Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

What had once been a countryside of green hills, silver streams, and fields heavy with grain had become a land choked by dust and thin, tired soil. The rivers still flowed, but their banks had shrunk and their waters ran slow and shallow. Farmers stood beside cracked fields with empty hands and worried eyes, watching the skies for rain that refused to come. Prince Maekar Targaryen of Summerhall rode at the head of the column, his expression carved from stone.

Behind him trailed wagons filled with sacks of dried grain, barrels of preserved meat, and bundles of smoked fish brought down from the Crownlands. It was not enough to truly fix the Riverlands' suffering, but it would keep many from starvation through the worst months. Maekar believed in action over words, and if the Riverlords would not organize relief themselves, then he would do it for them. Princess Daela Targaryen sat tall in her saddle despite her young age of twelve. Her dark riding cloak fluttered behind her while her eyes constantly moved across the countryside with curiosity that rarely rested. Where her father rode in silence and grim purpose, Daela rode with restless attention, noticing every ruined field and abandoned barn.

Beside her rode her younger sister Rhaella, who struggled somewhat more with the long journey. Rhaella was only nine, and though she had insisted fiercely that she could ride the entire way like a true daughter of House Targaryen, the heat and dust had clearly worn her thin. Her cheeks were red beneath freckles, and she leaned forward in the saddle as if hoping the ride might end sooner simply by wishing it so.

Rhaella pointed suddenly toward the distant river. “Is that where the fish live?”

Maekar followed her finger. “Yes. Fish have not grown legs last, I have seen.”

“But there’s barely any water.” Rhaella seemed to consider this grave injustice to fish everywhere before shrugging and guiding her pony closer to Daela. 

Meanwhile servants and soldiers began moving down the ridge to deliver the supplies waiting in their wagons. Villagers had already gathered near the road, thin figures wrapped in faded brown and gray cloth. Even from a distance Maekar could see the desperate hope in their posture. It irritated him. Not the people themselves. But the weakness of the situation. A prince of the realm reduced to hauling sacks of grain like some merchant caravan while the sky refused to rain.

Daela noticed the tension in his expression. “Father...You’re scowling again.”

Maekar glanced at her sideways. “You have spent far too much time studying my face.”

“It is an educational experience.” She smiled faintly.

Maekar almost smirked before catching himself. “Mind your eyes on the road.”

The mission itself had begun nearly three weeks earlier. Maekar had set out across the Riverlands to raise morels, grain stores, coin, and supplies from the lesser lords whose lands bordered the Trident. The drought had struck the countryside mercilessly, and rumors had already begun to spread of villages going hungry before autumn had even begun. The prince had little patience for such whispers. If the lords of the Riverlands wished to avoid famine and unrest, they would contribute what they could while there was still time. Maekar believed in direct action, and if that required visiting every hall personally, then so be it.

The column crested a hill as the towers of Acorn Hall appeared in the distance. The castle of House Smallwood was modest by the standards of the great houses, but its stone walls were well kept and its banners still bright despite the dry winds that swept through the countryside.

Daela leaned slightly forward in her saddle as she studied the castle. “Acorn Hall,” she said with quiet interest. “I remember reading of it in Maester Willam’s histories.”

Maekar did not turn his head. “Then you know more of it than I care to,” he replied bluntly.

Acorn Hall welcomed them with the modest ceremony expected for a royal prince. Lord Smallwood himself came to greet them in the outer yard, bowing deeply while his retainers stood behind him in careful lines. He was a middle-aged man with tired eyes and a beard touched with gray. “Prince Maekar,” Lord Smallwood said respectfully. “Acorn Hall is honored by your presence.”

Maekar dismounted slowly. “See that the honor extends to our business,” he answered plainly. “The Riverlands must contribute what they can. The drought grows worse.”

Lord Smallwood nodded solemnly. “You will find House Smallwood does its duty, my prince. Oh, and your Princess, I-I assumed they were um! My apologies, I will send for my daughters!”

Servants hurried to take horses while Maekar’s escort began settling within the castle yard. Rhaella immediately ran off toward a fountain that had been kept flowing despite the drought, much to the horror of the guards trying to maintain order. Daela remained beside her father. More servants and soldiers quickly began hauling sacks from the wagons while stewards recorded each barrel and crate. For the next hour the prince met with the lord and his stewards within the castle hall.

Maps were brought forward. Grain tallies were read aloud. Reports from surrounding villages were discussed carefully. Though Maekar’s manner remained stern, he listened closely to each account before deciding what stores the castle could afford to spare. Daela sat quietly nearby beside her sister, though her attention wandered frequently. She watched the lords and stewards argue over harvest numbers with thinly disguised amusement. Politics fascinated her more than Maekar ever cared for…That was for…Baelor task not his. The meeting had nearly concluded when the heavy doors of the hall opened again. A rider entered in haste, dust covering his cloak and boots. The man bowed quickly before Lord Smallwood.

“My lord… news from Riverrun.” The rider said.

Lord Smallwood stepped forward. “What news?”

The rider hesitated only a moment. “Lord Tully is dead.”

A ripple of murmurs spread through the hall. Lord Smallwood’s face went pale. “Dead?” he repeated quietly.

The rider nodded grimly. “He passed two nights past. The maesters say it was drought.”

Maekar’s expression did not change. He simply folded his arms slowly across his chest. “Then the Riverlands will soon have another lord,” he said flatly. “Such matters resolve themselves.”

Lord Smallwood looked troubled. “A funeral will be held at Riverrun within the week.”

Maekar gave a dismissive shrug with a  frown.  The death of a Lord Paramount was not a small matter. House Tully ruled the Riverlands, and Riverrun stood at the center of its politics. Whoever succeeded him would inherit a fragile region already strained by drought and restless lesser lords. Maekar’s mind was already moving past it. “Send condolences,” he said simply.

Lord Smallwood nodded slowly. “Of course, my prince.”

He seemed about to say something else but thought better of it and withdrew. Maekar turned toward the staircase. “Come along. I wish to ride before mid day tomorrow.”

Daela had not moved. She stood very still, her brows drawn together as she considered something. “Father.”

Maekar sighed. “Yes?”

“We should attend the funeral.” She spoke out loud.

He stopped halfway across the hall and turned. “No.”

Daela blinked. “No?”

“No.” He continued walking. “It is not our time to spend. We have more matters to attend.”

Daela hurried after him. “It is not a waste of time.”

“It absolutely is.” He was quick to answer. "We must make for Pinkmaiden, and I will not have us be delayed over the death of a Lord Paramount."

“Father.” Daela said even Lord Smallwood stopped and stared at the two Targaryens. 

Maekar saw the lesser lord staring at the two. Before he cursed out loud he stopped again, rubbing the bridge of his nose as though already exhausted by the coming argument. “Our time is needed, else wear, the new Lord will have his hands full.”

Her hands were clasped behind her back as she rocked slightly on her heels. “But father,” she continued patiently, “Lord Tully was Lord Paramount of the Riverlands.”

Maekar turned toward her now. “Yes I am aware of that fact now he is dead.”

“We are currently traveling through the Riverlands.” Daela folded her arms in imitation of him. “The royal family attending would show respect.”

“I have no time for respect,” Maekar said bluntly. “The Riverlands are starving. I will not waste days riding to Riverrun to watch people cry over a corpse.”

Daela considered this for a moment. Then she spoke again. “So if the royal family does not appear to honor the death of a loyal House it might be… noticed.”

Maekar stared at her. “You are twelve. You should notice other things.”

“Yet still correct.” She tilted her head.

He narrowed his eyes. “This journey is meant to distribute aid, not parade around funerals.”

Daela tilted her head. “You can do both.”

Maekar narrowed his eyes slightly. He always knew Daela was given her mother's wits and tongue. God be damned if she will always have this trait forever or she will grow from it. To spare him from more grey hairs.

Daela continued. “If you attend, every house will see that the king’s brother took the time to honor their lord. They will remember that when you ask them for grain.”

Maekar studied her quietly now. “I will not spend days riding to Riverrun so a crowd of grieving lords can watch me stand around while a corpse is burned.”

Daela leaned closer, lowering her voice slightly. “It would be a great insult to House Tully who have only been loyal to our family.”

“You are twelve,” he said flatly. “Not Hand of the King.”

“I know,” Daela replied cheerfully. “But I do read the histories.”

Maekar shook his head and turned back toward the stables. “No.”

Daela followed him. “You always say lords must respect strength,” she pressed. “Sometimes strength is showing up where they expect you not to.”

Maekar stopped walking. He turned slowly toward her again. “You are very fond of talking.”

“You raised me.” Daela said.

A brief silence followed. Maekar stared down at his daughter for several long seconds. “If we ride to Riverrun,” he said carefully, “we lose two days of travel.”

Daela nodded. “Yes.”

“We delay our collections.” He said.

“Yes.” She nodded her head.

“And I spend half a day standing beside a river while lords pretend to mourn.” Maekar groaned.

Daela smiled brightly. “Yes.”

Maekar sighed heavily. “You are insufferable.”

Daela’s smile widened. "So, are we to ride for Riverrun?"

Maekar rubbed his temple slowly. Finally, he gave a sharp wave of his hand. “Very well.”

Daela blinked in surprise. “Truly?”

“We will attend,” he muttered. “Seven hells take it.”

Daela clapped her hands together softly. “Thank you father.”

Maekar pointed a finger at her sternly. “If this proves a waste of time, I will remind you of it for the rest of your life.”

Daela grinned. “That seems fair.”

