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It has become habit for the three rulers to break their morning fast with their three children.
Dany still startles whenever she thinks of them as her children, for they are not of her body, but Eddard’s smile is real every time he sees her and she cannot hide the joy in her heart whenever he calls her Muña and raises his arms to be lifted into hers.
The day she realizes she is with child, Rhaella sits in Dany’s lap during their morning meal, happily splattering creamy oatmeal and brown sugar across Dany’s dressing gown and the table.
“Dōna mēre, try to eat some of your breakfast.” Dany chides, taking a napkin from the table to wipe a splotch of oatmeal from Rhaella’s chin. Her daughter looks pensively at her with those wide violet eyes, the same shade as her own. If Dany did not know better, she would think that Rhaella was fully her child, without a speck of Jon or Sansa in her.
In response, Rhaella giggles and drops her spoon into the bowl again. Dany smiles and shakes her head, looking up at Sansa with a furrow in her brow. “Was Eddard this troublesome at her age?”
Sansa is busy braiding Lyarra’s brown hair as Rhaella’s twin more peacefully eats her own bowl of oatmeal, taking dainty bites like a proper princess would. Sansa ties off Lyarra’s short Lysene braid and responds, “No. But Arya was.”
Dany pretends to look horrified, although she loves her goodsister dearly. “We’re in for trouble with this one.”
“Yes, but we’ll love her all the same.” Jon interrupts, coming into the solar with another tray of treats. Three-year-old Eddard leaps from his seat and bounds over to his father with an excited gaze. “Do you have any lemoncakes, Father?”
Jon hands the excited boy two small cakes from the tray, and Eddard rushes over to the table, handing one each to Sansa and Dany. “For you, Mother. And you, Muña.”
Dany kisses him lightly on his forehead, accepting the gift with joy. Sansa introduced her to the Westerosi treat and it has quickly become one of her favorites. Arianne Nymeros Martell of Dorne had sent lemon trees as a wedding gift when Dany married Jon and Sansa, and so there had been many fresh lemons from the gardens to make the cakes.
But when Dany goes to take a bite, as Jon settles across from her and Sansa, the zesty smell of fresh lemon reaches her nose and bile scrambles in her throat.
She blinks, suddenly confused about this onslaught of nausea. She tries to take a bite again, but the scent reaches her and she must thrust the lemoncake upon the table. Quickly, she passes Rhaella to Jon and stands from the table.
“I must . . . I forgot. I have an appointment with Missandei. I will meet you on the dragonglass thrones for the morning’s hearings, my loves.”
Dany does not wait to here her spouses respond before she bolts from the room. She barely makes it to a privy off the main hall before what little she had for breakfast comes pouring out her throat.
“Your breasts are more tender, it is true.” Missandei says, carefully studying Dany’s body. She puts her hand to the queen’s forehead as her own son, Mossador Rykker, gurgles happily in the sling against her chest. “And you are not running a hot.”
“So my suspicions may be true. I’ve conceived a third child to die before it’s birth.” The look on Dany’s face nearly breaks her Hand’s heart. The joy and worry mixed with so much pain. She’s already lost two children. Must she lose a third?
Missandei settles onto the divan besides Dany and takes her friend’s hand in hers. “You don’t know that.”
Dany shakes her head. “We’ve only just been crowned together. I keep thinking this happiness could disappear at any moment. I wouldn’t want to pain them with this news.”
“The child could survive yet.”
“No. I realized this last time. I may quicken but I will never have a living child of my own flesh.” Dany sighs and settles her head on Missandei’s shoulder. “I had contented myself to loving Sansa’s children as my own. And I do. But I did not realize it would come with all this pain as well. Next time, I will take moon tea so this is never an issue again.”
“What will you tell your family?”
