain cloak with the posture of a man who had been trained to kill since boyhood.
“Your cousin looks like he bites people.”
“I have considered it,” Cedric said.
The stableboy shrugged. “Fair.”
Valora’s grin widened before she could stop it.
For the rest of the afternoon, Princess Valora Velaryon helped in a stable.
Badly.
At first.
She spilled oats.
She dropped a bridle.
She tried to carry two buckets of water at once and nearly tipped one directly onto her own shoes.
The stableboy laughed so hard he had to sit down on an overturned crate.
“You said you were useful,” he wheezed.
“I did not.”
“You implied it.”
“I did not.”
“You stood like someone who thought she was useful.”
Valora glared. “What does that even mean?”
“Means you stood there.”
“That is not an explanation.”
“It was enough.”
Cedric, who had been ordered by Valora with a look to remain by the stable entrance and not frighten the boy into silence, looked as though he was enjoying himself far too much.
The stableboy’s name was Tommen.
Not Prince Tommen.
Not Lord Tommen.
Not Ser Tommen.
Just Tommen, son of a dead carter and a washerwoman who lived two streets over and had, according to him, “a voice that could scare rats from the walls.”
He told Valora this while showing her how to untangle a leather strap.
“She sounds formidable,” Valora said.
“She’s terrifying.”
“You admire her.”
Tommen looked at her like she had said something strange.
“She’s my mother.”
“As I said.”
He glanced at her, then away.
“What about yours?”
Valora’s hands slowed.
“My mother is terrifying too.”
Tommen grinned. “Good.”
“And kind.”
“That helps.”
“And clever.”
“That helps more.”
“And very beautiful.”
He rolled his eyes. “All girls think their mothers are beautiful.”
“Mine is.”
“Sure.”
Valora had the sudden, absurd urge to pull off her kerchief and inform him that her mother was Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen, Realm’s Delight, heir to the Iron Throne, and that Tommen had just said sure in the tone of someone humouring a toddler.
She did not.
It was more interesting not to.
Besides, she liked the way he spoke when he did not know.
He complained about the price of feed.
About gold cloaks who strutted through the streets like roosters.
About noblemen who rode horses half to death and then blamed stable hands when the animals went lame.
About servants from the Red Keep who thought they were better than everyone because they carried trays near people with crowns.
Valora absorbed every word.
At one point, while Tommen was showing her how to check a hoof, he said, “You’ve got soft hands.”
Valora looked down.
“I suppose.”
“That’s not good.”
“No?”
“No. Means you’ve never done proper work.”
Cedric inhaled sharply.
Valora tilted her head. “What is proper work?”
Tommen gestured around them. “This. Carrying. Cleaning. Feeding. Fixing things before they fall apart. Work that makes your back hurt.”
Valora thought of her desk covered in plans. Of ink-stained fingers. Of hours spent reading ledgers until the numbers blurred. Of petitions. Of court. Of the heavy knowledge that one day, men would look at her and expect her to fail because she was a girl, because she was young, because she was her mother’s daughter.
“My work makes my head hurt,” she said.
Tommen laughed. “That doesn’t count.”
“Why not?”
“Because everyone’s head hurts.”
Valora considered that.
Then she asked, “Do you think the people in the Red Keep know what the city needs?”
Tommen barked out a laugh.
Cedric looked toward her sharply.
Valora kept her eyes on the hoof pick.
Tommen shook his head. “No.”
“None of them?”
“Maybe some. But knowing and caring aren’t the same thing, are they?”
Valora went still.
Tommen continued, unaware he had just struck something deep and true.
“Lords come through here sometimes. Knights too. All silk and steel and no sense. They complain about the stink, the mud, the noise. Like the rest of us enjoy it. Like if we could just choose not to live near filth, we wouldn’t have thought of that ourselves.”
Valora’s throat tightened.
She thought of drainage.
Of clean wells.
Of the orphanage plans she had begun after reading about Queen Alysanne’s work.
Of all the grown men who smiled indulgently when she spoke and told her she had a gentle heart.
As if gentleness alone built anything.
“What would you change?” she asked.
Tommen snorted. “Me?”
“Yes.”
“I’m a stableboy.”
“I asked anyway.”
He gave her a strange look.
Then he shrugged, though his voice changed. Less mocking now. More honest.
“The streets flood when it rains. Not everywhere, but down near Cobbler’s Square and half the alleys near the fish stalls. The water turns foul, and then folk get sick.”
Valora listened.
“The watch does nothing unless someone pays them. Some are decent, maybe, but most just shove people around.”
Cedric’s expression darkened.
“The wells near our street taste wrong half the year. My mother boils water when she can afford the firewood, but not everyone does.”
Valora’s fingers curled around the hoof pick.
“And bread,” Tommen added. “Bread should not cost what it does.”
“No,” Valora said quietly. “It should not.”
He looked at her.
“You’ve gone strange again.”
“I have not.”
“You have. You look like you’re thinking too loudly.”
“I do not think loudly.”
“You do everything like a noble pretending not to be one.”
Valora froze.
Cedric pushed away from the stable wall.
Tommen narrowed his eyes.
For one terrible moment, Valora wondered if the game was done.
Then Tommen added, “It’s the way you talk.”
She breathed again.
“The way I talk?”
“Aye. Like a septa swallowed a law book.”
Cedric turned away.
His shoulders shook.
Valora pointed at him. “Do not laugh.”
“I would never,” Cedric said, voice strained.
Tommen looked between them. “You two are odd.”
“So you have said.”
“I’m saying it again.”
The afternoon slipped away.
Valora learned that horses liked apples but Copper preferred carrots.
She learned that stable cats were apparently “more royal than half the court” because they did nothing useful and expected feeding anyway.
She learned that Tommen could not read more than a few words but could tell when a horse was feverish by touching its neck.
She learned that the city had a pulse different from the Keep, rougher, louder, less polished, but alive in a way court rarely was.
And Tommen learned absolutely nothing about her.
Which pleased her immensely.
Until one of the stable doors opened and a knight entered.
Not Cedric.
A real knight in recognisable red and black livery, looking irritated, impatient, and far too familiar.
Valora ducked behind Copper.
Cedric immediately stepped forward, blocking most of her from view.
The knight spoke to the stablemaster first, demanding his horse be prepared quickly for a return to the Red Keep.
Valora knew him.
Ser Martyn something.
One of the household knights.
Not important enough to sit at council.
Important enough to recognise her if he looked too closely.
Tommen, unaware of the sudden danger, leaned toward her and whispered, “You hiding because you stole something?”
Valora hissed, “No.”
“Because you look like you stole something.”
“I did not steal anything.”
“Then why are you behind the horse?”
“I am brushing him.”
“You’re brushing the air beside him.”
Cedric coughed loudly.
Ser Martyn glanced over.
Valora lowered her head.
Her kerchief had loosened.
A strand of silver hair slipped free.
Tommen saw it.
His teasing expression shifted.
Not into understanding.
Not yet.
But curiosity.
Cedric moved smoothly, stepping between Valora and the knight.
“Ser,” he said.
The knight’s eyes landed on him.
A pause.
Recognition flared.
“Caswell?”
Tommen looked at Cedric.
Then at Valora.
Then at Cedric again.
“Oh,” he said slowly.
Valora closed her eyes.
Ser Martyn frowned. “What are you doing here?”
Cedric smiled with all the warmth of a drawn blade. “Walking.”
“In a stable yard?”
“Long walk.”
The knight’s gaze narrowed. “Is that…”
“No,” Cedric said.
Valora stared at him.
Tommen stared at him.
Ser Martyn stared at him.
Cedric did not blink.
The knight clearly knew something was wrong. Unfortunately for him, he also seemed to possess a survival instinct.
His gaze flicked once more toward the silver hair escaping Valora’s kerchief.
Then he paled.
“Ah,” he said.
Cedric smiled wider.
Ser Martyn turned abruptly back to the stablemaster. “The horse can wait.”
Then he left.
Very quickly.
Silence fell.
Tommen turned slowly toward Valora.
Valora adjusted her kerchief.
Tommen looked at Cedric.
“At a guess,” he said, voice faint, “he’s not your cousin.”
Cedric looked amused. “No.”
Tommen swallowed.
“And you are not a Keep servant.”
Valora sighed.
“I did say I was Bessa.”
“That is not an answer.”
“No.”
Tommen stared at her for another moment.
Then horror bloomed across his face.
He took one step back.
Then another.
Valora winced. “Please do not…”
His eyes went wider.
