Stolen
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.