The road to Riverrun wound through the dry bones of the Riverlands. Maekar rode at the head of the column, seated firmly upon his great black destrier. The horse was a temperamental creature broad-chested and restless beneath him but it suited the prince well. Its hooves struck the packed road with a steady rhythm that carried across the quiet countryside as the small royal escort rode behind him. Dust rose in thin clouds with every step. The sun sat high above the fields, merciless and bright, burning away what little green still clung to the countryside. Farms that should have been full of wheat now showed only brittle stalks and patches of brown earth. The drought had stripped the Riverlands of its strength, leaving the land gaunt and weary.

Maekar glanced briefly behind him. The royal carriage followed several yards back along the road, its wheels creaking over stones and ruts. Inside sat his daughters. He exhaled through his nose. Rhaella had been placed there first. The girl was only five, and though she had insisted quite fiercely that she was capable of riding her pony like her sister, the truth had revealed itself within the first hour. Her small hands struggled to control the reins, and the pony had grown stubborn beneath her uncertain guidance. Maekar had watched the entire ordeal in growing irritation. Finally he had ordered the pony taken and the girl placed in the carriage. She had protested, naturally. But within minutes of climbing inside she had fallen asleep against the cushions, her silver hair tangled across her face as the carriage rocked gently with the movement of the road.

He could not deny the relief of it. Watching her struggle had unsettled him more than he cared to admit. His gaze drifted farther back. Daela had been riding beside the carriage for some time afterward, glaring at him in silent defiance. She possessed a stubbornness that rivaled the most hardened knights he had known.

Eventually he had grown tired of her commentary. “Inside,” he had said flatly.

She had refused. He had repeated the command. She had refused again. That had been the end of the debate. Now she sat inside the carriage beside her sister, likely plotting her next attempt to outmaneuver him with clever arguments and political observations far beyond what any twelve-year-old should possess. Maekar rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. Gods help the men who would one day attempt to court her. The road curved gently upward. Ahead, the land rose into a low hill where the trees parted, and beyond it the towers of Riverrun finally appeared. Maekar slowed his horse slightly. The view from the rise never failed to command attention.

Riverrun stood where the Tumblestone and the Red Fork met, its red sandstone walls rising sheer from the water itself. The rivers wrapped around the castle like natural moats, protecting its flanks with flowing currents that sparkled beneath the afternoon sun. The battlements lined the walls in long crenelated rows, arrow loops cut into the stone for defenders who might one day stand there with bow or crossbow. Massive towers rose above the walls, their red stone glowing warmly in the light. Within those walls the keep itself climbed upward. It was not as ancient or towering as the Hightower of Oldtown, whose pale beacon dominated the southern seas. Yet here in the Riverlands it was unmatched. The keep rose tall and proud above the meeting of the rivers, its height commanding the surrounding countryside like a watchful sentinel.

Maekar studied it in silence. “So this is Riverrun,” he muttered quietly to himself. He had passed through the Riverlands before, but rarely had he lingered long enough to truly observe the seat of House Tully. He wondered briefly if his son had ever seen it. Aegon. The boy had vanished into the world with his unlikely companion a time ago, wandering the Seven Kingdoms in ways Maekar would never fully understand…Ser Duncan the Tall.

Maekar snorted softly at the thought. A hedge knight and a prince traveling together like some wandering tale told by drunken singers. Still… He could not deny the faint curiosity that tugged at him. Had they ridden this road? Had Aegon seen those red walls rising from the rivers as he now did?  The thought lingered only a moment before Maekar shook it away. The column crested the hill. Riverrun loomed larger now, the sound of rushing water faintly audible as the road descended toward the castle’s outer gate.

Maekar urged his horse forward. The great black destrier surged into a faster pace, hooves pounding against the stone approach road that led to the gatehouse. His escort followed behind, armor glinting faintly beneath the sun. The drawbridge remained raised as they approached. Guards along the battlements noticed the riders quickly. A horn sounded. Moments later the chains groaned as the bridge began to lower across the rushing water below. Maekar slowed his horse just before the bridge. He waited. His patience was already thin. The bridge slammed into place with a heavy thud, and the gates creaked open slowly. Instead of Lord Tully himself emerging to greet them, a group of castle stewards and minor officials stepped out beneath the archway.

Maekar’s eyes narrowed. One of the stewards approached, bowing deeply as he reached the prince’s horse. “My Prince,” the man said respectfully. “Riverrun welcomes Prince Maekar of House Targaryen.”

Maekar looked down at him. “Where is Lord Tully?”

The steward shifted slightly. “My prince… the family is currently preparing the funeral rites.”

Maekar stared at him. The irritation on his face became immediate and unmistakable. “They are preparing?”

“Yes, Your Grace.” The man answered quickly.

“For their own lord.” Maekar question.

“Yes, Your Grace.” The man spoke again slightly confused.

Maekar leaned back slightly in his saddle, looking toward the towering keep beyond the gates. “Of course they were.” He muttered under his breath. “Seven hells…”

The steward continued nervously. “Accommodations are being prepared for you and your family within the guest towers. The ceremony will begin before sunset once the lords of the Riverlands gather—”

Maekar cut him off. “Fuck me.”

The steward froze. Maekar suddenly swung down from his horse with surprising speed for a man of his age. His boots struck the stone of the bridge as he looked back toward the approaching carriage. He rubbed his forehead in frustration. The gods had a cruel sense of humor. Daela had been right. The funeral was happening now. Which meant he would have to attend immediately.

He turned toward his escort. His voice thundered across the courtyard. “GET MY GIRLS READY!”

The knights jumped slightly at the sudden command. Servants rushed toward the carriage as Maekar continued barking orders.

“We’re going straight into this damned funeral whether I like it or not!”

The carriage door opened, revealing Daela peering out curiously while Rhaella rubbed sleep from her eyes. Maekar looked down at his travel cloak, covered in dust from the road. He grimaced. “Agh…” He turned back toward the castle entrance with a sigh. “I will fetch a cleaner cloak.”

Behind him Daela climbed out of the carriage, brushing her skirts as she looked toward the towering keep of Riverrun with bright curiosity. Rhaella followed slowly, still half-asleep. Daela glanced toward her father as he strode into the gatehouse.

A small smile crept across her face. “See?” she whispered to her sister.

Rhaella blinked groggily. “See what?”

Daela gestured toward the castle. “We made it just in time.”

Rhaella yawned. “I was sleeping.”

Daela sighed dramatically. “Of course you were.”

Inside the gatehouse, Maekar watched his two girls while he was already stripping off his dusty riding cloak while demanding a servant bring something less embarrassing for a royal funeral. Maekar had been to funerals before. He had stood in septs thick with incense and lies, had watched pyres take princes and peasants alike, had listened to the same soft mutterings about duty, the same hollow assurances that the dead had gone on to some gentler place. Yet there was something about Riverrun on that day that set his teeth on edge before a single prayer had even been spoken. Perhaps it was the river mist clinging to the grass, or the sheer number of watchful eyes already turned toward him and his daughters as they made their way toward the hill.

He walked with Daela on one side and little Rhae on the other, his dark cloak dragging softly against the earth. Both girls were dressed properly, which was more than he had expected after the trials of getting them prepared that morning.  Maekar had barely taken ten steps among the assembled river lords before the full weight of the gathering struck him. Everywhere he looked there were banners, cloaks, sigils worked into hems and fastened on brooches, all the bright heraldry of the Trident dampened by grief but no less present for it. Lords with sons at their heels, ladies with daughters clutching their hands, old men leaning on canes, young squires trying and failing to look grave. There were too many of them, and almost all of them had already noticed him.

“Fuck me.” Maekar muttered beneath his breath.

The effect was immediate. A knight near the front stiffened as though struck. A pair of noblewomen looked as if they had swallowed stones. Several Riverlanders who had only just turned to bow seemed to freeze halfway into the motion, wide-eyed and startled, uncertain whether they had truly heard a prince of the realm curse at a funeral hill. Maekar saw the shock ripple through them and regretted nothing except perhaps saying it aloud.

He let out a slow breath through his nose and schooled his face into something harder, colder, more princely. If he could not mend their discomfort, he could at least force them to look elsewhere. Without a word he moved his daughters closer to him, one hand settling at the back of Rhae's shoulder while Daela, sensing his mood, drifted nearer on his other side. Together they continued toward the edge of the grassy rise overlooking the Red Fork, where the mourners had gathered in a crescent to watch the old lord take his final journey.

Below them the river moved broad and steady, grey-green beneath the pale sky. Men had already brought Lord Medgar Tully’s body forth and laid it within a narrow boat fashioned for the rite. The boat sat low in the water, and even from the hill he could make out the care that had gone into the dead man’s final preparation.

A man wearing a silver eagle displayed on indigo stood at one side, grave and silent as he helped guide the vessel. Another, clad beneath the device of a red stallion upon a golden escutcheon on brown, moved with a reverence Maekar would not have expected from so broad and martial a figure. Near them worked one of the lords whose sigil bore four wheels countercharged on a quartered field blue and white, his hands steady as he saw to the small details. Each man had his place in the ceremony, and together they behaved less like political rivals or bannermen and more like kin paying the last debt owed to one who had led them.

Lord Medgar lay within the boat as if prepared for a final campaign. Armor covered him, polished bright enough that it caught what little light the day offered. A shield was placed beside him, then a hunting horn, then a wooden sword. Maekar’s gaze lingered on that last item a moment longer than the others. There was something quietly piercing in it, something that spoke of youth and memory rather than strength. The armor and shield belonged to the lord he had become. The wooden sword belonged to the boy he had once been, and in that small gesture Maekar could feel the truth of mourning more keenly than in a hundred prayers.

Beside him, Rhae tugged gently at his hand. “Why a wooden sword?” she whispered, her voice so small it nearly vanished into the wind.