Dany rises and walks to the window, looking out at the view of King’s Landing. Whatever choice the dragon queen makes, Missandei will support it. She has found suffering and pain in Dany’s service, but she has found freedom and love and been able to have her own family, too. She strokes her hand across the dark hairs of Mossador’s head, watching the sleeping babe as Dany ponders. Finally, she turns back to Missandei.
“I won’t tell them anything.” Missandei tries to hide her disbelief. “I’ll take Eddard to Dragonstone for a few months, to show him the painted table and the castle of our ancestors. And once the . . . it is lost, we will return. There is no need for them to share this pain.”
“They love you, Dany. They want to be there for you.”
“Yes, but what we have is precious and fragile. I cannot break this joy, even if it means shouldering the burden of it myself.”
Missandei thinks to the vows they said beneath the hearttree, when Sansa and Jon both promised to love her through the joy and pain, and the special words Sansa said. To be there for you, in everything that sorrows and with everything to celebrate. Your heart is ours as mine is yours, and we are three parts of one soul, together. She knows that look in Dany’s eyes, though. She will not convince the queen otherwise.
So instead, Missandei nods. “And I will go with you.”
Jon runs a hand across his beard, thinking over the proposed trip Daenerys will be making. “How long will you be gone, love?”
“A few months, six at most.”
“Are you sure Eddard cannot learn these here?” Sansa takes Dany’s hand in hers. Jon notices how Dany nearly flinches away. Is something wrong, that she would want to leave us both for so long after we fought so hard to be together?
Dany cups Sansa’s face in her own hand. “No, sweet Sansa. The lessons of dragon lore and how to care for one are best done where there are dragons. Now that Bael has been hatched for so many months, I would like to show him where we keep the dragons on Dragonstone, the old skulls, the library. He should know this part of our heritage.”
While it pained them awfully to send the dragons away, Jon and Dany decided to keep the beasts on Dragonstone. The island has been evacuated, all but a few castle workers and harbor workers moved to Claw Island and Driftmark and rehomed at the crown’s expense. Drogon and Rhaegal roam the island, along with many now wild herds of sheep and goats to feed them. There is peace and space for them to grow, without chaining them down in the Dragonpit and causing them to squander and sicken and die. Eventually, Bael will join his parents there, once he is too large to safely be kept in the Red Keep.
“I understand that he must know these things, but still . . .” Sansa runs a hand through Eddard’s dark hair, her face contorted and nervous.
“Please, momma?” He asks, staring up at her with his sky blue eyes. “I want to see the dragons! And Aegon’s table!”
“Yes, my sweet prince, I know you do.” She looks at Dany, adoration in her gaze. “Your Muña will take good care of you, but you must practice your letters and promise to be good for the maester, alright?”
“Yes, momma. I really get to go?” Eddard leaps up from his chair and throws his arms around Sansa. “Thank you, I swear I’ll be good! Muña and I are going to have a great time, and I promise to listen to her always.”
He grabs Dany’s hand and tries to drag her away, already ready to pack and leave. Dany looks down at him, some unknown sadness in her eyes. Jon feels it to, that their boy is growing so old already. “Muña, will you show me the Dragonstone throne?”
As he chatters with her, eagerly sharing all the things he wants to do, Jon grabs Dany’s cheek and kisses her hard on the lips. “We’ll miss you, love. Return to us soon.”
“Is there any word from Dragonstone?” Sansa asks as a young maester brings Jon their letters and messages for the day. She stares at the empty seat across the table, where her wife should be eating their breakfast.
“No, your grace.” Maester Munn responds. “Should I send a message asking after the young prince’s progress?”
She sets aside her spoon. “Yes, maester, thank you.”
Jon looks up from his place at the head of the table, making faces at Rhaella and Lyarra as the twins smear oatmeal all over their faces with wide, bright smiles. As Maester Munn leaves the room, Sansa crinkles her brow in concern. “Dany's daily raven hasn't come in three days, Jon. What if something’s gone wrong?”