“Oh, gods. You talk like that because you are a royal.”
Cedric covered his mouth.
Tommen looked moments away from throwing himself into the horse trough.
“I called you stupid.”
“You did.”
“I said you had an empty skull.”
“Yes.”
“I said you looked like a screamer.”
“That one was unnecessary.”
Tommen made a small, dying sound.
Valora, despite herself, smiled.
Then laughed.
Not the soft, polite laugh she used at court when old lords said things they believed were clever.
A real laugh.
Bright and sudden and helpless.
Tommen stared at her like she had gone mad.
Cedric’s expression softened.
Valora pressed a hand over her mouth, trying to stop. “I am sorry.”
“You’re laughing?”
“Yes.”
“I insulted you.”
“Yes.”
“You could have my hands cut off.”
Her laughter died at once.
Tommen seemed to realise what he had said only after he said it.
The fear in his face was not funny.
Not even a little.
Valora straightened.
“I would never do that.”
He did not look convinced.
She took one careful step toward him.
Cedric remained still, though his eyes followed every movement.
“I mean it,” Valora said. “You helped me. You told me the truth. I asked questions, and you answered them.”
Tommen swallowed. “Because I didn’t know who you were.”
“That is why I liked it.”
His brow furrowed.
Valora glanced toward the stable doors, where the city moved beyond them, loud and muddy and alive.
“Most people speak to me as if every word has been dressed for court,” she said. “They bow. They flatter. They tell me what they think I wish to hear.”
Tommen looked at the ground.
“You did not.”
“Because I’m stupid.”
“No,” Valora said, firmly enough that he looked up. “Because you were honest.”
He stared at her.
“I do not get much honesty,” she admitted.
For once, Tommen had nothing to say.
Valora reached into the small hidden pocket Cedric had sewn inside her borrowed skirt against his better judgment. She pulled out a coin.
Cedric immediately said, “Princess.”
She ignored him.
Tommen backed away. “I don’t need payment.”
“It is not payment.”
“It looks like payment.”
“It is not.” She held the coin out. “It is for your mother. For firewood. To boil water.”
Tommen’s face changed.
Too many things crossed it at once.
Pride.
Need.
Suspicion.
Fear.
Hope, quickly buried.
“I don’t want charity.”
“It is not charity either.”
“What is it then?”
Valora thought about that.
Then she pressed the coin into his hand and folded his fingers around it.
“A royal investment in not letting people drink foul water.”
Tommen blinked.
Cedric looked toward the sky like he was asking the gods for strength.
“That sounds fake,” Tommen said.
“It is not.”
“It sounds very fake.”
“I shall make it real, then.”
He stared at her.
Valora met his gaze, all laughter gone now.
“One day, I will be queen,” she said quietly. “Before that, my mother will be queen. And I will remember what you told me.”
Tommen’s fingers tightened around the coin.
“You’d remember something a stableboy said?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Valora smiled faintly.
“Because you called me a cabbage.”
Cedric lost the battle and laughed.
Tommen’s mouth twitched despite himself.
Then he bowed.
It was awkward.
Too low.
Too sudden.
Clearly copied from watching other people and not from ever being taught.
Valora hated it immediately.
“Do not do that.”
Tommen froze halfway down. “What?”
“Do not bow to me.”
“But you’re…”
“Today, I am Bessa.”
“You’re not.”
“No,” she admitted. “But I liked being her.”
Tommen slowly straightened.
The coin remained in his hand.
“What’s your real name?” he asked, though from the look on his face, he already suspected.
Valora hesitated.
Then she removed the kerchief.
Her silver hair fell loose around her shoulders, messy from hay and stable dust, nothing like the polished braids her mother preferred.
“Valora,” she said. “Princess Valora Velaryon.”
Tommen stared.
Then, very quietly, he said, “I called the future queen stupid.”
Valora smiled.
“Yes.”
“Am I going to die?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Mostly.”
His eyes widened.
She laughed again.
“I am jesting.”
“That was a terrible jest.”
“I am told I need practice.”
“You do.”
Cedric groaned. “Boy, have you learned nothing?”
But Valora only grinned.
By the time Cedric finally managed to drag her away from the stable yard, the sun was beginning to lower, spilling gold across the muddy streets of King’s Landing.
Tommen stood by the stable doors, the coin hidden somewhere safe, looking dazed and slightly ill.
Valora turned back once.
He lifted a hand.
Not a bow.
Not a formal gesture.
Just a wave.
Valora waved back.
Cedric guided her into a quieter alley. “Your mother is going to skin me alive.”
“She will not.”
“She will.”
“I shall defend you.”
“That is what frightens me.”
Valora looked down at her gown, now stained with hay, mud, oats, and horse hair.
“I learned a great deal today.”
“You learned how to nearly be killed by a horse.”
“And how to brush one.”
“Badly.”
“And how to check a hoof.”
“Also badly.”
“And that the wells near Tommen’s street taste wrong half the year.”
Cedric fell quiet.
Valora kept walking.
“And that bread costs too much. And that the gold cloaks are not doing as they should. And that some streets flood when it rains. And that lords blame stable hands for lame horses when they ride them too hard.”
Cedric watched her.
The city noise softened slightly as they neared the passage that would take them back toward the Keep.
Valora looked up at the red walls rising above them.
“They speak more freely when they do not know I am listening.”
Cedric sighed, but there was no disapproval in it this time.
“No doubt.”
“I should do it again.”
“No.”
“Cedric…”
“No.”
“But…”
“Princess, I am fond of living.”
Valora huffed.
Cedric glanced down at her, then his expression gentled.
“Perhaps,” he said slowly, “there are safer ways to hear the city.”
Valora looked up at him.
He grimaced, as if already regretting speaking.
“I may know a few guards who hear things. Servants too. Stable hands. Market folk. People who might speak if asked by someone who does not sneer at them.”
Valora’s eyes brightened.
Cedric pointed at her. “Not alone. Not disguised. Not without informing me beforehand.”
“I informed you this time.”
“You woke me before sunrise with a servant’s dress and a map that sent us through the Dragonpit.”
“It was upside down.”
“That does not improve matters.”
Valora smiled.
Then, before Cedric could stop her, she threw her arms around his waist.
He froze.
Slowly, he rested one hand carefully on her shoulder.
“Thank you,” she said.
Cedric’s voice softened. “Always, Princess.”
That evening, Princess Valora Velaryon returned to the Red Keep with hay in her hair, mud on her hem, and three new notes hidden in her sleeve.
Rhaenyra found out before supper.
Of course she did.
Mothers, Valora had long ago learned, possessed powers no maester dared study.
Her mother stood in Valora’s chamber, holding the discarded servant’s kerchief in one hand.
Cedric stood beside the door looking like a condemned man.
Valora stood before her mother, hands folded neatly.
Rhaenyra looked at the kerchief.
Then at the mud on Valora’s gown.
Then at the hay still clinging stubbornly to her silver hair.
“Valora.”
“Yes, Mother?”
“Did you sneak out of the Red Keep dressed as a servant?”
Valora paused.
Cedric closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
Rhaenyra inhaled slowly.
Then exhaled.
“Ser Cedric.”
“My Princess,” Cedric said, with the hollow bravery of a man walking willingly toward dragonfire.
“Did you assist my daughter in sneaking out of the Red Keep?”
Cedric hesitated.
Valora opened her mouth.
Rhaenyra lifted one finger without looking away from Cedric.
Valora closed it.
Cedric swallowed.
“I ensured she did not go alone.”
Rhaenyra stared at him.
It was, Valora thought, a very diplomatic answer.
Unfortunately, her mother had taught her diplomacy.
Rhaenyra turned back to Valora. “And what, exactly, did you gain from this little adventure?”
Valora drew the folded notes from her sleeve.
Rhaenyra’s expression shifted.
Only slightly.
But Valora saw it.
She always saw it.
“The wells near Cobbler’s Square need to be inspected,” Valora said. “There are streets that flood when it rains. Bread prices have risen. Some of the gold cloaks abuse their authority. And the royal stables may need clearer rules about knights overworking horses and blaming the stable hands.”
Rhaenyra stared at her.
Cedric stared at the floor.
Valora lifted her chin.
“I know I disobeyed you,” she said. “And I know it was dangerous. But Mother, how can I help them if I never hear them?”
Rhaenyra’s face softened in a way that made Valora’s chest ache.
“Oh, my sweet girl,” she murmured.
That was worse than anger.
Valora looked down.