Maekar glanced down at her pale little face, then back to the boat. “Cheaper?”

She seemed to consider that with the solemnity only a child could muster, then nodded and fell quiet again.

The boat was pushed off at last, drifting out onto the Red Fork with slow dignity. The water carried it surely, the current gentle but unrelenting. On the shore a man in Tully colors stepped forward, robed and grave, with a bow already in hand. A single arrow burned bright between his fingers when he nocked it. The mourners quieted further still, if such a thing was possible, until all Maekar heard was the rush of the river and the creak of the bow as it bent.

The shot was magnificent. The arrow flew in a line so true it seemed commanded by the gods themselves. For an instant the flame streaked across the dim day like a shard of sunrise, then it struck true, sinking into the sail. Fire blossomed at once, licking upward in hungry orange tongues. The cloth caught, then the wood, and suddenly the boat was a thing of drifting flame borne downriver. Smoke trailed behind it, and the river accepted that too, carrying lord, memory, and fire alike toward whatever end the old gods or the new had chosen for him.

Maekar found himself staring despite his irritation, despite the damp cold, despite the crowd. “Well struck,” he muttered, almost to himself.

He could feel Daela looking up at him, pleased perhaps that something had managed to impress her father other than war. Yet his eyes were already wandering again, skimming over the gathered faces below and beyond the funeral line. He searched without meaning to, and once he admitted that to himself the truth of it irritated him even more.

Then he found her. Lady Tully stood a little apart from the nearest cluster of mourners, though not so apart as to seem removed from the grief. She wore the colors of her house in a manner neither gaudy nor timid, a dress of deep blue and red that moved softly in the river wind. She was slender and graceful even in pain, auburn hair drawn back but not so tightly that the damp air had not coaxed loose a few strands around her face. Her eyes, those deep blue eyes, were fixed upon the burning boat with such aching composure that for a moment Maekar forgot the river, the lords, the banners, all of it.

She held a young boy close before her, one hand resting gently on his chest as if to keep him steady. The child’s face was wet with tears, his small shoulders trembling with the effort of trying not to weep too loudly before so many. He was dressed finely, appropriately, but there was no mistaking his youth. He could not have seen more than eight or nine namedays, and grief sat poorly on one so small.

Maekar frowned. His gaze moved from the boy to the woman and back again. Something in the way others watched them, the slight but unmistakable deference in their posture, made a cold certainty begin to stir at the base of his skull. 

Before he could name it, Daela leaned closer and spoke in a low whisper. “That’s Lord Tully.” 

Maekar looked down at her as if she had just informed him the Wall had melted in summer. “What?”

Daela blinked, seemingly surprised by his surprise. “The boy,” she said, as though explaining a simple truth to a slow tutor. “That’s Lord Tully.”

Maekar stared at her in utter shock. Then he turned back to the child, to the little lord trembling in his mother’s arms while his father burned upon the river. “When were you going to tell me the Lord Paramount of the Riverlands is a bloody child!?”

Daela shrugged with all the unconcern of youth. “I thought you knew.”

For one heartbeat Maekar could only look at her. Of course she had thought that. To a daughter raised amid courts and castles, perhaps it seemed impossible that her father might arrive at Riverrun without first bothering to learn that the master of the castle could not yet grow a beard. He exhaled sharply through his nose, biting back a fresh curse only because half the Riverlands already looked half-afraid of what might come out of his mouth next.

“You thought I knew,” he repeated in a dry, dangerous tone.

Daela had the grace to lower her eyes, though Maekar suspected the effort of not smiling was costing her dearly. “Yes, Father.”

Rhae, who understood little save that something amusing had happened, looked between them with bright curiosity. “Is he really a lord?” she whispered.

“Yes,” Maekar said grimly. “Apparently he is.”

He turned his attention back toward Lady Tully and the boy. The revelation altered the scene at once. What he had first taken for a mother comforting her grieving son was also a regent bracing the child lord upon whom an entire region now rested. The Riverlands were no small inheritance. Too many houses, too many quarrels, too much pride, too many old wounds that never healed cleanly. A grown man could drown in such a burden. For a child to inherit it on the day of his father’s burning was a cruel jest.

Maekar’s eyes lingered on her again. She did not look frightened. Saddened, yes maybe more anger? Drawn thin by mourning, yes. She held the boy not as some shattered widow clinging to the last remnant of her lord husband, but as a woman already standing between her son and the wolves gathering politely in velvet and mail around him. She soothed the child, but she also presented him. This is your lord, her posture said. Look well, and mind yourselves.

Maekar respected that before he had time to resent himself for doing so. A murmur of prayer rose among the gathered Riverlords as the burning boat drifted farther downriver, becoming a shape of smoke and fire against the cold water. Some bowed their heads. Others made signs to gods old or new. Maekar did neither. He only stood in silence, daughters tucked close beside him, and watched the dead lord vanish by slow degrees into distance and haze.

His mind, however, had ceased to be on Lord Medgar. A child lord. A beautiful widow with clear eyes and a straighter spine than half the men surrounding her. A castle full of bannermen who would smile and swear loyalty while measuring weakness and advantage behind their teeth. And himself, standing inconveniently in the middle of it all with two daughters, a black temper, and entirely too much notice already drawn to his person.

He almost laughed at the perversity of it. Instead he said, low enough that only Daela might hear, “This day grows stranger by the moment.”

Daela folded her hands before her and looked out over the river, trying very hard to appear innocent. “It often does when you travel, Father.”

That, at least, was true enough to sting. Below them, Lady Tully bent her head to say something softly to her son. The boy nodded, wiping furiously at his eyes as though ashamed to have cried before his banners. Then, with visible effort, he straightened his back. The sight of it of such a little thing trying so hard to wear a dead man’s dignity struck Maekar more sharply than he expected. He thought of his own sons then, of little hands trying to wrap around burdens forged for men, of princelings pushed too young toward hardship after their mother…His own heart died.

Beside the boy, Lady Tully lifted her gaze. Across the damp funeral hill, through drifting smoke and the press of mourners, her eyes met Maekar’s. It lasted no more than a moment. Yet in that moment something passed between them. Not warmth, not invitation, not yet. Recognition, perhaps. The simple and dangerous awareness of one formidable creature noticing another across a field made treacherous by grief. Maekar did not bow. She did not look away at once. Then her hand tightened on her son’s shoulder.

The burning boat drifted onward. The river carried Lord Medgar Tully from his hall, from his lands, from the son too young to succeed him and the widow left to defend that succession. Around Maekar the mourners began to stir, the first quiet shifts that signaled the ceremony’s end and the beginning of all that followed death: condolences, alliances, cups of wine, measured words, and sharpened intentions hidden beneath sorrow’s cloak.

Maekar could already feel the headache forming. He looked once more to Lady Tully and her son the lord in her care, and some hard part of him that preferred battlefields to drawing rooms muttered that this funeral might prove only the first skirmish in a far longer war.

He tightened his hand around Rhae’s small fingers, glanced down at Daela with narrowed suspicion, and said, “Next time, you tell me important things before I arrive.”

Below, Lady Tully had gathered her son close once more. The boy’s tears had quieted, though his cheeks remained red and his eyes swollen. Even so, the child made a visible effort to stand straighter as his mother guided him away from the riverbank. The small procession formed around them almost at once knights, retainers, stewards, and kin falling into step behind the new lord of the Riverlands as he began the climb back toward Riverrun.

Maekar noted it with a soldier’s eye. They bowed as the family passed, some bending deeply at the waist, others lowering their heads in silent respect. None dared crowd them in that moment. For the brief span of a hundred paces or so, the Riverlands remembered its place and honored its dead.

But it did not last. Maekar had barely exhaled before the first opportunist began to move. A man in respectable but hardly grand attire detached himself from the cluster of bannermen and hurried forward with a smile already fixed upon his face. The fellow had a narrow beard, thinning hair, and the sort of eager eyes Maekar had learned to distrust years ago in court halls and war camps alike.

“What an honor for the Riverlands to have a Targaryen prince among us,” the man began smoothly, dipping into a bow that was just deep enough to appear sincere without wrinkling his cloak. His gaze flicked briefly toward Maekar’s daughters before returning upward. “Including his beautiful princesses.”

Maekar felt the first flicker of irritation spark behind his eyes. He had hoped perhaps foolishly that the funeral might shield him from the usual parade of lesser lords seeking favor, advancement, or simply proximity to the Iron Throne. Yet it seemed even grief could not suppress ambition for long.

“Who might the fuc-” Maekar began, then stopped himself. The word that had nearly followed was not one suited to polite company. He drew a slow breath instead, pressing his tongue against his teeth as he forced the irritation down into something more manageable.

“Who might you be?” he finished, his tone neutral enough that only someone who knew him well would hear the steel beneath it.

“Elston Paeg, my prince,” the man replied quickly.

He straightened from his bow with a smile that seemed entirely too pleased with itself. The name meant nothing to Maekar. Some minor house, no doubt, sworn to Riverrun for generations and hoping that today might offer a chance to brush shoulders with royalty.

Lord Paeg launched immediately into a stream of praise. He spoke of the honor Maekar’s presence brought to the Riverlands, of the strength and wisdom of House Targaryen, of how fortunate the realm was to have princes who cared enough to travel and stand among their vassals in times of mourning. Every word dripped with the kind of careful admiration that courtiers practiced like sword drills.

Maekar endured perhaps half a minute of it before his patience snapped. “Tell me something, Lord Paeg.” The words came quiet, but sharp enough that the man faltered mid-sentence.

“Yes, my prince?”

Maekar’s dark eyes settled on him with open impatience. “Why,” he asked slowly, “am I the center of attention?”

Lord Paeg blinked. “My—my prince?”