“Surely someone would have sent word.” He tries to feed another bite to Lyarra, but the princess knocks the wooden spoon to the floor and giggles as her father sighs.
“There’s no one else on the island, not really. Even if Missandei is with her.” Sansa leans her arms against the table and interlocks her fingers.
Jon picks up the bowl of cubed fruit and sets it on the tray of the twins’ seat, giving up on healthy food. Sansa raises an eyebrow at him, skeptic at his parenting as he turns to eat his own breakfast. The meal used to be one of the pleasures of her day, but then Dany left. The mornings have seemed emptier since then.
“Girls, eat a few more bites, please.”
“Momma!” Rhaella slams her fist on the little wooden tray. “No!”
Her new favorite word. Learned since the others left, Dany has never heard it. Sansa purses her lips. “Jon, I want to go to Dragonstone. Five months is too long for her to be alone with only Missandei and Eddard for company. She didn’t even take any of the kingsguard. I worry.”
Jon finishes his bite and wipes the crumbs from his face. He takes Sansa’s hand in his own, the same concern for their wife etched into every line of his face. “Then you shall go to see if anything is amiss. And I will go with you.”
The harbor of Dragonstone is empty without the trading galleys and fishers’ boats that used to bob in the water, and the village eerie as they ride through the empty, silent streets. A dark mist creeps off the Blackwater, covering the beaches and the hills. Jon snorts back against the angry smell of sulfur and brimstone rolling off the Dragonmont and clutches Rhaella closer to his chest. At his side, Sansa does the same with Lyarra the carrier she holds against her breast.
He knows sending the people away was the best idea. Dany was the one who suggested it, knowing how wild the dragons could be, how uncontrollable. She did not want another child harmed in the flames of a wild beast like theirs.
But how has she spent so many months here, alone, without her wife and husband?
“There’s barely any light shining in the castle.” Sansa notes, staring up at the looming black others above. “Only in the queen’s chamber.”
“It is a late hour.” Jon mentions, his eyes drifting up to where Daenerys sleeps when in this castle. Dismal and dark and depressing. “I’m sure Eddard is asleep.”
They near the castle, up the winding path to its position on the mountain. Two Unsullied soldiers stand at the ready besides the gate, the only protection against invaders. They hold their spears out, challenging the newcomers, but one look at Jon and Sansa and the pair are let through with their own guards.
Jon hands Rhaella to one of their soldiers before dismounting himself and helping Sansa down, staring around the wide courtyard and pondering why any of his ancestors ever so liked it here in this wild, ragged place. “Will the queen see us? I know the hour is late?”
The Unsullied man who greets them twists his face. “Your grace, she is . . . indisposed at the moment.”
“What do you mean? Is everything alright?” Sansa pushes past Jon, demanding answers. But before the soldier can respond, a heavy scream pierces the air.
Sansa races up the stairs, pushing down corridors and hallways she is ill-familiar with. She has been to Dragonstone twice now, but the castle is not a happy place like it is for some previous queens, and certainly not one she’s learned as Dany and Jon have. She holds her daughter to her pounding chest with one hand, her skirts with the other. Jon’s footsteps pound below as he follows after.
Another scream pierces the air and she rushes faster, heading for the woman she loves. What is wrong? What has happened that she would not tell us?
She reaches the top of the lord’s wing, lined with the most opulent chambers that have housed kings, queens, princes and princesses of Dragonstone for three centuries. Rushing to the end of the hall, the finest of those suites, she forces open the Targaryen ruby-red doors.
Missandei stands at one side of the bed, a maester at it’s foot. They glance up in startled fear at their entry, but Missandei’s relived cry of “Sansa!” puts any concern to rest.
She immediately ignores them because in the middle of the bed, sits Daenerys with a swollen belly, ripe with child. Our child. Sansa realizes, tears springing to her eyes. She’s with child.
