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King’s Landing, 62 A.C.
Court is a strange place, Jocelyn decides. It is loud and bright and full of too many adults with large feet and clumsy elbows.
The little lady of House Baratheon grips her own fingers in lieu of her brother’s hand. Once again, he had promised to be her companion, only to—once again—charge away upon first sight of a group of little lordlings. He hadn’t even waited to see if she would follow. Jocelyn can see him laughing in the hall’s centre, entertaining all with his japes and smiles. Bor had always been so: loud and belligerent and annoyingly free of nerves.
Jocelyn hesitates in his absence, as is her habit. Standing alone under the arch of the tremendous doorway, she worries her lip and tries to take a step back—only for her septa to prod her forward as one might a very reluctant and stubborn pony. Gentle at first, then with a kind of growing exasperation, until Jocelyn fears her back might turn to one single giant bruise in the wake of so severe a poking.
She has been to court twice before, so she had been told. Back when her papa had been well, when his hands had been strong and stout and hadn’t trembled, when he had walked with ease and without the use of a cane. Such a time had existed, she had been assured. Jocelyn had been unable to fathom it. For her, the time in which her father had not been sick had long since faded from memory, alongside any recollection of this strange hall. She certainly cannot remember any of the faces that surround her now—but, seeing as they do not seem to remember her either, Jocelyn is quietly relieved.
She much prefers not to be noticed in the first place, after all.
Septa Yrsula tuts behind her. Under threat of renewed prodding from that impatient and bony finger, Jocelyn moves from the hall’s entrance down to the room proper. Her stomach flutters and her knees tremble, and she wishes quite sincerely that the floor might swallow her whole. The flagstones unobliging, Jocelyn tasks herself with studying the room about her instead. It is by far the largest hall she has ever been in. Though the throne room of Storm’s End is by no means humble, its grandeur had ever been the height of its mighty tower and the thunder echoing above. The ceiling here is altogether different: an elegant crossing of stone arches and supports, dipping in and out of shadow. Upon the walls on either side—each seeming a vast ocean away from where she stood—at least two dozen flames roar in their braziers. The attempt at giving the mighty room a warm inviting air is valiant, yet futile—and while she cannot claim her father’s halls are cosy either, she longs for their familiarity all the same.
Squashing down the urge to wrap her arms about herself, Jocelyn shifts her attention to the thick, mighty columns that line the hall. Each one is so broad that she thinks no man would be able to wrap his arms about them, not even her lord father. The texture of the stone is oddly rough in comparison to the fine craftsmanship of the rest of the interior. Jocelyn can see the telltale marks of a chisel, as though the great slabs of stone were not yet fully formed; and as she inspects each one, she spies a man’s face atop the very last, its wide and wild eyes staring down at her.
She shivers.
“Stop gawking, child,” snips her septa. “And stand up straight: ladies do not slouch.”
Instinctively, Jocelyn pulls back her shoulders. She immediately feels a little taller, a little broader, taking up more space than a girl her age really ought to. She doesn’t like it. She never has done. She’s already too tall as it is—impossible girl, her aunts would often chastise, she’ll be needing new dresses again—and holding herself in such a manner feels uncomfortably like pride, like demanding attention. She sees a lord and lady in green point towards her, others following their example like a ripples in a pond. Jocelyn refuses to return their looks. If she falters, she will be swept away, caught in this tide of strangers. She must keep her eyes straight ahead. Yes, that would do: eyes ahead, and one foot in front of the other, step by step. Keep moving until everything is behind her.
Jocelyn takes a deep breath and tightens her hands to fists; and it is then that her own gaze finally catches upon the towering, twisted silhouette that necessitates so terribly high a ceiling. Her heart thuds, and she stops.
Surely, Jocelyn thinks, if I had been here before, I should remember this.
The Iron Throne looms like a spectre, incongruous with the bawdy chatter and laughter of its subjects. It is an awful sight to behold. From its jagged, violent silhouette to the dark, rusting colours of the tortured metal, its hulking form seems to draw in all the warmth, all the feeling in her bones; and as the rest of the world continues in a loud, kaleidoscopic whirl, Jocelyn shivers.
She has heard many tales of House Targaryen. She has heard tales of this very castle, this very seat—and none of them inspire courage. From her father, she had learnt how her distant grandsire’s trueborn son had won the Seven Kingdoms and forged his throne from the swords of all who had opposed him; from her septa, she had learned the names of the men who had bent the knee and the ones who had been killed; and from Bor, she had learnt how the king before last had soaked the walls red with the blood of his enemies and caught them in nasty hidden traps, and decorated the battlements with bits of their bodies. Her eyes dart to the red bricks. With a swoop of her stomach, she wonders how much blood a single man could contain, how many must be slain for so bold a colour to be won.
Septa Yrsula pokes her between her shoulders again, and Jocelyn trips on her skirt. Her feet grow ever heavier, catching under her as though she were traipsing through thick, wet mud. She remembers having become stuck in such a fashion once, running after Bor in the lands surrounding their father’s castle. She had had to unlace her best boots so that her father’s man could pull her free; and he had held her in his arms, and carried her all the way back to Storm’s End. Jocelyn wishes for such a protector now, in the shadow of so very wicked a thing.
How many men must have died for such a seat to be forged?
She had often been told she had an overactive imagination. She had always blamed Bor and his games, but she believes it now, as the hall about her turns into a field—not a place of play, like the one that had claimed her boots, but a site of battle. Where a moment before there had been noble guests and courtiers, there lie instead the bodies of men and their horses: howling in agony, or else twisted and still, their flesh blackened and charred by dragonflame. Her heart thuds. It all seems so awfully real. Smoke burns acrid in her nose, and the hum of the crowd has become the buzzing of flies, the lords and ladies of court an honour guard of corpses: and all the while, each twisted blade of that horrible seat drips red.