“This is the funeral of Lord Medgar Tully,” Maekar continued, his voice dropping just enough to carry a faint edge. “His family has barely begun the climb back to their hall, and already half the Riverlands seems eager to forget him.”

The man flushed faintly, though whether from embarrassment or confusion Maekar could not say. 

“I meant no disrespect to House Tully,” Paeg stammered. “Only that your presence—”

“My presence,” Maekar cut in, “is not the point of today.” The words hung between them for a moment.

Lord Paeg nodded hurriedly, murmuring apologies and assurances that of course the Riverlands mourned its lord deeply. Yet the damage was already done. The sight of a minor lord speaking with a prince had drawn the attention of others nearby, and like flies drawn to spilled honey they began drifting closer.

Maekar cursed silently. Within moments another lord approached, this one older and broader, wearing the sigil of some river house Maekar recognized only vaguely. Behind him came a lady in somber blue, followed by two young knights who bowed low and offered formal greetings.

“My prince, we welcome you to the Riverlands.”

“It honors us that you would travel so far.”

“House Targaryen’s loyalty to its vassals.”

The words piled atop one another like stones in a collapsing wall. Maekar endured them with a tightening jaw. His daughters, to their credit, played their parts perfectly.

Daela stood at his side with the composed dignity expected of a princess, her hands folded neatly before her as she inclined her head when addressed. She said little, but when she did her words were polite and measured. Anyone who did not know her would have taken her for a model of royal grace.

Maekar knew better. He could see the faint glimmer of amusement in her eyes every time another lord attempted to flatter him. Rhae, meanwhile, had retreated halfway behind his leg.

The little girl peeked out from the shelter of his cloak with wide, uncertain eyes, shrinking back whenever someone addressed her directly. A few of the ladies cooed softly at the sight, calling her sweet and shy, but Maekar knew it was no act. Rhae had never liked crowds, and the press of unfamiliar faces clearly unsettled her.

He placed a steadying hand on her shoulder. It was meant as reassurance for the child, but it also served another purpose. The gesture subtly reminded the gathered nobles that the prince had come here as a father, not as a prize stallion for them to parade before the court.

Riverrun felt different once one passed within its walls.

From without, it had seemed stern and watchful, all red sandstone, sharp battlements, and high towers rising over the meeting of the waters like something hewn from the will of the Riverlords themselves. Within, it was quieter in a way Maekar had not expected. The sounds of the funeral still lingered in the air as the great gate shut behind them the murmur of voices, the distant scrape of boots over stone, the faint rush of the rivers beyond the walls but the castle’s inner life moved with a more subdued rhythm. Servants walked softly. Guards kept their posts with unusual solemnity. Even the crackle of torches in their brackets seemed muted by grief.

Maekar walked through it all with Daella and Rhaella at his sides, his face carved into the same hard expression he had worn for most of the afternoon.

Servants guided them with the precise politeness reserved for highborn guests whose tempers were better not tested. Maekar paid little mind to the turns they took through halls hung with river scenes and old Tully colors, though he noted all of it in the hard, instinctive way of a soldier. Where the guards stood. Which passages bent sharply. Which doorways opened into broader halls where a man might be flanked if he were witless enough to let himself be cornered.

At last they were shown to their chambers.

The room was finer than he had expected, and that only worsened his mood.

A large central chamber formed the heart of the suite, furnished with a hearth, a broad table, several carved chairs, and a faded but handsome rug strewn across the floor. From this main room, three bedchambers opened off at separate angles, one clearly meant for him and the other two for his daughters. Light came in from a long window set into the far wall, its shutters open to the afternoon, letting in the cool damp breath of the river. Someone had already seen to trunks being carried in, and a pitcher of watered wine had been left upon the table beside cups of polished pewter.

Maekar halted in the center of it all and let out a groan more weary than elegant.

As soon as the servants withdrew far enough not to be struck by his cloak, he tore the thing from his shoulders and flung it across the table. It landed in a dark spill of wool over the polished wood. Then he sat heavily in the nearest chair and rubbed both hands over his face as if he might scrub the entire day away by force alone. He had endured funerals. He had endured Riverlords. He had endured the discovery that the Lord Paramount of the Trident was little more than a child and that his mother had eyes altogether too clear for a man’s peace. Now, at last, he had a room and a chair and perhaps a quarter hour before duty came scratching at the door once more.

One servant remained only long enough to bow to the girls. “My lady princess,” the woman said softly to Rhae, crouching slightly so as not to loom over her, “there are toys placed in a box over by the window if it pleases you.”

Rhae, who had been standing quietly with both hands clasped before her black little gown, looked toward the window at once. Her solemn face brightened a fraction. “Thank you,” she whispered.

The servant bowed again and departed, leaving the chamber at last to the three of them. Rhae looked at him, then at the indicated chest, then back at her father as if seeking permission. She had been quiet for most of the day, quiet in the way small children sometimes were when the world around them had become too strange or too solemn to understand. Maekar lifted two fingers in a tired little gesture that meant yes, go on.

“Are we staying long?” Daella asked.

Maekar lowered his hands from his face and looked at her. His eldest daughter stood near the table with all the grave composure she had worn through the funeral, though now that they were alone there was a frank curiosity in her gaze. At twelve, she was old enough to read a room, old enough to understand that funerals led to feasts and feasts led to conversation, and conversation often led to delays.

“No,” Maekar said simply. “We will pay our respect and then leave in a day.”

“No,” Maekar said simply. “We will pay our respect and then leave in a day.”

Daella tilted her head slightly. “A day?”

“A day,” he repeated. “Long enough to be proper. Short enough not to drown in trout, banners, and eager lesser lords.”

That won the ghost of a smile from her, though she was wise enough not to laugh outright.

By the window, Rhae had already found the box the servant mentioned. It was filled with carved wooden animals, cloth dolls, smooth painted stones, and one faded knight on a horse whose lance had long since snapped off. The little girl crouched before it at once, black skirts puffing around her like spilled ink, and began carefully lifting each item free as if sorting treasure.

Daella drifted toward the table meanwhile and noticed the book that had been left there. It was a handsome thing bound in dark leather, perhaps placed for some noble guest who enjoyed pretending to read while avoiding company. She picked it up gently, running her fingers over the cover before opening it. Maekar watched her without much thought at first. It was a comfort, in a way, to see both daughters settle into themselves so quickly after the strain of public mourning.

In Maekar's mind some small corner of his mind is still capable of noting how quickly children announced themselves through their habits. One daughter looked first for toys, the other for books. One clung when uncertain, the other prowled.

Then something at the window shifted. It was not the movement of curtain or light. It was too deliberate for either.

Maekar’s attention sharpened at once.

Beyond the glass, half-concealed in the narrow slice between the wall and the shutter, stood the shape of someone just out of clear sight. A figure lingering where no figure ought to be. Only the faintest outline was visible, but it was enough to send every wary instinct in him upright and snarling.

He leaned forward slowly in his chair, staring. The figure did not move away. His expression hardened. “You.”

Maekar rose so quickly the chair legs scraped harshly across the stone floor behind him. Daella started. Rhaella jerked upright from the toy chest. In three long strides Maekar had crossed half the chamber, his hand already half-lifted as if he might seize a sword that was not there.

Maekar was already rising. “Who are you!?” he barked, all the defensive force of prince and soldier flaring in an instant. “Show yourself. What do you mean by spying on me and my daughter, you creep?”

His boots struck hard against the floor as he moved toward the entrance and window recess, ready to come around the doorway or lean out and drag whoever it was into the open if need be. Funeral or no funeral, guest hall or no guest hall, he would not have some lurking stranger peering in at his children.

“Show yourself, you fucking coward.” The words rang against the stone.

For one heartbeat there was no response but the distant sound of water and the crackle of the hearth. Then, with all the miserable slowness of a child dragged unwillingly into daylight, a small figure edged into view at the entrance.

Maekar stopped…The boy standing there could not have looked less like a spy if he had tried. He was slight, fine-boned, and dressed in mourning colors trimmed with Tully thread. His hair was auburn rather than silver-gold, his eyes large and uncertain, his hands twisting at his sleeve with a fidgeting nervousness so obvious that even Maekar’s temper faltered before it. The child hovered at the threshold as if uncertain whether he was permitted to breathe the same air.

Maekar stared at him. Then groaned under his breath, every muscle in his body briefly going slack with mortification. “Fucking seven save me…”

Daella, who had come swiftly to stand at her father’s side, seemed to understand the disaster a heartbeat sooner than he did. Her face changed at once, smoothing into a solemn gentleness well beyond her years. She took one small step forward and dipped her head respectfully.

“Apologies, Lord Tully,” she said, with a small bow of her head that was solemn rather than theatrical. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

The boy nodded shyly. His fingers kept worrying at his sleeve as though they could not keep still. Grief sat on him like a borrowed cloak, too large and too heavy for his little shoulders, and Maekar hated himself slightly for having shouted at him.

Maekar stood rigid for the span of two heartbeats, feeling like the biggest fool in the Riverlands. He, Prince Maekar Targaryen, veteran of war, son of kings, had just shouted at a grieving boy lord and called him a coward in his own castle.

“Wonderful. My luck I yelled and cursed a…Mere boy.” Maekar thought to himself.

His eyes remained fixed on the child, and because Maekar had never in his life known how to retreat gracefully from an error, the words that came out were not the polished apology any other prince might have offered. They were blunt, awkward, and sincere in the worst possible way.

“Lordship for a young boy…” Maekar said awkwardly.

He had meant it kindly. Or at least not cruelly. Yet the words sounded stiff and clumsy in his own ears.

“Um,” he added, because apparently princely dignity had entirely abandoned him, “you’re strong.”