She blinks away the tears immediately and turns to the guards and Jon as they stumble into the hall. “You, Ser Red Flea. Please take the princesses and find a serving maid to put them to sleep and watch over them. Then make sure the prince is taken care of as well. He will be worried about his mother.”
Sansa marches to the bed, discarding her grey cloak to the side as she walks. She sits at Missandei’s side, pressing back Dany’s hair and kissing her forehead. The other queen is half-delirious in pain, but she smiles up at Sansa with her beautiful softness. “You’re doing perfect, my love.”
Wide-eyed, Jon walks to the other side of the bed and takes Dany’s hand in his. He looks up at Sansa. “Why wouldn’t she tell us?”
“That doesn’t matter now.” Sansa says back, voice sharp. She instead asks the others assembled, “What can we do? For her, the babe? I’m yours to command, maester. Save my wife. And save her child.”
The bed is warm and welcoming, and Dany wants to sink into its clutches and sleep for ages. She has labored long and hard, has not left this bed in three months since it seemed she would keep her child. And now . . .
But Missandei is at her side, shaking her from her sleepy stupor. “Daenerys, please, wake up.”
“Mhm, yes, a few more minutes . . .”
“My queen, you have visitors.” Missandei whispers, pulling Dany up in her bed and setting her against the dragon-carved headboard. “You will want to see them. It’s the king and queen.”
“Jon and Sansa? What are they doing here?” Dany startles awake and looks around the room. A serving maid stands at the ready behind Missandei, and she quickly issues her requests. “A glass of water, please, and the babe.”
Missandei helps her to a seat, adjusting her sweat-soaked hair and the thin nightgown on her body. She saw Sansa bursting into the room, felt Jon holding her hand as she pushed, but . . . I thought that was a dream.
“Are they really here?” She asks, squeezing Missandei’s hand.
Missandei smiles and pushes a loose strand of Dany’s hair behind her ear. “I told you they would want to be here. They love you dearly.”
As the babe is set in her arms by the serving maid, Dany rocks him in her arms and sets a finger on his delicate nose, strokes his ruddy cheek and smiles as he wraps his hand around it. “Oh my sweetling.”
“Have you chosen a name yet?” Missandei asks, settling a blanket around Dany’s shoulders, red to match the swaddling of her son. “Sansa and Jon would not see him without your blessing first, but they asked.”
She prayed for this, never thinking it could be true, but here he still is. Dark brown hair and purple eyes, already she knows he will be a handsome prince and break many hearts once he is grown. “I think I have.” Dany looks up at Missandei. “Will you bring them in?”
The doors to Dany’s chamber open at Missandei’s command, revealing the rest of her family. Eddard runs forward first. Tears glisten in his eyes as he hugs her leg. “Muña, I was so worried when you screamed!”
Dany sets a hand in his hair, ruffling the curls she has not had cut since they arrived on the island. The same curls he shares with his brother.
“How are you, love?” Jon asks, approaching her with soft steps. Sansa’s voice trembles as she asks, “How is the child?”
“Alive, and hearty and hale besides.”
“Oh, Dany.” Sansa smiles as relief at the news floods her face, shifting Rhaella and Lyarra on her hips. “We were so worried.”
“Have you chosen a name?” Jon comes to her side, setting a hand on the armrest as he settles besides her. As Sansa comes nearer, finishing their circle of family, she nods.
“May I present your newest son, lord husband, lady wife.” Dany gazes down into her son’s amethyst eyes. A Targaryen alone in the world is a sad thing. Jon said their granduncle’s words with her when he asked her to marry him and Sansa. He meant her, that it hurt them both dearly that she was alone.
But she was alone no longer. She could have shared this moment with them. The curse is broken, her fear lifted. She has a child of her own blood, and others besides him.
Dany looks at all her children, the girls in Sansa’s arms and down at Eddard clutching at her own skirts. She kneels besides Eddard and holds out the swaddle in her arms so he may look. “Your little brother. Prince Aemon Targaryen.”