A nearby lord laughs far too loudly and Jocelyn flinches back to the present. Nausea rises up her throat. The battlefield disappears, but the throne remains; and she still wishes very much that she might turn around, that she might leave and never set eyes upon that dreadful thing again.
It wouldn’t be so bad to go back home, she thinks. Papa needs someone to take care of him and—
Only she had promised her father to be quite brave: and Jocelyn Baratheon of Storm’s End did not break her promises.
“Speak only when you are spoken to,” her septa fusses as they draw closer to the great dais at the room’s back, the throne looming ever larger. “The King and Queen do your father a great honour in inviting you and your brother here, let alone in keeping you upon his return.”
Realisation runs through her like one of those awful blades.
“Keeping me?” Jocelyn whispers. “Are they not keeping Bor too?”
“Don’t be foolish, girl,” the woman snaps, her already meagre patience threadbare. “Your brother is to be Lord Baratheon one day—one day soon. He must need learn all there is on ruling his keep. That is best done at your father’s side, with your father’s men.”
She is about to protest that Bor is only a child—and a boy, which made him practically of an age with her—when her septa continues, oblivious. “You are to marry a lord and bear his children. There is no better place to prepare you for this than court.”
Jocelyn frowns. “But I am seven.”
“Nearly eight,” the septa corrects, “and what’s that got to do with anything? ‘Tis never too early for a lady to start looking.”
Jocelyn supposes there might be some merit to this, but still she frets at her fingers. “I will be alone here without Bor.”
She resists the urge to turn and look for him. She would be brave.
“Really, child, be not so dramatic. There are plenty of young lords and ladies at court. Mayhaps you will learn to be a normal sort of child without your brother to indulge you.”
That, however, Jocelyn thinks rather unfair. It is very difficult to be a normal sort of little girl when your only company is a brother such as Boremund. It isn’t her fault he prefers being punched in the face to playing with dolls—just as it isn’t her fault his nose is so breakable and his guard so poor.
Girl and septa ascend the dais. There are but a few steps, but it may well be a mountainside for the way it makes her heart pound. Jocelyn gathers her many layers of yellow skirt carefully in her hands—the hem a touch too long, sewn in anticipation of another burst in height—and makes a great effort not to tangle her feet again. Indeed, she is so intent on the steps that she does not notice the figure poised at the very top.
“Oh, darling!”
Before she can even look up, she is being pulled into a fierce one-armed hug, the sweet fragrance of rose and jasmine filling her nose. Jocelyn freezes. She suddenly wants very much to cry. The scent seems so familiar, warm and soothing; and even though she does not know the woman who holds her—she assumes it is a woman, no man could be so soft—Jocelyn does not wish for the embrace to end. Hugs are not commonplace at Storm’s End, other than when her father is misty-eyed and mournful from drink, or else when Bor has hit her too hard and wishes to stop her from crying. She has certainly never been hugged like this.
“Seven above, just look at you!”
The figure pulls away to gift her a beaming smile; and finally, Jocelyn sees her face.
This must be the most wonderful woman in all the world.
She is golden-haired and kind-faced, wearing rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes with a sort of joviality that radiates out from her like a glow. Her hand reaches out to smooth a lock of dark hair behind Jocelyn’s ear; and then, as if sensing the girl’s bewilderment, she instead drops her touch to give her a reassuring squeeze upon her shoulder. The woman’s other hand secures a fat baby to her hip—a girl, Jocelyn thinks, though it is rather difficult to tell—with an easiness that suggests being quite practised at this sort of thing. The baby pulls at her mother’s curls and the woman redirects the little fingers without so much as a sideways glance, rearranging her hair over the opposite shoulder.
It is then that Jocelyn realises that the woman is wearing a crown.
She is the Queen, Jocelyn notes with wonder. This is the Queen of all the Seven Kingdoms.
Her curtsey is quick but passable. Eyes dropped to the floor, Jocelyn desperately tries to recall the names she had studied in her lessons. She must know the name of the Queen before her. She had been able to list them all once, and the names of the Storm Kings before them. Yet she remembers now only the Conqueror’s wives, and knows too that none have borne their names since: this woman is no Visenya, no Rhaenys.
“Haven’t you grown, hāedus ñuhos!”
The woman’s face is lit with delight. She leans down—though only slightly, for she is rather small and Jocelyn much taller than most girls of seven-but-nearly-eight—and looks at her with a strange intensity, as though she wishes to memorise every one of her features. Jocelyn blinks again. For all it is very kind, the expression makes her feel a little uneasy: she’s not used to being looked at so directly.
That, and she’s not sure what a hide-us-new-hoss is.
“Look, Harys!”
A man, as tall as the woman is short, appears at the Queen’s side. He looks puzzled for a moment, then his pale blue eyes thaw with recognition. His face, like that of his companion, also possesses a strange familiarity. From the crown atop his silver hair, it is only logical to assume that he is the King. She bobs another curtsey, brow furrowed with confusion.
“Is this our Jocelyn?” he asks. “It cannot be—she is far too grown up.”
Her unease fast melts away as the King and Queen both smile at her name. “I am,” she insists with earnest, for once glad at being recognised: for never before has her name been said with such interest. “I am Jocelyn.”
“Well, would you look at that,” the Queen beams. “It is Jocelyn. My, just look at her, she’s practically a lady grown—and a beauty too.”
Jocelyn blushes and ducks her head. Her aunts call her awkward and gangly and ill-proportioned. Only her father had ever called her beautiful and that did not count: all papas were obliged to think their little girls were so. Yet still, the King smiles and reaches out a hand to pat Jocelyn’s head, showing little caution for the pile of braids woven atop it.
He turns, pressing a kiss to his wife’s cheek, and whispers more strange words in her ear. Intercepting the baby’s fingers as they reach for his beard, the King looks to Jocelyn again, his eyes mysterious, and offers her a final thin smile before excusing himself.
The Queen beckons her closer. “You look so much like your mother, little one,” she says, her golden curls glowing in the torchlight, the flames warm in her blue eyes. “Other than your hair, of course—such lovely dark hair.”
