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Mother came home from the Vale just as the crocuses in the godswood poked through the soil. Gael waited for them every day with Ser Clement standing sentry at the ancient red door. Saera thought her stupid and Viserra agreed because Saera said so, but the Queen said she’d return when Spring filled the air with the dewy scent of flowers. Crocuses grew back in Spring, everyone knew that, and the Maesters sent the white raven a fortnight before Mother even left. Gael had laid sideways on the long, browning grass and watched the tiny buds inch their way upwards, their green tops coarse on her fingertips. If she had a dragon, she’d make the flowers grow. Saera said this was stupid too; dragons only burn and burn and burn. But flowers need heat to grow.

Daella would have understood. She would have sat with Gael and watched the crocuses all day and listened patiently when Gael listed the different types of wildflowers that grew in the godswood too.

“If I had a dragon,” Gael said two months after Queen Alysanne left court, “I’d teach her to blow warm air only. That way the crocuses would come early.” This idea startled her Septa, who was preparing sentences for her daily scripture lesson.

“Foolish child,” Septa Lyra had chided under her breath. Her eyes were a piercing brown, so unlike her gentle gaze that Gael stilled her hand from writing another word. They seemed to accuse Gael of something, but she couldn’t begin to fathom a reason. Gael heeded the Seven, unlike Saera.  “Dragons breathe fire. Do not deny them their nature to see yourself satisfied.”

Gael had smiled brightly, hoping her Septa would smile back. She didn’t, which wasn’t surprising; Gael’s smile was always too wobbly and wide, like frozen pincers held both her cheeks. “So you think I might be allowed a hatchling, then?”

Septa Lyra looked away and sighed. Her quill started to scratch again at the paper. “Ask your mother when she returns, child. Such matters are the King’s purview. Now, return to your studies.”

The notion of asking King Jaehaerys sent a chill through Gael. Would she need to stand before the Iron Throne? Viserra once told her and Daella that the swords can move by themselves; if you displeased the King, one of them might spring loose from the others and pierce right through your eye. Daella cried herself into a nap that day and Saera had laughed and laughed and laughed.

When the crocuses shot upward and Mother finally came home just days later, however, no one laughed. Not at all. She held not a dragon’s egg for Gael, but an ornate urn, inlaid with the Targaryen crest. Gael, who had started to run forward for a warm, welcoming embrace, stopped short before anyone thought to pull her back.

For a moment, Gael didn’t understand what she was seeing. Even more alarming was the Queen herself, hunched over the urn as though it were keeping her upright. As though it were a child growing in her belly. This was how Alyssa often looked before Aegon was born, before the Stranger took them both away.

“Is someone hurt?” she asked Septa Lyra quietly. Saera gaped beside her and Viserra, uncharacteristically, broke into a quiet sob that crumpled her pretty face.

“Daella died, you little idiot,” Saera began to hiss before Septa Lyra glared her into a red-faced silence. She pinched Viserra on an arm to stop weeping, then accepted her weeping body pressed into her shoulder with a grimace. Gael only stared at the urn. She stared and didn’t understand.

“Don’t jape, Saera. Please.” Her voice was small and reedy. It sounded far away from her. The urn was so small, smaller than her sister ever was. “Daela’s at the Eyrie, with her lord husband and her new babe.”

“No, child.” Septa Lyra squeezed her shoulder lightly. “She’s home now.”

Viserra cried louder. Saera sighed harder. Mother looked at nothing, at no one at all. Not the marigolds dotting the courtyard, nor Silverwing flying overhead. Her trumpeting was suddenly too raucous for Gael to bear, especially when Vermithor joined. The dewy air felt like sweat on Gael’s neck, cold and damp, and her skirts became all at once too heavy.

“I must see the King at once,” Mother finally said. Her voice was too quiet, like someone leeched all the blood out. As she spoke, it grew more hoarse. “You may return to your normal duties at once, Sers.” Her head inclined toward the household knights standing sentry by the main gate. They bowed, taking their leave. When only Lady Jonquil Darke–Mother’s constant shadow–still remained, she looked in the direction of her daughters. She still didn’t quite meet anyone’s gaze. “Wait for me in your sister’s bedchamber. Septa Lyra will stay until I am free to join you for supper.”

“To Daella’s rooms?” Gael whispered. “But she’s not there.”

The courtyard grew too quiet, even with Viserra’s sobbing and Saera’s irritated breaths. Even Silverwing was too far away now to break its spell, and Gael knew at once she made the worst mistake of all, because tears bloomed in the Queen’s eyes and fell, and fell, and fell. “Yes, my heart. Go now.”

The Queen and her daughters were to sleep in Daella’s quarters that night, Gael learned as they walked to Maegor’s Holdfast. They did the same when Alyssa died—Gael had forgotten on account of being so little. Baelon couldn’t bear to sleep in their bed chamber anymore and Mother hated how the Stranger’s visit made the room so empty and dark. They lit candles for the Mother in every nook and cranny until a thousand gentle flames chased the scent of bile away. Then, they piled into the bed; Gael was squished between Daella and Mother and fell asleep to the lull of their breaths. She was never so warm in her life. She remembered the warmth more than anything, even Alyssa herself. 

Daella’s rooms weren’t empty, though. Servants were already there, preparing the room for its visitors; in coordinated pairs, they placed fresh rushes on the floor, aired the red curtains, and replaced the candles on the tables beside the bed. It’s as though Daella came back with Mother and went with her to greet the King, too. Any moment, she will carefully press open the door and perch on her favorite window seat, the one with all the embroidered pillows. If Gael crossed her eyes, she might picture her sister there now, humming The Song of the Seven all wrong with the sunset turning her hair different shades of yellow and pink.

When she tried to really imagine Daella, though, she only saw the Stranger instead, grasping his cracked skull with one long white hand. He beckoned Gael closer with the other, gaunt and pale enough to be skeletal. She froze in place, causing her to wobble; she grabbed Viserra’s arm until she felt steady again. To Gael’s surprise, her hand was not pushed away like usual, nor did she receive any insults about her clumsy footing. Saera had freed herself from her sister’s tears as they ascended the steps to Daella’s room one by one, and Viserra eagerly grabbed another sister’s shoulder for more weeping, no matter that Gael was half her size.

The Stranger wouldn’t be here, she told herself in her sternest impression of Septa Lyra. Daella was in the Vale. If he lingered among the living at all, he was far, far away.

