Jacaerys Velaryon is born into a world that will one day demand everything of him.
But before titles, before expectations, before the realm can speak his name, there is his sister.
Valora Velaryon, already certain of her place, meets her brother for the first time and decides something simple and absolute:
He is hers.
And she has already chosen his dragon.
Some bonds are not made by duty.
They are claimed.
Rhaenyra’s bedchambers were warm, thick with the soft glow of candlelight and the faint scent of herbs and smoke.
At the centre of it all sat Rhaenyra Targaryen, pale but radiant, propped against her pillows with a newborn cradled gently in her arms.
Her son.
But not her heir, despite many lords of the realms' wishes.
Because that place, unchallenged, unquestioned, belonged to the small silver-haired girl now standing in the doorway.
Valora Velaryon was only two, but she carried herself with the grave importance of someone far older whenever her family was concerned. Her little chin was tipped up, violet eyes wide and curious as she stared at the bundle in her mother’s arms. One tiny hand clutched the edge of her father’s sleeve, though whether for balance or because she was still deciding how she felt about this new development, no one could say.
Laenor, standing beside her, looked down with poorly concealed amusement.
“Well,” he murmured, crouching so he was level with her, “there he is.”
Valora did not look at him.
Her gaze remained fixed on the baby.
“This is him?” she asked very seriously.
Rhaenyra’s tired laugh softened the whole room.
“Yes, sweetling,” she said. “This is your brother.”
Valora took a few slow steps forward, her little shoes whispering against the floor. She stopped at the bedside and peered up with all the intensity of a maester inspecting some rare and important object. Her silver hair, still soft with sleep from having been brought from her own chambers, spilled over her shoulders in uneven little waves.
The babe shifted in Rhaenyra’s arms, making a small, sleepy sound.
Valora gasped softly.
Laenor smiled. “He is rather small, isn’t he?”
“Very,” Valora said, still staring.
Then she frowned.
“He was bigger in Mama’s belly.”
Laenor had to turn his face away for a moment, shoulders shaking with silent laughter.
Even Rhaenyra smiled despite her weariness. “That is not quite how it works.”
Valora seemed unconvinced by that but allowed it to pass. Carefully, with enormous concentration, she lifted herself onto the edge of the bed where Laenor helped steady her, and from there she leaned just enough to get a better look.
The newborn’s face was red and scrunched, his tiny fists tucked near his chest beneath the blankets.
Valora blinked.
“He’s wrinkly.”
“He has only just arrived,” Rhaenyra said, amusement warm in her voice.
Valora considered that, then gave a small nod as though that was a reasonable explanation.
For a little while, she only looked.
At last Valora looked up at her mother.
“Can I hold him?”
Rhaenyra’s expression gentled even further. “You may sit beside me, and I shall help.”
Valora immediately straightened, as though being entrusted with such a responsibility had transformed her into something even more important than she already believed herself to be.
Laenor lifted her more securely onto the bed and settled beside Rhaenyra while she shifted the babe carefully, slowly, until he rested against Valora’s tiny lap with Rhaenyra’s arms still supporting nearly all his weight.
Valora went very still.
The little girl looked down at her brother as if she had been handed the most precious thing in all the Seven Kingdoms.
“He’s warm,” she whispered.
Rhaenyra brushed a kiss to the top of her daughter’s head. “Yes.”
Valora’s fingers, chubby and impossibly gentle, hovered over the blanket near the baby’s hand. The newborn’s fingers opened slightly, brushing against one of hers.
Wonder stole over her in a way so pure it made Rhaenyra’s throat tighten.
“He likes me,” Valora breathed.
“Of course he does,” Laenor said. “You are his sister.”
Valora looked very pleased by that.
Then, after a brief silence, she lifted her head with the solemn pride of someone revealing a great and noble secret.
“I picked his egg.”
Rhaenyra blinked, smiling. “Did you?”
Valora nodded at once. “Mine did.”
Laenor’s brow rose. “Yours did?”
“Yes.” She looked between them, clearly astonished they needed clarification. “I picked it.”
Rhaenyra’s lips twitched. “Tell us, then.”
Valora drew in a little breath, puffing herself up with importance. “Went with dragonkeepers.”
Laenor rested his chin on one hand, fully indulging her. “Did you?”
“Yes.” Valora nodded again. “Lots of eggs.”
Her nose wrinkled a little, remembering. “Some too dark. Some too dull. Some sleepy.”
“Sleepy?” Laenor echoed.
Valora looked at him as if he were the foolish one.
“Eggs can be sleepy.”
“Ah,” he said gravely. “Naturally.”
Rhaenyra bit back another laugh.
Valora looked back down at her brother, then reached one finger to touch the edge of his blanket.
“I picked the best one.”
“And how did you know it was the best one?” Rhaenyra asked softly.
Valora’s answer came at once, full of certainty.
“Because it was his.”
Silence followed.
The sort that came when something simple was said with such perfect conviction that no one could improve upon it.
Rhaenyra felt her chest ache with it. Gods, but she loved this child. Loved the impossible earnestness of her. The way she spoke as if the world could be understood if only everyone would be sensible enough to listen.
Laenor reached out and tucked a strand of Valora’s silver hair behind her ear. “And what makes you so certain?”
Valora looked down at the babe again. Her expression softened into something almost protective, almost fierce.
“He needed one.”
Rhaenyra’s eyes stung unexpectedly.
Laenor’s smile faded into something more tender.
Valora, oblivious to the effect she had on either of them, leaned a tiny bit closer to the newborn and whispered with all the authority of an elder sister making a formal declaration:
“I got you a dragon.”
The babe scrunched his face and let out a soft little noise.
Valora beamed.
“He heard me.”
“He did,” Laenor said.
Valora settled immediately into the role she had clearly decided was hers. She peered down at him with severe concentration for a few seconds more before asking, “What’s his name?”
Rhaenyra and Laenor exchanged a glance.
“We have decided on Jacaerys,” Rhaenyra said.
Valora repeated it carefully, working her way through the unfamiliar shape of it. “Ja... cae... rys.”
“Very good,” Laenor praised.
Valora looked back at the babe.
“Jace,” she said firmly.
Laenor let out a laugh.
Rhaenyra smiled. “Jace?”
Valora nodded once, as if the matter were settled and they were all fortunate she had simplified it for them.
“Jace.”
The babe shifted again in her lap, making a tiny, unhappy sound this time.
At once, Valora’s whole body tensed.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” Rhaenyra soothed. “He is simply letting us know he is there.”
Valora frowned at him with concern. Then, in the same voice Rhaenyra herself often used with her, she whispered, “It’s alright. I’m here.”
Jacaerys quieted.
Valora looked up at once, proud and a little smug.
“He stopped.”
“So he did,” Laenor said.
For a long moment, the three of them remained there together: Rhaenyra weak and glowing from birth, Laenor warm and watchful at her side, and little Valora cradling her newborn brother with all the seriousness of a princess already certain of her place in the world.
Then Valora looked down at Jace once more and said, in a tone that suggested she was already thinking far ahead:
“When he’s bigger, I’ll show him his dragon.”
Laenor smiled. “Will you?”
“Yes.” She glanced at her mother, then her father, then back at the tiny babe in her lap. “I picked it. So I show him.”
Rhaenyra’s tired, joyful gaze lingered on both her children.
“Yes,” she said softly. “You shall.”
Valora smiled at that before she looked back at her new brother.
A few months after her birth, Valora Velaryon has already begun collecting hearts without effort.
Laena is taken with her immediately. Laenor is insufferably pleased with himself. Rhaenyra watches it all with quiet joy.
And Daemon, despite every instinct to remain untouched, finds himself undone by a silver-haired babe with a stubborn grip and no intention of letting go.
Some victories are won with dragons.
Others with one tiny hand.
A few months later, Valora had grown into the sort of babe who no longer seemed entirely content to simply sleep through the world.
She watched it now.
She lay across Rhaenyra’s lap near the window of her chambers, wrapped in soft sea-blue and crimson, one tiny hand stubbornly tangled in the ribbon fastening her blanket. Sunlight spilled across the room in pale gold, warming the rushes and the carved cradle nearby, where the black-and-red egg from Meleys still rested like a promise.
Rhaenyra traced one finger lightly over Valora’s cheek.
The babe made a soft humming sound in response, then blinked up at her mother with grave concentration.
Laenor, lounging nearby with all the ease of a man who had fully decided watching his wife and daughter was a worthy use of the entire afternoon, smiled at once.
“She does that,” he said.
Rhaenyra glanced up. “What?”
“That look.” He gestured vaguely toward their daughter. “As though she is enduring us all with great patience.”
Rhaenyra let out a quiet laugh. “Perhaps she is.”
“From you, no doubt.”
“From me?”
“Yes. That exact expression is yours when lords begin repeating themselves.”
Rhaenyra smiled despite herself and looked back down at Valora, who had now found one of her own fingers and seemed deeply pleased by the discovery.
There came a knock at the door.
Before either of them could answer, it opened, and a familiar voice announced itself with all the warm confidence it had possessed since childhood.
“Well,” said Laena, stepping into the chamber, “I was told she had become even prettier, and still I think I have been misled.”
Rhaenyra’s face lit at once.
“Laena.”
Behind her entered Daemon, slower and quieter, one hand resting lightly at the pommel of Dark Sister more from habit than need. His expression, as ever, was composed into something unreadable, though his eyes went immediately to the child.
Laenor grinned from his seat. “There you are.”
Laena barely spared her brother a glance. Her attention had already fixed wholly upon Valora.
“Oh, she is beautiful.”
She crossed the room in a sweep of dark silk and dragonfire confidence, stopping beside Rhaenyra and bending at once to get a better look.
Valora blinked up at her.
Laena’s entire face softened.
“There you are,” she murmured, almost reverently. “Hello, sweet girl.”
Rhaenyra smiled, watching the immediate change come over her.
It was impossible to miss. Laena was taken at once.
Not politely pleased.
Not simply affectionate.
Taken.
As though in the space of a single glance she had already claimed a place in the child’s life and had no intention of surrendering it.
“She has your eyes,” Laena said to Rhaenyra, though her gaze remained on the babe. “And your look.”
“My look?” Rhaenyra echoed, amused.
“Yes. As if she has already decided she is above everyone in the room.”
Laenor laughed. “I said the same.”
Rhaenyra narrowed her eyes at both of them. “You are insufferable.”
“Yet not incorrect,” Laena said.
Valora made a soft sound then, kicked once beneath the blanket, and turned her face slightly toward Laena’s voice.
Laena put a hand dramatically to her heart. “Did you see that? She likes me best already.”
“Impossible,” Laenor said at once. “That place is reserved for me.”
Laena finally looked up at her brother with a grin. “You say that as if babes are known for good judgement.”
Laenor gasped in mock offence.
Daemon, from a little farther back, gave a low snort that might almost have been laughter.
Rhaenyra glanced toward him then.
He had not come closer.
He stood near the hearth, broad-shouldered and dark-clad, silver hair catching the light, looking at Valora with an expression so carefully blank it betrayed itself at once.
Interested.
Wary.
Unsure.
Rhaenyra knew him well enough to see all three.
Laena noticed too, of course.
She always noticed.
“You may come closer, you know,” she said over her shoulder.
Daemon arched a brow. “May I?”
“It is a babe, not Balerion returned.”
Laenor barked out a laugh at that, then looked toward Daemon with open delight.