Jocelyn’s heart leaps. She had never known her mother, for she had died when Jocelyn had become stuck in her belly. Her aunts would whisper of it sometimes, when they thought her too far away to hear or else too simple-minded to understand: of what a waste it was for a woman to die birthing a girl. Guilt flickers in her stomach, as it always does when thoughts of Mama arise. She is ever so glad for Bor in these moments—comforted by the knowledge that at least her mother and father had had an heir first, before she had come along to spoil everything. She had asked Bor about Mama, of course, but they two were so close in age that there was little he could remember to tell.
She had yellow hair, he would say after a moment’s hard thought. Yellow hair and pretty eyes.
“You knew my mother?”
Her septa makes a stifled noise behind her, but the Queen only laughs and tosses back her ringlets with a smile. “Of course, I knew her very well: she was my mother too.”
Jocelyn stares.
“I’m your sister, riñitsos,” the Queen smiles, “your mandīa. And Jaehaerys, over there—the one with the silly crown on his head—he is your lekīa, your brother.”
Jocelyn’s head swims with strange words and impossible information. Her eyes flicker from side to side, looking for laughter, for pointing fingers; for surely, this must be some manner of trick, an amusement for those about them. Did her aunts perhaps have the ear of the Queen? Had they sought to make one last cruel joke at her expense?
“Are you quite sure?” Jocelyn asks faintly. “Only, I’m certain I have never had a sister before now.”
A hand closes upon her upper arm. The beginning of a chastisement forms upon Septa Yrsula’s lips, fingers biting into her skin. “Do not be so insolent—”
“Unhand her.”
The Queen’s voice does not become cold, precisely: it is more that it hardens, like diamond or Valyrian steel, resilient and unforgiving. Jocelyn blinks, full of wonder at the transformation. The Queen is still bright and beautiful, but as she stares down the septa, the gentle warmth within her seems to flare with fire.
“In my court, we do not punish children for being children,” the Queen says, staring the woman down with eyes of flint. “She is not to blame for her ignorance. It is clear that she has been told very little under your tutelage.”
Her septa drops her hold as if scalded. “My Queen—”
“Your lady is in my care now. Go. She has no further need of you.”
Head cowed, Septa Yrsula bends into a most hideously deferent curtsey. She retreats down the stairs without another word, with Jocelyn watching over her shoulder. Perhaps she might have smiled at such a sight a day ago; but now, alone in an unfamiliar sea, Jocelyn feels rather sorry for her, shuffling back until she is swallowed by the crowd of lords and ladies.
“Now, where were we?”
The Queen looks back down to Jocelyn, her smile reappearing like sunshine from behind a cloud.
Jocelyn hesitates. “You… are my sister?”
“Ah, yes,” says the Queen. “Yes, riñitsos, I assure you: I am your sister. I was there the day they pulled you from our mother, and I held you in her stead.”
“You did?”
“I did.”
Jocelyn bites her lip, frowning. The Queen’s kind demeanour does not change again, is not replaced by a cruel smile or jeering look—and yet Jocelyn still cannot think of this as anything more than a fanciful dream.
This is the sort of thing for the girls in songs, she thinks softly. I am not a story. How could I have never known I had a sister? And another brother! Does Bor know? How odd that I should have no memory of them at all! Is that quite normal, to forget one’s sister and brother? I surely could never forget Bor.
Yet, more than anything—more than answers, more than Bor, more than home—she wants her ‘sister’ to embrace her again. She wants to feel those arms around her, and study the feeling, examine her heart for any sign of recognition. If the Queen had held her once before, perhaps that is why her embrace had been such a comfort. Perhaps she might feel such things again.
“It is quite alright to be confused, sweetling,” the Queen says gently, a sad look flickering across her face. “This must be so terribly strange for you. I had thought your father had kept you better informed.”
It is terribly strange. There is one thing, however, that confuses her more than the rest: “My mama is your mama, but is my papa not your papa?”
The woman reaches for her with a gentle touch, smoothing a thumb along Jocelyn’s cheek. “No, sweetling, he is not. Your mother was married to my father first, then took your father to husband many years later. Has no one ever told you this?”
Jocelyn shakes her head. “No. No one ever tells me anything, except Bor—and he does not count, for he never tells me anything useful.”
The golden-haired woman smiles, but the gesture does not touch her eyes. Jocelyn drops her gaze to her feet. Shame rises in her stomach, all twisted and tangled; she had only known her new sister for but a moment and already she had disappointed her. Her cheeks burn as she remembers all over again that she had forgotten the Queen’s name—her own sister.
The fingers on her cheek move to tuck under her chin. “Well, we cannot have that, can we?”
The Queen tips Jocelyn’s face upwards. She does not look angry; indeed, she looks rather sad instead, her blue eyes round and searching. “I am Alysanne—though you may call me Alys, if you like. It is certainly less of a mouthful.”
Jocelyn feels a rush of gratitude in her chest, fluttering like butterflies. At least she would not need to ask the Queen for her name. Yet still—
“Should I not call you ‘Your Majesty’?” she asks. “Or ‘Your Grace’?”
“Goodness, no. I hear such things quite enough, thank you, and I certainly have no desire to hear them from my sister too—for we are sisters, little one, and I would very much like you to treat me as such.”
Jocelyn sounds out the name Alysanne in her head several times. It is very pretty and she most certainly likes the poetry of it, but she settles on Alys: it is, after all, much easier to say.
“This is Alyssa,” says Alys, indicating the blonde infant balanced on her hip, the little girl too busy mouthing her own fat fist to take much notice. “She is named so for our mother.”
A thousand different thoughts and feelings spark within her, each fighting for dominance: sadness and happiness, relief and shock. Her mama’s name. So this was the great secret. Her father had only ever called her ‘your mother’ and had grown very angry when Jocelyn had kept asking; and when she had begged Bor to tell her instead, her brother had only shrugged and said her name had been Mama. Jocelyn had dreamt of a thousand different possibilities, a thousand different sounds and rhythms and patterns; but this name, short and sweet, finally feels right.
