Viserys’s Favourite
Everyone in the Red Keep knows Princess Valora Velaryon is King Viserys’s favourite.
No one says it too loudly, of course.
But between the extra apple cakes, the way he lets her sit on the Iron Throne, and the council meetings he completely forgets the moment she starts talking, even the servants cannot pretend not to notice.
And Otto Hightower?
Otto Hightower is internally screaming.
Everyone in the Red Keep knew Princess Valora Velaryon was the King’s favourite.
No one said it too loudly, of course.
The Red Keep survived on careful tongues, lowered eyes, and the sort of gossip that travelled beneath doors faster than ravens could fly. Servants learned early which truths could be spoken in kitchens, which truths could be whispered in laundry rooms, and which truths were dangerous enough to keep behind one’s teeth.
But some truths were so painfully obvious that pretending not to notice them became its own form of comedy.
And the King’s love for his eldest granddaughter was one of them.
It began, according to Mina from the kitchens, with the apple cakes.
Or rather, with the extra apple cakes.
The royal family always received desserts after supper, naturally. Sweet creams, honeyed fruits, spiced cakes, sugared almonds, little tarts shaped like flowers if the kitchen girls had time and patience.
Princess Valora’s plate, however, had a habit of looking rather different.
“Two apple cakes for the Princess,” Cook would say.
“Two?” someone would ask.
Cook would look at them flatly. “Did I stutter?”
“But the Queen only requested one for each child.”
“The King requested two for Princess Valora.”
That was usually the end of it.
No one argued with the King’s requests.
Especially not when they involved his granddaughter and apple cakes.
The first time Mina carried the plate herself, she had been nervous enough to nearly trip over her own feet. She was only fourteen then, still new to the Red Keep, and terrified of doing something foolish in front of anyone with a title.
She entered the royal dining chamber with her eyes lowered and the tray balanced carefully in both hands.
Princess Valora sat beside her mother, her silver hair braided neatly over one shoulder with a purple ribbon tied at the end. She was still young then, perhaps ten or eleven, though she already carried herself with a strange little dignity that made Mina stand straighter without meaning to.
King Viserys looked exhausted.
That was not unusual.
Even before his illness grew crueler, there had always been something tired about him, something weighed down. But when Valora leaned closer to whisper something to him, his whole face softened.
Mina noticed it immediately.
So did the footman beside her, because his mouth twitched as if he were fighting a smile.
The King laughed.
Not loudly. Not with the forced merriment he sometimes used when lords made jokes too dull for any sane man to enjoy.
This was a true laugh.
Warm.
Fond.
Almost boyish.
Valora smiled up at him, pleased with herself.
Then Mina placed the dessert before her.
Valora blinked at the extra apple cake.
“Grandfather,” she said, turning toward the King with suspicion, “Mother says I am not to have two every evening.”
Viserys immediately looked toward Rhaenyra with the face of a man caught in terrible wrongdoing.
Rhaenyra arched one brow.
The King cleared his throat.
“Well,” he said, as though addressing a matter of state, “I am the King.”
Valora’s lips twitched.
Rhaenyra sighed. “Father.”
“It is one extra cake.”
“It is always one extra cake.”
Viserys leaned toward Valora and lowered his voice in a whisper that every servant nearby could hear. “Eat quickly.”
Valora laughed into her hand.
Mina nearly dropped the tray.
Not because she was shocked by royal indulgence. She had seen Prince Aegon receive wine he was too young for and pastries he did not ask for simply because he whined loudly enough. She had seen nobles demand entire meals remade because a garnish offended them.
No, what startled her was the look on the King’s face.
He looked delighted.
As if conspiring with his granddaughter over an apple cake was the happiest part of his day.
From then on, the kitchens knew.
If Princess Valora was dining with the King, there were to be extra apple cakes.
No written order was needed.
No lord had to command it.
Cook would merely glance at the serving tray and say, “Add another for the Princess.”
And if anyone forgot, the King noticed.
Once, a boy from the kitchens carried out the dessert plates and returned pale-faced, whispering, “His Grace asked where the second cake was.”
