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Mysaria remembered fire first.
Not the shape of Rhaenyra’s face. Not her voice. Not even her name.
Fire came before all of it.
Dragonfire over stone. Torches in corridors. Candles burning low in chambers where queens made promises they could not afford to keep. The red-gold shimmer of Rhaenyra Targaryen’s hair in the dark, bright as a crown, bright as a warning, bright as every dangerous thing Mysaria had ever known better than to touch.
Then came the grief. That came quickly too.
A crown on Rhaenyra’s head like a wound. Sons buried. A throne taken and retaken and bloodied beyond meaning. The way power had bent Rhaenyra, sharpened her, hollowed her, made her magnificent and terrible and so very tired.
And then, after all that, came the impossible part.
A coffee shop in Brooklyn. Rain against the window. A woman laughing too loudly at her own joke.
Silver-blonde hair cut to her shoulders. Black boots. A leather jacket. No crown. No guards. No dragon. No sorrow ancient enough to bend a kingdom around it.
Only Rhaenyra.
Only she did not know she was Rhaenyra.
She was Rhea here.
That was what the barista called out.
“Rhea?”
The woman lifted a hand. “That’s me.”
Mysaria had looked up from her tea and felt two lifetimes collide inside her chest.
Rhaenyra Targaryen walked to the counter, accepted an iced latte with too much caramel, and nearly dropped her phone into the pastry case.
“Oh my God,” she said, laughing. “Sorry. I’m a disaster.”
The barista laughed too.
Mysaria did not.
She sat very still, fingers wrapped around her cup until the tea went cold.
Rhaenyra was alive.
Rhaenyra was careless.
Rhaenyra was happy.
It was unbearable.
---
Mysaria did not speak to her that day.
She followed her.
Only for three blocks.
Then five.
Then all the way to a little independent bookstore with crooked shelves and a sleepy orange cat in the window.
It was foolish.
Mysaria had survived kings, pimps, spies, assassins, queens. She had crossed seas and buried names and learned not to chase ghosts.
But Rhaenyra was not a ghost.
She was standing in the history section, holding a book about medieval queens upside down.
Mysaria watched from behind a shelf.
Rhaenyra frowned at the book.
Then turned it right side up.
“Better,” she muttered.
Mysaria almost laughed.
Almost.
Instead, she left before Rhaenyra could see her.
That night, she dreamed of Dragonstone.
Of Rhaenyra’s hand closing around hers in candlelight.
Of a voice, low and fierce, saying, Stay.
Mysaria woke with her hand empty.
---
They met properly two weeks later.
Not by Mysaria’s design.
Or not entirely.
She told herself it was coincidence when she returned to the same bookstore. She told herself the rain had brought her there. She told herself many things. She had always been good at useful lies.
Rhaenyra was there again.
This time, she was sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the mythology shelf, surrounded by three books, a half-eaten croissant, and the same orange cat.
She looked up when Mysaria passed.
Their eyes met.
Rhaenyra smiled.
Bright.
Unarmored.
Mysaria forgot how to breathe.
“Hey,” Rhaenyra said. “Do you work here?”
“No.”
“Oh.” Rhaenyra looked around at the mess of books surrounding her. “Then I have less of an excuse for asking you where the Greek stuff is.”
Mysaria glanced at the shelf directly beside Rhaenyra’s shoulder.
Rhaenyra followed her gaze.
“Oh,” she said. “Great. So I’m thriving.”
Mysaria should have walked away.
Instead, she said, “You are sitting before it.”
“Yeah, I got that from the devastating silence.”
Mysaria looked at her.
Rhaenyra grinned.
Not queenly.
Not sharp.
Just playful.
“You have a very powerful judging face,” Rhaenyra said.
“I have been told.”
“By people who survived it?”
“Not all.”
Rhaenyra laughed.
The sound struck Mysaria like a hand over an old wound.
She remembered another laugh. Rarer. Lower. Hidden in war rooms and stolen rooms and the space between decisions. A laugh that had always carried exhaustion beneath it.
This one did not.