“Alyssa was Mama’s name?”
The Queen’s eyebrows rise, sad and surprised all at once. “Yes, sweet one. Alyssa was Mama’s name.”
“Alyssa,” Jocelyn repeats with a smile, savouring the way it rolls on her tongue. “Alyssa—and you’re Alys. You match!”
“So we do,” her sister agrees with a smile of her own. “As for this little one, I’m afraid introductions shall have to wait.” Alys shifts the weight of her daughter further onto her hip so that she might pat the outline of her belly.
“Are you with child?” Jocelyn enquires very seriously. That was what her aunts had always called it when a woman’s belly grew round with a baby. Truth be told, she hadn’t been entirely sure that the Queen did have a baby in her belly: sometimes bellies were like that, even beneath laces and stays.
Alys throws back her head and laughs. “I should hope so! Otherwise I must need scold the cooks for over-indulging me.”
The Queen—no, her sister—steps forward to place an arm about Jocelyn’s shoulders, steering her back down to the hall itself. The crowd parts in anticipation of their sovereign, and Jocelyn blushes when their eyes slide from the Queen’s radiance to her own awkward figure. The weight of so many adult eyes upon her is tangible, the edges of their whispers hidden behind hands, and she is grateful for the steady weight of Alys’ arm.
“Now, hāedus ñuhos, let us—”
“What is a hide-us-new-hoss?”
The Queen sighs heavily. “Your father always was more Stormlander than Valyrian. Never mind, we shall have plenty of time to teach you. Hāedar means little sister and when I say ñuhos, it means you are my little sister.”
Jocelyn lengthens her steps: even weighed down by two children, Alys moves at a brisk pace. “But you said hide-us not hide-are.”
“An excellent observation,” the Queen says, quite sincerely, and Jocelyn flushes happily. Her aunts would have sneered and called her facetious—which, she understands, is a most terrible thing to be—and Bor would have chased her about the courtyard and pulled her hair. “Hāedus means I am talking to you directly. It is something that happens in High Valyrian to let you know who is being spoken to—much less confusing than our Common Tongue, with all its ambiguities and trickery.”
“Oh. So not every language does it?”
Alys shakes her head and smiles down at her, perhaps a little bemused. “No, little one—have you ever heard sister said other than sister?”
“I wouldn’t know, Bor doesn’t call me sister. Bor calls me Jossy and I do not like it.”
The Queen laughs again and Jocelyn decides she likes that very much: it is light and delicate and not at all like the horrible, loud noises her father’s men make.
“Older brothers are a nuisance, are they not?” her sister grins. “How fortunate that you have more choice of company here. Come, let me introduce you to someone I think you will like very much.”
The Queen guides her through the crowd to a long, ornately-decorated table. Two boys sit at the centre of one side, spectators to the festivities. Jocelyn has never before seen children dressed so handsomely—not even Bor on his name day had ever worn such splendour. Their matching tunics of red and black are wrought with a pattern of golden scales down the front, and each has a short silk cape falling from one shoulder. The clasps at their necks are decorated with rubies and onyx, and one boy—the elder—wears a beautiful ornament of golden dragons in his hair. It illuminates the back of his head like a halo, giving him the look of a sprite from the tales. Jocelyn realises immediately that they must be Alys’ sons: that they must be princes. For though both boys have inherited their father’s silver hair, far paler than both the Queen and the blonde baby on her hip, they each have their mother’s sparkling blue eyes.
“And how are my favourite boys?” Alys asks as she passes her daughter to a nearby nursemaid.
The smaller of the two princes grins, tilting his head in a manner he evidently believes to be endearing. “Hello, Mama.”
The taller boy stands with a scrape of his chair. “Good evening, Mother,” he says, bowing to the Queen very seriously, his pale hands clasped behind his back in a gesture more akin to a maester than a child.
Alysanne’s face softens with affection and she cradles the boy’s face in one hand, leaning down to press a kiss to his brow. “Oh, my little one, how very sombre you look. Whatever shall I do with you?”
“I am quite well, Mother. It is just—”
The prince’s eyes flicker briefly to Jocelyn. She averts her gaze. It seems a private thing, the confessions between a mother and child. She wonders what it is like, to have someone to whom you might confess all the secrets in the world. Staring down at her slippered feet, Jocelyn wiggles her toes nervously, watching the movement beneath the stiffened satin.
“Dragonstone should not be mine,” the boy continues quietly. “It should be Dany’s. I do not like that we are celebrating so when she should be here.”
“My sweet boy,” Alys sighs, her thumb soothing his cheek. “It is the will of the Gods. You are Papa’s heir now: it is your birthright. All the wishing in the world will not change it.”
“I wish it could.”
The Queen leans down and presses another kiss to his brow. “I know, my treasure.”
“Mama,” demands the other boy, banging his fork upon the table. “Mama, when shall I have my own castle?”
“Never,” Alys drawls, fixing the younger of her sons with a shrewd yet humorous eye. “You shall stay here with me and keep me company until I grow terribly old and wrinkled.”
“Eurgh.”
“Especially if you continue to abuse the cutlery so, zaldrītsos,” she continues, bopping the little one on his nose. “If you insist in making such a hullabaloo, I shall assume you are not hungry and have Elaene put you to bed.”
The younger boy’s bottom lip quivers, to no avail. “Yes, Mama,” he concedes, looking anything but trustworthy with his little fingers still wrapped firmly about the silverware.
“Now, I have an important task for you both,” the Queen says, though the elder brother stands to attention as if the words are for him alone. “Will you keep the Lady Jocelyn here company? She is Mama’s sister and she will be staying here with us for a while. I should very much like for you all to be friends.”