Rhaenyra crossed the room and knelt before her, careless of the fine fabric of her gown.
“You are right to want to hear them,” she said gently. “But you are precious to me. Not because of the throne. Not because of what you will one day be. Because you are my daughter.”
Valora swallowed.
“I know.”
“I do not think you do. Not fully.” Rhaenyra brushed a bit of hay from Valora’s hair, her mouth twitching despite herself. “Seven save me, you smell like a stable.”
Valora smiled weakly. “I helped brush a horse.”
“Did you?”
“Badly,” Cedric supplied.
Valora glared at him.
Rhaenyra’s lips trembled with restrained laughter.
Then she sighed and pulled Valora close.
Valora melted into her mother’s arms.
For a moment, she was not future queen.
Not heir after heir.
Not a clever little princess with plans too large for her years.
She was only eleven.
And her mother was warm.
“I am angry with you,” Rhaenyra murmured into her hair.
“I know.”
“You are punished.”
“I know.”
“No sneaking anywhere for a moon.”
Valora pulled back. “A moon?”
Rhaenyra arched a brow.
Cedric mouthed, Do not argue.
Valora wisely pressed her lips together.
Rhaenyra took the notes from her hand.
“But,” she said, “tomorrow, you and I will speak with Lord Beesbury about the cost of inspecting those wells.”
Valora brightened.
“And with the Commander of the City Watch.”
Her smile widened.
“And the stablemaster.”
Valora nearly bounced.
Rhaenyra touched her cheek.
“Not because you snuck out,” she said. “But because you listened.”
Valora immediately stepped in front of him. “He tried to stop me.”
Rhaenyra looked unimpressed.
Cedric said nothing.
Valora continued, “Several times.”
Rhaenyra’s brow lifted.
“And he did not let the horse kick me.”
“The horse?” Rhaenyra repeated.
Cedric looked betrayed.
Valora winced.
Perhaps she should not have mentioned that part.
Rhaenyra slowly turned her head toward Cedric.
“There was a horse?”
Cedric’s shoulders sagged.
“My Princess, in my defence…”
“There was a horse?” Rhaenyra repeated.
Valora decided then that retreat was the wisest strategy.
“I should wash before supper.”
“No,” Rhaenyra said, without looking away from Cedric. “You should stay.”
Cedric muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like, “The stableboy was right about the cabbage.”
Valora gasped.
Rhaenyra turned back.
“The what?”
“Nothing,” Valora and Cedric said together.
And for the first time all day, Princess Valora Velaryon thought perhaps being recognised was not so terrible after all.
Far below the Red Keep, in a stable near the Street of Seeds, Tommen showed his mother a coin and told her a servant girl had given it to him for firewood.
He did not mention the silver hair.
He did not mention the purple eyes.
He did not mention that he had called the future queen of Westeros stupid to her face and lived.
But years later, when people in King’s Landing spoke of Princess Valora Velaryon and said she had a strange way of knowing what the city needed before the lords ever thought to ask, Tommen would remember a girl in a brown servant’s gown standing in a stable yard with hay in her hair.
And he would think, with no small amount of pride, that the realm’s future queen had once brushed a horse very badly.
Or, at least, that is what she tells Jace after tricking Rhaena into helping Luke with his Driftmark studies.
Because if Luke is expected to become Lord of the Tides, then Rhaena deserves to learn how to stand beside him, not behind him.
Dragonstone rarely felt still.
Even in its quietest hours, the castle seemed to breathe with the sea. Wind pressed against the stone walls, waves crashed against the cliffs below, and somewhere beyond the black towers, dragons called to one another in low, rumbling cries that echoed through the island like distant thunder.
Valora had always loved it for that.
Dragonstone did not pretend to be gentle. It did not hide what it was beneath tapestries, courtesies, or polished smiles. It was old stone, salt air, fire, and blood. It was Targaryen history carved into every wall.
It was home.
Or at least, one of them.
“Valora.”
She hummed in response but did not slow her pace.
Beside her, Jace lengthened his stride to keep up, dark curls shifting slightly in the wind that swept in from the open archways.
“You are walking as though you mean to declare war on someone.”
Valora glanced at him from the corner of her eye. “Do I?”
“You have that look.”
“I have many looks.”
“Yes,” Jace said dryly. “And this is the one you wear when someone is about to regret existing within your reach.”
Valora’s mouth twitched.
At twenty, she had grown into herself with the sort of quiet certainty that made lords twice her age straighten when she entered a room. She wore a light blue gown with gold embroidery. Her silver hair was pinned back from her face in a loose braid, though strands had already escaped around her temples.
Jace had once told her she looked like Mother when she was thinking too hard.
Luke had told her she looked terrifying.
Both had been correct.
“I am not declaring war,” Valora said at last. “I am merely walking.”
“You do not merely do anything.”
“That sounds like a compliment.”
“It was a warning.”
She smiled faintly at that, and Jace narrowed his eyes because he knew that smile.
It was the same smile she had worn at twelve after convincing three lordlings to sponsor blankets and food for Flea Bottom orphans by making them believe it had been their idea. It was the same smile she had worn at fifteen before somehow persuading their grandsire to approve funds for repairs to a fishing village without ever once appearing to ask for coin. It was the same smile she had worn at eighteen when Lord Celtigar had attempted to lecture her on naval taxes and left the meeting promising ships instead.
It was the smile that meant Valora had seen several moves ahead of everyone else and was simply waiting for them to realise they were already standing where she wanted them.
Jace sighed.
“What have you done?”
“Nothing yet.”
“That is not comforting.”
They turned down another corridor, the walls opening briefly to a view of the sea below. The wind swept through, carrying the sharp scent of salt and rain. Jace glanced toward the cliffs, where Vermax rested in the distance, his green wings half-spread as if soaking in the cold air.
For a moment, neither sibling spoke.
It was rare now, moments like this.
When they were children, they had always been together. Valora, Jace, Luke, and Joffrey trailing after one another through halls and courtyards, with Valora leading more often than not, already acting as though she had personally been placed in charge of every living soul unfortunate enough to be related to her.
Now things were different.
They were older. Their lessons had become councils, their childish duties sharpened into real ones. Valora was being prepared for a crown that had always seemed distant but no longer felt impossible to imagine. Jace was being trained to stand beside her as her Hand one day. Luke had begun to feel the weight of Driftmark waiting in his future.
Jace’s gaze flicked briefly to his sister.
Valora was still smiling.
Oh.
There it was.
Ahead, at the end of the corridor, Rhaena stood near one of the arched windows, a book held carefully against her chest. Her pale hair was pulled back neatly, and her gown was a soft blue-grey that suited Dragonstone’s storm-lit halls. She appeared to be reading something, though her eyes kept drifting toward the sea.
She looked up when she heard their footsteps.
“Valora,” Rhaena greeted warmly, then smiled at Jace. “Jace.”
“Rhaena,” Jace said.
Valora’s expression brightened just enough to look innocent.
Jace immediately mistrusted it.
“Rhaena, I am glad we found you,” Valora said.
Rhaena blinked. “You were looking for me?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
Jace slowly turned his head toward his sister.
Valora ignored him completely.
“Luke has been given several new texts for his Driftmark studies,” Valora continued smoothly. “Trade routes, port duties, the histories of past Lords of the Tides, agreements with the fishing villages, and some rather dull records regarding dock repairs.”
Rhaena’s expression softened with interest. “That does sound like a great deal.”
“It is,” Valora said. “And Jace and I were meant to help him go through some of it today.”
Jace opened his mouth.
Valora lightly stepped on his foot.
He shut it again.
Rhaena did not seem to notice.
“Oh,” she said. “Is Luke struggling with it?”
“No,” Valora answered, then tilted her head slightly. “Not exactly. Luke is clever, but he learns better when he is able to speak through things rather than simply stare at parchment until the words start tormenting him.”
Jace snorted softly despite himself. “That is true.”
Valora gave him a brief look that said, behave.
He raised both hands slightly.
Rhaena’s grip tightened a little around her book. “What did you need from me?”
Valora sighed, as if the inconvenience pained her greatly. “Unfortunately, Jace and I have both become rather busy.”
Jace looked at her.
Busy?
Valora did not look back at him.
“Mother wanted me to review the latest letters from the Riverlands,” she continued, lying with the serene confidence of a courtier who had been doing this since childhood. “And Jace has been called to speak with the maester about… something.”
“Something?” Jace repeated before he could stop himself.
Valora’s smile sharpened.
“Yes, Jace. Something.”
