“If you tell me one more time, Stark, that I remind you of a sickly old woman, I will personally switch that drink in your flask to torchoil,” Baela’s loud voice rang next to Jacaerys’ ear, and he almost fell down from the fallen tree he’d claimed as his seat, “the only old woman around here is you, gossiping like—”
Jacaerys caught her hand, and Baela swallowed the rest of the sentence, eyes locked on the spot where his fingers touched her skin. She had a healed cut on her wrist, skin there tight and pink, about to scar into dusty white.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here,” he said, fingertips rubbing in small circles around the cut. Baela shrugged, but there was tension in her movements when she softly freed her hand, looking up at Cregan and then away, leaning against the tree with her hands jammed into the pockets of her cloak.
“You were losing limbs and purity all around Westeros, Jace, that’s hardly a sin. By the way,” she leaned forward, “we can speak plainly, as there are no spies in this goddamn forest, so tell me—what will the Queen do about Ormund Hightower’s army? You said yesterday they reached Highgarden, so I can’t stop wondering,” Baela’s frown deepened, “will she negotiate? Use Alicent as political leverage? Oh, and once we’re done here, I want to find that sneaky pig Aegon and feed him his own balls, because he truly—”
“Baela!” Jacaerys’ and Cregan’s voices merged into one.
“—deserves it,” calmly finished Baela and pursed her lips. “You know what? This is my war, too! I don’t want to mourn anyone else. I am a dragonrider. I’ve read the same books as you two and studied the same battles. So stop looking at me like that and let’s decide what we do next.”
Jacaerys half-expected Cregan to crack a joke, like he did back in Winterfell, or change the subject of conversation, do anything but nod and hand Baela his flask. And that made Jacaerys look between the two of them, wondering once again what else did he miss.
Because Cregan always respected Baela: as a woman, a princess and as Jacaerys’ wife, but he never treated her like… like he treated Jacaerys. Like he would’ve trusted her with his life. Like she was his closest friend.
Seeing them together like that didn’t help. Together, he repeated in his thoughts, eyes caught between Baela’s lips and Cregan’s stubble, their shared breaths like little swirls of steam in the northern air, and felt a jolt like a streak of lightning skimming down his spine.
Maybe his heart was broken for wanting both.
Excerpt from ‘Tides’ by beespeas