Alysanne reaches for Jocelyn, pressing her forward gently with a hand to the small of her back. The older boy watches her studiously, his blue eyes intrigued—and then he smiles just like his mother. Gallantly, he pulls out the empty chair to his left, offering it to Jocelyn with a little bow. “How do you do, my lady?”
Jocelyn blushes, liking very much the dimples in his cheeks. Feeling so many eyes upon her, she dips into a curtsey just the way she had practised. “Very well, Your Grace.”
Alys makes a noise of delight, beaming as she watches the exchange, rewarding her son and Jocelyn both with more kisses to their brows. “How marvellous,” she declares, rosy cheeks plump as she grins and adjusts the fall of Jocelyn’s sleeve. “Now, come sit here, sweetling.”
Jocelyn allows herself to be moved, eyes flickering nervously back out to the crowd. She can see Bor laughing with another group of boys in bright-coloured tabards. He remains completely unaware of her, his back turned. Jocelyn sighs. Sisters, she is quickly learning, are far more attentive than brothers. The Queen begins to fuss again with the sit of Jocelyn’s hair, and the little girl wonders if this is the sort of thing mothers do: smoothing what need not be smoothed, perfecting what could never remain perfect.
“The boys shall look after you, and I will find you again before you retire to bed.”
Jocelyn nods, an anxious flutter in her stomach—as though it were filled with the white butterflies from the cliffs surrounding Storm’s End. Alys squeezes her shoulders encouragingly, and leans in as close as her own belly will allow. “You must promise me that you shall not hesitate to ask should you need me, hmm? This is your home now, and we are family. I will come if you call.”
Jocelyn nods again, cheeks flushing a happy pink as the Queen kisses her on the head and gives her a fond look. Her pulse skitters a little when her sister pulls away, but she makes herself sit straight as Alys waves and descends back towards the crowd. A nearby lord offers his queen his arm, which she accepts with a laugh and a merry smile, and the pair disappear amongst the adults in a swirl of colour.
“Hello,” says a voice from Jocelyn’s right.
Flicking her gaze to the side, she finds the elder boy staring at her still. “Hello,” she replies, voice rather more timid than it had been but a moment ago. Her nervous fingers find the edges of her sleeves, running her fingertips over the pearls worked along the cuff.
“This is Baelon,” the boy begins very seriously and politely, gesturing to his brother beside him, “and I am—”
“You are Mama’s sister?” demands the little one.
“Yes.” Jocelyn says the words without certainty, for still it does not seem real. “Half-sister, I suppose.”
“She’s our aunt, Bee.”
“Well, you don’t look like Mama,” Prince Baelon pouts. “Your hair is all wrong.”
Jocelyn considers the dark hair gathered over one shoulder, exactly where Alys had left it. “My papa has hair like mine,” she says quietly, one hand toying with its ends.
“Bee,” the older prince hisses, brow wrinkling in horror. “You’re being rude.” He turns back to Jocelyn, his face abundantly apologetic. “Sorry about him. He’s only a baby.”
The little boy smacks at his brother’s shoulder with his open hand, face scrunched in displeasure. “I’m not a baby.”
“Yes, you are: a big rude one.”
The elder prince turns back to Jocelyn for a second time, one arm coming to rest on the table, very deliberately blocking his brother from view. “I am sorry about him. He can be very rude sometimes. He only ever listened to Dany and she—well, he doesn’t listen to anyone.”
Despite herself, she feels a smile form. “It’s alright, I suppose. My brother doesn’t listen to me either.”
“You have a brother?”
She nods. “He’s over there.”
The prince squints at the crowd. “In yellow?”
“Yes, that’s him. His name is Boremund, but I call him Bor.”
He tilts his head at her, as though she were something very intriguing. “And is he?”
“Is he what?”
“A bore?”
“Oh!” Jocelyn’s eyes go very wide, and then she covers her mouth with her fingers, stifling a little laugh. “I’d never thought of that! No, he’s not a bore. He likes to laugh and invent games and play terrible pranks on our septa. He’s far more interesting than I am.”
“I think you’re interesting,” the prince insists, looking very adamant. “Your name is Joss-lin?”
“Joss-se-lin.”
“Oh.” The boy frowns and repeats her name several times, trying to hear the difference. “Well, I shall call you Joss—it’s quicker.”
“Shall you?” she asks. “What if I don’t like being called Joss?”
The younger prince pops his head out from behind the elder, round cheeks made all the rounder by a large mouthful of his dinner. “Our papa is the King. You have to do what we say or he’ll chop your head off. Chop, chop, chop.”
He punctuates each word with the smack of his fork, even as his brother elbows him back into his seat. “That’s rude, Baelon,” the prince chastises again, scowling at the little boy. “Father won’t chop your head off,” he insists, turning back to Jocelyn, “and I won’t call you Joss if you don’t like it. Promise.”
She chews her lip, pausing to think. “I could like it, I suppose.”
“You’re not just saying so to be polite, are you?”
“No,” she insists. “Promise.”
The older boy grins and holds out his hand to her. “My name’s Aemon.”
She smiles, gives him her hand, and tries not to giggle when he presses a gallant if somewhat clumsy kiss to its back. “Jocelyn.”
“We know,” says Prince Baelon, head now peeking over his brother’s shoulder. “You just said.”
“Jocelyn Baratheon,” she amends hastily, trying her best not to trip over the syllables. “Jocelyn Baratheon of Storm’s End.”
“Aemon Targaryen,” he mirrors, still not releasing her hand. “Aemon Targaryen of—of Dragonstone.”
“Eurgh,” Prince Baelon scowls. Through his pout, he mutters something she cannot quite hear.
“,” Prince Aemon says in a chastising voice, turning to his brother again. “She doesn’t understand Valyrian, Bee.”
“I think I should enjoy learning to, though,” Jocelyn says, suddenly very earnest. She’s quite taken by this boy and his grand, courtly manners. “Your mama was saying that you always know when someone is speaking to you. I think that’s marvellous: then no one would ever be allowed to say they were talking to you when they weren’t.”