“Oh, please do. This is already the finest entertainment I’ve had all week.”
Daemon shot him a dark look. “You are enjoying this far too much.”
“Immensely.”
Rhaenyra had to bite back a smile.
Daemon hesitated for only a moment longer before he stepped nearer, though there was still a curious caution to it, as if he were approaching some small, delicate creature that might either break or bite.
He stopped beside Laena and looked down at Valora.
Valora, in turn, looked up at him.
For one long second, neither moved.
Then Valora blinked once, solemnly, and reached a tiny hand up into the air in his general direction.
Laena turned very slowly to look at him with a triumphant smile.
“Oh, that is excellent.”
Laenor laughed outright now.
Daemon frowned at the child as if personally betrayed by the situation. “What is she doing?”
“Choosing you,” Laena said sweetly.
“I do not think that is what this is.”
“It is exactly what this is.”
Valora made another small sound and flexed her fingers again, still reaching vaguely upward.
Daemon looked at the tiny hand as though it were some strange challenge placed before him by the gods.
Rhaenyra’s voice softened.
“You can touch her, uncle. She will not shatter.”
His gaze flicked briefly to hers, then back to the child.
Carefully, more carefully than anyone who knew him might have expected, he reached out and offered one finger.
Valora’s hand closed around it at once.
The room went quiet.
Daemon stilled entirely.
Laenor, who had looked a moment away from laughing himself senseless, now looked almost overcome by amusement and fondness all at once.
Rhaenyra watched the exact moment Daemon lost whatever battle he had been fighting with himself.
His expression did not change much.
Not outwardly.
But something in him softened.
Something old and sharp and hidden eased just slightly under the weight of one tiny hand gripping his finger like she had every right to it.
Rhaenyra looked between an amused Laenor and Laena and then back to Daemon, who still stood as though any sudden movement might somehow undo the moment.
Valora’s tiny hand remained wrapped around his finger with surprising determination.
For a babe not yet old enough to sit, much less speak, it was a remarkably imperious gesture.
A command rather than a request.
Daemon stared down at her with narrowed eyes, as though trying to determine whether he was being mocked.
“She has a strong grip,” he muttered at last.
Laena turned, delighted. “That is your first remark?”
“It is an accurate one.”
“It is also the least interesting one.”
Laenor laughed outright.
Rhaenyra could not help smiling.
There was something almost absurdly endearing in the sight before her. Daemon Targaryen, rogue prince, warrior, terror of courts and battlefields alike, standing trapped by the hand of an infant who had decided he was worth holding onto.
Valora made another small sound then, not quite a coo, not quite a hum, and tightened her fingers just enough to make Daemon go very still again.
Laena pressed a hand to her mouth in a futile attempt to hide her amusement.
“Oh, she has him,” she said softly.
“She has everyone,” Rhaenyra replied.
“That too.”
Laenor rose from his seat then and moved nearer, folding his arms as he studied Daemon with the open delight of a younger brother who had found something he would treasure forever.
“You look stricken.”
“I am not stricken.”
“You are.”
“I simply do not understand why she is doing this.”
Laena arched a brow. “You are tall, silver-haired, and glaring at her as if she has personally offended you. Perhaps she finds that familiar.”
Rhaenyra let out a laugh at that, and Daemon gave Laena a withering look that only made her smile more.
Valora, undisturbed by any of it, blinked solemnly up at him again.
Daemon exhaled slowly through his nose.
Then, with a care that looked foreign and yet somehow natural all at once, he bent slightly and let his other gaze hover uncertainly over the babe.
Rhaenyra saw it immediately.
The uncertainty.
Not fear, precisely.
Something older than that.
Something like absence.
As though he knew swords and dragons and blood and battle, but not this. Not tiny hands and warm blankets and babes who smelled of milk and sunlight.
“You may hold her,” Rhaenyra said quietly.
Daemon’s gaze lifted to hers at once.
For a second, he looked almost caught out.
Laenor, of course, noticed it too and looked ready to enjoy every heartbeat of it.
“That,” he said brightly, “is an excellent idea.”
Daemon shot him a dark look. “Must you sound so pleased?”
“Yes,” Laenor said without hesitation. “Deeply.”
Laena laughed again and moved at once to stand beside Daemon, close enough to murmur, “She will not bite.”
“That is what everyone keeps saying.”
“Because it remains true.”
Rhaenyra adjusted Valora more securely in her lap and looked at him steadily. “Would you like to?”
There was no challenge in it.
No teasing.
Only the question.
Daemon looked at the child again.
At the pale silver lashes. The soft roundness of her face. The tiny hand still gripping his finger as though it had every right in the world.
And for the first time since entering the room, something undefended showed plainly in his expression.
“Yes,” he said, low enough that it nearly disappeared into the warmth of the chamber.
Laena’s smile softened immediately.
Rhaenyra shifted carefully, rising only enough to guide the babe upward. Daemon removed his finger from Valora’s grip with visible reluctance, as though he had the strange notion she might object to it. But the moment Rhaenyra moved her toward him, Valora simply made a sleepy little sound and blinked again.
Daemon held out his arms.
Awkwardly at first.
Too stiff.
Too ready for the weight of a sword rather than the weight of a child.
Laenor made a soft noise under his breath. “Gods, you look as though you’re preparing to catch a falling chandelier.”
Daemon’s glare sharpened. “Say one more word and I will throw you from the window.”
“See?” Laenor said to no one in particular. “He is already speaking to her like family.”
Laena covered a laugh with one hand.
Rhaenyra carefully laid Valora into Daemon’s arms.
Daemon froze.
Not from discomfort.
From shock.
Valora fit so strangely and so perfectly there, one tiny body bundled in crimson and sea-blue, her silver hair bright where the sun found it, her face turned inward for a moment before she shifted and tucked herself closer against his chest.
As though she had decided this, too, was acceptable.
Laena watched Daemon’s face carefully.
He was trying very hard not to look affected.
Trying so hard, in fact, that the effort itself betrayed him.
His hold became surer by degrees. One large hand curved protectively at the babe’s back while the other adjusted beneath her with painstaking care. His shoulders, so often taut with sharpness and coiled impatience, eased little by little.
Valora gave a tiny sigh and settled.
Rhaenyra saw it too.
Saw the way Valora had settled against Daemon’s chest as though she had known him always. Saw the way his hands, usually meant for reins and steel and war, had gone so impossibly careful around something so small.
Her smile softened into something quieter.
“Well,” she murmured, folding her arms as she leaned lightly against the bedpost, “that seals it, then.”
Daemon glanced at her, wary already. “Seals what?”
“You are finished.” Laena laughed
“With what?”
“With pretending you are not entirely taken with her.”
Laenor made a delighted noise under his breath. “Yes. That.”
Rhaenyra laughed softly, one hand covering her mouth, unwilling to risk disturbing Valora where she rested against Daemon now with perfect, infuriating ease.
Daemon narrowed his eyes at all three of them. “You are all being insufferable.”
“And yet,” Laena said sweetly, stepping closer to look down at the babe again, “not one of us is wrong.”
Valora made a tiny sleepy sound, the sort that was barely more than breath, and turned her face more firmly into the dark fold of Daemon’s doublet.
That seemed to undo him further.
Not enough for anyone who did not know him to notice.
But enough.
His shoulders eased another fraction. His thumb, large and scarred and wholly unsuited in appearance to gentleness, shifted once at the babe’s back in an absent little stroke.
Laenor saw it and looked ready to collapse from joy.
“Oh, this is glorious,” he said.
Daemon did not look up. “I can still hear you.”
“I know. I wanted to be sure of it.”
Laena laughed, then turned her attention fully back to Rhaenyra. She sat at once on the edge of the bed without asking, as if she belonged there, which in truth she did.
“Gods, look at her,” she said quietly, reaching out to brush one finger over the edge of Valora’s blanket. “She is perfect.”
Rhaenyra smiled, all softness at once. “I know.”
“And growing far too quickly already.”
“She has only just discovered her own hands.”
“That is how it starts,” Laena said gravely. “First their hands. Then they are running through the halls and refusing instruction and somehow always dirtier than when last you saw them.”
Laenor snorted. “You say that as if you were not exactly such a child.”
“I was a delight.”
“You were a menace.”
“A beloved menace,” Laena corrected.
Rhaenyra laughed again, and the sound filled the chamber warmly.
Laena reached for her hand and squeezed it lightly. “How are you?”
Rhaenyra knew that tone well enough to answer honestly.
“Better,” she admitted. “Still tired. Still sore. But better.”
Laena’s gaze gentled. “Good.”
For a moment, her eyes moved around the chamber. To the cradle beside the bed. To the black-and-red egg from Meleys resting within it. To the pale light spilling over the rushes. Then back to Rhaenyra.
“She suits this room,” Laena said.
Rhaenyra arched a brow. “The room?”
“The whole of it. The fire. The sea-blue. The dragon egg in her cradle. Everyone orbiting her already as though she is the sun.”
Laenor gestured grandly from where he stood beside the chair. “Because she is.”
Daemon made a low sound that might once have become a scoff, though it never quite managed it.
Laena tilted her head, watching Valora again.
“What does she do?”
Rhaenyra blinked. “What?”
“At this age. What are her little habits? Tell me everything.”
Laenor laughed. “Everything?”
“Yes, everything.”
Rhaenyra smiled despite herself. “She likes the window. Or at least she grows quieter near it.”
“Laenor says she looks at everyone as though they are disappointing her.”
“She does,” Laenor said firmly.
Rhaenyra ignored him. “She hums sometimes when she wakes.”
Laena’s face softened at once. “Does she?”
Rhaenyra nodded. “Not often. But enough to notice.”
“And she grips sleeves,” Laenor added. “And ribbons. And fingers. Especially fingers, it seems.”
His gaze flicked meaningfully toward Daemon.
Daemon, still not looking up, said, “Do not start.”
Laena smiled wider. “You heard him. She does like you.”
“I have held her for less than a minute.”
“And yet here she remains.”
Valora, as if determined to prove the point, stretched one little hand against Daemon’s chest and gave another soft, contented sigh.
Rhaenyra watched his face carefully.
The uncertainty was still there, though smaller now.
There was almost something boyish in it, buried very deeply beneath years of hard edges and sharper habits. Not innocence. Daemon had never possessed that. But unfamiliarity, perhaps. The strange discomfort of wanting something gentle and not knowing the proper shape of it.
Laena saw it too. Her expression changed, turning fond in a way that belonged only to him.
“She likes warmth,” Laena said lightly, as though speaking only of the babe. “She can tell when someone runs hot.”
Daemon finally glanced at her. “That is not a thing.”
“It is now.” Laena grinned.
Laenor moved to pour wine for himself, then thought better of it and set the jug back down with theatrical restraint. “I do hope someone appreciates how well I am behaving.”
“No one,” said Daemon.
“That seems unkind considering I am offering you all this memory free of charge.”
Daemon looked at him flatly. “What memory?”
“The one in which you stood stricken by a child scarcely bigger than a loaf of bread.”
Laena made a choking sound trying not to laugh.
Rhaenyra looked down at the coverlet, shoulders shaking.
Daemon’s stare turned murderous. “I will kill you.”
“Laena, do you hear how tender he sounds?”
“Almost musical,” she agreed.
Valora, perhaps offended by the laughter around her, let out the tiniest little protesting noise.
Every head turned to her at once.
The room fell silent.