As Gael and Viserra perched on the end of the bed, Saera began to give Septa her coyest smiles and most brilliant charms so she and Viserra might dine in their own rooms that night. (“...This room is so drafty, Septa, I worry I’ll catch the Shivers. Mother couldn’t bear the pain if we sickened and died like Daenaerys…”) When that strategy didn’t work, she feigned a phlegmy cough. She tried to convince Septa that Viserra and Gael suddenly caught ill too, but Viserra was still weeping and Gael wasn’t even in the room. Not really. She was still down at the courtyard looking into Mother’s hollow, watery eyes.

She wished Silverwing and Vermithor would fly by the window. If the Stranger were still seated there, their mighty roars would chase him away forever.

“That’s quite enough of that, Your Highness,” Septa Lyra groused, jerking Gael back into her small body. “Your lady mother is the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms and the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, and you will wait here until we have her leave to go. Have I made my words clear enough?”

Reminding Saera that she was not the Queen never goes well. Her pointed chin quivered in rage and Gael shivered at the scorching glare she offered Septa. She looked just like the King, their father, did a fortnight ago when a wheat farmer petitioned for the king’s justice; brigands burned his fields down and hurt his wife. Septa Lyra made her and Viserra leave after the King ordered the brigand’s legs broken. She wouldn’t explain the word the wheat farmer used when talking about his wife, either.

No matter how long she stared or how little she blinked, Saera was still a girl of one and two who could not hope to cow their old Septa. When she lost the upper hand, she simply turned up her nose and sat down on Viserra’s other side. “Don’t waste your tears, my dearest little Serra,” she murmured. She patted her head sharply; from Gael’s sharp angle, it looked much like a slap. “The Queen shouldn’t see us wailing like common whores.”

“Saera!” Septa Lyra hissed. “For the Mother’s sake, child—“

"—Well, do you not agree? You’ve always said that we Targaryen princesses are above the smallfolk in everything, especially in comportment. Like drunkards dancing around a statue at the Hour of the Crow.”

Viserra giggled, then produced an earnest phlegmy cough. As Septa scolded a straight-faced Saera for every sinful word in her jape, Viserra’s tears dried into mere sniffles. She pushed away from Gael and settled against Saera, who reached up to pat her head once again.

The Queen arrived as the sun crested behind Visenya’s Hill an hour later, its red light making the curtains glow. Mother’s face was the same color. There were red splotches along her cheekbones, making her look travel-worn even though she likely took a bath before seeing the King. Instead traveling wools, she now wore a dress of deep gray velvet and had her damp golden hair braided into a hairnet with little black jewels. She lingered in the doorway for several seconds, her body caved inward like she still carried the urn.

Gael bit the inside of her cheek. She had never seen Mother enter a room before without standing straight-backed, shoulder two graceful slopes—even when kissing Gael goodnight. Oftentimes, she practiced standing like Mother in the mirror until her neck ached. Her neck ached now.

“My beautiful girls,” Queen Alysanne said. “Forgive my lateness, please. Your father and I spoke for a long while.” She stared at the window seat for a little too long, brow furrowed deep. Gael wanted to ask if the Stranger was still there, but maybe that would snare his attention. Maybe he would try to take Mother. Or Septa. Or even Viserra and Saera, even though they’re always hale. Daenaerys was only six when the Shivers took her away; baby Valerian stopped breathing before his first nameday. Gael’s teeth started chattering together noisily.

This brought Mother’s attention back to the bed, where Saera and Viserra detangled, having napped against each other while they waited. She pressed her hands together. “My goodness, it's as cold as the Wall in here. Lyra, would you fetch one of the kitchen boys for fresh kindling?”

I’m not cold at all, Gael thought, even though seconds ago she would have said so. She was all at once feverishly hot, like someone had relit the kindling in her chest instead of the brazier. But she nodded all the same, hoping Mother might ignore the window seat entirely and open her arms for an embrace, as she always did after a long journey.

Septa Lyra curtsied, then placed gentle hands on the Queen's arms and apologized for her great loss in a gentler voice than she ever offered Gael or her sisters. Mother gently inclined her head in queenly gratitude and waited until Septa took her leave and the door was bolted all the way shut. Only then did she finally cross the room to the three of them on Daella’s bed. She stopped a few paces away, though, and stood before them as though they were her women’s court. Gael watched Mother’s face smooth into the Queen’s countenance once again, watched her shoulders relax and still. Gael tried to do the same, but her teeth just chattered harder. She bit the inside of her cheek again. 

The Queen watched them back for several seconds, like she was waiting for someone to bring a bell or beat a drum. In a sonorous voice, she finally said, “Your sister had a little girl.” She clasped one hand over the other on her brocade skirts and smiled faintly. “The Arryns are calling her Aemma. After Lord Rodrik’s lady grandmother, Aemma Royce.”

“Aemma,” Gael murmured. She repeated the name in her head until it became familiar.

“Will she live here with us?” Viserra asked. The corners of Saera’s lips twitch at the question.

“Not before she’s hale enough for the journey down the Eyrie.” Mother said, her smile slipping away. “Her father has agreed to a betrothal between Aemma and Viserys. She’ll live here after she flowers and will likely not have a reason to leave us again.”

“But she’s just an Arryn, not a real Targaryen.” Saera sniffed. “Lord Rodrik is like to put a falcon’s egg in her cradle instead of a dragon.”

Mother’s expression darkened. “Enough, Saera.”

“But I—“

“Not today. Your sister was only ever kind and gracious, and we will honor her tonight.” Mother stepped forward and pressed a palm on Saera’s cheek. Her thumb stroked the crest of her cheekbone and Gael forced down a scowl—why should Saera get anything from Mother when she was only ever cruel? “Promise me.”

Even then, Saera showed no remorse. She didn’t jerk her head away, but neither did she force down her own scowl. “Of course. Your Grace.”

Mother lightly pinched her chin and smiled again, impossibly fond. Gael wished she’d touch her cheek next, but instead she stepped back into the Queen’s stance. Viserra sniffled like she was trying not to weep again.

“Shall we all make the same oath?”

“Yes, Your Grace,” they chorused.