The Prince of Dragonstone preens a little, a happy look on his face. “I could teach you, if you like.”
“Would you?”
“I’d like that very much.”
And when Aemon smiles again—bright and toothy, his nose wrinkling—Jocelyn forgets her nerves entirely.
“Would you teach me now?” she asks keenly, leaning in a little closer.
“Now?”
“Yes, I should like to start,” she insists with gumption. “If I am going to live with you, I want to understand. Your mama and papa speak it, you both speak it. I should hate for you to have to change just for me.”
“We speak Common to one another too,” Aemon assures her. “You wouldn’t be a bother.”
“I still want to learn. It sounded pretty, too.”
“It is very pretty,” he concedes. “And there are some wonderful stories in Valyrian, and poems, and—”
“Really? Can you tell me some?”
“I could ask Elaene to bring my books down?” he suggests, his mother’s sparkle in his eyes. “I have other books too, Northern fairytales and stories from—”
“Eugh,” little Prince Baelon scowls, slapping his hands over his ears. “Now there’s two of you.”
~
In the years to come, it would not be an unusual thing to find the Lady Jocelyn asleep in Prince Aemon’s chambers. Few would ever know, however, that it was a habit begun during her very first night in the Red Keep. Sleepless and alone in her strange unfamiliar room, with the silence of the night so different to the lullaby of howling storms that hang above her father’s castle, Jocelyn slips out from beneath the covers and pulls a blanket about her shoulders.
She tries at first to wake Bor. When she is unable to rouse her snoring brother—who evidently thought himself far too grown up for little sisters anyway—the girl of seven-years-and-ten-moons tiptoes from his room and endeavours to find the kind boy who had sat beside her at dinner instead. She had spotted his chambers as a maid had shown her to her own; catching her eye, Prince Aemon had waved politely and smiled, and she had flushed happily, fumbling her curtsey as he bowed and wished her goodnight.
She cannot remember ever having enjoyed a dinner more. Not because of the food—for she’d paid little attention to it—but due to her companion. Prince Aemon is her one true memory of the night. All else had seemed to fade to shapeless colour around them as they had whispered, heads bent together, and he had taught her the strange, secret sounds of his language. His prized books too he had shown her with boundless enthusiasm, all too willing to explain every strange glyph as best he could. Jocelyn cannot remember ever having so fast a friend so quickly—and he is her friend, she knows without a doubt.
The latch on his door is not locked. It creaks open, revealing darkness, with only one corner of the room beyond still warmed by the fire’s embers. There is a finely-carved desk and matching chair beside a window, between the curtains of which a slice of cool moonlight pours in, illuminating the small figure lying asleep at the room’s centre.
“Prince Aemon?” she whispers. She dares not take another step, her toes perfectly in line with the stone slab at the chamber’s entrance.
“Bee?” comes the reply, tired and sleepy. “Is that you?”
“It is Jocelyn, Your Grace.”
The shape in the middle of the bed lifts his head. “Joss-lin? Is something wrong?”
She has roused him from his slumber, so she forgives him the mispronunciation of her name. “I cannot sleep,” she admits quietly, suddenly feeling rather foolish. She should not have woken him—they had been friends but an evening, after all.
“Oh,” the boy says, sitting up and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “Do you want to stay here, then? You can if you like.”
Jocelyn hesitates, shyly retreating a little behind the door.
“Bee does, sometimes, when there are storms. He says he’s not—” Aemon cuts off to yawn, hiding the gesture behind a hand. “—not frightened, but I know he is. It’s only ever when it storms.”
It is somehow this admission that calms her, that gives her the courage to step over the threshold. If a prince can be frightened, then so too can she. Pushing the door shut quietly behind her, Jocelyn swallows her doubt and takes a step towards the boy and his bed. Prince Aemon shuffles to the side and pulls back the covers as she clambers up next to him, offering her the spot to his right—and then, after a moment’s thought, he proffers her his topmost pillow too.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
“You’re welcome,” he replies, pulling the covers back over them both.
The prince’s bed is cosy and snug—partially, she realises, because of the prince himself. Not only does he radiate the same steady calm as his mother, but his skin burns hot like hers too. How nice it must be, she thinks, to have no need of a warming pan for such comfort.
“You’re very warm,” Jocelyn says appreciatively, tucking herself a little closer.
“You’re very cold,” the prince says in return, frowning at the brush of her freezing toes against his. “Would you like some stockings for your feet?”
“No, thank you,” she sighs, burying her face a little further into his plush duck-feather pillow. “This is quite lovely.”
“Oh, alright then. Goodnight, Joss-lin.”
“Call me Joss.”
“Goodnight, Joss.”
“Goodnight, Aemon.”
They lie together in silence for a few minutes, though his breath is too deliberate and light for sleeping. She keeps very still and listens, wishing for rain, or thunder, or howling wind to lull her into dreams.
“Joss?” the prince whispers what seems like an eternity later.
“Yes?”
“Can you not sleep?”
“No,” she admits. “It’s too quiet.”
“Too quiet?”
“At Storm’s End, the wind always howls—even when it’s not raining.”
Aemon pulls the bedclothes a little tighter, blinking at her over the edge of the blankets. “Bee would hate it.”
“You get used to it,” she says, trying to find the words to explain how the castle could transform the roar of passing storms. “It’s like… singing.”
“Really?” the prince asks. He pauses, thinking very hard for a moment, before he opens his mouth and tries to mimic the sound under his breath, howling like a little wolf pup. “Like that?”
She giggles, readjusting the sit of the pillow beneath her head. “You’re silly.”
Aemon laughs in return, his silhouette smiling in the moonlight. They settle into their comfortable silence again, perhaps a little closer than they had been before.
“Joss?”
“Yes, Aemon?”
“Why have you come to live with us?”
The question hangs in the dark.
“I… I think my papa is dying.”