Then Valora blinked, yawned enormously, and settled back down against Daemon without another care in the world.
Laena melted instantly. “Oh, gods.”
Rhaenyra pressed a hand to her chest. “That was cruel of her.”
Laenor looked genuinely wounded. “And I missed part of it because I was being mocked.”
“Deservedly,” said Daemon.
“Laena, did you hear that? He defends her already.”
Laena reached down and touched Valora’s tiny foot through the blanket. “When she is older, I shall teach her all the best things.”
Rhaenyra lifted a brow. “That sounds dangerous.”
“It is.”
Daemon looked interested. “Do continue.”
“I shall teach her how to sit a dragon properly, how to laugh at pompous lords without being caught, how to win affection and arguments both, and how to climb where she is not meant to.”
“Absolutely not,” Laenor said.
Daemon smiled. “You make a compelling case.”
Laena grinned. “You see?”
Rhaenyra looked at Daemon as if betrayed anew. “You are encouraging this.”
“Only because it amuses me.”
“That is hardly comforting,” Rhaenyra informed him.
“It was not meant to be.”
Laena laughed and leaned back on one hand, wholly at ease in the chamber now, as if she had always belonged in the warm circle of sunlight, dragonfire, and soft blankets. Perhaps she had. Valora certainly seemed to think so of all of them. The babe lay peacefully in Daemon’s arms, one tiny fist curled against his chest, breathing slow and even, as though there was nothing at all remarkable in using the Rogue Prince as a cradle.
Laenor still looked delighted beyond reason.
“I do hope you understand,” he said, “that I shall never allow you to forget this.”
Daemon did not so much as glance at him. “I had assumed as much.”
“You should. I mean to speak of little else for the next decade.”
Laena tilted her head thoughtfully. “Only a decade?”
“At minimum.”
Rhaenyra laughed softly and shook her head. “You are both impossible.”
The morning after her birth, Princess Valora Velaryon receives her first visitors.
A grandfather who sees only wonder.
A queen who sees something else entirely.
In the quiet of Rhaenyra’s chambers, love and politics meet for the first time, and even in the cradle, the game has already begun.
Because some children are not simply born.
They are measured.
The chamber was quieter by the time the knock came.
Not silent, never that. Not with a newborn in the room, nor with the low crackle of the fire and the faint murmur of servants somewhere beyond the doors. But quieter.
Rhaenyra had not moved far from the bed. She was more tired now than she had been before, the first rush of joy giving way to the heavy ache in her limbs and the lingering weakness that sat behind her ribs. Still, she kept Valora close, one arm wrapped around the babe as though the world might try and take her if she loosened her hold even for a moment.
Laenor remained beside her, one hand resting lightly over the crimson blanket tucked around their daughter.
Another knock sounded.
Before either of them could answer, the door opened, and Rhaenyra’s lady in waiting, Elinda, slipped inside, curtsying low.
“Princess, Ser Laenor,” she said softly, looking to the new parents. “The King and Queen are here.”
Rhaenyra straightened a little despite herself.
Laenor rose at once, smoothing a hand over the front of his tunic before crossing toward the door.
A moment later, King Viserys entered first.
He looked as though he had come as quickly as dignity would allow him. His robes had been properly arranged, but there was still something hurried in the way he moved, in the brightness in his eyes as he stepped into the room and immediately sought out his daughter.
And then the child in her arms.
For a moment, he simply stopped.
Rhaenyra watched her father’s face soften all at once, some deep line of weariness easing from him as he looked at the babe.
Behind him came Queen Alicent.
She moved far more gracefully, every inch composed, green skirts whispering across the floor as she entered. Her face wore the proper expression, gentle concern, measured warmth, queenly restraint.
But her eyes were sharp.
Rhaenyra noticed at once the way they moved. To her first, pale from labour, still in bed. Then to Laenor. Then, finally, to the child.
Viserys took another step forward, smiling in a way that looked almost boyish despite his years.
“My girl,” he said softly.
Rhaenyra’s mouth curved faintly. “Father.”
He came to her bedside without hesitation, his gaze flicking over her face before settling on the bundle in her arms.
“So this is she,” he murmured.
Rhaenyra looked down at her daughter, and even now the sight of her still felt half unreal.
“This is she.”
Viserys let out a quiet breath, the sort a man gives when confronted by something fragile and precious enough to frighten him.
“Oh, she is beautiful.”
Laenor smiled from where he stood near the bed. “You are clearly a man of excellent judgment, Your Grace.”
Viserys huffed a small laugh, though he barely seemed to hear him. His attention remained entirely on the babe.
“What is her name?”
Rhaenyra’s hand moved instinctively over the child’s back.
“Valora.”
Viserys repeated it at once, quieter, almost reverent. “Valora.”
“A strong name,” he said. “A name fit for a princess.”
Laenor’s smile warmed. “That was the hope.”
Viserys looked at the child for another long moment before lifting his eyes to Rhaenyra.
“And how fares her mother?”
Rhaenyra gave a tired breath that might have become a laugh in other circumstances. “Alive, which feels achievement enough.”
That made Viserys wince in sympathy.
“Yes,” he said softly. “Yes, I imagine it does.”
He reached down and brushed a hand gently over her hair, so carefully it was almost hesitant.
“You have done well. Very well.”
The words were simple, but Rhaenyra felt her throat tighten all the same.
She looked away before the feeling could show too plainly.
Beside the King, Alicent finally stepped closer.
“I had asked that the child be brought to me at once,” she said, her tone light, almost teasing, as though the request had been nothing more than a harmless wish. “But His Grace insisted you should be allowed your rest.”
Viserys did not take his eyes off the babe. “Because she had just laboured through the birth of her first child,” he said plainly. “And would not be dragged through the castle for anyone’s convenience.”
Alicent’s smile did not falter.
“Of course,” she said smoothly. “I meant no harm by it. I only wished to see her.”
Rhaenyra met her gaze then.
She had not forgotten the demand. Had not forgotten the audacity of it, that while sweat still cooled on her skin and blood still marked the sheets, Alicent had thought first of summoning the child to her.
Not mother and daughter both.
The child.
Something cold and old stirred in her chest.
Laenor, sensing it, stepped back to the bedside and rested a hand lightly against the carved wood near Rhaenyra’s shoulder. Not touching her, not quite, but close.
Viserys either did not notice the shift in the room or chose not to name it.
“May I?” he asked instead, looking at the babe.
Rhaenyra’s expression softened at once.
“Of course.”
Carefully, mindful of her own aching arms, she shifted Valora toward him.
Viserys took his granddaughter with far more confidence than Laenor had managed moments ago, though his hands were no less gentle for it. He cradled her like a treasure, gazing down at her with unguarded delight.
“Well now,” he murmured. “There you are, the future of the realm.”
Valora gave the faintest sleepy fuss, her tiny face scrunching for a moment before settling again.
Alicent stood near enough now to peer down into Viserys’s arms.
For all her careful composure, there was calculation in the way she looked.
Rhaenyra saw it plainly.
Not at Valora as a babe, but at Valora as proof.
Silver hair. Pale skin. Violet eyes, though only just visible beneath sleepy lids. Features too new to have settled fully, but enough already to tell a story Alicent would not like.
A child who looked every inch Rhaenyra’s daughter.
A child born without immediate room for whispering.
Alicent tilted her head slightly.
“She has your colouring,” she said to Rhaenyra.
It was spoken mildly enough, but Rhaenyra heard the thing beneath it. The assessment. The disappointment.
Laenor heard it too.
“Yes,” he said pleasantly. “A marvel, is it not, how children may resemble their parents.”
Alicent’s eyes flicked to him.
“Sometimes,” she replied.
Viserys, oblivious or pretending to be, continued smiling down at the child.
“She is strong,” he said.
Rhaenyra arched a brow. “She has been alive for scarcely a few hours.”
“And already she has weathered a stormy night and announced herself to the realm,” Viserys returned. “That seems strength enough for a beginning.”
Laenor laughed softly. “There, you see? She inherits magnificently.”
Rhaenyra looked at her father holding her daughter and felt that same strange ache return, sharp with love and fear and something almost grief-like in its depth.
Because this was how it began.
With joy. With blessings. With smiles.
And already Alicent was searching.
Her gaze dipped once more to the child, subtle as a knife sliding between ribs.
Rhaenyra watched the exact moment she looked more closely. At the shape of Valora’s nose. The pale silver at her temples. The tiny mouth. The brows so faint they were barely there.
Searching for what?
A flaw? A doubt? Something she could turn into talk in corridors years hence?
The thought made Rhaenyra’s spine stiffen.
Viserys glanced up at her then, perhaps finally noticing the stillness in her face.
He stepped forward and returned the babe gently to her arms.
Valora settled against her mother at once, warm and impossibly small.
“There,” Viserys said softly. “Back where she belongs.”
Rhaenyra looked down at her daughter and brushed one finger over the babe’s cheek.
“Yes,” she said, though her eyes lifted to Alicent as she did. “Exactly there.”
For a heartbeat, silence held.
Alicent smiled again, serene and unreadable.
“She will no doubt be much admired,” she said.
Rhaenyra did not miss the phrasing.
Admired. Watched. Not loved.
Laenor folded his hands behind his back and returned her look with one of perfect court politeness.
“She already is.”
Viserys, perhaps sensing the tension at last, cleared his throat gently.
“Well,” he said, glancing between them all, “I think mother and child should have peace now.”
Alicent inclined her head. “Naturally.”
But still she lingered one moment longer, her gaze resting on Valora’s face.
Rhaenyra met it without blinking.
The Queen looked away first.
Viserys leaned down and kissed Rhaenyra’s brow. “Rest, my girl.”
Then, softer, with a look toward the babe, “She is a wonder.”
The King smiled at that, then turned and made for the door, Alicent following at his side.
Just before she crossed the threshold, Alicent glanced back one last time.
Only for a moment.
Just long enough for Rhaenyra to see it clearly.
The displeasure hidden beneath grace.
The thwarted hunger for something she had not found.
And perhaps, deepest of all, the understanding that this child, this first child, would only strengthen Rhaenyra.
Then she was gone.
The door shut softly behind them.
The room seemed to exhale.
Laenor turned back at once, his expression losing its courtly ease. “Well,” he said dryly, “that was unbearable.”
Rhaenyra let out a tired laugh under her breath.
“You noticed?”
“I noticed the Queen all but trying to inspect our daughter like a horse at market.”
Rhaenyra adjusted Valora more securely against her chest. “She was looking for something.”
“She did not find it.”
“No,” Rhaenyra said quietly.
Valora stirred again, nestling closer.
Laenor sat beside her once more, his hand returning to the blanket wrapped around their daughter.
For a little while, neither of them spoke.
At last, Laenor glanced at her. “Are you well?”
Rhaenyra looked toward the closed door, then back down at the child in her arms.
“No,” she said honestly. “But I am happier than I have ever been.”
Laenor’s expression softened.
“That sounds like parenthood already.”
That earned him a small, genuine smile.
Rhaenyra bent and pressed her lips to the crown of Valora’s silver head.
Before the realm can watch her, before whispers can form, there is Driftmark.
Rhaenys and Corlys Velaryon come to meet their first grandchild, and with them, they bring something more than pride.
A legacy. A promise. A dragon.
In the quiet warmth of Rhaenyra’s chambers, Valora Velaryon is not questioned, not measured, not doubted.