“Good. Thank you. Now, I’ve brought home your sister’s things, to share amongst you three. She did not…live long enough to bequeath them, so I have chosen the recipients in her stead.” At this, the scowl dropped from Saera’s face altogether and Viserra’s eyes widened in eagerness, tears forgotten. Even Gael felt the same thrill the promise of gifts always brought, but this time it was a hard, lumpy thing that moved uneasily through her stomach.

Don’t look at the window again, she told herself again. Don’t look. Don’t look.

“How…did Daella die, Mother?” Viserra asked softly. She adopted a concerned expression and sat up a little straighter. “Was it childbed fever?”

At Daella’s name, Mother startled like a doe; her whole body went still from the ends of her fingers to the golden strands that escaped the top of her hairnet, blindingly bright. “It’s never wise to ponder such morbid thoughts, Viserra. All you need know is that Daella is with your brothers and sisters, and is no longer in pain.”

Viserra glanced at Saera, whose fingers have started twisting on her lap, bunching up her skirts, before nodding, slowly. “I’m so glad, Mother. Is…the babe pretty? Valerion’s face was—he was all wrinkly, for the first week. I remember.”

“Gael was too. Serra wouldn’t remember that,” Saera said.

At last, Mother looked at Gael. Her eyes crinkled inward when she smiled again and Gael felt the lumpy thing in her stomach start to melt. “Everyone looks wrinkled when they’re born. You’ll see one day when you birth a…” Her smile fades. For a moment she’s not in the room anymore, but she comes back so quickly Gael thinks she imagined the whole thing. “But yes, my loves, Aemma was beautiful. All babes are, when they’re yours.”

Gael had never seen a newly-born babe before; Viserys and Daemon were both born on Dragonstone, and she hadn’t been allowed to visit Alyssa’s Aegon, sickly as he was. She could not imagine anything but a hatchling—blood steaming, squalling, a mass of angry veins and sharp claws. A year before she died, Alyssa snuck her sisters into the Dragonpit to see a clutch of hatchlings, in hopes that her sisters might claim dragons of their own. Gael remembered how a bronze-colored wyrm snapped at Viserra’s arm when she tried to stroke his neck, and how her shriek of terror alerted the dragon keepers of the royal visit’s true purpose.

None of them ever visited the Dragonpit again, but Gael was entranced by the wild, tiny thing with the lovely scales. She dreamed of returning so she might feed the hatching some fruit—teach it to crave affection, not hunger for flesh. Imagining Daella then, birthing such a screaming creature from her own tiny body, Gael almost wanted to shriek too.

Viserra furrowed her brow and asked no other questions. Just as Mother opened her mouth to speak again, there was a brisk knock on the door. Six servants entered Daella’s chambers after the Queen gave her approval, carrying the fresh kindling and folded bed linens and dinner trays, followed by a goose down mattress carried on the back of two footmen. Chambermaids revealed roast duck, steaming and drenched in a heavy plum sauce—Gael’s favorite. Her stomach twisted again at the heady, fruity scent, where usually it would growl in hunger.

Household guards entered last, carrying a pewter chest painted a burnished black. As they set it down beside the Queen, Gael saw two dragons inlaid on the top, their necks twined together. Rubies sat where their eyes would be and each of their black scales jutted outward. Gael knew those scales were sharp enough to cut flesh. She’d cut her forefinger on her own trousseau last year, when Mother and Daella presented it for her sixth nameday. There was still a rough scar on her finger pad, making it numb to the touch.

The Queen waited until each servant took their leave to approach the chest. When the lock turned, she reached down and ran her hand across the left dragon’s neck, her tough light enough for her fingers to stay unscathed. When she straightened her spine, the Queen’s face was ashen. The bright blue of her eyes became disconcerting; they seemed to Gael more like crossbow bolts stuck to a white wall. She cleared her throat and stood taller still. “Let us enjoy our supper first, I think. Sadness never pairs well with empty stomachs.” She smiled again, but her eyes didn’t change. “And I would very much like to know everything I’ve missed.”

Roast duck wasn’t all the food the servants brought. There was soft cheese and dates drizzled with honey—Viserra’s favorite dish—and a bowl of toasted chestnuts for Saera, who loved to crack them open more than eat them. At first, no one knew where to sit. There were still five chairs. Mother always sat in the center high-backed chair, with Gael on one side, Daella on the other, and Saera and Viserra next to her. Mother eventually decided for them; she instructed Hana the maidservant to remove the extra chair, and invited Saera to sit at her side. Saera started to complain about having no room to breathe, but stopped with one look from the Queen.

No one spoke at all as Mother speared two thick slices of duck onto Gael’s plate and Viserra nibbled on the date’s flesh, then sucked on its pit. (Saera watched Viserra do this with revulsion, daintily eating a stolen wedge of cheese.) The duck slices were too big for Gael, but she felt too overwrought by all the silence and scraping cutlery to ask Mother to make smaller cuts. She couldn’t even recall whether Mother ever served them food, rather than servants.

Mother took one slice of duck and a plump date for her own plate. As she rearranged her skirts to sit back down, she gently instructed Gael to eat before the meat became tough. Gael speared a fatty corner and chewed, slowly. It tasted mealy and slimy all at once, reminding Gael of worms winding through fresh soil. She ate another small bite, though, then three more, because Mother was always pleased when Gael had an appetite.

More long minutes passed with no words shared. When Mother left only bones on her plate and her face flushed from a full belly, she began to watch her daughters in turn. Gael ate every time Mother glanced her way, while Viserra continued picking apart her dates. Only Saera had abandoned her meal; her hands fidgeted with a spearing knife and she kept darting glances at the trousseau, still locked and shut by Daella’s bed. The chestnuts were left untouched.

It was Mother who broke the silence's reign, still looking at Saera. “How are your lessons with Grand Maester Elysar and Septa Lyra faring?” Her elder sister chose that moment to fill her plate with chestnuts and sliced duck. Gael wasn’t eager to give an answer either, as she only saw the Septa for lessons now. She finally learned all her letters when the moon last turned, and Grand Maester Elysar decided she needn’t stress her mind anymore. Gael was very happy to never see the sour-faced Maester again, but Mother won’t be, as Gael hadn’t begun learning her histories yet. She squirmed in place, and hoped to be forgotten again.

Saera reached for a chestnut and the pair of copper tongs. With a resounding crack, she split the nutshell directly down the middle. Mother sighed. “Let us go around the table, then. Viserra, what are you learning right now?”