Rhaena looked between them, faint amusement touching her face.
Jace pressed his lips together.
Valora turned back to Rhaena. “Would you mind helping Luke with them? Just for today. I know it is an unfair favour to ask without warning, but you have a better patience for ledgers than either of my brothers, and Luke listens to you.”
At that, Rhaena’s cheeks coloured faintly.
“He does?”
Jace looked away, coughing into his fist to hide his grin.
Valora’s eyes glittered with victory.
“He does,” she said gently. “And I think he would be grateful for your help.”
Rhaena hesitated, glancing down at the book in her hands.
“I do not know everything about Driftmark.”
“No one expects you to,” Valora said. “That is why they are called studies.”
Rhaena laughed softly, looking a little reassured.
Valora stepped closer, her voice gentling. “You grew up there. You know its halls, its tides, its people in a way Luke is still learning. You may not realise how much you understand already.”
Something changed in Rhaena’s expression then.
A small thing.
The faint uncertainty in her eyes did not disappear, not entirely, but it softened. Like someone had quietly opened a door she had not realised she was allowed to approach.
“I suppose I could help,” she said.
“Wonderful.” Valora smiled. “He should be in the library by now, likely pretending not to be overwhelmed.”
Jace nodded solemnly. “That does sound like Luke.”
Rhaena’s smile grew.
“I will go to him, then.”
“Thank you,” Valora said warmly.
Rhaena inclined her head before continuing down the corridor, her steps a little quicker now, the book still tucked against her chest.
Valora watched her go.
Jace waited until Rhaena had turned the corner before he looked at his sister.
Then he crossed his arms.
“We are busy?”
Valora clasped her hands behind her back and began walking again.
Jace followed.
“I am certain we could become busy if we tried hard enough.”
“You told Rhaena we were meant to help Luke.”
“We were.”
“No, we were not.”
“We could have been.”
“That is not the same thing.”
Valora’s smile returned, small and pleased.
Jace stared at her.
“You lied.”
“I redirected.”
“You lied.”
“I created an opportunity.”
“You lied very prettily.”
“Thank you.”
“That was not praise.”
“I choose to receive it as such.”
Jace huffed out a laugh despite himself, then shook his head. “We both have spare time.”
“Yes.”
“And Luke does not actually need both of us.”
“No.”
“And Mother did not ask you to review letters from the Riverlands.”
“She might have, eventually.”
“Valora.”
She stopped near one of the open arches.
Beyond it, the sea rolled dark and endless beneath the cliffs. The sky was grey, clouds gathering thickly above the horizon, and the wind tugged loose strands of silver hair across Valora’s face.
For a moment, she said nothing.
Then the amusement slipped from her expression, replaced by something quieter.
More serious.
“I want Rhaena to learn as well.”
Jace frowned slightly. “Learn what?”
“How to rule Driftmark.”
That silenced him.
Valora rested one hand against the cool stone of the archway, her eyes still on the sea.
“Luke will be Lord of the Tides one day,” she said. “That has been decided for him since he was a child. He studies ships, ports, ledgers, trade agreements, petitions from fishing villages, old disputes between captains, the histories of the Velaryon fleet. He sits with Grandfather and tries to pretend his shoulders do not stiffen every time someone says Lord of Driftmark.”
Jace looked away.
They both knew Luke did that.
“He is trying,” Jace said quietly.
“I know.” Valora’s voice softened. “He tries very hard. That is why I worry for him.”
Jace turned back to her.
Valora’s gaze remained fixed on the waves.
“Driftmark is not simply a seat,” she continued. “It is people. Sailors. Shipwrights. Merchants. Fishermen. Servants who know when storms will come before any maester reads the sky. Children who grow up with salt in their hair and know the names of ships before they know the names of kings.” Her fingers tapped once against the stone. “Luke must learn them. But he should not have to carry all of it alone.”
Jace’s expression shifted.
Slow understanding settled across his face.
“Rhaena will be his lady wife,” he said.
Valora nodded. “Yes.”
“And you want her prepared.”
“I want her included.”
The correction was gentle, but firm.
Jace absorbed that.
Valora finally looked at him.
“Too often, wives are expected to stand beside their husbands in rule while being given none of the lessons that would allow them to do so well. Then, when they falter, men call them foolish. When they succeed, men call them meddlesome.” Her mouth tightened. “I will not have that for Rhaena.”
Jace was quiet for a long moment.
The wind moved between them.
Below, the waves struck the rocks with a sound like breaking glass.
Valora continued, softer now, “Rhaena has spent too much of her life being measured by what she does not have.”
Jace’s eyes lowered.
No dragon.
The words went unsaid.
They did not need saying.
“She is clever,” Valora said. “Patient. Observant. She notices what others overlook because she has spent years believing herself overlooked. That is not weakness. It could make her a better Lady of Driftmark than half the men who would presume to advise Luke.”
Jace’s face gentled.
“You could have told her that.”
Valora’s smile was sadder this time. “Not yet.”
“Why not?”
“Because if I told her outright, she might think I was only being kind.”
“You are kind.”
“I am strategic.”
“You are both.”
Valora glanced at him, and there was affection in her look now.
“Rhaena does not need someone to hand her importance like a gift,” she said. “She needs to find herself already standing inside it. She needs to sit with Luke, argue over trade routes, ask questions, realise she understands more than she thought, and see that her voice changes the shape of the conversation.”
Jace leaned his shoulder against the opposite side of the archway.
“And Luke?”
“Luke needs to learn to rely on her.”
“He already does.”
“In some ways,” Valora agreed. “But ruling is different. Love is one thing. Partnership is another.”
Jace studied her carefully.
“You have thought about this a great deal.”
“I think about many things a great deal.”
“Yes,” he said. “That is why you always look tired.”
She rolled her eyes.
He smiled, but it faded slightly as he looked back toward the corridor where Rhaena had gone.
“Do you truly think Luke will mind?”
Valora laughed softly. “Luke? No. He will be relieved someone else is there to make sense of the ledgers. And if that someone is Rhaena, he will listen far more attentively than he would to either of us.”
Jace’s mouth twitched. “True.”
“And Rhaena will be less likely to let him escape by claiming he has dragon-riding practice.”
“He has used that excuse before.”
“He uses it constantly.”
“So do you.”
“I am the future queen. My excuses are more dignified.”
“They are not.”
“They are better phrased.”
“That is not the same thing.”
Valora gave him a look of exaggerated offence.
Jace laughed under his breath.
Then, after a pause, he said, “You know, most people would simply arrange a proper lesson.”
“Yes.”
“You chose deception.”
“I chose subtlety.”
“You chose deception.”
“I chose subtle deception.”
Jace shook his head, smiling despite himself.
“You are impossible.”
“And yet effective.”
“Unfortunately.”
Valora pushed away from the archway and began walking again.
Jace fell into step beside her.
They moved through Dragonstone’s halls together, the sound of the sea following them like a second heartbeat. For a while, neither spoke. The quiet between them was comfortable, shaped by years of shared childhood, arguments, secrets, and the peculiar exhaustion of being raised beneath crowns that had not yet settled upon their heads.
At last, Jace glanced at her.
“You know you will have to do this for me as well.”
Valora raised a brow. “Find someone to trick you into studying?”
“No. Teach me how to help you rule.”
Her steps slowed just slightly.
Jace did not look at her when he said it. His gaze stayed forward, but his voice was steady.
“You are always thinking ten steps ahead,” he said. “About Luke. About Rhaena. About Mother. About the smallfolk. About alliances and laws and what people will need before they know to ask for it.” He swallowed. “But if I am to be your Hand one day, I need to know how to stand beside you properly.”
Valora’s expression softened.
For all his teasing, for all his boyish pride and occasional stubbornness, Jacaerys had always possessed a heart that reached for duty even when fear pulled at him.
She reached out and gently looped her arm through his.
“You already do, Jace.”
He looked at her.
“You do,” she repeated. “You listen. You care. You question me when I am being insufferable.”
“That happens often.”
“Do not ruin the moment.”
He smiled.
Valora squeezed his arm lightly.
“But yes,” she said. “I will teach you everything I know.”
“And when you do not know something?”
“Then we shall learn it together.”
Jace nodded.
That seemed to satisfy him.
They reached the end of the corridor, where the path split toward the library in one direction and the council chamber in another.
From somewhere far off, Luke’s voice echoed faintly.
“No, I know where Driftmark is, Rhaena, I just do not understand why this map makes the docks look like a dying crab.”
There was a pause.