She is loved
By blood.
By fire.
By those who already know exactly what she will become.
The first sound Valora made when she woke was not a cry.
It was a small, soft hum, more breath than anything, as she shifted against the warmth of her mother’s chest, her tiny fingers curling into the fabric of Rhaenyra’s sleeve as though anchoring herself to something she already knew.
Rhaenyra stilled at once.
For a heartbeat, she simply watched.
Watched the slight movement of her daughter’s lips, the faint flutter of lashes against pale cheeks, the quiet rise and fall of her chest. The world beyond the chamber might have been burning, and she would not have noticed.
“There you are,” she whispered, voice softer than the firelight that flickered across the walls.
Beside her, Laenor leaned forward immediately. “She is awake?”
“Barely.”
“That still counts.”
Rhaenyra huffed a quiet laugh, though her gaze never left the child.
The babe made another small sound, then settled again, her hand still fisted stubbornly in her mother’s sleeve.
Laenor’s smile softened, something quieter threading through the pride. “She already refuses to let you go.”
“She is wise, then.”
“I agree.”
The chamber was warm, steady in a way the rest of the Red Keep rarely was. The storm had passed in the night, leaving the morning pale and calm beyond the windows, but inside, the fire still burned low and constant.
For once, no one rushed them.
No maesters.
No midwives.
No courtiers waiting for a glimpse.
Just the two of them.
And their daughter.
That peace did not last.
There came the low murmur of voices outside the chamber doors, followed by a soft knock, one that did not wait long for permission.
The doors opened.
Rhaenys Targaryen entered first, her presence composed as ever, though her eyes moved quickly, searching, until they found the bed.
Found Rhaenyra.
Found the child.
Behind her followed Corlys Velaryon, his steps measured, his gaze already fixed on the same point.
Laenor straightened at once. “Mother. Father.”
Rhaenys did not answer immediately.
She had stopped a few paces from the bed.
Looking.
Taking in everything at once.
The pale exhaustion in Rhaenyra’s face. The careful way she held the child. The small, silver head resting against her chest.
Something in her expression shifted.
Not visibly, not to most.
But Rhaenyra saw it.
“…You are alive,” Rhaenys said quietly.
Rhaenyra blinked, then gave a tired, almost incredulous smile. “Just barely.”
Rhaenys stepped closer, her voice softer now. “That is enough.”
Corlys moved to stand beside her, though his attention had already gone to the child.
Rhaenyra adjusted Valora slightly, as though instinctively shielding her even as she presented her.
“This,” she said softly, “is Valora.”
The name settled into the room.
Corlys repeated it under his breath, testing it. “Valora.”
Rhaenys let the name linger for a moment, as though weighing it.
Then she nodded once.
“A strong name,” she said. “An old name.”
Corlys’s mouth curved faintly at that, though his eyes never left the babe. “A name worthy of being remembered.”
Valora, as if sensing herself the subject of such solemn attention, made another soft little sound and shifted in Rhaenyra’s arms.
That was enough to break whatever distance remained.
Rhaenys stepped forward first.
Not hurriedly. Never hurriedly. But with purpose.
Her eyes dropped fully to the child at last, and for one long moment she simply looked.
At the pale silver hair already visible against the blanket.
At the small, delicate shape of her face.
At the faint violet hue in the eyes, only just beginning to open again.
Something gentled in her then.
Oh, she was still Rhaenys, still proud-backed and sharp-eyed and queenly even in grief and disappointment and all the years the world had forced her to endure. But now there was something else too.
Something warmer.
“She is beautiful,” she said, and there was no courtly polish to it. No distance. Just truth.
Rhaenyra felt something in her chest ease at the words.
Laenor smiled at once. “Obviously.”
Corlys let out a quiet huff that might almost have been amusement. “She has been awake for less than a morning and already her father speaks of her as though she hung the moon.”
Laenor looked at him without shame. “Because she has.”
Rhaenyra laughed softly, exhausted and warm all at once.
Rhaenys extended her hands then, her gaze lifting briefly to Rhaenyra’s face.
“May I?”
There was no demand in it.
Only quiet certainty, and something else beneath it. An understanding. One woman who knew exactly what childbirth had cost, asking another to trust her with what remained.
Rhaenyra looked down at Valora.
Then back to Rhaenys.
And nodded.
Carefully, with all the new instinctive protectiveness of a mother who had only just survived the bringing forth of her first child, she shifted the babe into Rhaenys’s waiting arms.
Rhaenys took her with surprising ease.
Not hesitant.
Not uncertain.
Like this, at least, had once belonged to her too.
Valora fussed briefly at the movement, her tiny mouth parting in complaint, but the moment Rhaenys adjusted her against her chest and settled one careful hand along her back, she quieted again.
Rhaenys looked down at her granddaughter.
Her first grandchild.
And for the first time since entering the chamber, her expression fully softened.
“Well now,” she murmured, so quietly that only those nearest could hear. “I can already tell she will be nothing less than magnificent.”
Corlys stepped closer, far closer than he had initially allowed himself, his usual commanding presence altered by something almost reverent.
He looked at the child in his wife’s arms and went still.
It was not often Corlys Velaryon had no immediate words.
Yet for a moment, he did not.
Then, very softly, he said, “She has our blood written plainly on her.”
Laenor’s smile turned proud, almost boyish for a second. “She does.”
Rhaenyra leaned back slightly against the pillows, suddenly aware not of tension, but of relief.
This, at least, was easy.
This required no defence.
No explanations.
No watching eyes trying to count features like evidence.
Only family.
Only love.
Valora’s tiny hand emerged from the folds of her blanket just then, opening and closing once in the air before catching against one of the dark red folds of Rhaenys’s sleeve.
Rhaenys stilled again.
A breath escaped her, almost soundless.
Laenor noticed at once and grinned. “She has you already.”
Corlys gave his son a sidelong look. “A trait that runs strongly in this family, it seems.”
Rhaenys ignored them both, her attention still fixed on the tiny fist stubbornly gripping her sleeve.
When she finally looked up, it was not at Laenor or Corlys.
It was at Rhaenyra.
There was something deeply knowing in her gaze now.
You lived, it said. You endured. She is here.
Rhaenyra swallowed hard against the sudden sting in her eyes.
Rhaenys turned her head to her husband slightly and nodded.
Corlys turned toward the chamber door.
There, just outside, an attendant had been waiting with something in his arms, wrapped carefully in dark velvet.
Corlys held out a hand.
The attendant stepped forward at once and placed the bundle into his lord’s grasp.
Laenor frowned slightly. “Mother? Father?”
Neither answered him.
Instead, Corlys unwrapped the velvet with measured care.
Inside lay a dragon egg.
The chamber seemed to draw in a collective breath.
It was beautiful.
Dark as midnight, rich black over most of its shell, but veined all through with deep red, like old embers beneath cooling ash. When the firelight struck it, those crimson veins caught and glimmered faintly, as though the thing might pulse to life at any moment.
“I noticed you both had been so wrapped up in preparing for the little dragons arrival that you both forgot to pick out an egg for the cradle.” Rhaenys stated.
The new parents eyes widened slightly at the realisation.
Laenor looked openly horrified.
“We forgot.”
Rhaenyra, still pale from labour and wrapped in blankets and firelight and exhaustion, stared at the egg as if willing herself to deny it. Then she let out a soft, disbelieving laugh.
“Oh, gods.”
Laenor turned to her at once. “We forgot.”
“You already said that.”
“We forgot the egg.”
Rhaenyra gave him a look that would have been sharper had she not still been holding together by sheer stubbornness and lack of sleep. “I had just spent hours bringing forth an entire child.”
“And I was occupied being terrified that you would die.”
“Then I do believe,” Rhaenys said smoothly, still holding Valora against her chest, “that you may both be forgiven.”
Corlys’ mouth twitched faintly.
Laenor pressed a hand to his chest in exaggerated offence. “You might have warned us before now.”
“And deprive myself of seeing the two of you realise it at the same time?” Rhaenys asked. “Certainly not.”
Rhaenyra laughed, tired and breathy, and the sound seemed to loosen something in the room.
Corlys stepped closer to the cradle beside the bed, the egg still resting in his hands.
“It is from Meleys,” Rhaenys said then, and this time there was something deeper in her voice. Something steadier. “Her last clutch.”
Rhaenyra’s gaze lifted fully to meet hers.
For a moment, the chamber fell quieter.
That was no small gift.
Not merely a dragon’s egg. Not simply a token for the cradle of a newborn princess.
Meleys.
The Red Queen.
Rhaenys’ own dragon.
A piece of her line. Her blood. Her faith.
“For my first grandchild,” Rhaenys said softly, looking down at Valora again, “nothing less would do.”
Laenor’s expression changed at once. The teasing vanished, replaced by something rawer, more moved.
“Mother…”
Corlys said nothing, but the pride in his face was plain as he bent and set the egg carefully into Valora’s cradle.
Against the pale blankets, it looked almost unreal.
Black and red.
Like smoke and flame.
Like Velaryon salt-dark waters meeting dragonfire.
Rhaenyra stared at it for a long moment, and when she spoke, her voice was quieter than before.
“It is beautiful.”
“It is hers,” Rhaenys replied.
Valora gave another soft, sleepy fuss, shifting in Rhaenys’ arms as if objecting to being discussed rather than admired directly. Her tiny face scrunched for a moment before settling again, one small hand still twisted in the red sleeve of Rhaenys’ gown.
Rhaenys smiled down at her.
“Yes,” she murmured. “You as well.”
Laenor moved nearer, glancing between the egg in the cradle and the babe in his mother’s arms.
“She will hatch it,” he said with absolute confidence.
Corlys looked at him. “She has not yet seen a full day.”
“That changes nothing.”
Rhaenyra huffed softly. “Laenor has already decided she is destined for greatness in all things.”
“She is.”
“She has yawned, gripped sleeves, and slept.”
“And done each magnificently.”
Corlys let out a low sound that might almost have been a laugh.
Rhaenys, still gazing at the child, said, “Confidence has ever been one of House Velaryon’s more abundant qualities.”
“And Targaryen’s,” Rhaenyra added.
Rhaenys’ eyes lifted to hers then, and there was warmth there now, unmistakable and unguarded.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “And Targaryen’s.”
Rhaenyra felt the sting in her eyes return at that.
Because it was not only kindness.
It was acceptance.
It was understanding.
It was Rhaenys, who had come to court not simply because she was Laenor’s mother, but because she had known Rhaenyra would need someone who understood what it meant to carry the weight of expectation and danger and blood all at once.
Rhaenys had come because she knew.
She always knew.
“You should be resting,” Rhaenys said after a moment, and though the words were firm, they carried no sharpness. Only care.
Rhaenyra gave her a tired smile. “You sound like the maester.”
“The maester is less persuasive.”
“And less frightening,” Laenor added.
Corlys folded his arms. “That is certainly true.”
Rhaenys ignored them both.
She stepped toward the bed and, with infinite care, began to return Valora to her mother.
Rhaenyra reached for her daughter at once, arms instinctively ready, but paused just briefly as Rhaenys leaned closer.
“This one,” Rhaenys said softly, so softly it was almost only for her, “will be watched by the realm from the moment she can stand.”
Rhaenyra’s face grew still.
“I know.”
Rhaenys settled Valora back into her arms.
“Then let them watch,” she said. “They will not find her lacking.”