Viserra pulled her latest date pit from her mouth and placed it carefully on the edge of her plate. Her eyes darted over to Saera and back. “I...learned Brave Danny Flint on the harp. Lady Florence said I played it more beautifully than she’s ever heard.”

Mother brightened. “Lady Alarra played it for me years ago, when your brothers were still in swaddling clothes. It’s such a sad tune, but it always lulled them to sleep.”

Imagining Aemon and Baelon as toddling babes was funny, but Gael didn’t want to be the only one laughing. She ate another bite of duck, now cool and very tough.

“It’s too morose, I think, like most of those queer Northern songs.” Viserra lifted her chin and sniffed haughtily. “I would rather make my suitors weep when they look upon my beauty.”

Saera scoffed at Viserra and flicked a date pit at her elbow. Viserra squealed and flicked it back and, for a moment, war broke out on the Queen’s table. Gael thought her Mother would scold them, but instead, she let out a little laugh that sounded a lot like crying. “Daella misliked songs from the North, too. Except for—well, little Amanda Arryn often sang The Night That Ended to help her sleep just before her labors started.”

Both her sisters stopped the war at once. Viserra’s shoulders drooped and she started sucking on her abandoned quarrel, though it likely had little flavor left. Saera only scowled again. She crossed her arms and glanced at the trousseau. “Babes in arms need songs to sleep,” she muttered. She gave her scowl to Mother. “When I’m in the birthing chamber, I’ll be strong. I won’t need anything.”

Mother didn’t return the scowl. She put down her spearing knife and looked at Saera with an impassive expression, tilting her head carefully.  “And what have you learned these past few moons, my Saera?”

Saera shrunk an inch under Mother’s gaze and peaked at Viserra, then the chest, then Mother again. The expression on her face turned strange, like some foreign land between mad and sad and glad. Gael tried to copy it and her forehead just hurt.

“Must I demand an answer as your Queen? I would rather not, sweetling.”

Viserra started. “We learned arithmetic and—“

“I’ll have the answer from Saera, please.”

Mother took a chestnut. Saera took another. She cracked it open, then passed Viserra the tongs without breaking her stare, even though Viserra didn’t request it, nor had a single chestnut on her own plate. Viserra considered the tongs for a moment, then delicately handed them to Mother without any fuss.

Several seconds passed in fraught silence. Gael stuffed more duck into her mouth. To forget the taste of chewy, congealed sauce, she looked where a fifth chair might rest. She saw Daella there, her long yellow braid coiled around her head. She nibbled on a pear and pressed a finger to her mouth, reminding Gael to stay quiet until Saera was done being Saera.

“Arithmetic,” Saera finally announced. “But it’s easy and boring, so the Maester has me learning algebra, too. Noblewomen in Essos learn it, so a Westerosi princess should know it better.” She stared right at Mother. Her jaw bone seemed pinched as her chin, reminding Gael of how archers look right before releasing their quarrels at tournaments. Mother cracked open her chestnut quietly; the sound closeness made Gael jump in her seat. Instead of eating her prize, Mother offered both the fruit and the tongs back to Saera, nodding her approval.

As Saera bit into the fruit, the quarrel was released. She eased into a sly grin. “I also learned a popular story at court during the last month. All the good singers in King’s Landing are telling it, Aemon says.”

Viserra nearly choked on another date pit. “Saera, you cannot tell Mother the story about Lady Harren!”

Mother gently scolded Viserra for speaking with a full mouth, then tweaked Saera’s chin again. “I’d rather hear it from my girls than Aemon—the Warrior bless my son, but his voice does remind one of the mousers running amuck in the Holdfast.”

Saera’s grin turned suddenly soft, like icicles melting into a slurry. It was such an odd, unfamiliar smile on Saera’s face that Gael could only stare, blinking rapidly. She blinked even harder when Saera threw her arms around Mother in a vice grip and didn’t let go, not even when Viserra caught her eyes and looked on in bewilderment. Mother smiled and held her back. Gael imagined Daella in a fifth chair again, smiling around a mouthful of duck. She loved when happy stories ended and everyone hugged.

“Daella could have done it. She had the prettiest voice,” Gael murmured, not entirely realizing she was speaking.

It was the wrong thing to say, again. Mother’s smile froze on her face. She gently pulled Saera’s arms away and pressed a dry kiss on her forehead; her gaze drifted around the room, and Gael hoped it wouldn’t land on the window seat. Instead, she finally looked directly at Gael–really looked at her like she always did before. Like Gael was the one who made her happiest. Mother smoothed Gael’s hair back behind an ear. “She certainly did, my heart.”

Gael swallowed harshly. She tried to ignore Saera’s glaring and think about her lessons—for answering Mother’s question would certainly keep her smiling—but she could only see Daella waving before stepping into the palanquin, already pale from the thought of living so far away from King’s Landing. The night before, Daella had left Lord Rodrik’s bed to crawl into Gael’s in the nursery, shaking. She squeezed Gael so tight that neither of them could breathe. He’s so kind to me, Gaelily. Oh it hurt, it really hurt, but we only had to do it once and he held me all night. He said it would hurt less soon. I believe him. I do. When Spring comes, I’ll be so happy.”

“The crocuses bloomed, mama,” Gael said. “Just like you said.”

Mother started tearing up again, to Gael’s horror and despair. But the blue in her eyes stayed gentle as the summer sky and she opened her arms. Gael pushed off her chair and rushed toward them, burying her head in the warm dip underneath Mother’s chin, her stomach all at once settled by the clean smell of saffron. The Queen scooped her up onto her lap as though she were still a babe in arms and not closer to her own maidenhood, to her a faraway lord husband, and–

“Thank you. My precious miracle from the Mother above,” Mother whispered, and Gael hid her face until her steady, strong heartbeat pulled her to sleep.

The dream came on fast.

There was Saera clearing her throat and launching into the prologue of Lady Harren and the First Maidens and Viserra mimicking the singers’ somber notes on a lute. There was Mother’s rumbling laughter against Gael’s cheek and then–nothing. Just nothing. She expected the dragons to appear. Gael almost always saw dragons—pits of spitting fire high in the mountains and burning, falling towers and scales moving underneath her own thighs, crackling pyres and maidens dancing around them in dizzying circles. Shrieking laughter and excited whispers beckoning Gael to come close.