The boy’s eyes opened wider in plain astonishment.

For a moment he looked as though no one had said anything to him all day except condolences and instructions. He parted his lips, closed them again, and tried once more. “I’m Clem—Clem—Clement Tully,” he managed at last.

The stutter seemed to catch on the first syllable like his courage had stumbled there with it. He flushed immediately after speaking, and Maekar saw that the child knew others noticed it, knew others judged it, knew it made him look smaller than he already was. That alone stirred a harsh sort of pity in him.

Clement swallowed and continued, fighting through the rest of the words with determined effort. “You are welcome at Riverrun,” he said kindly, though the phrase had clearly been taught to him and repeated until it could be spoken despite grief. “I hope… I hope your rooms are good.”

“That is kind of you, my lord,” Daella inclined her head again with a softness that had not been there for the gathered Riverlords on the hill. “They are. Thank you, my lord.”

Rhae, having decided after all that the newcomer was not dangerous, rose from beside the toy box with one cloth doll clutched in her hand. She peered at the boy from around the skirt of her mourning gown, then took two tiny steps forward.

“Do you want to play with me?” she asked. Her voice was serious and earnest in the way only a five-year-old’s could be, as though she were offering the greatest possible comfort in the world.

Clement looked at her. Something flickered across his face then. It was not fear exactly, nor dislike. More the dazed bewilderment of a child who had lost his father that morning and was now being invited to play with dolls by a little princess whose own father had shouted at him moments earlier.

He shook his head. “No, thank you,” he murmured. The words were polite, but his eyes had already dropped back toward the floor. He backed away a half-step, then another, as though the room itself had grown too full. “I should go.”

Daella bowed her head once more. Rhae only blinked, mildly disappointed but not offended but showed a frown as she clutching the wooden horse in both hands. Maekar said nothing before the boy turned and slipped away down the passage, leaving behind only the faint echo of his steps.

Maekar stared after him for a long moment, then shut his eyes briefly and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Oh, great,” he muttered. “His mother is going to kill me.”

Daella turned to look at him, brows lifting. “Probably.”

He opened one eye at her. “Your support overwhelms me.”

She held the book against her chest and looked entirely unrepentant. “You did call him a creep before you knew who he was.”

“He was lurking outside the window.” Maekar answered.

“He is eight.” She spoke back.

“Fuck me, he’s eight!?Lord Paramount or not, eight-year-olds should not lurk.”

Daella’s mouth twitched. “You also shouted.”

“Daella…Agh.” Maekar groaned in frustration as he pinched the bridge of his nose again.

Rhae came padding back toward him, still holding the doll. “Was he sad?”

Maekar’s expression shifted. He looked down at his youngest daughter, at the solemn concern in her little face, and some of the iron in him eased despite himself. “He is tired,” Maekar said at last. “And sad.”

“Because his papa died?” She kindly asked like a child so full of innocence.

“Yes.” He answered so simply to spare her from asking more questions, as always.

Rhae considered that quietly. Then she nodded once, hugging the doll to her chest as if it too might need comforting. “I think he should have played anyway.”

Maekar huffed a breath that might almost have been a laugh. “Perhaps another day.”

He sank back into the chair at the table, though now there was little rest left in him. His thoughts had already turned outward again, toward the hall, toward Lady Tully, toward the inevitable moment when word would reach her that Prince Maekar Targaryen had nearly stormed her son’s head off for peering through a window.

He imagined those deep blue eyes fixing on him in cold displeasure. He imagined the set of her mouth. He imagined himself forced into some awkward apology before supper while half the castle pretended not to listen.

Yet beneath the irritation there was another thought pressing stubbornly at him. Clement had come alone. No guards, no nursemaid, no hovering steward. The boy had wandered to the chambers of strangers out of some mixture of curiosity, duty, and childish uncertainty. It made Maekar uneasy in a way he did not care to name. Riverrun was a great house in mourning, full of bannermen, cousins, servants, and opportunists. A child lord should not be left to wander through it like some lost page.

Daella moved back to the table. “You did not mean to frighten him,” she said more gently.

“No,” Maekar admitted. He looked toward the window where Clement had hidden moments before. Beyond it the light had begun to slope toward evening, turning the river below into bands of silver and shadow. “I suppose,” Maekar said at last, “I shall have to apologize.”

Daella gave a little nod, as though confirming what should already have been obvious. “That would be wise.”

“I do hate when you sound older than you are…You sound ever closer to your mother.” Maekar spoke.

She smiled then, small and infuriatingly knowing. Maekar leaned back in his chair and blew out a slow breath through his nose. He had arrived at Riverrun meaning to pay his respects and leave within a day.

Already the gods were laughing at him.

Maekar rubbed the side of his jaw and muttered. “I fear his mother more and I haven't even heard the sound of her voice, I dread it.”

Daella heard him. “Lady Tully?”

“Yes, that woman.” Maekar said darkly.

Daella folded her hands behind her back and regarded him with far too much knowing for a girl of twelve. “Try not to shout at either of them.”

Maekar snorted despite himself.

Night settled over Riverrun in layers. The last of the funeral’s solemnity had long since given way to the quieter weight of evening, that strange hour in a great castle when the halls began to dim, servants moved more softly, and every sound seemed to carry farther than it ought. The noise of mourning had retreated into distant chambers and shadowed galleries. Somewhere below, men still talked over cups of ale in muted voices, and somewhere higher up a door shut with careful hands, but here, in this broad chamber overlooking the dark river, the world felt briefly still.

Maekar stood alone by the long window, one hand braced against the stone frame as he stared out into the night. The Red Fork moved beneath Riverrun in a ribbon of black silver, catching moonlight where the current broke and swallowing it again a moment later. The water never stopped. It slid past the walls and towers with the same indifferent patience it had shown when Lord Medgar’s funeral boat burned upon it earlier that day. Men died, banners changed hands, children inherited burdens meant for grown lords, and the river went on as if none of it mattered.

Maekar found something honest in that. He had shed his outer garments for the night, though not all of them. He still wore dark trousers, boots, and a plain tunic unlaced at the throat, the kind of half-rest a man like him allowed himself in another lord’s castle. A cup of watered wine sat untouched on the table behind him. He had thought to drink earlier, but the taste of the day had soured the idea before it began.

His daughters were at last asleep or near enough to sleep that he had escaped their questions. Rhae had drifted off after much yawning and clutching of a cloth doll she had adopted from the toy box as though it were a sworn companion. Daella had pretended greater composure, but he knew she was tired too. She had endured the funeral, the Riverlords, the incident with young Clement, and then the hushed evening meal that followed, where half the hall had tried not to stare at the prince and the grieving widow in the same room. It had been a long day for all of them.

Maekar rested his brow lightly against the cold stone and exhaled through his nose.

He should have apologized sooner. That much was plain. He should have sent word to Lady Tully before gossip reached her first, because gossip always moved faster than reason in a castle full of mourners and bannermen. Instead he had waited, telling himself he would speak with her tomorrow, tell her plainly that he had mistaken her son for some lurking servant’s whelp or curious page. But tomorrow had been a coward’s answer, and Maekar Targaryen had never respected cowardice even when he found it in himself.

The sound of footsteps broke the quiet. Not light, not hesitant. Loud. Fast. Furious. Maekar straightened at once.

Years of fighting, court suspicion, and hard living had trained his body before thought could catch up. He turned half-away from the window, shoulders setting, eyes already narrowing toward the chamber doors. The footsteps grew louder, striking stone with the force of someone who had no intention whatsoever of being denied entry.

Then the doors were shoved open so violently they slammed against the walls.

Lady Tully stood in the threshold. She was breathing hard, one hand still on the door as if she had all but hurled it aside. Her mourning dress of Tully colors seemed darker in the night, the deep blue and red swallowing the candlelight rather than reflecting it. Her auburn hair, so neatly composed at the funeral, had loosened in places, and the force of her anger made her look less like a widow and more like some wrathful river spirit who had clawed her way out of the current to drag a sinner under.

Her deep blue eyes fixed on him with enough heat to scorch. “You!” she snapped, storming toward him. “How dare you! You speak in such a way to my son!”

Maekar had been braced for cold disdain, perhaps a cutting remark delivered with noble restraint. He had not expected a full storm descending upon him in the middle of the night, and for one rare moment he found himself wrong-footed.

Still, instinct made him reach for formality. “It is customary to address me as my prince.”

The words came crisp, automatic, and entirely the wrong thing to say. Lady Tully stopped only long enough to glare at him with open disbelief. “I could give a fuck!”

The force of it hit the room like a slap. She closed the remaining distance between them, skirts sweeping over stone, every inch of her trembling with outrage. “You shouted at my son,” she said, jabbing a finger toward his chest as if she would gladly have stabbed him with it if etiquette allowed. “Called him a creep. You dare mock Lord Tully during his grief?”

Maekar felt the full justice of the accusation land where it should. “I meant no offense,” he said, and though the words sounded weak to his own ears, they were true. “I assumed wrong of who he was and of his intentions.”

Her nostrils flared. She was still breathing hard, as though she had crossed half the castle in a rage and would gladly cross the other half if it meant finding new ways to skewer him. 

“I have already—”

“Do not,” she cut in sharply. “Do not soften it now. He came to greet you in his own hall, after burying his father, and you bark at him like a kennel brute who has found a rat in his grain.”

Maekar’s jaw tightened, but he did not answer in anger.

He should have. Some meaner, younger part of him wanted to meet fury with fury and be done with it. Yet there was something in her face that would not let him. This was not court spite. This was not the polished temper of a woman looking to make a point before witnesses. This was a mother’s rage, raw and terrified and sharpened by the knowledge that her son stood at the center of a hundred circling ambitions.