Rhaenyra swallowed, looking down at her daughter, at the pale silver hair and the tiny, perfect face and the black-and-red egg now waiting in the cradle beside her.
“No,” she whispered. “They will not.”
Laenor sat beside her again, one hand coming to rest lightly against Valora’s blanket. Corlys stood near the cradle, broad and steady as the sea, his gaze fixed on the dragon egg with quiet satisfaction. And Rhaenys remained close, close enough that her presence seemed to settle over the room like a shield.
Valora stirred once more.
Her eyes fluttered, not fully opening, and one tiny hand escaped the blanket again, flexing weakly in the warm air before falling against Rhaenyra’s wrist.
Rhaenyra smiled immediately.
“There you are, little dragon.”
Rhaenys looked toward the cradle, then back to the child.
“A black shell veined in red,” she said thoughtfully. “A fierce thing for a fierce girl.”
Corlys nodded once. “A worthy companion for a future queen.”
A quiet dawn in the Red Keep.
After a long night of storm and struggle, Rhaenyra Targaryen finally holds her daughter in her arms for the first time.
In the stillness that follows, Laenor Velaryon meets the child who will change everything.
No politics. No whispers. No war.
Just a mother, a father, and the fragile, fleeting moment where love is enough.
The chamber was warm with firelight, though dawn had only just begun to creep through the tall windows of the Red Keep.
The storm that had battered King’s Landing through the night had finally quieted. Rain still clung to the glass in silver streaks, and somewhere beyond the walls, the city was only just beginning to stir awake beneath a pale grey sky.
But inside Rhaenyra’s chambers, all was still.
Rhaenyra lay propped against a mountain of pillows, silver hair loose and tangled around her shoulders, her face pale with exhaustion but softened by something quieter now. Something fuller. In her arms, wrapped in dark crimson blankets lined with sea-blue silk, was her daughter.
Her daughter.
The babe was so small.
Rhaenyra could still scarcely believe that something so tiny had come from her. That after hours of pain and sweat and curses muttered through clenched teeth, she had been given this little girl with a head full of pale silver hair and the faintest hint of violet in her barely-opened eyes.
Valora.
The name felt right in a way she could not explain. Old and strong and bright with promise.
The babe shifted slightly in her arms, giving a soft, sleepy fuss before settling again.
Rhaenyra smiled at once.
“There you are,” she whispered, brushing one careful finger over the child’s cheek. “Already making yourself known.”
The door to her chambers opened softly.
Rhaenyra looked up just as Laenor stepped inside.
He had changed from the clothes he had worn through the long night, though not very well. His tunic was hastily done, one sleeve still slightly folded wrong, and his hair had only been half-tied back, as though he had begun the task and then abandoned it the moment someone told him Rhaenyra was awake.
His eyes found her first.
Then the baby.
And immediately his whole face changed.
The tension left him so quickly it was almost painful to witness.
For a moment he simply stood there, staring, like the sight before him was too precious to approach without permission.
Rhaenyra’s smile softened.
“Well?” she asked quietly. “Are you going to stand there all morning, or come meet your daughter?”
Laenor let out a breath that sounded dangerously close to a laugh.
“Our daughter,” he repeated, as though he liked the taste of the words.
Then he crossed the room.
He moved more slowly than usual once he reached the bed, almost carefully, which was unlike him. Laenor had never been a man lacking in grace, but there was a reverence to him now, something gentler.
He sat beside her on the edge of the bed and looked down at the tiny bundle in her arms.
The babe yawned.
Laenor’s eyes widened at once.
“Oh, she is magnificent.”
Rhaenyra laughed, tired and low. “She yawned.”
“And did so magnificently.”
“She has not done anything else yet.”
“She need not. Look at her.”
He said it with complete seriousness, staring down at the babe like she had personally hung the moon over King’s Landing.
Rhaenyra turned her gaze back to Valora and felt her chest tighten with something fierce and aching.
“She has your nose,” Laenor said suddenly.
Rhaenyra looked at him in disbelief. “My nose?”
“Yes.”
“She is scarcely an hour old.”
“And still,” he said, leaning closer as though inspecting the child with great care, “that is certainly your nose.”
Rhaenyra gave him a flat look. “That is not how babes work.”
Laenor only grinned.
Then his expression changed again, softening into something quieter as he reached out, hesitating only a moment before brushing one finger lightly over the babe’s tiny fist.
Valora’s fingers curled instinctively around it.
Laenor froze.
Rhaenyra watched the exact moment his heart gave way.
His lips parted slightly, and whatever teasing remark had been waiting there vanished before it was spoken.
“Oh,” he whispered.
The word was so soft it was nearly lost to the room.
Rhaenyra’s gaze lingered on him.
She had seen Laenor laugh in triumph on the training yard and charm entire halls at feast tables. She had seen him angry, frightened, wounded, grieving. She had seen him play parts for court and family alike, because that was what had been demanded of both of them.
But this was no performance.
This was simply Laenor, with his daughter’s hand wrapped around his finger, looking as though he had just been handed something holy.
“She has you already,” Rhaenyra murmured.
Laenor huffed a quiet laugh, though his eyes did not leave Valora. “Can you blame her?”
Rhaenyra leaned back against the pillows, suddenly more tired than she had been a moment before, but happier too.
“No,” she admitted. “I suppose not.”
For a little while they sat in silence, listening to the crackle of the fire and the distant hush of the waking city. Valora slept through it all, tucked warm against her mother’s chest, one tiny hand still wrapped stubbornly around Laenor’s finger.
Laenor glanced up at Rhaenyra then, properly looking at her for the first time since he entered.
The exhaustion in her face was plain. So was the lingering pain.
His smile faded into concern.
“How are you?”
Rhaenyra gave a weak huff. “You mean aside from feeling as though I'd gone through all seven hells and back?”
Laenor winced in sympathy. “That poorly?”
“Worse.”
He brought his free hand up and brushed a loose silver strand from her face. The touch was feather-light, careful not to disturb her more than necessary.
“You were very brave.”
Rhaenyra snorted softly. “I was loud.”
“You were both.”
“I am fairly sure I insulted the maester, the midwives, and at one point the concept of childbirth itself.”
Laenor’s grin returned. “That sounds like you.”
She let her head tilt slightly into his hand.
“I thought I might die,” she admitted quietly.
The words settled between them.
Laenor’s expression shifted at once.
He looked at her, truly looked, and whatever answer he might have made turned to silence.
Because there it was, beneath the laughter and the relief and the joy.
Fear.
Not the fear from the night itself, but what lingered after. The memory of pain too sharp, too long. The knowledge of what childbirth could take from women, princess or servant alike.
Laenor’s thumb brushed lightly against her temple.
“But you did not,” he said, just as quietly.
Rhaenyra swallowed.
“No.”
“And she is here.”
At that, both of them looked down at Valora again.
Rhaenyra’s eyes burned suddenly.
“She is.”
Laenor smiled, though it was softer now, steadier. “Then the realm is improved already.”
Rhaenyra laughed under her breath. “Gods, you sound like a maester writing a birth announcement.”
“Would you rather I say she is clearly destined to be the cleverest and most beautiful creature ever born into House Velaryon?”
“She is a Targaryen and a Velaryon.”
Laenor placed a hand over his chest, offended. “My apologies. How neglectful of me.”
Rhaenyra smiled again, and he seemed satisfied by that.
Carefully, slowly, she shifted Valora in her arms.
“Would you like to hold her?”
The question was simple, but Laenor looked at her as though she had offered him a crown.
“Yes,” he said at once. Then, “If you trust me to.”
Rhaenyra arched a brow. “Laenor.”
“I know, I know. A foolish question.”
He sat up straighter as she guided the bundle toward him.
For all his confidence in most things, he took the child from her as if she were so fragile one single mistake would break her entirely. His hands were large and careful, a knight’s hands trying desperately to become gentle enough for something so small.
Once Valora had settled against his chest, he hardly seemed to breathe.
There was something almost unbearably tender in the sight of him.
Silver-haired babe wrapped in crimson and blue. Laenor bent over her like he could shield her from every cruelty in the world by will alone.
“Well?” Rhaenyra asked, watching him.
Laenor looked up slowly, wonder written plain across his face.
“She is perfect.”
Rhaenyra’s smile softened. “You already said that.”
“And I was correct the first time.”
Valora shifted again, nestling deeper against him.
Laenor stared down at her, then smiled with a kind of fierce devotion that made Rhaenyra’s throat tighten.
“You know,” he said softly to the babe, “you have caused quite a stir already.”
Rhaenyra leaned her head back, listening.
“Your mother terrified half the castle bringing you into the world. The maester looked ready to collapse. One of the midwives nearly cried. I myself have not slept at all and will be forced, tragically, to recover with wine later.”
Rhaenyra laughed. “You are speaking to an infant.”
“And she ought to know her impact.”
He looked back to Valora.
“You, little one, are deeply inconvenient already. Entirely adored, but inconvenient.”
The babe gave a tiny sound in her sleep.
Laenor gasped slightly. “Did you hear that? She agrees with me.”
“She most certainly does not.”
“She does. We understand each other completely.”
Rhaenyra shook her head, though warmth spread through her all the same.
The door opened again, more cautiously this time, and a maid entered with a fresh basin of water and a tray of broth, only to freeze the moment she saw Ser Laenor holding the babe.
For a second, the girl simply smiled.
Then, after setting everything down as quietly as possible, she curtsied and disappeared again without a word.
Laenor watched her go, then looked back at Rhaenyra.
“They are all staring.”
“Of course they are.”
He smiled faintly. “Let them.”
Rhaenyra studied him for a moment.
There were so many things left unsaid in their life together. So many truths tucked into glances and half-spoken understandings, stitched into the strange shape of their marriage.
But this was one truth she had never doubted.
Laenor loved fiercely.
And whatever the world chose to say or think, this child would have that.
She would have both of them.
“What are you thinking?” he asked, glancing up.
Rhaenyra was quiet for a moment before answering.
“That she is fortunate.”
Laenor’s gaze softened. “Because she has us?”
Rhaenyra looked at him, at the babe in his arms, at the dawn still silvering the windows beyond them.
“Yes,” she said. “Because she has us.”
His smile this time was smaller, but truer.
Then he looked back down at Valora and very carefully touched one finger to the crown of her head.
“Princess Valora Velaryon,” he murmured, testing the name like a vow. “You shall be loved terribly.”
Rhaenyra felt her eyes sting again.
“She shall,” she whispered.
Outside, King’s Landing slowly stirred awake beyond the Red Keep.
Inside, as morning brightened around them, Rhaenyra watched Laenor cradle their daughter and thought that perhaps, for just this little while, the world was gentle.
Not because it had changed.
But because in this room, in this bed, in the hush of dawn and the warmth of firelight, their little girl had arrived, and for one precious moment, all that mattered was love.
One quiet afternoon in the Red Keep, Laenor realises his daughter has gone missing.
Not kidnapped. Not lost.
Simply stolen by Princess Rhaenys.
In the gardens below, Valora toddles through roses and sunlight with Naelys at her heels, while Laenor finds himself watching something simple and precious unfold: a grandmother loving her first grandchild with her whole heart.
Laenor only noticed the silence after several blissfully quiet moments.
He looked up from where he had been half-sprawled on a cushioned bench near the hearth, one goblet in hand and the other resting forgotten on the table beside him, and frowned.
“Where is Valora?”