Gael was only scared of the dragons while asleep; by the time she woke up, she couldn’t remember the smell of burning flesh or the whipping wind scouring her cheeks. Instead, she only felt melancholy upon the rows of empty beds in the nursery, the wan sun illuminating the used rushes on the floor. A nursemaid would then bring her fresh linens and the chambermaid would bring her first meal, and the melancholy would vanish, too.

This dream was different. The nothingness wasn’t just nothing, for Gael sank deep into sleep like a stone in high tide. Darkness settled over her head and swallowed her laughter in one great gulp, burning her throat worse than any flame. She smelled salt and brine and ash, all heavier than smoke. Far below was darker still, like a sky with no pointy stars to show travelers the way. Help! she screamed and couldn’t scream, heart thumping, legs thrashing. Mother! Viserra! Saera! Her ears were two rocks and they pressed together, hard. Father, she whimpered. This, she heard—but it was not her own voice at all.

Daella?

A laugh whistled by her cheek, and she stopped moving. Another, and another. Delicate bells and ecstatic wheezing, wind flapping over the castle banners, the crows calling from the tallest branches of the weirwood. Daella, face pillowed in Mother’s lap, sobbing until she could no longer breathe. Dark red blood bloomed across her stomach, turning the waters the color of rust. Can’t you ask Father to let me stay home? I want to stay home! I don’t like any of them, Mother. Please, I want to stay home.

Gael was close enough to touch. She fought the nothingness that wasn’t nothing to reach Mother and Daella, only for the tides to carry her sister’s body forward into unknown seas, and farther still. Mother vanished entirely. Maybe she was never there at all.

I can’t breathe underwater, Gael realized with stunning clarity, watching Daella’s hair spread out into silver tendrils, then nothing at all—as part of the world as anything is, when the Stranger claims you for the Mother. Gael raked her nails across her neck, desperate for another breath. Daella! She screamed until her throat was raw. Daella!

Hands clasped Gael’s ankle, and pulled.

Salt stung her eyes and those bony fingers sank into her flesh like teeth. A babe’s wail shattered the dark. She bellowed for help, and strained her body up, and up, and—

“Gael!” called a high-pitched voice. “Wake up, stupid face!’

Long fingers held her face.

“Saera, do not call–oh, sweetling, there you are! What happened?”

Gael wrenched her head away.The voice felt as underwater as her mind, and the babe’s piercing wail echoed and echoed still. She turned on her side to curl up into a ball—like the sowbugs that gather on fallen tree branches. They stayed curled until Gael stopped poking them. She suddenly felt terribly sorry for poking them. They must have been so frightened.

“What’s wrong with her?”

“Not so loud.”

“Should we fetch the Grand Maester for sweetsleep? I could go!”

“Let’s give her another moment.”

Gael’s eyes sprang open. That voice cut through the murk and ached through her bones. She saw white, blurry shapes that eventually became Mother, Viserra, and Saera; the latter two leaning over the shoulder of the former. Underneath Gael’s body, she felt the brazier-warmed stone. She saw the brazier itself, casting waves of orange on the walls and hiding all the furniture in shadow. She chewed hard on the inside of her mouth until it tasted sharp and bitter.

“I’m well again, Mother.” She sat up slowly, Mother’s hands guiding her all the way. She frowned at the empty chairs by the table, even deeper when the chairs and table started to sway with the floors and walls. She swallowed bile. “Is the story over?”

Mother mirrored her frown. “I think we shall fetch the Maester, Viserra. Tell Ser—“

“She said she’s alright,” Saera said quickly. “Come on, Gaelily, you can do the voices for Lady Harren’s geese. You do the goose noises best.” Her wide violet eyes were almost red in this new light. Gael knew her own looked the same, and Viserra’s. She shook her head and the room spun around, and around. Sharp prickles rushed down her arms and legs and she grabbed Mother’s waist with both arms, holding tight like she was a shipmast.

“I’m alright,” Gael repeated, eyes screwed shut. “Maybe Viserra can do the voices, though.”

For a long moment, there was silence. Real silence, not the nothingness. Fire crackled in the brazier and the room slowly, slowly stopped spinning. Then, hot hands patted her back a little too roughly, and the room spun anew, even faster than before. “Poor little dear,” Saera crooned. She sounded enough like Mother that Gael became discomfited. The taste of iron and bile grew  stronger. “The duck was too rich for you, is all. We’ll get you peas porridge and open our gifts from Mother together. Doesn’t that sound wonderful?”

Before Gael could mumble her agreement, she felt Mother’s spine go rigid.

“The items in Daella’s trousseau are not gifts. They were your sister’s treasures.” Mother’s voice was hollow again, like in the courtyard. It halted the world, but too fast; the floor reared up to meet her and Gael could only brace herself for impact.

“Of course. Daella’s pretty trinkets and pressed flowers. We should store them in the Iron Bank of Braavos for safekeeping, I think.”

Viserra giggled at this, then stopped just as quickly. Gael opened her eyes to find Saera glowering at Mother, both arms pressed to her sides. She looked up Mother’s neck to find a curious expression on her face. Not hollow, not angry, not sad, and certainly not happy. She’d only ever seen Silverwing make a similar face before—during the last royal procession, when she watched the smallfolk gathered on street corners. Meanwhile, Gael felt her heart beat faster and faster against her cheek. “If you don’t want what’s been chosen for you, I shall see if little Rhaenys wants the doll instead.”

“I don’t want the doll. I shall be a maiden flowered soon, and I won’t have any need of a stupid toy. Gael should have it.”

Viserra looked as though she were going to mention the dolls they played with that very morning while Gael practiced reading her letters from The Seven-Pointed Star with Septa Lyra. It was good that she didn’t; the room was almost still, and Saera yelling would make it go around again.

After all, the doll Daella brought to the Vale had a delicate painted face and a green brocade dress with myrish lace. A gift from their Father, for Daella’s journey and new home. Saera had complained in bitter whispers as the main gate shut behind the small procession, much too quiet for anyone but Viserra and Gael to hear.

“I shall tell a servant to fetch the Maester,” Viserra stammered out in a high voice as Saera opened her mouth. “Do I have your leave, Moth—Your Grace?”

Mother didn’t answer. She continued to stare in Saera’s direction, but not directly at her. She had put on the Queen’s stance again, perfectly in place even crouched with her skirts tucked under her knees. In this light, her eyes were violet too. She didn’t blink. “That won’t be necessary, sweetling. Saera will do so, while we open your sister’s chest.”