Cook slammed both hands onto the worktable. “Seven save us.”
The second cake was sent immediately.
By the time Valora turned twelve, the matter of her desserts had become one of the Red Keep’s quieter rituals.
The gardeners joked that His Grace loved the girl enough to bankrupt the castle in apples.
The kitchen girls said if Princess Valora ever asked for a whole tray, Viserys would hand her the royal treasury and tell her to purchase the orchards herself.
The cupbearers swore that once, when Queen Alicent looked pointedly at the extra apple cake beside Valora’s plate, the King simply moved it closer to his granddaughter.
No one could prove it.
Everyone believed it.
But the desserts were only the beginning.
The throne was worse.
At least, it was worse for the Hand.
Servants were not meant to stare in the throne room.
That was the first rule.
Eyes down. Hands steady. Mouth shut.
You learned to move like furniture with a pulse.
Still, everyone saw things.
Everyone saw the day Princess Valora sat on the Iron Throne.
Not beside it.
Not near it.
On it.
Technically, she had sat on Viserys first.
That was how it began.
The court had gathered for petitions, a miserable line of land disputes, tax complaints, inheritance quarrels, and one particularly loud argument involving goats. The King had been in a better mood than usual that morning because Princess Valora had returned from the Dragonpit after riding Naelys and had come directly to him, still wind-flushed and bright-eyed.
He had stopped her from rushing straight to her lessons by taking her hand and leading her to the throne room instead.
“Come with me,” he had said. “Why don’t you help with today’s petitions?”
That alone had been enough to set the servants whispering.
Little Princess Valora, summoned to petitions as if she were already half a queen.
Then it worsened.
Viserys sat upon the Iron Throne and settled Valora on his lap.
On his lap.
There were grown men in that room who had spent their entire lives dreaming of standing close to that chair, and Princess Valora was perched upon it like a child at supper.
The King leaned down to murmur in her ear.
“Pay attention, Valora. One day, this will be your seat.”
The footman near the wall went very still.
The cupbearer beside him stared so hard at the floor that he probably learned the pattern of the stones by heart.
Otto Hightower stood at the foot of the throne with his face carved into careful patience, but Talla, who served wine during councils, later swore she saw his left eye twitch.
“His eye did not twitch,” said Lysa from the laundry.
“It did,” Talla insisted. “Like a dying candle flame.”
“Men like Ser Otto do not twitch.”
“They do when the King puts Princess Rhaenyra’s daughter on the Iron Throne.”
That shut everyone up for half a second.
Then they all burst into whispers again.
Because it was true.
The King had not merely allowed it.
He had encouraged it.
A petitioner that morning, some minor lord with a beard too large for his face, began speaking about boundary stones. He addressed the King, then hesitated when he realised the child on the King’s lap was watching him with the full severity of someone twice her age.
He stumbled over his words.
Valora tilted her head.
Viserys leaned down. “What do you think, little dragon?”
The hall went silent.
Otto’s fingers tightened around the head of his cane.
The lord blinked. “Your Grace?”
Viserys waved a hand. “The Princess is listening.”
The Princess was, indeed, listening.
Valora looked at the petitioner for a long moment before saying, “If both houses claim the stones were moved, then someone should ask the people who farm the land. They would know where the boundary has been for longer than either lord has cared about it.”
There was a pause.
A very long pause.
Then Viserys smiled so widely that several servants exchanged looks.
“There,” he said proudly. “A sensible answer.”
Otto looked as though he had swallowed a nail.
The petitioner bowed quickly. “A wise suggestion, Princess.”
Valora’s cheeks flushed pink.
Viserys looked pleased enough to order another feast.
By the time the session ended, the servants’ corridors were alive.
“She answered a petition.”
“The King asked her.”
“He asked her in front of Ser Otto.”
“Ser Otto looked ready to throw himself onto the swords.”
“Which ones?”
“All of them.”
The story spread before supper.
By the next morning, the stableboys knew.
By the afternoon, the laundresses had added enough embellishment that Valora had apparently settled six disputes, named three traitors, and ordered a goat into royal custody.
The truth was funny enough without improvement.