Rhaenyra, seated near the window with a piece of embroidery she had not touched in some time, did not look up at once. One hand rested low against the gentle swell of her stomach, absent and protective both.
“With me,” she said dryly, “unless I have misplaced her in the last few breaths.”
Laenor gave her an unimpressed look. “You know what I mean.”
Rhaenyra smiled faintly then, finally lifting her gaze. “I do.”
She was several months gone with child now, and though she still carried herself with all the same sharpness and certainty, there was a softness to her of late too. Not weakness. Never that. Something quieter. Warmer. She had one of her mother’s old books open beside her, untouched, and the late afternoon light spilling through the windows gilded her silver hair into something almost ethereal.
Laenor sat up properly.
“She was here not long ago.”
“She was.”
“And now she is not.”
Rhaenyra arched a brow. “An excellent observation, husband.”
He ignored that. “Did someone take her?”
The smile in Rhaenyra’s mouth deepened into something openly amused now.
“Yes,” she said. “As a matter of fact, someone did.”
Laenor blinked. “What?”
“She was stolen.”
He was on his feet at once.
Rhaenyra laughed before he had even fully straightened.
“Oh, sit down.”
“I will not sit down if our daughter has been abducted.”
“She has not been abducted.”
“You just said she was stolen.”
“I said someone took her.”
“That is the same thing.”
“It truly is not.”
Laenor stared at her, and Rhaenyra, thoroughly unhelpful, only leaned back slightly in her chair and looked entirely too entertained for a woman discussing the disappearance of their child.
“Laenor,” she said patiently, “your mother stole her.”
He stopped.
Then blinked again.
“…Mother?”
“Yes.”
There was a beat of silence.
Then Laenor’s shoulders dropped all at once.
“Oh.”
Rhaenyra hummed, pleased.
“She came by not half an hour ago. Valora was meant to be resting, but your mother appeared, looked at her for all of three seconds, and declared that the child had suffered enough of stillness for one day.”
Laenor snorted despite himself. “That does sound like her.”
“It does.”
“And you let her take her?”
Rhaenyra looked pointedly toward the door. “Do you often stop Princess Rhaenys when she has decided on something?”
Laenor considered that.
“No,” he admitted.
“Nor do I, particularly while carrying another child and in no mood to begin a duel in my own chambers.”
That earned a proper laugh from him.
Rhaenyra smiled and rested her hand over her stomach again. “Besides, Valora was delighted.”
Laenor moved around the table and came to stand beside her chair. “And where have the two of them gone?”
Rhaenyra tilted her head toward the gardens beyond the open balcony doors. “There, I imagine.”
Laenor followed her gaze.
The late afternoon had turned the gardens below into a wash of soft green and gold. Roses climbed the stone walls, bees hummed lazily among the blossoms, and the summer air carried up the scent of earth warmed by sun.
Rhaenyra watched him for a moment before adding, voice light, “She took Naelys too.”
Laenor turned back sharply. “She took the dragon?”
“The hatchling,” Rhaenyra corrected. “Do try not to make it sound as though your mother has led Vhagar through the Red Keep.”
That, too, was fair.
Naelys was still small enough to be more wonder than terror, though no less clearly dragon for it. Black-scaled and red-winged even now, she had grown from egg to hatchling with all the sharp intelligence and imperious confidence one might expect of a creature that had chosen Valora.
Where Valora went, Naelys generally attempted to follow.
And where Rhaenys went, apparently both now followed.
Laenor rubbed a hand over his face, though the smile at his mouth betrayed him.
“She has truly stolen them.”
“She has,” Rhaenyra agreed.
There was affection in her voice. Deep and easy.
Laenor bent and pressed a kiss to her temple before straightening again. “Then I suppose I must go retrieve my daughter from her thieving grandmother.”
“Do tell me how that goes.”
He gave her a suspicious look. “You are enjoying this far too much.”
“Immensely.”
Laenor huffed and headed for the doors.
The gardens of the Red Keep were quieter at this hour.
Courtiers had mostly retreated indoors, and what servants remained kept respectfully distant from the winding paths and shaded alcoves where the royal family often walked. The sun hung lower now, casting long ribbons of honey-coloured light between the hedges and flowering trees.
Laenor found them near the farther end of the garden, where the paths opened into a broad patch of lawn edged with pale roses and low stone benches.
His mother stood beneath an arch of trailing greenery, dark hair stirred faintly by the breeze, one hand clasped behind her back and the other holding the tiny hand of his daughter.
Valora, still small enough that her steps held the unsteady determination of recent childhood, toddled along beside her in a little gown of pale lavender trimmed with silver. Her pale hair caught the sunlight in bright threads, and her free hand clutched a flower stem she had clearly been allowed to keep despite having already mangled it thoroughly.
Several paces ahead of them, Naelys flapped in an ungainly burst from one patch of grass to another.
The dragon was still too young for graceful flight. What she managed instead was a series of determined hops, flares of black-red wings, and tiny offended hisses whenever the ground failed to cooperate with her ambitions.
Valora let out a delighted little laugh.
Rhaenys smiled down at her without even trying to hide it.
“There now,” she said, as Naelys pounced with all the dignity of a queen and all the coordination of an overconfident cat. “Do you see? She believes herself fearsome already.”
Valora nodded with tremendous seriousness. “Nyss.”
Laenor stopped where he was, simply watching for a moment.
There was something absurdly lovely about it.
Rhaenys, who had worn disappointment and dignity like twin crowns for half her life, now walking slowly through the gardens with one tiny granddaughter at her side and a baby dragon stalking the flowers before them as if it owned the world.
Valora tugged at Rhaenys’s hand, trying to pull her faster.
Rhaenys allowed herself to be tugged a single step before anchoring them both again. “No, little dragon. You may not run simply because your dragon thinks she can.”
Valora looked up at her, considered this, then pointed accusingly at Naelys.
“Nyss.”
“Yes,” Rhaenys agreed gravely. “Anarchy in small form.”
Laenor laughed then, unable not to.
Both of them turned.
Valora’s face lit at once.
“Papa!”
She abandoned all interest in measured walking and flower stems and attempted to run toward him. This resulted in three quick, determined steps and then a near-catastrophic wobble that would have ended badly if Rhaenys had not caught the back of her gown with impossible ease.
Laenor reached them in the next breath anyway, scooping Valora up with a laugh and pressing a kiss to her cheek as she grabbed immediately for the chain at his throat.
“There you are,” he said. “Stolen from me, were you?”
Valora beamed as though this were excellent news.
Rhaenys folded her hands before her and regarded her son with calm amusement. “You make it sound as though I snatched her in the dead of night.”
“You took my daughter.”
“I borrowed your daughter.”
“You did not ask.”
“I did not need to. Rhaenyra was sensible enough to see the child wanted air.”
Laenor snorted. “And what if I object?”
Rhaenys’s brow lifted. “Do you?”
He looked down at Valora, who was now happily tangled in his arms, one hand in his hair and the other still somehow holding the crushed flower.
Naelys, having noticed him at last, gave a tiny triumphant chirp and bounded over across the grass, wings half-spread and tail lashing in a show of self-importance.
Laenor sighed, defeated before he had begun.
“Not particularly.”
“Then I fail to see the issue.”
He shook his head, smiling.
Naelys reached them at last and reared up in a tiny burst of offended dignity until Valora leaned half out of Laenor’s arms to point at her.
“Nyss.”
“Yes, I see her,” Laenor said. “Very fierce. Very terrifying. I am deeply afraid.”
Naelys hissed at him.
Rhaenys looked almost pleased. “As you should be.”
Laenor glanced at his mother. “You encourage her.”
“Of course I do.”
Valora, apparently satisfied that everyone had now properly admired her dragon, rested her head briefly against Laenor’s shoulder. Her cheeks were pink from the sun, her hair a little windblown, and she looked entirely content with life.
He softened at once.
“She has had a good time, then.”
Rhaenys’s expression gentled, though only slightly. “She has.”
Naelys had begun stalking a drifting petal now with murderous focus. Valora watched her with fascination, then lifted the crumpled flower toward Rhaenys with solemn generosity.
“For you.”
Rhaenys blinked.
It was hardly a flower anymore. More stem than bloom, crushed nearly beyond recognition by tiny, overfond fingers.
And yet she took it as though it were a crown.
“How gracious,” she said quietly.
Valora smiled, pleased with herself.
Laenor watched the exchange and felt something warm twist in his chest.
“She does adore you, you know.”
Rhaenys glanced at him. “Naturally.”
He laughed. “Gods, you sound like father.”
“That is because on matters of family, your father is very often correct.”
Laenor shifted Valora more securely in his arms and looked out over the gardens.
The sun was lowering now, gilding the edges of the hedges and painting Naelys’s black scales with red fire whenever she moved. Somewhere overhead, gulls cried over Blackwater Bay, and the whole world seemed, for this one hour at least, softened into something gentler.
“My wife said you stole her.”
Rhaenys looked entirely unapologetic. “And I shall do so again.”
“I never doubted it.”
“She was growing restless. And I thought it best she know these gardens while they are still only gardens to her.”
Laenor’s smile faded into something quieter.
He understood what she meant.
For Valora, now, the Red Keep was sunlight and roses and warm stone beneath tiny feet. It was her mother’s laughter drifting from open windows, her father’s arms lifting her high, her grandmother’s hand steady around hers, and a dragon hatchling tumbling through the grass as if she belonged there.
One day, it would not feel so simple.
One day, she would learn how sharp a place it could be.
But not yet.
“Thank you,” he said softly.
Rhaenys looked at him for a long moment, then at Valora in his arms.
Her granddaughter.
Her first grandchild.
Already beloved beyond reason.
“Of course,” she said.
Valora yawned then, wide and sudden and entirely unimpressed by the timing of it.
Laenor laughed quietly and pressed another kiss to her temple.
“I think your grand adventure has worn you out.”
“Mm,” Valora agreed, though it sounded more like a sleepy hum than a word.
Naelys chirruped once in protest at the fading attention.
Rhaenys looked down at the tiny dragon and then back at her son.
“Take them in soon,” she said. “Before your daughter decides sleep is for lesser creatures and her dragon decides the same.”
Laenor smiled. “You have become suspiciously fond of both.”
Rhaenys’s gaze followed Valora again, and for just a moment, all the distance fell away.
“Yes,” she said simply. “I have.”
Then, with one last touch to Valora’s little foot where it peeked from her skirts, Rhaenys turned and began to walk back toward the castle, still holding the ruined flower stem in her hand like something precious.
Laenor watched her go, then looked down at his daughter.
Valora had already begun to drift, lashes low against her cheeks, one small hand still fisted in the front of his doublet. Beside him, Naelys pressed close against his boots with a tiny grumble, as though unwilling to be left out of any carrying arrangement.
He laughed softly.
“Yes, you too, little menace.”
And under the warm evening light of the Red Keep gardens, with his daughter half-asleep in his arms and her dragon at his feet, Laenor turned back toward the castle, knowing perfectly well that if Rhaenys had stolen Valora today, she had no intention of ever truly giving her back.
Valora Velaryon expected the process to be unbearable.
Too many girls.
Too many rehearsed smiles.
Too many empty answers dressed as loyalty.
She had endured it all before, and she knew exactly how this would go.
More echoes.
More performances.
More reasons to regret being forced into choosing again.
And for a time, she is proven right.
Until Lady Emanda Tully walks into the room and does something no one else has managed all day.