“But, Mother—“

“Your Grace. Princesses remember their courtesies.”

“Gael is still alive!” Saera barked. Gael jumped in Mother’s arms. “You heard her. Daella’s the dead one. She wouldn’t even care who gets what; she’d just tell us to choose whatever we wanted, and you know it!”

Silence started its reign anew. Viserra shrank backward, hands covering her mouth, and Gael shut her eyes as the room tipped sideways. Mother’s grip around her went slack, and she slid down to the floor, curling up once more. She couldn’t feel the warm stones anymore, though, nor the brazier’s flames swaying back and forth behind her eyelids. Daella’s the dead one. Wind rattled the window glass. Gael squeezed her eyes tighter.

Daella didn’t come home, not really. Alyssa never woke up and Daenaerys died shivering in her own bed and her brothers never saw a nameday. Only Gael didn’t know Daenaerys or her brothers, and she barely remembered Alyssa, except–her eyes, they were different colors. Her smile had a gap, and she loved riding ahorse just as much as she loved riding on dragonback. She rocked both Gael and Rhaenys to sleep when they were babes. Daella told her that, when Alyssa died. Daella was dead. The Stranger took the chair where she would sit and breathe and prick her thumb during needlepoint lessons.

Daella was dead.  Gael’s head burst open. Daella was dead.

Hot tears rushed down her cheeks in a torrent. They tore down the dam of her eyelids and dripped into the hair curled into her neck, turned to salt in her mouth. She held her breath so she wouldn’t make a sound, but Mother still heard. She gathered Gael back into her arms and hummed the beginnings of lullaby in Valyrian—Hush little one, Hush Hush Hush. Hush. Sleep now. Sleep. Gael’s world became her mother’s voice and the blood rushing underneath her skin, and she felt herself grow calm and the room stand still. She hadn’t felt so calm since Mother left for the Vale, all those months ago.

Then Mother held Gael tighter about the ribs, squeezing all the breath from her. She shook with anger. “You are a selfish child, Saera Targaryen. Every day I have prayed to the Mother that you learn humility, and I will do so even if you forgo her teachings forever. Go fetch–”

“I am–”

“You may not interrupt me!” Her voice was loud enough to echo throughout the room. She shook even harder. “I am still the lady of this household, and you will give me the respect and deference I am due. Send a maester for your sister now, before I send for a whipping girl.”

When Saera didn’t respond, Gael lifted up her head. She had to rub her eyes dry to see. Both Saera and Viserra stood straight as castle walls, arms pinned to their side. Viserra's face was wan and pale, but it was Saera fighting her tears now, head bowed and chin quivering.Her hands were balled into fists, and they shook.

“You’ll also apologize to Gael, when you return.”

Saera turned the full force of her rage onto Gael, who expected smoke to unfurl from Saera’s flared nostrils. “Must I also bow, Your Grace?”

“Go, Saera. Now.”

Gael knew the moment Mother must have looked away; Saera’s body slumped and her face crumpled like parchment. Even towering above Gael on the floor, she suddenly looked very, very small. She glanced at the trousseau again with a fierce glare that soon melted into something else entirely. Whatever that something was, Saera fled from the room before Gael could parse it out.

The door slammed with a creak and a jolt. Viserra jumped. Mother squeezed Gael so tight she let out a gasp of pain.

“Mother, I can’t—“

“Oh darling. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” Mother loosened her arms and rocked them back and forth, tucking her chin over Gael’s downy head. Gael felt warm tears fall into her hair and down her forehead, and she soon didn’t know whether Mother’s or her own blurred her vision. The world became a haze of reds and oranges, and she was closer than ever to retching.

“Mother, please–I’m…everything’s too fast–”

“I know, sweetling. I know.”

Viserra cleared her throat. “I think–Your Grace, I think Gael means that she’s…dizzy.”

Gael nodded frantically against her Mother’s neck and sighed in relief when the rocking stopped. She shut her eyes again.

“Thank you, Viserra.” Mother’s tired voice vibrated against Gael’s cheek. “Go to your sister. I fear she’s gone back to sulk in her bedrooms.”

“I'll get her, I promise. And Your Grace…I believe that Daella's—“

“I won’t hear another word about that hells-damned trousseau. Go, please.”

There was a sniffle, a soft exhale, and then Viserra left the room, too. Gael shuddered when the bolt turned in the lock.

They stared there on the floor for a long time, just breathing, Gael’s face hidden and Mother not letting go. Gael would never be able to say how long. Daella’s brazier protested the silence with a course of spite and crackles; Gael watched the wood pieces split open across the last fire’s ashy remains. Her eyes and cheeks burned so hot she feared the skin would be raw. Wind whistled by the window again; perhaps it never stopped.

“Mama,” Gael whispered when her tears ran dry. She meant to say Mother, but the childish word spilled out instead. Daella always called her Mama, though, and Mother never protested.

“Yes, sweetling?”

I want the Stranger to give Daella back, Gael thought. Targaryens stand above mortal men. He can’t take her without asking. “I don’t need Grand Maester Elysar. I only had a bad dream, but I’m truly well. I promise.”

Mother slid Gael off her lap, then gently turned her around so they faced each  other. The Queen’s face was mottled with sweat and tears and exhaustion. Tangled hair had come loose from her hairnet, more brown than golden without the sun behind. She didn’t look like herself at all, Gael realized with a rush of unease. She wanted to push the strands back where they belonged, but her hands were heavy as stones.

“Maesters see what mothers and Queens cannot, my heart.” Mother held her face gently with both hands and spoke through fresh tears. “My Daella lived to see her Aemma because the Maester and the midwife made sure she didn’t tear during the birth. I won't leave anything to chance. Especially you.”

Gael saw the hatchling again, biting and clawing, and blinked until the image faded. She rubbed her sore eyes. “I wish you could have brought Aemma home, Mother.”

“Oh, I do too.” Mother pressed a wet kiss to her brow. “You’re like to have your own babe when Lord Rodrik brings her home. If you have a girl, they might be as you and Daella were.”

“I don’t want—“ Gael stammered. She didn’t understand the hot flare burning in her stomach now, how her throat was closing and closing when there was plenty of air to breathe. “I don’t—“ The dragon hatchling gave a piercing shriek and Gael threw herself into Mother’s arms, terrified of its burgeoning flames. “Please don’t make me—Please don’t—“

“Shh, it’s alright. I’m sorry.” Mother clutched her into the crevice of her body, and this time Gael only calmed when her ribs began to ache from the squeezing. She wailed in pitched wheezes and frustrated sobs until words no longer made sense and her head pounded like war drums.