But the Red Keep never did know when to leave a good story alone.
The council meetings were the worst of all.
At least in the throne room, Valora sitting with the King could be dressed up as education. She was Rhaenyra’s heir. One day, if the gods were kind or cruel depending on who was speaking, she would sit where he sat.
But the council chamber was different.
That was where men liked to believe they were important.
Princess Valora disrupted that belief simply by existing.
She did not always attend.
When she did, it was usually because Viserys had invited her.
And when Viserys invited her, everyone knew the meeting would take twice as long and somehow accomplish both more and less than intended.
More, because Valora asked questions that forced men to explain the parts they hoped to hide.
Less, because Viserys forgot the entire agenda whenever she spoke.
Talla saw it happen more than once.
The council would be deep in discussion about ships, coin, alliances, grain stores, border disputes, or whatever disaster the Stepstones had decided to become that week. Lord Tyland would be droning on about costs. Lord Beesbury would be squinting at figures. Otto would be watching everyone as though each breath in the room belonged to him personally.
Then Valora would speak.
Only a small comment.
A question, perhaps.
“Would the smallfolk near the ports be compensated if their boats were taken for royal use?”
Or, “If the Triarchy is attacking trade routes again, should the Crown not build permanent defences rather than pay each time they return?”
Or, “Why are we discussing the cost of preventing war as if war itself would be cheaper?”
And Viserys would turn toward her as though the Seven themselves had descended to give counsel through his granddaughter.
“Yes,” he would say, delighted. “Yes, that is an excellent point.”
Then the meeting would tilt.
Every time.
Otto would inhale.
Alicent would press her lips together.
Tyland would shuffle his parchments.
The King would ask Valora to continue.
And Valora, who always seemed to realise a moment too late that powerful men disliked being corrected by young girls, would straighten in her chair and speak carefully.
Talla had once stood by the wall holding a pitcher of watered wine for nearly half an hour while the council was supposed to discuss a dispute between riverlords.
Instead, they listened to Princess Valora explain that charitable works were not merely kindness but strategy.
“Hungry people grow desperate,” she said, hands folded over the edge of the table because her feet still did not quite reach the floor. “Desperate people become angry. Angry people become easy for ambitious lords to use. If the Crown wishes loyalty, it should be seen giving protection before it demands obedience.”
The room had gone quiet.
Viserys looked nearly tearful.
Otto looked like he was being murdered slowly.
“Very good,” the King said softly.
Valora ducked her head, embarrassed.
“My mother said something similar once.”
“Then your mother was right,” Viserys said at once.
Alicent’s cup touched the table a little too sharply.
Talla heard it.
So did everyone else.
No one reacted.
That was the second rule of serving in the Red Keep.
Notice everything.
React to nothing.
Afterwards, in the servants’ hall, Talla placed both hands on the table and said, “Ser Otto is going to combust.”
Mina frowned. “What does that mean?”
“It means one day Princess Valora will say something clever, and the Hand will simply burst into flame from the effort of not screaming.”
Cook snorted into her stew.
“He’d deserve it.”
“Cook!”
“What? I didn’t say I’d light the fire.”
The most famous incident happened during a meeting Valora was not even meant to attend.
That was what made it so perfect.
The council had been gathered for some miserable discussion about tariffs, ship repairs, and a lord from the Westerlands who believed his pride was a matter of royal concern.
Princess Valora had only come to return a book.
That was it.
She slipped into the chamber quietly, Ser Cedric Caswell just behind her, holding a leather-bound volume against her chest. She was young, though already spoken of in the halls as if she were half a princess and half a prophecy.
The King saw her immediately.
Of course he did.
He could overlook half a council chamber when he wished, but never Valora.
“Ah!” Viserys brightened. “There you are.”
Otto closed his eyes.
Only for a moment.
But Talla saw.
Valora paused near the door. “Forgive me, Grandfather. I was only returning the history you lent me. I did not mean to interrupt.”
“Nonsense,” Viserys said. “Come here.”
Valora glanced at the council table, clearly uncertain.
Several lords pretended not to look annoyed.
Otto did not bother pretending.
