The First Right Choice
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.