“I was wrong,” Maekar said more plainly. “And I frightened him. I know it.”

Lady Tully folded her arms, though the motion did nothing to hide the fact that her whole body was taut with anger. “Take your apologies and stick them, my prince.”

That stung more than he cared to admit. She turned as if to leave, but it was no graceful retreat. It was the movement of a woman who had come to strike and found she had more blows left in her yet. She paced two steps away, then spun back toward him with fresh fury in her eyes.

“You come here without such invite,” she said. “What, wanted to seek all the attention of my son’s bannermen?”

Maekar stared at her. He had been accused of harsher things in his life. Some had even been deserved. Yet that one he rejected at once. “I had no wish to do such an act,” he said, voice low but steady. “I came only out of respect.”

She gave a bitter little laugh that held no amusement at all. “When has the dragon cared for respect?” she demanded. “Hmp. My son is already surrounded by wolves who seek to ruin him for power. Lords with soft voices and sharp knives, cousins who smile too readily, men who will bow today and scheme tomorrow. Now I have to deal with you.” Her voice cracked not from weakness but from the strain of holding too much alone. “Fine,” she said, lifting her chin with fierce defiance. “I can fight a war on two fronts. Try me.”

For a moment the room seemed to go utterly still. Maekar looked at her then not simply as a widow or a lady wronged, but as a commander might look at another commander across a field. She was tired. Furious. Frightened. Yet she stood anyway, all edge and pride and impossible stubbornness, and something in him recognized the shape of that endurance at once.

It was a dangerous recognition. “You think very poorly of me,” he said.

“I think exactly what you have given me reason to think.” She snapped back.

“I shouted at the wrong person,” he said. “I did not come to prey upon your son.”

Her eyes narrowed. “No? Then why are you here?”

The question hung between them heavier than the others had. Because your lord husband died. Because politics demanded it. Because I meant to stay a day and flee. Because…Becuase my daughter demanded me of it.

Maekar, being wiser than to say any of those aloud, answered with the safest truth. “Because Lord Medgar deserved respect in death.”

She scoffed softly, unconvinced. “Respect,” she repeated, like the word itself offended her. “A prince who curses before half the Riverlands and terrifies a grieving child now speaks to me of respect.”

Against his better judgment, Maekar said, “And a lady storms into a man’s chamber after nightfall to curse at him.”

The moment the words left him, he knew he had touched the wrong spark. She stopped. Then she rushed right back at him. The motion was so sudden and so fierce that Maekar nearly laughed from sheer disbelief, though the sense to restrain himself came quickly. She closed the distance between them with her eyes blazing, and had she been armed he thought she might have driven a knife into him and felt better for it.

“What did you say?”

He met her gaze, though now he regretted the provocation. “I said—”

The bedchamber door opened. Both of them turned at once. Little Rhae stood in the doorway, half-hidden in the darkness beyond, rubbing sleep from one eye with a small fist. Her pale hair tumbled loose around her shoulders, and her nightshift hung crookedly where it had twisted in bed. She looked tiny and soft and terribly breakable in the candlelit room, a child called from sleep by raised voices and slamming doors.

“Fa-father?” The word was a quiet squeak of confusion.

Everything in Maekar changed in an instant. The sharpness left his posture at once. He turned fully toward his daughter, and his voice when he answered was so gentled it scarcely sounded like the same man who had been trading barbs a heartbeat earlier.

“Rhae,” he said softly, “you should be asleep.”

She blinked at him, then at Lady Tully, uncertain and drowsy. “Was there shouting?”

“No…Lady Tully was informing me-me of…breakfast options on the morrow.” Maekar said. He crossed to her in a few quick steps and crouched, one hand settling lightly against her back. He kept his touch careful, mindful not to startle her further. “You had a long day,” he murmured. “Go back to bed now, little one. I’ll be there in a moment.”

Rhae's eyes moved again to Lady Tully, lingering there with the solemn curiosity children had for strangers caught in odd places. For a heartbeat Maekar wondered if the little girl would say something honest and disastrous.

Instead, Lady Tully spoke first. The rage had gone out of her face so abruptly it almost startled him more than her entrance had. Her eyes had widened, not in anger now but in dawning shame, and when she looked at Rhae there was something raw and stricken in her expression.

“Oh.” It was barely more than a breath. Then she seemed to remember herself all at once. She drew back a half-step, her hands flexing uselessly at her sides. “My princess,” she said to his child, her voice suddenly uncertain. “I… I am sorry.”

Rhae, who had clearly not expected an apology from a strange woman in a dark dress, only stared sleepily.

Lady Tully swallowed. “I did not mean to wake you.”

Rhae leaned slightly into Maekar’s hand and gave the tiniest nod, as if accepting this explanation because sleep made everything else too difficult. “It’s all right,” she whispered.

The words seemed to strike Lady Tully harder than any accusation might have. For the first time since she had burst into the chamber, she looked truly unsettled. Her gaze flicked briefly from child to father, and Maekar saw understanding take hold of her not full understanding, perhaps, but enough. Enough to see that whatever else he was, whatever temper and folly he carried, he was also a father with a daughter startled from sleep by the sound of anger.

Lady Tully looked down, then back up again, and the fury in her had nowhere to go now. “I…” She seemed to lose the next words entirely. “I should go.”

“That would be wise.” Maekar did not stop her. He rose slowly, keeping one hand on Rhae’s shoulder, and watched as Lady Tully took another backward step toward the doors. She did not look cowed. Even now she held herself with that same fierce, proud bearing. But something in her had cracked open enough to let embarrassment through, and it colored her cheeks faintly beneath the candlelight.

“My prince,” she said, and this time the title came out not as a challenge but as something more hesitant, more formal, almost unwillingly restored. “I…” She glanced once more at Rhae. “Goodnight.”

Then she turned and left. The doors did not slam this time. They closed with quick, controlled hands, and then the chamber was quiet again save for the river below and the faint hiss of the candles. Rhae yawned hugely.

Maekar looked down at her and felt something between relief and exhaustion wash through him. “Come,” he said gently. “Back to bed.”

She nodded and let him guide her toward the bedchamber. At the threshold she paused and looked up at him through heavy-lidded eyes. “Was she sad too?”

Maekar was silent for a moment. “Yes.”

Rhae seemed satisfied by that. She padded back into her room, clutching the hem of her nightshift, and Maekar waited until she climbed beneath the blankets before drawing them up around her. When at last he stepped back into the main chamber, he did not return immediately to the window.

Instead he stood in the center of the room, staring at the doors Lady Tully had gone through. The air still seemed to hum with the force of her presence. Her anger. Her grief. Her desperate, reckless devotion to her son. He could still hear the line in her voice when she spoke of wolves, and worse, he could understand it. Too well. A child lord with grieving eyes and a stutter would draw predators as blood drew flies. She knew it. She was fighting already, with teeth bared, because there was no one else to do it for him.

Maekar ran a hand over his face and let out a long breath.

He woke with a low groan, his neck stiff, one arm half-numb from how it had been folded across his chest during the night. The grey light of dawn had already given way to the fuller gold of morning, spilling in through the long window and laying bright bars across the chamber floor. For a few bewildered heartbeats he did not move, only blinked against the light and tried to remember whether the pounding at the base of his skull came from poor sleep, poor temper, or poor decisions.

Likely all three. He pushed himself upright with a muttered curse and felt his back protest at once. The joints along his spine cracked as he straightened, and he rolled one shoulder, then the other, trying to ease out the stiffness. Sleeping in armor was a misery, sleeping in chairs was a cruelty, and sleeping in chairs after being verbally flayed by a furious widow was apparently a special punishment devised by the gods for their own amusement. His daughters were already awake. Daella sat near the table with a comb in hand, her pale hair mostly brushed though not yet fully bound. She looked entirely too composed for a girl who had slept in a strange castle after a funeral. Across the chamber Rhae had made a little kingdom of the borrowed toys near the window, the broken-lanced knight positioned atop the wooden horse as if both had been promoted overnight to great heroes of the Riverlands.

Daella looked up from her seat when she heard him stir. “You slept in the chair again.”

Maekar gave her a flat look. “I am aware.”

She regarded him for a moment, then said with infuriating calm, “You look uncomfortable.”

“Hmp, I find this chair to be the greatest comfort more than any bed.” Maekar answered.

That won the faintest suggestion of satisfaction from her, as if the universe had behaved exactly as expected and she had merely been waiting for him to notice. Before Maekar could say more, there came a knock at the chamber door.

He turned at once, instincts not yet fully dulled by sleep. “Enter.”

A servant stepped inside, head bowed respectfully, hands folded before him. He was young, perhaps no older than sixteen, with the look of someone who had spent the morning carrying messages between nobles and praying none of them shouted.

“My prince,” the servant said, bowing lower still. “Lady Tully has requested your presence for breakfast.”

Maekar blinked. For a moment he thought he had misheard. “Lady Tully?” he repeated.

“Yes, my prince.” The servant’s face betrayed nothing. If there was gossip flying through Riverrun about the previous night and there almost certainly was he was too well trained to let it show.

Maekar frowned. He had expected perhaps distance, or icy avoidance, or at most a formal summons to hear some polished apology for the scene she had made in front of his daughter. Breakfast had not been among the possibilities. Breakfast implied civility. Breakfast implied intention. That made him suspicious. Before he could respond, Rhae had already brightened from the window.

“Breakfast?” she asked. “I’m starving! We didn’t even think of what to eat.”

Daella rose smoothly to her feet as if the matter were settled. “We should go, Father.”