“Your Grace,” he began carefully, “we are in the midst of…”
“Yes, yes,” Viserys said, waving him off. “Tariffs.”
Lord Tyland looked pained. “Ship repairs, Your Grace.”
“Ship repairs, yes.” Viserys turned back to Valora. “Did you enjoy the book?”
Valora’s face lit up despite herself.
Talla felt the mood of the room change instantly.
Not soften.
Never that.
More like every man present realised, with dawning horror, that the next quarter hour had been lost.
“It was fascinating,” Valora said, stepping closer. “Though I think the author was unfair to Queen Alysanne.”
Viserys sat up. “Unfair how?”
Otto’s jaw tightened.
Valora hesitated. “I can tell you later.”
“You can tell me now.”
“Your Grace,” Otto tried again.
Viserys did not look at him.
Valora shifted the book in her arms. “Well… the passage praised King Jaehaerys for the reforms that followed their progresses, but barely mentioned that Queen Alysanne was often the one listening to the women and smallfolk who brought the issues forward. It made it seem as though wisdom only mattered once a king repeated it.”
Silence.
Deep, beautiful silence.
The kind that made servants want to hide behind tapestries just to grin safely.
Viserys stared at her.
Then he smiled.
Not amused this time.
Proud.
Painfully, obviously proud.
“You noticed that?”
Valora frowned slightly. “Was I not meant to?”
“No,” he said warmly. “You were.”
Across the table, Otto Hightower looked like a man clinging to the last thread of his patience while someone set fire to the rope.
The King forgot the ship repairs entirely.
For twenty-three minutes, according to Talla, they discussed Queen Alysanne, women’s courts, roads, wells, orphanages, and whether royal progress through the realm was best used for ceremony or investigation.
Princess Valora, by the end, had somehow convinced Viserys to ask after reports on Flea Bottom’s foundling homes.
Lord Tyland never got to finish his figures.
Otto did not speak again until Valora left.
When she finally curtsied and excused herself, Viserys watched her go with such open fondness that even Lord Beesbury smiled.
The door closed behind her.
The chamber remained quiet.
Then Viserys sighed happily.
“Bright girl.”
Otto’s smile was a masterpiece of restraint.
“Indeed, Your Grace.”
Talla poured wine and thought, He is going to scream into a pillow tonight.
That evening, the servants repeated the tale in whispers.
“She stopped a council meeting with a book.”
“No, the King stopped it.”
“Because she had a book.”
“Because she had an opinion.”
“Because she breathed near him.”
“That too.”
Mina shook her head, laughing as she kneaded dough. “The King would abandon a war council if Princess Valora came in asking about ribbon colours.”
“He nearly did,” said Arren, one of the footmen.
Everyone turned to him.
Arren froze.
Cook narrowed her eyes. “Explain.”
So he did.
Apparently, three weeks prior, the King had been meeting with Lord Lyonel and several others when Valora appeared at the door with two ribbons in hand, one purple and one blue. She wished to know which would better suit her gown for supper, because her mother favoured the blue but she preferred the purple.
Viserys considered the matter seriously.
So seriously that Lord Lyonel had to wait with a parchment in hand while the King asked whether the gown had silver stitching.
“It did,” Arren said solemnly.
“What did he choose?” Mina demanded.
“Purple.”
“Of course he did.”
“Why?”
“Because she preferred purple.”
That was another thing everyone knew.
The King did not choose what was best.
He chose what made Valora smile.
This was not entirely fair to him.
Sometimes, he did choose what was best.
It was only that, when Valora was involved, he tended to convince himself that what made her smile and what was best for the realm were naturally the same thing.
A dangerous habit in a king.
A sweet one in a grandfather.
The servants saw both.
They saw how Viserys’s face changed when Valora entered a room.
They saw how his voice softened when he called her “little dragon.”
They saw how he listened when she spoke, even when lords twice her age had already been dismissed.
They saw how he kept small carved dragons for her on his table, how he let her inspect them, how he explained histories to her with a patience he rarely showed anyone else.
They saw him ask whether she had eaten.
Whether her lessons had gone well.
Whether Naelys had behaved.