Then Rhaena’s laughter rang softly through the hall.
Jace covered his mouth with one hand.
Valora smiled.
A real one this time.
“See?” she said. “Already useful.”
Jace glanced toward the library, then back at her.
“Should we help them?”
Valora considered it for exactly one second.
“No.”
“No?”
“No,” she said serenely. “We are busy.”
Jace stared at her.
“With what?”
Valora resumed walking toward the council chamber.
“Finding something to be busy with.”
Jace laughed, shaking his head as he followed.
Behind them, in the library, Rhaena sat beside Luke with a map spread between them and a ledger open at her elbow. Luke leaned over the parchment, brows furrowed in concentration as Rhaena pointed toward one of the marked harbours.
“No,” she said, still smiling, “that is not a dying crab. That is Hull.”
Luke looked at the map.
Then at her.
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
“It looks like a crab.”
“It does,” Rhaena admitted. “But it is still Hull.”
Luke blinked, then laughed.
Rhaena laughed too.
And when Luke pushed the ledger toward her and asked what she thought of the port repairs listed there, she hesitated only briefly before leaning closer to read.
Not as an observer.
Not as someone merely keeping him company.
But as someone whose answer mattered.
Outside, the sea struck the cliffs of Dragonstone.
Inside, quietly and without ceremony, the future Lord and Lady of Driftmark began to learn together.
Princess Valora Velaryon can command dragons, outwit lords, charm the smallfolk, and terrify her brothers into behaving.
Unfortunately, none of those skills help her survive embroidery.
For all her many gifts, Princess Valora Velaryon could not sew.
This was not, by itself, a crime.
It was not even especially unusual. Many highborn girls disliked needlework. Some found it tedious. Some lacked patience. Some pricked their fingers often enough that their septas began to fear they were doing it on purpose.
Valora, however, had turned failure into an art.
She could read a council chamber before half the men in it had finished clearing their throats. She could charm smallfolk into adoring her with one kind word and then turn around and corner three lordlings into agreeing to charitable donations they had not meant to offer. She could fly Naelys through a storm wind with a smile on her face. She could make Jacaerys and Lucerys confess to wrongdoing with nothing more than a stare.
But give her a needle, a hoop, and a thread, and the princess became a threat to herself and everyone within reach.
Matila discovered this on a perfectly ordinary afternoon.
The sun was bright beyond the windows of Valora’s chambers, spilling gold across the sea-blue and crimson hangings. Her desk, as usual, was drowning beneath parchments, maps, lists, letters, half-finished proposals, and one small carved dragon that Lucerys had left there weeks ago and Valora had never bothered to return.
Matila stood in the centre of the room with an embroidery hoop in one hand and a basket of threads in the other.
Valora eyed both with open suspicion.
“No,” she said.
Matila blinked. “Princess.”
“No.”
“You do not even know what I am about to say.”
“You are holding that basket like a weapon.”
Matila looked down at the threads. “It is embroidery.”
“Exactly.”
Marissa, sitting by the window with Maella asleep against her shoulder, made a very poor attempt at hiding her smile.
Georgine did not bother hiding hers at all. “I believe the princess fears the needle.”
“I do not fear the needle,” Valora said at once. “I respect its capacity for needless violence.”
Emanda, who had been sorting ribbon near the hearth, gave a soft laugh. “Needless?”
Valora narrowed her eyes. “Do not encourage her.”
Matila, who had come into Valora’s service young enough to be fond of her and old enough to know when she was being ridiculous, simply held out the hoop.
“You are ten and eight,” she said. “You are the future Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. You can negotiate with lords twice your age, command a dragon, and lecture your brothers into trembling silence. You can learn one simple stitch.”
Valora’s expression became solemn.
“Matila,” she said, with the grave patience she usually reserved for council reports and very foolish men, “there are some battles even dragons should not fight.”
Georgine laughed.
Matila did not.
She placed the hoop on the table in front of Valora.
Valora looked at it.
The hoop looked back.
It was a simple piece of pale linen, already marked with faint charcoal guidelines. Nothing complicated. Nothing threatening. A small dragon curled around a moon, meant to be stitched in black and red thread.
It should have been easy.
Valora distrusted it immediately.
“I have petitions to read,” she said.
“You read them this morning.”
“I have letters to write.”
“You wrote six before breakfast.”
“I have to inspect the new figures for the orphanage fund.”
“You already inspected them.”
Valora hesitated.
Then she brightened.
“My mother may need me.”
Marissa finally looked up. “Princess Rhaenyra is resting.”
“I should check in on the twins.” Valora tried again.
Viseron and Shaenyra are sleeping, and after their refusal to sleep the past few nights I’m sure you don’t wish to wake them.” Matila countered.
“My brothers may need me.”
“Jace and Luke are with Prince Daemon.” Georgine smirked.
“I told Baela and Rhaena I would…”
Matila cut her off, “They are both in their own lessons.”
“Joffrey may need me.”
“He is asleep in the nursery.”
Valora’s eyes darted toward the door.
“Naelys…”
“Is in the Dragonpit,” Matila said firmly, “and if your dragon requires embroidery help, I shall apologise to her personally.”
Valora sank slowly into her chair.
“This is tyranny.”
“This is education.”
“Many tyrants have claimed the same.”
Emanda covered her mouth.
Matila sat beside Valora and selected a length of red thread. “We shall start slowly.”
Valora watched her thread the needle with the wary attention of someone observing a venomous snake being handed to her.
Matila passed it over.
Valora accepted it between two fingers.
For a long moment, nothing happened.
Then Valora said, “It is very small.”
“It is a needle.”
“It seems smaller when one is expected to use it.”
“That is generally how tools work.”
Valora turned the needle this way and that. “I dislike it.”
“It has not done anything.”
“Yet.”
Georgine leaned back in her chair. “I have never seen someone negotiate with thread before.”
“I am not negotiating,” Valora said.
“You are losing,” Georgine replied sweetly.
Valora gasped, offended.
Matila tapped the linen. “Here. Push the needle through from the back.”
Valora obeyed.
Or tried to.
The needle went in.
The thread did not follow.
Valora stared.
Matila stared.
The needle remained embedded in the linen like a tiny sword in an extremely unimpressed battlefield.
Valora looked at Matila. “It has betrayed me.”
“You did not pull it through.”
“You did not say I had to.”
“I thought that part was implied.”
“Implied instructions are how wars begin.”
Marissa had gone very still by the window, her lips pressed together as though she were physically holding back laughter.
Matila reached over and gently guided Valora’s hand. “Pull.”
Valora pulled.
The thread came through.
Unfortunately, it came through with such enthusiasm that the entire length snapped free of the needle and slithered out of the fabric.
The needle remained behind.
The red thread pooled uselessly in Valora’s lap.
Silence filled the room.
Valora looked down at it.
Then, very carefully, she said, “I believe it has fled.”
Georgine made a strangled sound.
Emanda turned away toward the hearth.
Matila closed her eyes.
“Again,” she said.
Valora sighed with the long-suffering weariness of a girl who had survived council meetings, dragon lessons, and younger brothers, only to be defeated by a piece of linen.
Matila rethreaded the needle.
Valora took it.
This time, the needle went through. The thread followed. Matila gave a small approving nod.
“There. Good. Now make another stitch beside it.”
Valora’s shoulders straightened a little.
She made another stitch.
It was not terrible.
It was not good, but it was recognisably a stitch.
“There,” Matila said, encouraged. “You see?”
Valora glanced at the fabric.
A small, smug smile touched her mouth. “That was acceptable.”
“One stitch, Princess.”
“Yes, but a successful one.”
“Do another.”
Valora did.
The second stitch came out twice as long as the first and angled sharply away from the charcoal line.
Matila paused.
Valora paused.
The thread now appeared to be escaping the dragon’s body and making for the edge of the hoop.
Valora frowned. “Perhaps the dragon is moving.”
“It is not meant to move.”
“It is a dragon.”
“It is thread.”
“A poor imitation of a dragon, then.”
“Princess.”
Valora looked deeply wounded. “Do not blame me for its lack of spirit.”
Matila took a slow breath.
Behind them, Georgine whispered, “The dragon has fled the moon.”
Marissa whispered back, “Wise dragon.”
Valora turned in her chair. “I heard that.”
“You were meant to,” Georgine said.
Matila took the hoop and carefully undid the second stitch. “Again. Smaller this time.”
Valora accepted the hoop back with all the enthusiasm of a prisoner receiving a sentence.
She tried again.
The next stitch was smaller.