Maekar looked from one daughter to the other. Neither seemed remotely troubled by the notion of sitting at table with the same woman who had stormed into his chamber the night before breathing fire enough to shame Balerion’s descendants. “Of course you think so,” he muttered.

The servant remained bowed, awaiting an answer.

“We will come,” Maekar said at last.

The boy bowed again and withdrew. For several moments after the door shut, Maekar stood in the center of the chamber staring at it as though it might explain itself. Then he dragged a hand through his hair and exhaled sharply through his nose.

“Very well,” he said. “If the trout wishes to feed the dragon, I suppose I must see why.”

Daella hid a smile by turning away to finish arranging her hair. Rhae ooked delighted by the thought of breakfast and had no idea at all what he meant. They were not kept waiting long. aekar washed, dressed, and made himself presentable enough for the hall. He chose dark clothing of good but restrained quality rather than anything too princely. The Riverlands had already suffered enough theatrics from him. Daella wore another sober gown suited to mourning, while Rhae had to be coaxed into leaving behind the cloth doll she had apparently decided should also attend breakfast. In the end, the doll was placed carefully on her bed with promises of reunion afterward, which satisfied her just enough to prevent tears.

A servant led them through Riverrun’s morning halls. The castle felt different by daylight. The shadows of grief remained, but morning had brought movement and purpose back into the stones. Maids hurried with linens, stewards conferred in low voices, and guards changed shifts at the corners of corridors. They were brought at last into one of Riverrun’s smaller dining halls.

It was not the great hall used for feasts and formal gatherings, but a more intimate chamber meant for family or honored guests. Light poured through tall windows, washing the room in soft gold. The long table at its center had been laid simply but richly fresh bread, butter, river fish, oat porridge, soft cheese, stewed apples, honey, and pitchers of watered ale and milk.

Lady Tully was already seated there. She wore mourning still, though in a dress more restrained than the one from the funeral, the colors of House Tully present but quiet. Her auburn hair had been arranged with care, every strand in place as if the neatness itself were armor. Beside her sat Clement, scrubbed clean and solemn, his small hands folded awkwardly before him as he tried very hard to look lordly and not merely like a boy in a large chair. Another man sat near them as well, broad-shouldered and red-haired, older than Lady Tully but clearly of the same blood.

As Maekar entered, the woman rose at once. Even though both her eyes were covered with a fine silk of red and blue designed with trouts swimming up river. Was she blind? “Prince Maekar, and princesses,” she said with practiced courtesy. “It is an honor to meet you.” Her manner was warm enough to be inviting, though not so warm as to suggest foolishness. There was something solid in her at once, something blunt and practical beneath the polish.

Maekar gave the proper nod. “My lady.”

The girls followed suit, Daella with graceful poise and Rhae with the uncertain little curtsy of a child still deciding whether she liked being watched.

“Please,” the woman said, gesturing toward the opposite side of the table. “Sit.”

They did. Maekar took the seat directly across from Lady Tully, which gave him an excellent view of the glacial displeasure in her eyes. If anyone else in the room had hoped breakfast meant forgiveness, her expression crushed the notion at once. She did not speak as they settled, only watched him with a stare sharp enough to peel bark from timber. The memory of the night before hung plainly between them, though now it had been dressed in daylight and forced into manners.

The red-haired woman resumed her seat. “I’m Agnes Tully,” he said. “Sister to Luciya.” There was no missing the family resemblance once he named himself. The same Tully coloring, though weathered differently in him, and the same directness in the eyes. If Luciya Tully was a drawn bow, Agnes seemed more like a sturdy, practical shield, not easily shaken.

Maekar inclined his head again. “A pleasure.” That, at least, was partly true. “Um…I must ask.”

“Yes, I am very much blind. Does not dull my ears, my Prince.” She smiled nodding her head.

Breakfast began with the ordinary formalities. Bread was passed. Cups were filled. Servants moved in and out soundlessly, replenishing dishes without intruding upon the conversation. For a little while the talk remained safe enough. Agnes asked after Maekar’s journey, whether the roads from the east had remained passable after the recent rains, whether his daughters had slept well, whether the accommodations in Riverrun suited them.

Maekar answered as politeness required. Yet even as he did, he could feel Lady Tully’s gaze land on him in sharp, intermittent strikes. Every time he looked up, she was either glaring already or looking away just a fraction too late. There was no softness in it. No warmth. Only wary appraisal and a warning not yet withdrawn.

It should have been irritating. Instead it fascinated him more than he cared to admit. Agnes steered the talk, gradually turning it from the journey to the state of the Riverlands. She spoke in broad terms at first harvest concerns, tensions among certain bannermen, the burden of keeping peace in lands where old quarrels ran deep and every stream seemed to mark some grievance from two generations past. Maekar listened with soldierly attention. The Riverlands had always been a place of crossing loyalties and bruised pride, too open to invasion, too crowded with old houses, too often made to bleed for quarrels begun elsewhere.

While Agnes spoke, Maekar’s ears caught another conversation at the table. Rhaea had, with the fearless persistence peculiar to little girls, begun trying to draw Clement into talk.

At first the boy answered only in nods and tiny shakes of his head. He kept his eyes mostly on his plate, nibbling bread in small distracted bites. Yet Rhae, unbothered by silence, pressed onward in a voice soft enough not to interrupt the grown-ups.

“There was a box of toys in our room,” she told him. “A doll and painted stones and a knight with no spear and a horse.”

Clement’s shoulders shifted.

Rhae leaned closer with conspiratorial seriousness. “I think the horse is the best.”

The boy glanced at her at last. After a moment he muttered, almost under his breath, “I like the wooden horse too.”

“Really?!” Rhae giggled softly, delighted beyond measure to have found common cause. “Of course you would.”

Maekar looked toward them then, and something in the sight caught him by surprise. Lady Tully was smiling. Not at him. Never at him. But at the children.

It was not the controlled court smile of a lady remembering her manners. It was real, small and gentle and aching at the edges, the kind of smile that had likely not touched her face often since Lord Medgar died. It transformed her utterly. The hardness in her features eased, the ferocity she wore like armor slipping just enough to reveal the woman beneath it a mother, yes, but also someone still young enough to feel too much and too fiercely.

Then her eyes lifted and met Maekar’s. The smile vanished as if it had never existed. What replaced it was so sharp it might have been forged. Her look struck him like a dagger point laid cool against the ribs, and Maekar almost admired the speed of the transformation.

Daella, who missed very little, watched the children a moment longer and then said lightly, “Perhaps Lord Tully might give the princess a tour of Riverrun.”

Clement nearly choked on whatever he had just swallowed. He looked up in alarm, his cheeks going pink all at once. “I—”

Rhae clasped her hands together. “Can we?”

Lady Tully turned toward her son. The ferocity that she directed at Maekar never touched the boy. Her expression softened again, and though concern remained beneath it, she spoke with warm encouragement. “That is a fine idea,” she said. “If Lord Tully wishes it.”

Clement looked from his mother to Rhae to Daella and then, for one helpless moment, to Maekar, as though perhaps the prince might save him from the terror of escorting two princesses through his own home.

Maekar offered no rescue. At last the boy straightened in his seat with visible effort. “I can show them,” he said, blushing harder. “If they want.”

“We do,” Daella replied, smiling just enough to steady him. Rhae beamed as if she had just been granted the greatest privilege in the Seven Kingdoms.

Agnes chuckled and waved a hand. “There, then. A lord’s first duty of the day guiding princesses.”

That won a tiny smile even from Clement. He slipped from his chair when breakfast was done, and with the solemn responsibility of a child imitating adulthood, he prepared to lead the girls from the hall. Daella rose and thanked Lady Tully properly. Rhae hurried to Clement’s side at once, still chattering softly about horses, toy knights, and whether Riverrun had secret stairs.

As the three children made their way out, Maekar watched Lady Tully watch them. For a moment there was nothing in her face but worry. Then the door closed behind them, and the warmth in the room changed at once.

Agnes expression settled into seriousness. The friendly ease remained, but only as the surface over deeper calculation. Lady Tully sat straighter. Her fingers, which had rested lightly on the table, curled once and stilled.

“My prince,” Agnes said, “I assume you can see the situation my nephew is in.”

“Agnes,” Lady Tully snapped. The name cracked like a whip between siblings, sharp with warning.

Agnes did not so much as glance at her. “Luciya, do you not see the crows waiting to feast on your boy?”

Her jaw tightened. “I will not ask help from the dragon,” she answered coldly.

“If we do not ask,” Agnes shot back, “then we leave ourselves vulnerable.” I am blind yet I see more clearly than yourself!"

Maekar said nothing at first. He looked from sister to sister, confusion mixing with the instinctive caution that came whenever family arguments turned suddenly political in front of him. A moment before they had been sharing bread and watching children. Now the room had become a council chamber without anyone bothering to announce it.

Luciya Tully turned her head toward her sister, her blue eyes hard as river ice. “My son is not some weak scrap to be passed between stronger hands.”

“No one said he was.” Agnes said.

“You mean it all the same.” She replied

Agnes leaned forward, her voice still controlled but strained now by frustration. “What I mean is that Medgar is dead, Clement is eight, and half the Trident is already seeking how close they may stand to the boy before it becomes influence, then dependence, then power. Do you think I do not hear them? Do you think I do not see who lingers too long in corridors and who suddenly remembers old blood ties and guardianship claims?”

Luciya’s mouth thinned. “And your answer is to invite a dragon into the nursery?”

“My answer,” Agnes said, “is to make certain the wolves know there is something larger than them watching.”

At that, Maekar finally spoke. “You are discussing me as if I am not sitting here.”

Agnes gave him a brief, unapologetic glance. “You are sitting here because you are part of the question.”

Luciya folded her arms. “Not part of the answer.”