Whether her brothers were troubling her.
Whether Rhaenyra was letting her rest.
Once, Mina overheard him tell Valora, “You work too much for a girl your age.”
Valora had replied, “You work too much for a man of yours.”
The King laughed so hard he coughed.
A maester was called.
Valora looked horrified.
The King waved everyone away, still smiling.
“It was worth it,” he wheezed.
That story spread too.
Everything did.
Not to mock her.
Not truly.
There were some in the Red Keep who disliked Princess Valora, of course. Queen Alicent’s ladies spoke with tight mouths. Ser Criston looked at the girl as if her very existence offended him. Otto Hightower watched her with the grim calculation of a man who saw a political obstacle where others saw a child.
But among the servants?
Valora was liked.
More than liked, perhaps.
She remembered names.
That was enough for most.
A princess who remembered names was a dangerous thing to love.
She thanked the maids who lit her fires. She apologised when she stepped into a freshly mopped corridor. She once helped a page gather dropped parchments while the poor boy looked like he might faint from terror.
When Cook’s youngest took ill, Valora sent broth and coin without being asked.
When a scullery girl burned her hand, Valora noticed the bandage three days later and asked if the maester had given her salve.
Small things.
But servants lived on small things.
Small cruelties. Small kindnesses. Small signs of who a person truly was when no lord was watching.
So when the King spoiled her, the servants did not resent it.
They enjoyed it.
It became a sort of performance.
The King adored his granddaughter. Princess Valora pretended not to know how much. Everyone else watched the farce with deep personal investment.
Especially when Otto was present.
Otto Hightower’s suffering became, in the servants’ hall, a cherished pastime.
No one admitted this beyond the lower levels.
But it was true.
There was a particular joy in watching a man so composed be slowly undone by a girl with violet eyes and a grandfather wrapped around her little finger.
Once, during a feast, Valora asked Viserys whether the Crown could sponsor repairs to a sept near the fish markets, because the roof leaked and the children sheltering there were getting sick.
Otto began, “The royal accounts are already committed to…”
Viserys interrupted, “A roof cannot cost so much.”
Otto’s hand tightened around his cup.
Valora leaned forward earnestly. “I have drawn up a possible estimate, though I would need someone more familiar with building costs to correct it.”
From beneath the table, she produced a folded parchment.
A full estimate.
At supper.
Mina, standing near the wall, nearly choked on air.
Otto stared at the parchment like it had personally insulted his bloodline.
Viserys took it and looked delighted.
“You came prepared.”
Valora smiled sheepishly. “I thought it better than asking without knowing the cost.”
“A fine habit,” Viserys declared. “Otto, see that someone reviews this.”
Otto’s face did not move.
“As you command, Your Grace.”
Later, in the kitchens, Cook wiped tears of laughter from her eyes.
“She brought accounts to supper.”
“She ambushed the Hand with charity.”
“She’s twelve.”
“She’s terrifying.”
“She’s his favourite.”
That was the refrain.
Always.
Whenever the King allowed something ridiculous.
Whenever Valora got an extra apple cake.
Whenever she sat too close to the throne.
Whenever she interrupted a council meeting and somehow left with three royal promises and Otto looking ten years older.
She’s his favourite.
There were other grandchildren, of course.
Jacaerys was a good boy, earnest and brave, forever trying to stand taller than he was.
Lucerys was sweet-faced and nervous, quick to smile and quicker to hide behind his siblings.
Joffrey was still small, more babe than boy.
And Alicent’s children had his blood as well.
Aegon, Aemond, Helaena.
Daeron away in Oldtown.
But with Valora, it was different.
The servants could not say when it had begun.
Perhaps the day she first toddled into his chambers and demanded to see his dragon models.
Perhaps the first time she called him Grandfather instead of Your Grace.
Perhaps when he realised that Rhaenyra’s daughter had inherited not only silver hair and violet eyes, but the same bright, stubborn spark her mother had.
Whatever the cause, the result was unmistakable.
Princess Valora Velaryon could get away with nearly anything.
Not everything.
She was too well-mannered to test it often.
That made it worse.