Princess Valora Velaryon found herself seated in her solar like a queen receiving petitions, though she suspected this particular process was far crueler than most petitions could ever be.
The room had been arranged to feel formal, though not cold. The fire had been lit despite the mildness of the day, and the windows had been opened just enough to let in the sharp sea breeze from Dragonstone. A tray of fruit, cakes, and watered wine sat untouched near the side table.
Valora had, against her better judgement, taken her mother’s advice.
She wore deep sea-blue, nearly black in the shadows, with silver embroidery at the sleeves and throat. Her hair had been braided back from her face in a style that left her looking older, sharper, more severe. One would have thought she was preparing for battle rather than conversation.
Perhaps, in a way, she was.
Marissa stood slightly behind and to her left. Matila stood to her right.
Both looked far too calm for Valora’s liking.
“You are both enjoying this entirely too much,” Valora muttered without moving her mouth.
“Smile,” Marissa murmured back.
Valora’s expression did not change. “I would rather not.”
“Exactly why you should.”
Before Valora could retort, the door opened.
The first girl was announced with all the ceremony of a court appearance, and from the moment she stepped inside, Valora knew it would be dreadful.
Lady Alys Mooton was pretty in the polished way of girls raised to know precisely how to curtsy, how to smile, and how to lower their lashes at the correct angle. She moved with perfect grace. She also looked as though a strong opinion might kill her.
Valora watched her perform the proper greeting and then gestured to the chair opposite her.
“Sit, Lady Alys.”
The girl sat.
There was a moment of silence.
Valora decided to be merciful.
“What do you enjoy doing?”
Alys brightened at once. “Embroidery, Princess. And singing. And I have long admired the beauty of courtly life.”
Valora felt Marissa go very still behind her.
Matila, traitor that she was, looked like she might laugh.
“Have you?” Valora asked.
“Yes, Princess. I think there is something so wondrous in the elegance of it all. The gowns, the feasts, the dances, the marriages that unite great houses…”
Valora blinked once.
Then twice.
She had said, quite clearly, that if a girl began speaking of embroidery and marriage prospects within her first breath, she was leaving.
Yet here she was. Trapped by her own promise.
“How fortunate,” Valora said evenly, “that there is so much more to ruling than gowns.”
Alys faltered. “Of course, Princess.”
Valora folded her hands in her lap. “Tell me, if a lord in your father’s lands was found to be increasing rents upon his smallfolk during winter while his own granaries remained full, what would you advise?”
The poor girl stared at her.
Marissa lowered her gaze to hide the beginnings of a smile.
Alys recovered slowly. “I... would advise kindness.”
Valora waited.
That, apparently, was all.
“Kindness,” Valora repeated.
“Yes, Princess.”
Valora nodded once, a movement so slight it may as well have been a dismissal. “How noble.”
The meeting did not improve.
By the time Lady Alys left, Valora felt as though part of her soul had withered.
The second was no better.
Lady Jeyne Sunglass entered with confidence enough for three people and the sort of smile that had calculation written all over it. She was not witless, Valora would grant her that. But she spoke as though every sentence had been polished beforehand.
When Valora asked what she thought made a good lady in waiting, Jeyne answered, “Loyalty, grace, and an understanding of the importance of appearing united in all things.”
“Even when one disagrees?” Valora asked.
Jeyne’s smile did not waver. “Especially then. Public harmony matters more than private opinion.”
Valora’s expression cooled by the second.
“And if your princess were wrong?”
Jeyne hesitated only briefly. “Then it would be a lady’s duty to guide her quietly back to the proper course.”
Matila’s brows rose.
Marissa looked unimpressed.
Valora, for her part, leaned back slightly in her chair and studied the girl as though seeing her properly for the first time.
“And whose proper course would that be?” she asked. “Mine? Yours? Or your father’s?”
The silence that followed was answer enough.
Jeyne left shortly after.
When the door closed behind her, Valora let her head fall back against the carved wood of her chair.
“I despise everyone.”
“That is not true,” Marissa said.
Valora looked at the ceiling. “It feels true.”
Matila crossed her arms. “The first was hopeless. The second was dangerous. There is a difference.”
Valora turned her head slightly. “You say that as though it comforts me.”
“It should. One was a fool and the other a snake. Better to know it now.”
Valora exhaled through her nose. “I would rather the next be neither.”
The gods, perhaps pitying her at last, chose that moment to grant her something reasonable.
Lady Emanda Tully did not enter like a girl stepping onto a stage.
She entered like someone who had been told to come and intended to make a proper showing of herself without turning the thing into theatre.
Her gown was handsome but not overdone, in deep river-blue with silver stitching at the cuffs. Her auburn hair had been pinned back neatly, though one loose curl near her temple suggested she had either rushed or did not care to fuss over it endlessly. Her eyes, clear and steady, moved over the room quickly before settling on Valora.
She curtsied correctly.
No fluttering. No simpering. No performance.
“Princess.”
“Lady Emanda,” Valora replied, already more interested than she had been the entire afternoon. “Sit.”
Emanda obeyed with composed ease.
Valora studied her for a moment.
Emanda did not squirm beneath it.
That alone was promising.
“What do you enjoy doing?” Valora asked, deciding to begin where she had with the others.
Emanda considered the question seriously enough that Valora almost smiled.
“Riding,” she said at last. “Reading when the maester sends something worth reading. Watching arguments at court, when allowed. And listening when men think no one expects sense from me.”
Matila’s mouth twitched.
Marissa looked down.
Valora felt the first true spark of amusement she had had all day.
“And what have you learned from that?”
“That most men speak too quickly when they believe themselves the cleverest in the room,” Emanda replied. “And that some grow very careless if they think a lady is only half listening.”
Valora’s fingers stilled against the arm of her chair.
That was better.
Much better.
“And do you only listen?” she asked.
“No, Princess. But I prefer to know what sort of fool I am dealing with before I answer him.”
For the first time that day, Valora smiled outright.
Small, but real.
Emanda noticed.
So did Marissa and Matila.
Valora leaned slightly forward. “If a lord in your father’s lands was found increasing rents during winter while his granaries stayed full, what would you advise?”
Emanda did not pause long.
“A warning first, if there is hope he has more greed than sense. If not, an audit of his accounts, a reduction enforced by his liege, and grain distributed before hunger turns to unrest.”
Valora tilted her head. “And if he protested that the grain was his by right?”
“Then I would remind him that dead smallfolk pay no taxes and starving ones are quicker to riot.”
Matila coughed suspiciously into her hand.
Marissa, shameless creature that she was, looked very pleased.
Valora’s smile deepened by a fraction.
“Practical.”
“I try to be.”
Valora studied her more carefully now. “Were you coached to say that?”
Emanda met her gaze without flinching. “No, Princess. My mother suggested I speak sweetly. My father suggested I speak carefully. My brother suggested I agree with everything you say. I decided all three sounded tiresome.”
There it was.
Valora laughed.
An actual laugh, brief and bright and surprised out of her.
Behind her, Marissa and Matila exchanged a look.
Emanda’s shoulders eased slightly at the sound, though not enough to become casual.
Good, Valora thought. She knows when to relax and when not to.
“What do you think a lady in waiting should be?” Valora asked.
Emanda’s answer came more slowly this time.
“Not an echo.”
The room went still.
Valora said nothing.
Emanda continued.
“She should know when silence is wiser, and when it is cowardice. She should be loyal, but not mindless. Useful, not ornamental. And she should never mistake proximity to power for power itself.”
Marissa’s brows rose.
Matila looked impressed despite herself.
Valora said, very softly, “Go on.”
Emanda did.
“If the princess she serves wishes only to be flattered, then she can have any fool in a pretty gown. But if she wishes to rule well, she ought to have at least a few people near her who can think.”
The silence that followed was not awkward.
It was weighty.
Measured.
Valora held the girl’s gaze for a long moment, and saw no false modesty there, no rehearsed sweetness, no desperate ambition shining too brightly behind the eyes.
Emanda wanted the place, yes. That much was obvious.
But she wanted it as herself.
That mattered.
“And why do you want it?” Valora asked at last.
Emanda’s expression shifted then, only slightly, becoming more open.
“Because I think you are serious,” she said plainly. “About the work. About what a princess ought to be. Most people in court speak of power as though it exists only for itself. You do not. I would rather stand beside someone building something than someone merely trying to sit the highest.”
Something tightened and settled all at once in Valora’s chest.
Not because it was flattery.
Because it was not.
It was observation.
That was rarer.
Valora leaned back in her chair, considering her.
Then she asked one final question.
“If you serve me, Lady Emanda, what happens when you believe I am wrong?”
Emanda did not look away.
“I would tell you in private. Once plainly, and once more if I thought the matter grave. After that, if you still chose your course, I would do my duty and help you carry it as well as possible.”
Valora’s expression did not change, but inside, the answer landed exactly where it ought to.
Not an echo.
Not a rebel for the sake of it.
Not a coward.
She glanced, just once, toward Marissa.
Marissa’s face remained composed, but her eyes were warm with quiet approval.
Matila, too, gave the smallest nod.
Valora looked back to Emanda.
“Lady Emanda.”
“Yes, Princess?”
“I believe,” Valora said, with calm she did not entirely feel, “that I have heard enough.”
For the first time, true uncertainty flickered over Emanda’s face.
Good. She was not made of polished stone after all.
Valora rose.
Emanda immediately stood as well.
The two girls faced one another across the small distance between them, all courtliness and quiet assessment, though the air felt very different now from the brittle nonsense of the earlier meetings.
Valora folded her hands lightly before her. “I do not enjoy this process.”
That startled a faint smile from Emanda. “I had gathered as much.”
“Be careful,” Valora warned, though there was no real sting in it.
Emanda dipped her chin. “As you wish, Princess.”
Valora let the moment hang for just long enough to make her wonder.
Then she said, “You need not attend any further meetings.”
Emanda blinked once.
Then understanding dawned.
Marissa smiled openly at last.
Matila looked smug, as if she had known.
“You would have me?” Emanda asked, and for the first time there was something younger in her voice. Hope, unguarded and sincere.
Valora’s gaze held hers.
“Yes,” she said simply. “If you are willing, Lady Emanda Tully, I would have you as the first of the two additional ladies in waiting I am required to choose.”
Emanda’s expression shifted with quick, bright relief, though she recovered herself enough to curtsy properly.
“I would be honoured, Princess.”
Valora inclined her head, but there was satisfaction curling warm and quiet beneath her ribs now, and it softened something in her posture.
“Good,” she said. “Because I would rather not begin again from the start.”
That earned a soft laugh from Emanda.
A good laugh, Valora thought. Not shrill. Not affected.
Promising.
Marissa stepped forward then, smiling as she came to stand nearer. “Welcome, Lady Emanda.”
Matila followed with a nod of greeting. “You have spared us all at least one more disastrous conversation.”
Emanda’s mouth twitched. “I am glad to be of service already.”
Valora let out a faint breath through her nose that might have been amusement and turned toward the window, where the late afternoon light had begun to turn the sea below to molten silver.
One chosen.
One still to go.
It was not, perhaps, the torment she had expected.
At least not entirely.
And behind her, as Marissa began quietly explaining some matter of rooms and expectations while Matila inserted dry commentary where she pleased, Valora allowed herself the smallest, most private smile.
Because for all her protests, for all her mother’s relentless pushing, for all the politics twisted through every corner of it, this one at least did not feel like a compromise.