The one after that was almost neat.
For a brief, shining moment, Matila believed success might be possible.
Then Valora pricked her finger.
She did not yelp.
She did not flinch.
She simply froze, staring down at the tiny bead of blood welling at the tip of her finger as though the needle had committed treason against the Crown.
Matila saw the expression and immediately said, “Do not.”
Valora looked up slowly.
“It drew royal blood.”
“It is a needle.”
“It attacked me.”
“You pushed your finger into it.”
“In defence of the realm, that distinction will not matter.”
Georgine bent over laughing.
Maella stirred against Marissa’s shoulder, blinking sleepily.
Valora’s expression softened at once. “Oh, no Sunshine, go back to sleep.”
Maella looked at the hoop.
Then at Valora’s finger.
Then, with the blunt honesty of a very small child, said, “Mama bad.”
The room went silent.
Valora stared at her daughter.
Marissa looked down at Maella in horror and delight.
Georgine pressed both hands over her mouth.
Emanda made a sound that was almost certainly not a cough.
Matila’s face twitched.
Valora drew herself up with great dignity.
“Maella,” she said, “your mother is not bad.”
Maella pointed at the hoop. “Bad.”
Valora looked at the embroidery.
The embroidery, to be fair, looked dreadful.
The small dragon had one elegant curve, two uneven red lines, and a loose thread hanging from its neck like it had been garrotted.
Valora looked back at her daughter.
“…Your mother is learning.”
Maella blinked.
Then she patted Marissa’s shoulder and said, “Mama bad thread.”
Georgine lost the battle completely.
Her laughter filled the chamber, bright and helpless.
Even Matila had to turn away, one hand pressed to her mouth.
Valora’s cheeks coloured faintly.
“This is slander.”
“It is accurate,” Georgine gasped.
“It is treasonous.”
“She is two,” Marissa said, though she was smiling now too.
“She has clearly been influenced.”
“By the thread?” Emanda asked.
Valora pointed at the hoop. “That thread has been against me from the beginning.”
Matila took Valora’s hand and wrapped a small cloth around the pricked finger. “There. Crisis averted.”
“For now.”
“Princess.”
“I am merely saying, if I die of this wound…”
“You will not.”
“I expect the histories to record that I fell bravely in combat.”
“With embroidery?”
“With a domestic weapon.”
Georgine wheezed.
The door opened before Matila could answer.
Jacaerys and Lucerys stepped inside, both still flushed from the training yard.
Jace stopped first.
Luke walked into his back.
“What are you doing?” Jace asked.
Valora instantly sat straighter and attempted to look composed.
Nothing about the scene supported her.
The embroidery hoop sat before her like evidence. Red thread trailed across her sleeve. A cloth was wrapped around one finger. Matila looked tired. Georgine looked near death from laughter. Maella was pointing at the hoop with solemn accusation.
Valora lifted her chin.
“I am pursuing refinement.”
Luke peered at the fabric.
His eyes widened.
“Is it meant to be a dragon?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.”
That single syllable carried far too much meaning.
Valora narrowed her eyes. “Careful.”
Jace stepped closer, visibly fighting a smile. “It looks… fierce.”
“It looks injured,” Luke said.
“Luke,” Jace hissed.
Valora leaned back in her chair. “It is injured because it has been in battle.”
“With who?” Luke asked.
“With me.”
Jace lost the fight and laughed.
Valora pointed at him with her bandaged finger. “You may laugh now, but one day I will be queen, and I shall remember who mocked my artistic struggles.”
Jace immediately straightened. “It is beautiful.”
“It is too late.”
“It is… very original.”
“That is worse.”
Luke climbed onto the chair beside her and studied the hoop with the serious expression of a boy inspecting a wounded animal.
“I think,” he said slowly, “if you add more red here, it could look like fire.”
Valora considered this.
Matila brightened. “That is actually a helpful suggestion.”
Valora looked suspiciously between them. “Is it?”
“Yes,” Matila said. “It would cover the uneven line.”
Valora frowned at the embroidery.
Then she picked up the needle again.
Matila reached out quickly. “Carefully.”
“I know how to wield it now.”
“You have pricked yourself once.”
“All weapons demand sacrifice.”
Jace sat on the edge of the table, earning a sharp look from Matila that he immediately ignored. “You know, Rhaena can sew.”
Valora froze.
Luke’s eyes widened in warning.
Jace continued, foolishly.
“She embroidered a little dragon on Baela’s sleeve once. It was quite good.”
Valora slowly turned her head.
Jace realised his mistake.
“I only mean…”
“You mean to say Rhaena has mastered an art I have not?”
“No.”
“That she has conquered needle and thread while I remain at war.”
“No, Lora, I…”
“That my younger cousin is more refined than I.”
Luke whispered, “Run.”
Jace slid off the table.
Valora stood.
Matila immediately grabbed the hoop before disaster could spread to the floor.
Jace backed away, hands raised. “I only said it was good.”
“And I am very happy for Rhaena,” Valora said sweetly.
“That tone means you are not.”
“I am delighted.”
“That tone means death,” Luke added helpfully.
Jace bolted.
Valora followed.
“Princess!” Matila called.
Valora stopped at the door and turned back, silver hair swinging over her shoulder, violet eyes bright with mischief.
“What?”
“You are still holding the needle.”
Valora looked down.
She was, indeed, still holding it.
She returned with great dignity, placed it on the table, then resumed chasing her brother.
Luke watched her go.
Then he looked at the embroidery.
Then at Matila.
“I think the dragon looks sad.”
Matila sighed.
“It has endured much.”
By the time Valora returned, Jacaerys had escaped somewhere deeper into the Red Keep and Lucerys had helpfully informed three servants, one stable boy, and Daemon that his sister had been defeated by sewing.
This meant, naturally, that the entire afternoon was ruined.
Daemon appeared at the doorway not long after, looking far too entertained.
“I hear there was a battle.”
Valora, who had been forced back into her chair by Matila and was now attempting to add fire to the dragon’s mouth, did not look up.
“There was no battle.”
Daemon leaned one shoulder against the doorframe. “No?”
“No.”
“I heard royal blood was spilled.”
Valora’s needle paused.
Slowly, she looked up.
“Luke talks too much.”
“He does,” Daemon agreed. “But he is very descriptive.”
Georgine, still recovering near the window, said, “He called it the Stitching War.”
Valora closed her eyes.
Daemon’s grin widened.
“The Stitching War?”
“It was not a war.”
Matila muttered, “It was certainly not peace.”
Valora shot her a betrayed look.
Daemon stepped into the room and looked over her shoulder at the hoop.
To his credit, he did not laugh immediately.
His face did something heroic as he attempted to remain respectful.
The dragon now had a crooked body, a line of red fire that looked more like a falling banner, and one black wing significantly larger than the other.
Daemon cleared his throat.
“A bold creature.”
Valora stared at him.
“Do not lie to me.”
“I would never.”
“You are lying now.”
“It has character.”
“It has suffered.”
“As all great warriors do.”
Valora narrowed her eyes. “Are you mocking me?”
“Yes,” Daemon responded easily.
Valora gasped.
Matila looked briefly delighted by the honesty.
Daemon chuckled and crouched beside the chair, examining the work more carefully. “It is not so terrible.”
Valora gave him a flat look.
“It is not,” he insisted. “You simply expect to be good at everything immediately.”
“I do not.”
Everyone in the room looked at her.
Valora frowned. “I do not.”
Matila raised an eyebrow.
Marissa looked down at Maella, who had fallen asleep again.
Georgine smiled sweetly.
Emanda pretended to be very interested in the ribbons.
Daemon’s amusement softened into something fond. “Little Dragon, you nearly declared war on thread because it would not obey you.”
Valora looked back at the hoop.
The crooked dragon seemed to mock her.
Quietly, she said, “It is frustrating.”
Matila’s expression gentled.
Valora pressed her lips together, her earlier humour dimming just slightly. “I can remember petitions after hearing them once. I can tell when a lord is hiding something before he has finished speaking. I can fly with Naelys through winds that make grown men pale. I can make sense of ledgers, maps, bloodlines, histories, laws…” She looked down at the needle. “But this makes me feel like a child.”
The room softened around her.
For all that Valora was still young, it was easy to forget it.
She made it easy to forget.
She stood beside her mother in council chambers, walked with her grandfather through petitions, spoke to smallfolk with gentle confidence, corrected her brothers like a second mother, and carried herself with the careful awareness of someone who knew the realm already watched her.