It is the first time she has voiced the words aloud. Her eyes burn hot, stinging, yet she refuses to dampen Prince Aemon’s pillow with crying. “I think—I think I might never see him again. Bor is to be Lord of Storm’s End when he is gone.”
The prince’s hand finds hers in the dark, squeezing tight. “What about you?” he asks quietly, genuine concern in his voice. “Will you return to be his lady?”
She is thankful of the question: it halts her tears. “Eurgh, no. My septa says I am to marry a lord, when I am grown enough. My septa says I must make myself useful and have lots of babies.”
The boy makes a disbelieving kind of noise, releasing her hand so that he might turn over onto his side to look at her. In the moonlight, she can see the gleam of fire in his eyes.
“Girls can be more than that,” he insists. “Dany says that—”
He stops very suddenly. A shadow passes over his brow and his lips tremble. His eagerness is snuffed so very easily, like a candle.
“Aemon,” she whispers, raising her head a little in her curiosity. “Who is Dany?”
The little boy rolls over onto his back, staring at the canopy above them. “Dany was my sister,” he says flatly. “She died.”
“Oh.”
It seems so very cruel that he should lose a sister and she should gain one. Jocelyn waits in silence, sensing there is more on the Prince’s mind.
“She was meant to be Queen one day. She was meant to be Queen of all the Seven Kingdoms—and now I have taken her place.” Aemon sighs, his breath unsteady. “The celebration tonight… it should have been for her.”
Jocelyn reaches out to take his hand. “I am very sorry.”
His thumb brushes over the back of her fingers. “I am sorry about your papa too.”
She is not sure which of them moves closer first, but all of a sudden they are lying so snugly that she can feel the slow puff of his breath against her cheek. It does not feel so lonely now, she thinks, to be away from home. She tucks her arm up close, and he mimics her, ‘til they are like two mirrored halves.
“Joss?”
“Yes?”
“I am glad you are staying with us.”
His hand covers hers again, and she smiles sleepily despite the tears lingering like dewdrops on her eyelashes.
“I am glad you are glad,” she says. “It shall be nice to have a friend. I have never been without Bor before—and your mama is very nice, but I do not think I should have liked it here so much if you were not here too. I think I would be lonely.”
“I won’t let you be lonely.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
Jocelyn smiles to herself. She feels warm now—not just on the outside from the heat of the prince curled up beside her, but also inside, deep down in her chest and stomach. It is perhaps the cosiest she has ever felt in all her life. Perhaps, she thinks sleepily, it had always been cold before, and she had simply never noticed until now.
“Aemon?”
“Yes, Joss?”
“Do you know any Valyrian stories? By heart, I mean.”
“I think so,” he whispers. “And if I forget, I could always think of a new one.”
“Would you tell me a story, then?” she asks. “Whichever one you like best, I don’t mind.”
She had not meant to imply he should recount them in Valyrian too, but he does. Jocelyn closes her eyes, letting herself sink into the rolling sounds and intricate patterns, imagining what their meaning might be; and slowly, without realising, she drifts off to sleep with a smile on her face.
~
Jocelyn wakes to the creak of the door, the slow spill of dim light into the chambers. She hears a woman’s sigh and the heavy brush of fabric over stone.
“—inform the guard all is well, Ser Ryam. I think we have solved our little mystery.”
With a hazy flicker of recognition, she knows the voice is that of the Queen. In the hallway, there is the clink of metal against metal, the percussive slide of chain mail, all ever more distant as their wearer retreats to the corridors beyond. This Ser Ryam, perhaps—a soldier of some kind, or possibly even one of the grand white-cloaked knights she had seen earlier that eve.
“.” The Queen is speaking Valyrian again, but Jocelyn cannot make out the meaning: they are none of them the words that Aemon had taught her at dinner. “.”
A second set of steps: heavier and more deliberate, but without the accompaniment of armour. “”
The King’s voice is deep and disapproving. Jocelyn wonders if she is going to be pulled from the bed, marched back to her chambers and hidden back away where everything is cold and empty. She makes herself lie very still, pushing down the instinct to hide.
“,” replies the Queen, and that word, at least, Jocelyn understands. “.”
The King makes a begrudging kind of noise; unfazed by her husband’s silence, she continues. “.”
Jocelyn untangles her father’s name. Her heart skips a beat. There had been a note of resentment in the Queen’s voice. Were they going to send her back to Storm’s End instead? Had she been so great a nuisance that they no longer desired to keep her? She does not want to leave—not now she has a friend.
Hide-are. That meant Jocelyn, didn’t it? The Queen laughs—but it is of the kind that only adults make. It is not a sound of joy but one of derision, tiredness too, perhaps. “.”
Such a sound does not bode well. What would her father say, when they returned her with Bor? Would he be pleased to see her? Or would this be the moment to make him see her as others did—as a disappointment, a waste of her mother’s life? She would have failed him, after all: she would have not been brave enough.
Another sigh. “Go back to bed, Harys. I will sit with them a while.”
“Very well,” the King replies. “But do not linger, Sanna. You must rest.”
The light beyond her closed eyes shifts—the movement of a body, blocking the torchlight beyond. The King’s robe, or perhaps his nightshirt, brushes against the bed as he moves to leave. In her imagination, he also pauses to bid farewell to his queen, to press a kiss to her head and rest his hand atop the baby in her belly. That is how husbands treat their wives, after all—or so the tales said.
“We both shall be quite comfortable here, never you fear.”
The King’s footsteps fade and the door sweeps shut. Jocelyn peeks out from behind her lashes. The Queen is sat by her bedside, rather closer than she had expected, silhouetted by the light of the moon. She does not seem surprised by her supposed wake from slumber, only smiling as reaches out a gentle hand to smooth down Jocelyn’s hair.
“Well, little one, you gave us quite the scare,” says Alys. “We thought you had stolen away in the dark of night.”