“You’ll never have to leave me and I’ll never leave you,” the Queen whispered in Valyrian. “Not even if the King, your father, declares me a traitor. I’ll have another babe and you’ll marry him, and you’ll both stay home with me. My little Gaelily. My heart.”

Gael would only fully understand these words a full moon’s turn later, after Daella’s rooms were locked for good and ever. They would make her smile her first real smile in weeks. She would look out the window and finally register the Spring sun, the chattering of birds building their nests in the oaks and firs outside.

Now, she only thought of Vermithor and Silverwing. As Mother hoisted Gael to her feet and helped her to Daella’s bed, she imagined Vermithor and Silverwing circling each other above their heads. Other dragons were there too—a huge wyrm with bright black scales and red veins, a skinny beast with green-gold scales that glittered, another with a belly the color of clotted cream. As long as they were there, nothing could harm them. This she knew in her heart, with every breath she gave.

“My dragon would protect us from the King, too,” Gael said a bit later, as her words slowly returned and Mother was tucking the blankets under her arms.

Mother furrowed her brow. “Your dragon?”

“Aemma. So Daella’s little girl would always know we thought of her, so far away. Oh, I should like a dragon of my own, Mama. I really would.” Before Mother could respond, Gael was asleep.

She woke an hour later, heavy-limbed and confused, tasting milk of the poppy on her tongue. She wrinkled her nose; it was always too bitter. Fewer candles lit the room that before, turning everything into shadows. Someone was speaking to Mother across the room in tones too soft for Gael to comprehend. Grand Maester Elysar, she realized, and fell asleep thinking of Saera’s crumpled face and the doors locking shut.

Minutes or hours later, Gael’s eyes fluttered open again. Cool air tingled her cheeks and she felt a warm hand on her brow; Mother was sitting on the bed now, her other arm holding Daella’s trousseau on her lap. The little rubies in the dragons’ eyes seemed to twinkle like stars. Daella gulped. She tasted only bile now.

“Did Saera come back?”

“She’s asleep, I imagine. It’s the hour of the wolf.” Mother stroked her brow and hair. “Don’t worry for her tonight. She’s a fierce thing.”

I’m not at all, Gael thought. Perhaps that’s why she has no use for me. Against her own will, her eyes roamed across the room back to the window seat. There was nothing there but the pillows and curtains and fresh night air, spilling out of the open window now. The brazier’s fire was mere embers and trickles of white smoke.

The sound of a lock springing open drew her attention back. Mother had opened the Trousseau; the jeweled eyes of the twining dragons, now upside down, seemed to wink at her. She began carefully looking through its contents. The sounds of crinkling paper and silk fabrics rustling together nearly soothed Gael back to sleep. Just as she began to sink into a dream, though, Mother whispered her name and pressed a book into her hands.

Gael looked down. The book’s leather-bound cover was cool to the touch and Gael started to trace the gilded inscription at the top. Daella Targaryen. Instead of dragons, silver roses and lilies encircled her name. Inside, there would be blank parchment bound together for drawing. She remembered this book; Mother gave it to Daella for her last nameday in King’s Landing. “I can’t draw likenesses well, Mother.”

“Neither could your sister. Look.” Mother opened the book to a middle page and gently bore down the spine so it would lay flat. She held a candle over the bed so Gael could see and Daella was suddenly so alive again—there she was, in scribbled leaves on a tree, in the funny way her painted smiles were always crooked. She found Mother writing a letter at her desk and two young girls running in a field of flowers hand-in-hand who could only be Saera and Viserra. On the last filled page, she found a starry night sky, a waterfall, and a woman with her hands over her eyes. It was hard to tell whether the woman laughed or wept. Gael closed the book with a pang of sadness and held it close to her chest.

“Daella always had trouble with her letters. But we don’t need them to see what she saw, to know her thoughts.” She pressed Gael’s hand over the book of drawings, right over Gael’s heart. “Whenever you miss her, you can visit her and talk, in your own private way. It’ll be as though she never left.”

Those words cut through Gael. She wanted to smile, but the book’s spine dug sharply into her breastbone and she was never very good at smiling, after all. Not the right way. It didn’t seem fair, since Daella won’t smile prettily again. Nor sing. Nor draw her crooked smiles.

Gael swallowed all the unhappy words and banished them from her mind. She thanked Mother for the book and promised to treasure it always, and show her own daughters one day so Daella would never be forgotten. Mother’s glowing smile told Gael she finally said something right.

Targaryens funeral pyres were always lit next to Blackwater Bay, in case the wind should push the embers to unwanted places. As Daella’s body was burned at the Vale, the King announced to court the next morning that a procession would follow her urn from the Red Keep to the edge of the waters in a week’s time. There, the court would watch The Wayward Rose take her ashes to Dragonstone, to rest beside Princess Alyssa and the King’s other children who died too young—Princess Daenaerys, dead at six from the Shivers, and the three princes who died in the cradle. The King ordered a pyre built regardless; as Septa Lyra explained the night before the procession, its burning would mark Daella’s passing for the annals of history.

King Jaehaerys flew above the procession on Vermithor’s back in somber gray armor. The Queen travelled with her youngest living children in a palanquin. Only Vaegon and Maegelle could not be present, being so far away in Oldtown. They sent letters, though, which Gael listened to with both discomfort and fascination. They left King’s Landing before she was born, and she’d never met either of them.

As the Septon made his way toward the pyre, Gael found herself standing between her parents. Viserra stood next to Mother, followed by Saera; the latter was trying to persuade Baelon into a conversation and ignore sulky comments from their cousin Daemon, while the former stared somberly at the unlit pyre, only speaking when prompted. The King and Queen didn’t look at each other, nor talk. Mother stared straight ahead, seeing nothing. Father glanced down and the corner of his lips turned up. Gael stammered out what she hoped was the right greeting and his smile deepened; he touched the top of Gael’s shoulder lightly, then looked away once more. Gael shivered under her cloak until the ceremony began, and continued to shake as the Septon spoke the mourning rites in loud, gloomy tones.