Had she been spoiled and petulant, perhaps people would have rolled their eyes and moved on. But Valora used the King’s favour like a tool she was faintly embarrassed to possess.
She used it for extra apple cakes sometimes, yes.
But more often she used it for orphanages, food stores, dragonkeeper wages, repairs in neglected parts of the city, smallfolk petitions that had gone unanswered too long.
That was what worried Otto.
The servants understood that too.
A favourite child was one thing.
A favourite child who paid attention was another.
A favourite child who could make the King laugh, then convince him to spend money on the poor before Ser Otto could redirect the conversation?
That was dangerous.
That was power.
And everyone in the Red Keep knew it.
One afternoon, Talla passed near the council chamber just as the doors opened and Otto stepped out looking pale with controlled fury.
Inside, Valora’s voice carried faintly.
“Thank you, Grandfather.”
Viserys answered warmly, “Anything for you, little dragon.”
Otto stopped in the corridor.
For one perfect second, his face shifted.
Not enough for a lord to notice.
More than enough for a servant.
Talla lowered her eyes immediately.
But later, in the servants’ hall, she described it in detail.
“He looked like he wanted to scream.”
“He always looks like that.”
“No, this was different. This was internal screaming.”
“What does internal screaming look like?”
“Ser Otto Hightower.”
That became a phrase.
Dropped tray? Ser Otto Hightower.
Burned bread? Ser Otto Hightower.
The cooks, finding out the King had requested six extra apple cakes because Princess Valora visitors? Ser Otto Hightower.
Even years later, servants would remember those days with a strange mixture of fondness and dread.
The realm was already cracking then.
Anyone with ears knew it.
The Queen’s side and the Princess’s side. Green gowns and black loyalties. Whispers about bastards. Whispers about succession. Whispers about war before anyone dared call it that.
But in the middle of it all, there were these moments.
A girl on her grandfather’s lap, listening to petitions.
A King sneaking her apple cakes.
A council forgotten because Valora had an opinion about Queen Alysanne.
Otto Hightower staring at the ceiling as though praying for patience and receiving none.
It was easy, in the servants’ corridors, to laugh.
To whisper.
To turn royal favour into a joke light enough to carry.
But sometimes, when Mina saw the King looking at Valora, the laughter caught strangely in her throat.
Because there was something heartbreaking in it too.
Viserys loved many people poorly.
That was the thought she never said aloud.
He loved softly when firmness was needed. He loved blindly when truth stood before him. He loved by ignoring rot, by smoothing over wounds, by pretending a family could be held together if he simply refused to see the fractures.
But he loved Valora openly.
That much was true.
He loved her with extra desserts and throne-room lessons.
With softened eyes and interrupted councils.
With faith so obvious that even servants carrying wine could see it.
Perhaps that was why everyone noticed.
Because in a Keep full of secrets, schemes, and careful performances, the King’s adoration for his granddaughter was one of the few things that did not bother hiding.
One evening, after supper, Valora passed through the servants’ corridor by mistake.
She had taken a wrong turn looking for her mother’s chambers, or perhaps one of Maegor’s passages had led her somewhere unexpected. Ser Cedric was with her, looking amused rather than concerned.
The servants froze.
Princesses did not usually appear there.
Valora blinked at the sudden silence.
Then she smiled.
“Forgive me,” she said. “I appear to have gone the wrong way.”
No one moved.
No one breathed.
Then Mina, older and braver by then, curtsied quickly. “This passage leads toward the kitchens, Princess.”
Valora’s eyes brightened slightly. “Oh.”
Ser Cedric sighed. “Princess.”
“I said nothing.”
“You looked.”
“I am allowed to look.”
Mina fought a smile.
Valora glanced toward the kitchen doors. “Would the cooks happen to have any apple cakes left?”
There was a pause.
Then every servant in the corridor seemed to remember, all at once, exactly who stood before them.
The King’s favourite.
Mina smiled.
“I believe they may, Princess.”
Valora looked delighted.
Ser Cedric looked resigned.
And somewhere upstairs, Otto Hightower probably felt a chill down his spine without knowing why.