With a pang of guilt, Jocelyn sits bolt upright. “Your Grace, I—”
The Queen catches her in her arms and shushes her, holding her close. One hand soothes at the crown of Jocelyn’s head, and she presses a sweet, gentle kiss to the little girl’s brow. “Hush,” Alys whispers. “Hush now.”
The Queen’s own hair is loose, tumbling over her shoulder to tickle at Jocelyn’s nose. She doesn’t mind, for the gold curls are soft and thick with perfume: closing her eyes, she breathes in the Queen’s flowery scent, enjoying the warmth of her embrace. It is so lovely, to be held. Cautiously, her own arms move to wrap about Alys’ waist, hampered a little by the baby in her belly. With a small sigh, Jocelyn’s eyes shut and her fingertips discover the embroidered pattern of her sister’s robe.
“Please do not send me away,” Jocelyn begs. “I did not mean to be troublesome.”
“Oh, my little darling,” the Queen whispers. “I shall not send you away. Never. Not unless you wish it so. You have a place here now, with me—with your family.” Her hand rubs soothing circles on Jocelyn’s back, warm and steady. “I am so glad you have come to us.”
Jocelyn shudders in relief, burying her face further in the silk robe. “I am sorry I worried you.”
Alys shushes her again, rocking her in her arms the way Jocelyn has seen mothers do their babes. “Do not apologise, sweetling. Things are so very different for you here, I should have thought to give you some company. Could you not sleep?”
“I…” Jocelyn begins, trying to find the words without sounding ungrateful. “It is too quiet. At home, there are the storms.”
The Queen chuckles quietly. “I can command many things, but alas, the weather is not one. No matter, we shall find some remedy for you. For now, I am glad that you have at least found a friend in Aemon.”
“He is very kind,” Jocelyn agrees as the Queen lowers her back to the prince’s pillows.
Alys smiles, a hand on her belly, looking fondly at the boy still sound asleep at Jocelyn’s side. “He is, isn’t he? He has a sweet soul. He has been terribly lonely as of late.”
“I am very sorry about Dany.”
She thinks perhaps she has caught the Queen a little off guard. Guilt twists in Jocelyn’s stomach as Alys’ eyes begin to shine bright, her lips pressed together to hide their trembling. “Thank you,” she whispers, voice throaty, as she busies herself anew with the tucking in of blankets. Surreptitiously, she brushes back a stray curl and wipes at the corner of one eye, perhaps thinking the movement disguised.
The Queen straightens, moving now to fuss with the folding of clothes and the tidying of Aemon’s belongings, as though she were no more than a maid. Perhaps this is another thing mothers do, Jocelyn thinks, watching Alys’ movements. Perhaps they are not like fathers—they must involve themselves in every task, no matter how small. Perhaps nothing is too unimportant for a mother to concern herself with.
“Alys?”
“Yes, sweetling?”
“Could you tell me more about Mama?”
The Queen pauses again, her back turned as she drapes a blanket over the chair. Jocelyn can hear her breathing, however—it is a the familiar, overly-controlled sound of someone trying not to cry.
“I am sorry,” she whispers, clutching tight to the edge of the coverlet. “I did not mean to make you sad.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for, little one,” Alys assures her, moving to sit on the bedside, easing herself back down with a sigh. “This babe of mine enjoys toying with my emotions. She shall be a sensitive soul, I think.”
“She?”
“Oh, yes,” says Alys, rubbing the underside of her belly. “I am quite certain there’s a little she-dragon in here.” Her eyes then flicker to the sleeping shape behind Jocelyn, the twist of her mouth wry. “My boys sleep like their father. My girls, however, have always been restless at night.”
Jocelyn props herself up onto her elbow, frowning drowsily. “What do you mean?”
Alys takes her sister’s free hand in hers, smiling encouragingly as she places it on her protruding belly. There is a quiet pause as Jocelyn stares, confused, and then a loud gasp as she feels it: an insistent thump-thump against her hand.
“And that’s the baby?” she asks in mixed amazement and horror.
“Mhmm,” Alys replies, her plump little mouth pressed into a begrudging smile. “A truer telling of the time than the sun itself. From the hour of the bat ‘til the dawn’s coming, she makes known her presence.”
“That must be terribly annoying.”
“One gets used to it,” she drawls, eyebrow twitching, and Jocelyn blinks, wondering if she had truly seen the outline of a small foot poking beneath the Queen’s nightgown. “Though I do not expect you to believe me. I did not believe it either, once upon a time, when our mother told me the same thing.”
Alys settles her again, leaning in just a little further to smooth her hand over Aemon’s hair, before pulling the covers up over Jocelyn’s shoulder. “Mother knew you were a girl too, you know.”
Jocelyn looks up in wonder. “She did?”
“She did,” Alys smiles. “It is how we knew what to name you. She had it picked, you see.”
“I did not know she named me.”
“I think she was rather pleased to have a whole continent of names to choose from,” Alys reminisces, taking Jocelyn’s hand in hers, smoothing her thumb over the back of her hand. “Targaryen names can be so dreadfully predictable, after all.”
Jocelyn worries her lip. “But…”
“But what, darling?”
“Was she not disappointed?” she asks, one last doubt lingering in her mind. “Was she not disappointed I was a girl?”
Something flickers in her sister’s eyes: something furious, something hurt.
“Never,” Alys says fiercely, bringing Jocelyn’s hand to her lips. “Never, my darling. Not for a moment.”
Jocelyn doesn’t quite know what to say that to that. She had thought perhaps knowing might make it all feel a little lighter, that the worry might not linger any more in the back of her head. It is still there, she notes with a tremble of her lips. But, perhaps, it is a little quieter than before.
“No more fretting, now,” says Alys, warm and soothing. “Close your eyes and go to sleep. I will be here when you both wake.”
Jocelyn obeys, tucking herself into the pillow; and as she drifts back into slumber, she feels the warmth of a hand on her back, soothing her fears away.
“Sleep, my little one,” says the voice of her mama. “All is well. You’re here now, and we shan’t let you go again.”