But here she was, eighteen years old, wounded by thread, embarrassed by failure, and trying not to show how much it bothered her.
Daemon’s expression changed first.
Not obviously.
He was still smiling, still leaning with that easy confidence that made half the court nervous and the other half foolish enough to underestimate him, but the mockery faded from his eyes.
For a moment, he only looked at her.
Then he reached out, took the needle from her hand, and turned it between his fingers.
Valora blinked.
“What are you doing?”
“Inspecting the enemy.”
Despite herself, her mouth twitched.
Daemon held the needle up to the light. “Small. Sharp. Cowardly. I understand why it has caused so much damage.”
Matila made a tiny sound that might have been a laugh.
Valora looked down at her lap, trying and failing to hide the little smile tugging at her lips.
Daemon placed the needle back into her hand, far more carefully than he had taken it.
“You are a child in this,” he said.
Valora’s smile faltered.
Before she could look wounded, he continued, “And that is not an insult.”
She frowned at him.
Daemon leaned against the table beside her. “You were not born knowing how to sit a saddle. You were not born knowing how to read a map, or spot a liar, or swing a sword, or keep your brothers from making fools of themselves.”
“That last one is impossible,” Luke said from the floor.
Jace kicked his ankle.
Valora ignored them both, her eyes still on Daemon.
“You learned,” he said simply. “This is no different.”
“It is very different,” Valora muttered. “A sword is larger.”
“And yet you have been cut more often by this.”
Georgine laughed again.
Valora shot Daemon a betrayed look. “You were being comforting.”
“I was. Briefly.”
“Too briefly.”
“I tire easily.”
“You do not.”
“No,” Daemon agreed. “But it sounded plausible.”
Valora huffed, but some of the tension in her shoulders eased.
Matila gently nudged the hoop back toward her. “Again?”
Valora stared at it.
The dragon stared back, crooked and wounded and deeply unfortunate.
“I hate it,” she said.
“You do not have to like it,” Matila replied. “You only have to try.”
Valora looked at her for a moment.
Then, with all the solemnity of a princess entering peace talks, she picked the hoop back up.
“Fine.”
Jace leaned forward. “Are we allowed to watch?”
“No.”
Luke immediately asked, “Are we allowed to watch quietly?”
“No.”
Daemon answered before Valora could. “Yes.”
Valora turned to glare at him.
Daemon smiled. “A queen must be observed under pressure.”
“This is not queenly pressure. This is cruelty.”
“That too must be observed.”
Matila lifted a hand before Valora could respond. “Princess. The stitch.”
Valora looked back at the hoop.
She took a breath.
Needle through.
Pull.
Not too hard.
Thread follows.
She held herself very still, waiting for disaster.
None came.
The stitch was uneven.
But it was there.
Matila smiled. “Good.”
Valora did not smile back, but her chin lifted slightly.
She made another.
And another.
The third went too far to the left.
The fourth somehow knotted itself.
The fifth was rescued only because Matila intervened with the speed of a battle commander preventing slaughter.
But slowly, terribly, stubbornly, the line of red fire began to look less like a falling banner and more like something that might have once come from a dragon’s mouth if one were feeling charitable.
Luke tilted his head.
“It looks better.”
Valora paused. “Does it?”
“Yes.”
Jace leaned closer. “Actually, it does.”
Valora looked suspiciously at them both. “You are not lying?”
“No,” Luke said.
Jace hesitated a second too long.
Valora narrowed her eyes. “Jacaerys.”
“I am not lying,” he said quickly. “I am simply… choosing my words with care.”
“That means lying.”
“No, that means surviving.”
Daemon snorted.
Valora rolled her eyes, but her fingers returned to the cloth.
The next stitch was almost neat.
Matila saw it.
So did Daemon.
Neither said anything at first.
Valora noticed anyway.
“What?” she asked sharply.
“Nothing,” Matila said.
“You looked.”
“I am teaching you. Looking is required.”
“You looked pleased.”
“That is allowed.”
Valora glanced down at the stitch.
It was small.
Straight.
Almost exactly where it should have been.
A slow, reluctant smile crept across her face.
“There,” she said softly.
Matila’s answering smile was warm. “There.”
Then the door opened again.
This time, Rhaenyra entered.
She had clearly not expected to find half the chamber gathered around her eldest daughter like spectators at a tourney.
Her gaze moved from Daemon, to Jace and Luke, to Marissa by the window, to Georgine wiping tears from her eyes, to Matila seated beside Valora, and finally to Valora herself.
Valora froze.
The hoop was in her hands.
The thread trailed across her skirts.
Her finger remained wrapped in cloth.
Rhaenyra’s eyebrows rose.
“…Should I ask?”
“No,” Valora said immediately.
“Yes,” Luke said at the same time.
Valora turned on him. “Traitor.”
Luke grinned.
Rhaenyra stepped farther into the room, amusement already beginning to soften her face. “What has happened?”
“Nothing,” Valora said.
“The Stitching War,” Georgine supplied.
Rhaenyra stopped.
Daemon’s grin returned in full force.
“The Stitching War?” Rhaenyra repeated.
Valora closed her eyes. “I am surrounded by vipers.”
“You are surrounded by witnesses,” Daemon corrected.
“That is worse.”
Rhaenyra crossed the room, her skirts whispering over the floor. “Let me see.”
Valora’s grip tightened around the hoop.
“No.”
Rhaenyra’s amusement deepened. “Valora.”
“Mother.”
“You have shown me ledgers with less fear than this.”
“Ledgers do not mock me.”
“Neither does embroidery.”
Everyone in the room fell silent.
Valora slowly looked at the hoop.
Then back at Rhaenyra.
“Mother,” she said gravely, “you have not seen what it has done.”
Rhaenyra pressed her lips together.
Daemon looked away, shoulders shaking slightly.
Matila, very gently, took the hoop from Valora’s hands and passed it to Rhaenyra before Valora could stop her.
Valora gasped. “Matila.”
“I serve the princess,” Matila said calmly.
“I am the princess.”
“I meant the other one.”
Rhaenyra accepted the hoop.
For a long moment, she said nothing.
Her eyes moved over the crooked black dragon, the awkward moon, the uneven red fire, the loose bit of thread near the tail that no one had quite managed to fix, and the single neat stitch near the end of the flame.
Valora watched her mother’s face with the tense focus she usually reserved for enemies at court.
Rhaenyra’s lips twitched.
Valora pointed at her immediately. “Do not laugh.”
“I am not laughing.”
“You wish to.”
“I wish to do many things.”
“That means yes.”
Rhaenyra’s mouth trembled.
“Mother.”
That was what finally broke her.
Rhaenyra laughed.
Not cruelly.
Never cruelly.
But softly, helplessly, with one hand pressed to her mouth and her eyes bright with delight.
Valora stared at her in betrayal.
“My own mother.”
Rhaenyra reached for her, still laughing. “Come here.”
“No.”
“Valora.”
“You have chosen the side of the thread.”
Rhaenyra laughed harder.
Even Valora, despite herself, began to smile.
Rhaenyra drew her close and kissed her forehead.
“My sweet girl,” she murmured, still smiling, “you are allowed to be terrible at something.”
“I am not terrible.”
Rhaenyra looked at the hoop.
Valora looked at the hoop.
The dragon looked as though it had been dragged through three battles and insulted in each of them.
Valora sighed.
“I am somewhat unpractised.”
Daemon made a noise.
Valora pointed at him without looking. “Silence.”
Rhaenyra brushed her thumb over Valora’s cheek. “Somewhat unpractised, then.”
She glanced at the hoop in her mother’s hands.
“It is hideous.”
“It is yours.”
“That does not make it less hideous.”
“No,” Rhaenyra agreed. “But it does make it precious.”
Valora’s cheeks coloured.
“Mother.”
Rhaenyra kissed her forehead again.
This time, Valora did not pull away.
For a few moments, she let herself be held.
Then Maella woke again.
The little girl blinked blearily from Marissa’s arms, looked at Rhaenyra, then Valora, then the hoop.
Her tiny face grew serious.
“Bad dragon,” she announced.
The room exploded.
Valora pulled away from her mother at once. “Maella.”
Maella pointed accusingly at the embroidery. “Bad.”
Rhaenyra laughed so hard she had to sit down.
Daemon, utterly unhelpful, leaned against the table and said, “The child has spoken.”
Valora stared at her daughter. “You are supposed to be on my side.”
Maella reached for her.
Valora crossed the room and took her from Marissa, settling the sleepy child against her hip.