Blackwater Bay’s waters lapped at the Wayward Rose, turning to seafoam on the way back down. Lady Jonquil Darke stood sentry on the prow, while two knights of the Kingsguard stood beside the ramp leading onto the decks. Gulls called overhead and Vermithor grew distracted by them. His yellow eyes searched upward and tendrils of smoke drizzled from his great mouth. Gael felt calm watching him and the waves crash forward and back, listening to the gulls crying out their funny song overheard.

Her calm soured when two other members of the Kingsguard brought forth Daella’s urn. After the High Septon lifted it up high for the Seven to see, Gael could hear nothing else. She watched the Kingsguard carry her sister away into the hull and watched crewmen push the ship onto water. Septa Lyra led the crowd in a mourning hymn, and Gael didn’t join; she just watched the ship drift away. When Vermithor lit the pyre, Gael still watched the ship. He flew away right afterward, swallowed up into the fog by the time she realized he was gone.

The High Septon concluded the service with words from the Crone, a blessing for the Smith to carry the ship safely to Dragonstone. Father took Mother away to talk right afterward. She told Gael to stay with Lady Jocelyn, but her goodsister was soon distracted with Rhaenys, complaining of the cold. As the flames rose and smoke filled the briny air, Gael walked forward, watching the ship grow smaller and smaller in the distance. She weaved through the crowd gathering by the pyre for warmth and didn’t stop herself, not for a second, no matter her wind-stung cheeks and chattering teeth. Stepping into the shoreline, she watched the gulls as they sung their songs and pecked at the seaweed caught between little black stones.

Gael only stopped when the waters circled her ankles. They began to fill her shoes, too, but that was no matter. The Wayward Rose was now the size of her thumb and getting smaller, still. Her breaths became foggy as the air swirling above the bay, and she thought perhaps she was helping the winds push the ship ever farther toward Dragonstone’s shores. She tried to hold the fog inside her, but it only grew thicker over the waters. Daella was always afraid of Dragonstone, they had all forgotten–she hated all the gargoyles and damp stones and dark corners. Gael was forced to release her breath eventually, and the next three came out ragged and hoarse.

She needed to reach Daella, now. No one else knew that Daella never drew any dragons in her book, just like never asked Gael if she wanted her own. She closed her eyes and stepped forward once again. She imagined mounting a saddle, her dragon beating its great wings against the winds. Her fingertips turned numb as the wind again sliced at her cheeks. Her skirts grew heavy with cloudy water; they twisted around her legs and tried to trip up her feet, but Gael made her spine stay rigid and firm. Like Mother. She spread her arms out for balance and fought a triumphant laugh. Her hands may have gone numb, but she was a Targaryen on dragonback and she would find–

“Princess!” came a call from below.

Her eyes darted open. Instead of the gray fog, she could only see inky blue. Dark waters lapped at her waist. She froze.

“Princess!” came the call again, too close to be below after all.

Gael turned around, slowly, her skirts twisting all the way around her legs. As she opened her mouth to call back, she stumbled and fell into the waters face first, vision turning from blue to dark. She tried to lurch forward, but her sodden skirts had only gotten heavier; no matter how much she scrabbled for purchase, the Blackwater only slid carelessly through her hands. Gael’s next breath was freezing water and muck, seaweed and salt and black smoke. She twisted and turned, flailed out each limb, but her whole body soon turned numb. Her best breath didn’t come at all.

I know what comes now, she heard in her mind. The waters had her in its grasp; the bait was shiny and the fish, like always, was fooled. The Blackwater wasn’t going to let her go without a fight, and Gael was not fierce. She kept her eyes open, though. She refused to let Him take her unaware as well as afraid, caught in a net. She knew the shape of his hands and she knew his voice too; it had to be soft, or souls would hide away forever. When the Stranger plucked her soul clean, Gael would be sure to see his face.

By the time two blurry hand-shapes reached down, Gael’s lungs were burning so much they froze in her chest and she couldn’t feel her legs at all. She finally closed her eyes, seeing Daella smiling at the window and Mother, promising her something important.

Then, big hands grabbed her waist and pulled, hard. They yanked Gael up and up until the wind stung her freezing face. She gulped in sweet air so hard she began to cough up water and wheeze. Leather gloves pushed hair off her forehead and she saw it was Ser Clement, her Kingsguard companion. A white cloak hung gray from his shoulders. The sun was also gray, though bright enough to hurt. She wanted the water back, the soothing dark, and twisted her body, legs chafing against his hauberk, until his size and strength proved too great and she hung there, limp and exhausted.

“Princess! Princess, are you alright?”

“I only—I wanted—“

“It’s alright. It’s alright.” He rubbed his damp mustache as his eyes darted back and forth. A high wave crested over their bodies and Ser Clement crushed her to his chest. The wave roared in her ears, loud as any dragon. When they broke the surface, Gael dissolved into coughing and sputtering. Pain lanced through her leg; looking down, she could not stifle a whimper. Blood drenched her torn stockings and dress, had already stained Ser Clement hauberk.

Panic struck his features when he saw the wound. “Don’t look, Princess. Keep your eyes on me, or close them."

“I only…” Gael mumbled again. “They took…I need to–”

“I’ve seen worse cuts bleed less. You are safe now.” Bearing her weight with only one arm, Ser Clement ripped a strip from the end of her wide, soaked sleeve and firmly wrapped it around her leg. He pressed until blood soaked through and stained the leather on his gloves. He caught her gaze and didn’t let go. “Just think of the Mother. She’s protecting you with me. She won’t let another thing happen. Alright? Will you promise me that, Princess?”

He wouldn’t move or look away until Gael nodded, accepting the knight's promise.

Ser Clement settled her in his arms, then turned around and began to trudge back to the shoreline, slowly. Her hurt leg throbbed every time he placed a mailed boot down on the gravel below. Gael felt stark relief when she heard Mother cry out her name, but she couldn’t bear to look at her yet. She craned towards the other shore, heedless of the sharp pains that travelled from her neck all the way down to the linen-wrapped cut. But Gael saw nothing—only Dragonstone standing tall in the distance and the Blackwater rushing forward to greet it. The fog blended the island’s holdfasts and mountains together into the shadowed belly of some great beast, waiting to swallow The Wayward Rose whole.

Gael pressed her chin against Ser Clement’s shoulder and closed her eyes. He would see her safely home. She knew that. She did. Under her breath, she began to hum all the wrong notes.