Valora Velaryon has learned to expect very little from court.
Especially from certain names.
By thirteen, she knows exactly what a Frey is meant to be:
ambitious, agreeable, and carefully polished into something useful but hollow.
So when Matila Frey is presented to her, Valora expects another performance.
Another girl who will nod, smile, and echo whatever she wishes to hear.
She is wrong.
Because Matila does not flatter.
She does not soften her answers to please.
And she does not confuse kindness with foolishness.
She thinks.
And for Valora, who has spent far too long surrounded by echoes,
being wrong about someone might just be the best reason to choose them.
Of all the girls presented to her that year, Matila Frey was perhaps the one Valora expected the least.
That alone nearly disqualified her.
At thirteen, Princess Valora Velaryon had already spent enough time at court to know what the name Frey usually brought with it. Ambition, first and foremost. Thinly disguised greed, second. Smiles that never quite reached the eyes. Lords who counted advantage faster than affection. Daughters taught to curtsy before they were taught to think and to flatter before they were taught anything useful at all.
So when Matila Frey was announced, Valora had to school her expression into something politely blank.
Her solar had once again been arranged for the occasion, every cushion straightened, every chair placed with careful precision, a tray of fruit and cakes laid untouched beside the fire. Spring sunlight spilled through the windows, pale and soft, catching on the sea-blue and crimson embroidery worked into the cushions. The room was lovely.
Valora was tired of it.
This was the second time she had been made to choose another lady in waiting.
The first time had ended well enough. Marissa Royce had proven precisely what Valora had hoped for, thoughtful, composed, willing to think before she spoke and not so foolish as to confuse flattery with loyalty. But one lady was not enough, or so her mother had insisted with that patient tone that usually meant Valora was going to lose the argument.
So the process had begun again a year later.
And Valora had discovered that being thirteen did not make noble daughters any less irritating.
The latest one had spent nearly half the meeting praising Valora’s poise, Valora’s beauty, Valora’s dragon, Valora’s intelligence, and, somewhat bizarrely, Valora’s handwriting.
Before that there had been one who answered every question by invoking what her father thought.
Before that, another who had smiled warmly and declared that the smallfolk were “simple creatures” who only required strong rule and full bellies to remain content.
Valora had ended that meeting very quickly.
Now she sat in her carved chair by the hearth, one leg tucked neatly behind the other, fingers resting against the armrest, while Cedric Caswell stood near the door with his usual infuriating calm.
At eighteen, Cedric had only become more difficult to surprise and more annoyingly skilled at hiding amusement when she was displeased.
“She’s a Frey,” Valora muttered before the girl was brought in.
Cedric wisely did not say anything for a moment.
Then, “She might still surprise you.”
Valora gave him a look. “You sound optimistic.”
“I sound cautious.”
“You sound as though you expect me to be unfair.”
Cedric’s mouth twitched. “Would you like me to lie and say otherwise?”
Valora huffed and looked away before he could see the reluctant flicker of amusement on her face.
A knock came at the door.
The servant bowed. “Princess, Lady Matila Frey.”
Valora straightened. “Send her in.”
The servant stepped aside.
Matila Frey entered with none of the nervous fumbling Valora had come to expect.
She was near Valora’s age, perhaps a little older, with dark auburn hair braided back neatly and clear, watchful eyes that missed very little. Her gown was good quality but not ostentatious, in muted blue-grey rather than anything especially grand. She curtsied properly, respectfully, and when she rose there was nothing simpering in her face.
That, at least, was a point in her favour.
“Princess Valora,” Matila said.
“Lady Matila.”
Valora gestured to the chair opposite her. “Sit.”
Matila obeyed without fuss.
For a moment, Valora simply studied her.
The girl did not rush to fill the silence. She did not begin praising the room or declaring the honour of the invitation. She waited.
Interesting.
Valora folded her hands in her lap. “You know why you are here.”
“Yes, Princess.”
“And why do you wish to serve as my lady in waiting?”
Matila answered with less hesitation than most. “Because it is a place of trust, and I would rather hold such a place honestly than chase one through empty compliments.”
Cedric glanced at the ceiling.
Valora noticed.
So did Matila, she thought, though the girl was polite enough not to show it.
“Honesty,” Valora repeated.
“Yes, Princess.”
Valora tilted her head slightly. “That is easily claimed.”
“It is.”
No defensiveness. No flustered insistence. Just agreement.
Valora’s interest sharpened despite herself.
“Very well,” she said. “Let us test it.”
She leaned back in her chair.
“Say there is a district in King’s Landing where the smallfolk have gone hungry after a poor season. Bread grows scarce. Tempers rise. I decide the quickest answer is to have the Crown purchase grain at whatever price merchants demand, then distribute it freely through the city until the unrest settles.”
That would have sounded merciful to half the girls she had already met.
Matila did not immediately praise it.
Instead, she frowned slightly.
Valora’s pulse gave the faintest stir of interest.
“At first glance,” Matila said slowly, “it sounds generous.”
“At first glance?” Valora repeated.
Matila met her gaze. “Merchants would hear that the Crown is desperate and raise prices even further. If they believe fear and unrest earn them greater profit, they have every reason to let matters worsen before they improve.”
Cedric’s expression remained perfectly neutral, which meant he was definitely listening.
Valora’s fingers stilled on the armrest. “Go on.”
“You would feed people for a time,” Matila said, “but you might also teach every greedy trader in the city that scarcity is worth manufacturing.”
That was not the answer Valora had expected.
And yet she could not find fault in it.
“What would you suggest instead?”
Matila thought for a moment. “Set a fixed price before the Crown buys a single sack. Any merchant charging beyond it loses the right to trade within the city for a time, or loses access to royal contracts later.” She paused. “Then buy what is needed. Quietly, if possible, before panic grows.”
Valora watched her more closely now.
“And if that is not enough?”
“Then speak to the houses nearest the city and call in duty rather than charity.” Matila’s voice remained composed, but there was something practical in it, something sharp. “Not because they are kind, but because no lord wants word spreading that the capital starved while his granaries stayed full.”
A faint smile almost pulled at Valora’s mouth.
Not kind.
Practical.
Useful.
She asked, “And what of the smallfolk themselves?”
Matila answered at once. “They should be fed.”
Valora’s eyes narrowed, not in displeasure but in scrutiny. “That sounds obvious.”
“It should be obvious,” Matila replied.
There was no hesitation in it. No contempt. No indulgent softness either. Only certainty.
“If the city starves, the realm suffers for it,” Matila continued. “The people in Flea Bottom may not wear silk or possess names worth tracing through history books, but they are still your people. A ruler who sees hunger beneath her and not within her responsibility is a fool.”
The silence that followed was not uncomfortable.
Cedric shifted his weight ever so slightly near the door.
Valora did not look at him.
Instead, she asked, “And yet you did not agree with my first solution.”
“No, Princess.”
“Why?”
Matila’s answer came steady and direct. “Because caring for the smallfolk and choosing the wisest method are not always the same thing.”
That one landed.
Cleanly.
Exactly.
Valora held her gaze for a long moment.
Most girls bent themselves around her words like river reeds in the wind, eager to please, eager not to offend, eager to be chosen for their gentleness or beauty or obedience. Matila had done none of that. She had not contradicted her for the pleasure of it either, which mattered just as much.
She had simply thought.
Valora rose and crossed slowly toward the window, looking out over the distant stretch of King’s Landing beyond the walls. From here the city looked almost soft in the afternoon light. Stone and smoke and sun. But she knew what lay beneath that beauty. Crowded alleys. Empty stomachs. Children with no titles and no one to speak their names in council chambers.
After a moment, she said, “Most girls either pity the smallfolk or dismiss them.”
Matila did not answer at once.
When she did, her voice was quieter.
“Both are easy,” she said. “Respect takes more effort.”
Valora turned back toward her.
There it was.
Not sweetness. Not polished court language. Something steadier.
Respect.
Not for her.
For the people most nobles forgot existed until they became inconvenient.
“And do you respect them?” Valora asked.
“Yes.”
The answer was simple enough that Valora believed it.
She looked to Cedric then, just briefly.
His face gave away almost nothing, but there was the slightest glint in his eyes. He approved.
Of course he did.
Valora returned her gaze to Matila. “You are not what I expected.”
Matila did not take the bait by asking whether that was good or bad.
Instead, she said, “No, Princess?”
“No.”
Valora moved back toward her chair but remained standing beside it. “You are a Frey.”
At that, the first real shift crossed Matila’s face. Not anger. Not shame. Something more resigned.
“Yes, Princess.”
Valora watched her carefully. “Do you know what people say of your house?”
“I imagine I have heard most of it.”
“And?”
Matila’s shoulders stayed square. “Some of it is deserved. Some of it is not. But none of it changes what I say in this room.”
That earned her another point.
Valora sat at last, slower this time, more thoughtful than before. “And what is it you think I need in a lady in waiting?”
Matila’s gaze flickered over her, assessing, but not rudely. “Someone who does not waste your time.”
Cedric let out the faintest breath through his nose.
Valora ignored him with effort.
Matila went on, “Someone who can understand what you mean, not only what you say. Someone who knows when to speak plainly and when to hold her tongue. And someone who remembers that serving a future queen is not the same as worshipping one.”
That nearly did it.
Nearly.
Valora kept her expression composed, though inside something in her settled.
Because that was it. Exactly it.
Marissa had given her thought and steadiness. Matila, she suspected, would give her sharpness of a different kind. Less gentle, perhaps. Less polished. But no less valuable.
Useful in different ways.
Necessary in different ways.
At last Valora said, “If I choose you, I will expect sense, not performances.”
“You shall have no performances from me, Princess.”
“I expect loyalty.”
“You would have it.”
“I do not mean blind agreement.”
Matila’s mouth curved very slightly. “Then that is fortunate, because I have never been especially good at pretending to be blind.”
Cedric looked down at the floor at once, shoulders suspiciously still.
Valora stared at Matila for one beat and then, despite herself, smiled.
Small. Sharp. Real.
Yes.
This one would do.
“Very well,” Valora said. “I think I have heard enough.”
Matila rose at once.
Valora let the silence stretch just enough before delivering the words.
“If my mother approves, you will remain.”
For the first time, Matila looked genuinely startled.
Then she dropped into a deep curtsy. “Thank you, Princess.”
Valora inclined her head. “Do not thank me yet. You may discover I am difficult.”
This time Matila’s smile was easier to see.
“I had already assumed as much.”
Cedric made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a cough.
Valora shot him a look sharp enough to warn him against laughing outright, then turned back to Matila.
When the girl had gone and the chamber doors shut behind her, Cedric waited exactly three heartbeats before speaking.
“So,” he said mildly, “a Frey.”
Valora leaned back in her chair, her earlier weariness gone, replaced by something quieter and far more satisfied.
“A surprising one.”
Cedric folded his hands behind his back. “You liked her.”
Valora lifted one shoulder. “She has sense.”
“That is high praise from you.”
“It should be.”
Cedric’s mouth twitched.
Valora turned her gaze toward the closed door again, thoughtful now.
Marissa challenged with patience. Matila challenged with precision. Different strengths. Different tempers. Both useful. Both real.
And after enduring so many painted echoes of noble daughters, real was worth more than all the perfect curtsies in the realm.
“Yes,” Valora said at last, more to herself than to Cedric. “Matila Frey will do very well indeed.”