Maekar remained where he was, elbows resting lightly on the arms of his chair, and tried to make sense of the shape beneath their quarrel. He had seen enough succession disputes to recognize the scent of danger. A child inherited. A mother stood as shield. Uncles, cousins, bannermen, and old allies all began considering how best to “assist.” Assistance became influence. Influence became control if unchecked. Yet why him? Why now? Why summon him to breakfast only to split open this raw argument before him?

His gaze settled on Luciya. She refused to meet it. That alone told him more than her words had. He spoke carefully. “You think the boy is threatened.”

Agnes answered before she could. “I know he is. The Freys, Brackens, Butterwells, seven hells, the entire lot of them threaten his position.”

Luciya’s silence was fiercer than agreement. Maekar looked between them again, feeling the room grow narrower by the heartbeat. Somewhere beyond these walls, Clement Tully was likely showing Rhae the river stairs or a stable yard, trying not to stutter under the pressure of being lordly for guests. Meanwhile his mother and aunt sat here arguing over whether dragons were preferable to crows.

The absurdity of it might have been laughable if the stakes were not so plain. “I came for a funeral,” Maekar said at last.

“You found a lordship in peril,” Agnes returned.

Luciya rounded on her sister. “Enough.”

“No,” Agnes said. “Not enough. Never enough, not if you intend to glare every danger into submission until one of them stops bowing and starts moving. I am blind, yet you act more blind than I!”

Her face flushed with anger. “I have kept them at bay.”

Maekar watched her, not with the idle curiosity he had worn before, but with the sharpened attention of a man who had finally recognized the shape of the ground beneath his feet. He leaned back slightly in his chair, his expression hardening as he spoke. “I will see this storm,” Maekar said, his voice steady and unyielding. “House Targaryen will not intervene in the squabbles of their paramounts. Is the job of you to keep your lords in line.”

Luciya turned toward him sharply, her eyes flashing at once with renewed anger. If Agnes had been the one to provoke her earlier, Maekar’s declaration struck deeper, because it carried not just opinion but authority. It was the voice of the Iron Throne’s blood, the quiet reminder of where ultimate power lay and more importantly, where it chose not to reach.

“If House Tully cannot keep its grip on its bannermen,” Maekar continued, “then perhaps a stronger hand should step in.”

"So that is how the House of the Dragon pays years of loyalty with threats of removing my House from its authority!?" Luciya's voice echoed in the hall.

The silence that followed was immediate and absolute. Agnes’s jaw tightened, though she said nothing at once. Luciya’s reaction was far less restrained. Her eyes widened not with surprise, but with fury sharpened to a fine edge. For a heartbeat, she simply stared at him, as though measuring whether she had heard correctly, whether he truly meant to stand in her hall and suggest that House Tully might be unfit to hold what it had ruled for generations.

Then she stepped forward. “A stronger hand?” she repeated, her voice low and dangerous. “And whose hand would that be, my prince? Yours?”

Maekar did not flinch. “If your house fails to hold what is its own,” he said, “it will not be mine that steps in first.” That was the truth of it, and perhaps the cruelest part. “The Riverlands do not lack for men eager to prove themselves stronger,” Maekar went on. “You said as much yourself. Wolves, you called them. They will not wait long if they smell weakness.”

Her hands curled at her sides. “You speak as if we are already lost.”

“I speak as if you are in danger,” Maekar replied. “There is a difference.”

Luciya let out a sharp breath, something between a laugh and a scoff. “You come into my home,” she said, “frighten my son, insult my house, and now you presume to lecture me on danger?”

Maekar’s expression darkened slightly at that. “I frightened your son because I mistook him for someone else,” he said. “I have said as much. But do not mistake that for blindness. I have seen enough courts, enough successions, enough grieving children placed on seats too large for them to know what follows.”

“So what follows?” she demanded.

“Death,” Maekar said simply. “Every bannerman will test him,” he continued. “Some gently. Some not. Some will seek favor. Some will seek control. A few will seek to break him outright and replace him with something easier to guide.”

Luciya’s lips pressed into a thin line, but she did not interrupt him now.

“You think yourself ready to meet that,” Maekar said. “Perhaps you are. But you cannot meet it alone, not forever.”

“I am not alone,” she snapped. “I have my sister. I have loyal houses. I have—”

“You have what every regent has,” Maekar cut in. “Allies who are loyal until it suits them not to be.” 

She took another step toward him, her anger rising again, though now it was tangled with something else, something more brittle, more dangerous. “And your answer is what?” she demanded. “That I bend the knee to you? That I beg the dragon to come guard my son’s cradle like some hired sword?”

Maekar’s eyes narrowed. “I said nothing of bending the knee.”

“You implied it.” Luciya shook her head, her auburn hair shifting with the motion. “No,” she said. “No, I see it now. You come here cloaked in respect, speaking of storms and dangers, but what you truly mean is that you will stand aside and watch if we fall.”

Maekar stared at her. “Do not forget many in Riverland supported the Blackfyre. I killed many Brackens. It makes me look like a Blackwood sympathizer. I have slain your countrymen with my own hands…I know traitors when I see them.” 

Luciya stared right back at Maekar. “I will not throw open my gates to dragons because you think us weak,” she went on. “We are Tully. We have held these lands through war and flood and fire. My son will hold them still.”

“If he cannot?” Maekar asked.

Luciya’s eyes burned. “He will,” she said. There was no doubt in her voice. There was also no room for anything else.

Maekar held her gaze for a long moment, then inclined his head just slightly. “As you say.”

That only seemed to anger her further. For a heartbeat it looked as though she might say more, might drive the argument into sharper and sharper ground until neither of them could retreat without blood. But something in her checked the impulse. Perhaps it was the memory of her son somewhere in the castle, walking with two princesses and trying to be brave. Perhaps it was the presence of her sister, watching both of them with growing concern.

Whatever it was, she turned away instead. “I have no need of this,” she said curtly. “Nor of you.” She did not wait for a reply. She swept from the room with the same force she had brought into it, though this time the door did not slam. It closed hard enough to make the cups tremble on the table, but not so hard as to wake the entire castle.

Silence followed her departure. For a few moments, neither Maekar nor Agnes exhaled slowly, rubbing a hand over her face. “She has always been like that,” she said after a moment. “Once she sets her mind, there is no turning it.”

Maekar leaned back slightly in his chair again, his posture returning to something more controlled now that the immediate clash had ended. “So I have gathered.”

Agnes let out a quiet, humorless chuckle. “You handled that… about as well as could be expected,” he said.

“That is a generous assessment.” Maekar looked at Agnes.

She shrugged. “She was never going to agree with you. Not like this. Not with you.”

Maekar’s brow furrowed faintly. “Because I am a Targaryen.”

“Because you are a Targaryen,” Agnes agreed. “Because you are a man. Because you are exactly the sort of man she fears might decide he knows better than she does what is good for her son.”

Maekar considered that. "I have no bloody wish to seize Riverrun for my own."

Agnes leaned forward slightly, lowering his voice though there was no one left to overhear. “My prince,” he said, “I assume you can see the situation my nephew is in.”

Maekar gave a small, humorless breath. “It would be difficult not to.”

Agnes nodded. “He is young,” she said. “Too young. While there are those who will stand by him, there are others who will not. Some will wait. Some will push. Some will try to guide him into mistakes that can be used against him later.”

Maekar’s gaze drifted briefly toward the door through which the children had left. “He will learn,” he said.

Agnes studied him carefully even though her eyes only saw black, Maekar felt she could see him clear as day. “Perhaps,” she said. “But learning takes time. Time he may not have if the wrong men decide to act sooner rather than later.” Agnes’s expression grew more intent. “I am not asking you to take control of anything,” she said. “Nor to place Riverrun under your authority. I know better than that. My sister would sooner burn the castle herself.”

That earned the faintest hint of agreement from Maekar.

“But I am asking you,” Agnes continued, “to stand by. To make it known, quietly or otherwise, that the Riverlands are not without notice. That if certain lines are crossed, there are consequences beyond what a grieving boy and his mother can muster alone.”

Maekar looked at her then, truly looked. This was no grasping lesser lord seeking advantage. This was a man who understood the game well enough to know when he was outmatched and desperate enough to ask for something he knew might not be given. “The boy must grow,” Maekar said after a moment. “he must grow quickly.”

Agnes did not argue that. "He's young and will learn but he just stepped into this game."

“He must learn to command,” Maekar went on. “To judge men. To see through smiles and flattery. To know when to bend and when to cut the hand off a rat. No one can give him that. No prince. No aunt. No mother.” He paused, then added, more bluntly, “The boy must grow to fight his own bloody battles.”

Her jaw tightened, but she nodded. “I know,” she said quietly. “Gods help him, I know.”

Maekar leaned forward slightly, resting his forearms on the table.

“But that does not mean he must fight them alone,” Agnes pressed.

Maekar’s eyes flicked back to him. There it was again. The same line drawn in a different way. Not asking for rescue. Not asking for control. Asking for presence. For weight. For something that might tip the scales just enough to keep the wolves from lunging too soon. Maekar exhaled slowly. “You ask for a great deal.”

Agnes met his gaze. “I ask for a chance.”

Maekar did not answer immediately again. His thoughts turned, unbidden, to the boy with the stutter and the too-large lordship. To the woman who would burn down half the Riverlands before letting anyone take that from him. To the children now wandering Riverrun’s halls together, unaware of the quiet war already forming around them. He had come to pay respects. Now he sat in a hall where the future of a great house was being weighed in the space between words. At last, he spoke. “I will not interfere in the rule of the Riverlands,” he said. “But,” Maekar continued, “I will not ignore what I see either.”