Maella immediately patted Valora’s cheek.
“Mama good,” she said.
Valora softened.
Then Maella pointed back at the hoop.
“Dragon bad.”
Georgine nearly slid out of her chair.
Valora closed her eyes. “Thank you, Sunshine.”
Maella nodded, pleased with herself, and tucked her face into Valora’s shoulder.
Rhaenyra wiped at her eyes, still smiling. “I think she is right.”
Valora looked at her. “Which part?”
“Both.”
That made Valora pause.
Then she huffed a small laugh.
Matila gently reclaimed the hoop from Rhaenyra and set it back on the table.
“Shall we finish it, Princess?”
Valora looked at the embroidery.
The dragon was bad.
There was no saving that.
But there was one neat stitch in the flame.
One.
A beginning.
She shifted Maella higher against her hip and reached for the needle with her free hand.
Matila immediately said, “Perhaps give the child to Marissa first.”
Valora looked down at Maella.
Then at the needle.
Then back at Matila.
“Yes,” she said gravely. “Wise counsel.”
She passed Maella back to Marissa, ignoring Georgine’s renewed giggles, and returned to her seat.
Rhaenyra settled beside Daemon to watch.
Jace and Luke stayed on the floor.
Matila sat beside Valora once more.
Emanda quietly gathered the scattered threads.
For a while, the room was peaceful.
Mostly.
Valora continued stitching.
Slowly.
Painfully.
With several muttered accusations against the thread, one near disaster involving a knot, and a moment where Luke helpfully suggested the dragon might look better if it were “on fire entirely,” which earned him a glare so sharp he physically leaned behind Jace.
But she did not give up.
That was the thing about Valora.
She might complain. She might threaten the thread with royal punishment. She might argue with the hoop as though it were an uncooperative lord. She might declare, twice, that embroidery was “a plot invented by cowards.”
But she did not stop.
By the time the sun had shifted lower beyond the windows, the little dragon was finished.
Not well.
But finished.
Matila held it up.
Everyone looked.
The dragon was crooked. One wing was too large. Its tail bent strangely to the side. The moon behind it looked dented. The fire was uneven, but recognisably fire, if one was generous and fond.
And near the edge of the flame, there were three neat stitches in a row.
Valora stared at those stitches.
A smile, small and private, touched her mouth.
“There,” Matila said.
Valora nodded once, as though receiving terms after a long campaign.
“There.”
Luke leaned closer. “I think it looks angry.”
“It should,” Valora said. “It has endured hardship.”
Jace grinned. “Like you.”
“Worse than me.”
Daemon tilted his head. “It does look like it may bite someone.”
“That is the only accurate part,” Valora replied.
Rhaenyra reached for the hoop again.
Valora pulled it back instinctively.
Rhaenyra raised an eyebrow.
Valora hesitated.
Then, reluctantly, she handed it over.
“You truly want it?”
Rhaenyra’s expression softened. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because one day,” Rhaenyra said, looking down at the crooked little dragon, “when you are officially the heir and every lord in the realm is praising your wisdom, your grace, your dignity, and your terrifying ability to get exactly what you want, I shall look at this and remember that you were once defeated by thread.”
Valora stared.
“That is a terrible reason.”
“It is a mother’s reason.”
“That does not make it better.”
“It makes it final.”
Daemon smiled. “Frame it.”
Valora turned on him. “Absolutely not.”
Rhaenyra looked thoughtful.
“Mother, no.”
“It would look sweet near my writing desk.”
“No.”
“Perhaps with a little plaque.”
“No.”
Daemon’s grin sharpened. “The Realm’s Joy Cannot Sew.”
Jace and Luke burst into laughter.
Valora’s face went scarlet.
“That is not funny.”
“It is very funny,” Luke gasped.
“It is treason.”
“You call everything treason when embarrassed,” Jace said.
“And yet no one learns.”
Rhaenyra was laughing again.
Matila, clearly deciding to save Valora from complete ruin, carefully took the hoop and wrapped it in a square of soft cloth.
“I shall have it put somewhere safe,” she said.
Valora looked relieved.
Rhaenyra looked far too innocent.
Daemon looked far too pleased.
Valora narrowed her eyes at all three of them. “If I see that thing displayed anywhere public, I shall know who betrayed me.”
Daemon placed a hand over his heart. “You wound me.”
“I am considering it.”
“With a needle?” Luke asked.
Valora grabbed a cushion from the chair and threw it at him.
Luke ducked.
The cushion hit Jace instead.
Jace stared at her.
Valora stared back.
Then Jace grabbed the cushion and threw it.
It missed Valora completely and struck Daemon in the side.
The room went still.
Daemon looked down at the cushion.
Then at Jace.
Jace went pale.
Rhaenyra’s eyes widened.
Valora slowly leaned back in her chair, her earlier embarrassment vanishing beneath pure delight.
“Oh,” she said softly. “That was brave.”
Luke whispered, “That was stupid.”
Daemon picked up the cushion.
Jace stood. “I…”
Daemon threw it.
Jace yelped as it hit him squarely in the chest.
Luke screamed with laughter.
Valora laughed too, bright and helpless, as Jace retaliated and missed again, this time hitting Georgine, who gasped as though mortally wounded before flinging the cushion at Luke.
Within moments, the chamber descended into chaos.
Not political chaos.
Not dangerous chaos.
Not the kind that haunted council rooms and succession disputes and whispered corridors.
The ordinary kind.
The warm kind.
The kind made of laughter, flying cushions, scolding ladies, and a tiny girl clapping sleepily because everyone else seemed happy.
Matila tried to restore order.
She failed.
Emanda rescued the basket of thread before it could be trampled.
Marissa shielded Maella and laughed into the child’s hair.
Rhaenyra sat near the table, smiling so openly it made her look younger.
Daemon caught one cushion out of the air with insulting ease and tossed it back at Luke, who shrieked and hid behind Valora.
“Coward,” Valora told him.
“You are taller.”
“I am also the injured party.”
“Your finger is fine.”
“It nearly killed me.”
“It did not.”
“The histories will decide.”
Eventually, the battle ended not because anyone surrendered, but because Matila finally stood, hands on hips, and said, “If any of you knock over the ink, I will make every one of you sew until supper.”
Everyone stopped.
Even Daemon.
Valora slowly lowered the cushion in her hands.
“Cruel woman,” she murmured.
“Effective woman,” Matila corrected.
Rhaenyra laughed softly.
Peace returned to the chamber in uneven pieces.
Jace and Luke sprawled across the rug, breathless and grinning.
Daemon resumed leaning against the wall as though he had not just participated in a cushion battle with children.
Maella had fallen asleep again.
And Valora sat back in her chair, her bandaged finger resting on the table, looking at the cloth-wrapped embroidery with a strange little expression.
Not pride, exactly.
Not embarrassment either.
Something softer.
Matila noticed.
So did Rhaenyra.
Valora reached out and touched the bundle lightly.
“I still dislike sewing,” she said.
Matila smiled. “I gathered.”
“I do not intend to make a habit of it.”
“No one expected you to.”
“And I maintain that the thread was unusually hostile.”
“Of course.”
Valora looked at her suspiciously. “You are humouring me.”
“Yes.”
“At least you admit it.”
Matila’s smile warmed.
Valora looked once more at the wrapped hoop.
Then she said, quieter, “But… perhaps I could try again another day.”
Matila’s expression softened.
Rhaenyra’s did too.
Daemon looked amused, but kindly so.
“Another day,” Matila agreed.
Valora nodded, as though the matter had been settled by royal decree.
Then she lifted her chin.
“But next time, I choose the design.”
Georgine blinked. “What design?”
Valora’s eyes gleamed.
“A dragon eating a needle.”
Luke dissolved into laughter again.
Jace groaned.
Matila closed her eyes as though praying for strength.
Rhaenyra smiled into her hand.
Daemon looked at Valora with open approval.
“There,” he said. “Now that is art.”
Valora grinned.
And so it was decided.
The Realm’s Joy still could not sew.
But she could endure.
She could learn.
She could turn embarrassment into war, war into laughter, and one ugly little dragon into something her mother would hide among her most treasured keepsakes.
And years later, when lords spoke of Princess Valora Velaryon’s brilliance, of her sharp mind, her beloved name, her dragon’s shadow, and the way she seemed born to rule, those who had known her best would remember something else too.
A sunny afternoon.
A crooked dragon.
A wounded finger.
And the day the beloved princess of Westeros lost, quite spectacularly, to embroidery.
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.