This laugh had slept eight hours. This laugh had never watched a son die. This laugh had never been taught that joy was something one must steal before the next raven arrived.
Mysaria stood there, undone by it.
Rhaenyra tilted her head. “I’m Rhea.”
“I know.”
The words escaped before Mysaria could stop them.
Rhaenyra blinked.
Mysaria recovered. “The barista said your name.”
“Oh.” Rhaenyra’s smile returned. “Right. Coffee shop. You were there.”
Mysaria’s pulse tightened.
“You remember?”
“You look memorable.”
There it was.
Careless again.
Kind.
Dangerous in a new way.
Mysaria looked away. “Mysaria.”
Rhaenyra repeated it softly, as if tasting the shape of it.
“Mysaria,” she said. “That’s beautiful.”
Once, Rhaenyra had said her name like a secret.
Like a command.
Like a plea.
Now she said it like something she had just found and liked at once.
Mysaria’s chest hurt.
“You may call me Missy,” she said.
Rhaenyra’s face brightened. “Can I?”
Mysaria paused.
In the old life, names had been armor. Mysaria had collected and discarded them as needed. White Worm. Mistress of Whisperers. Whore. Spy. Traitor. Savior, on rare occasions and usually from people who wanted something.
Missy was a name from this life.
Small. Ordinary. Chosen.
Rhaenyra waited.
No demand.
No entitlement.
Mysaria said, “Yes.”
Rhaenyra smiled.
“Okay, Missy,” she said. “Will you help me not embarrass myself in front of mythology?”
Mysaria looked down at the mess of books.
Then at Rhaenyra, sitting on the floor with crumbs on her jacket and sunlight in her hair.
A queen had once asked Mysaria for secrets.
This woman asked for a book recommendation.
Mysaria sat beside her.
---
Dating Rhaenyra Targaryen had been like standing beside a dragon and pretending not to feel the heat.
Dating Rhea Targaryen was like being caught in weather.
She was everywhere.
Texting at impossible hours.
Sending pictures of dogs she saw on the street.
Leaving voice notes that began with one subject and ended four subjects later with the words, “Anyway, I think I bought a lamp.”
She liked ugly mugs, dramatic coats, spicy food she could not handle, and making pancakes at midnight.
She sang badly in the shower.
She cried at documentaries.
She forgot her keys twice a week.
She laughed with her whole body.
Mysaria did not know what to do with any of it.
At first, she kept waiting for the darkness.
For the shadow to pass over Rhaenyra’s face.
For the old hunger.
The old wound.
The grief that had once sat behind her eyes even in joy, like smoke behind stained glass.
But this Rhaenyra had not been shaped by war.
She had not been taught that love must be defended with teeth. She had not learned to turn every room into a battlefield. She had not been crowned too young, abandoned too often, bereaved too deeply.
She was still proud.
Still stubborn.
Still extravagant with emotion.
Still capable of making a simple brunch reservation feel like a declaration of conquest.
But she was light.
That was the thing Mysaria could not get used to.
Rhea was light.
One Sunday morning, Mysaria woke in Rhea’s apartment to the sound of music and cursing.
She found Rhea in the kitchen, barefoot, wearing an oversized T-shirt and standing before a smoking pan.
“Do not come in,” Rhea said immediately.
Mysaria leaned against the doorway. “Why?”
“Because I’m creating.”
“You are burning.”
“Art requires sacrifice.”
“The sacrifice appears to be breakfast.”
Rhea pointed a spatula at her. “I was making you eggs.”
Mysaria looked at the pan.
“No, you were not.”
“I intended eggs.”
“That is not the same.”
Rhea looked down at the blackened thing in the pan.
Then back at Mysaria.
Then, inexplicably, began to laugh.
Mysaria stared.
Rhea laughed harder, one hand over her mouth, shoulders shaking.
“I wanted to be romantic,” she said, still laughing. “I watched a video. The woman in the video made it look extremely achievable.”
Mysaria felt something inside her go soft and afraid.
Once, Rhaenyra had given gifts like a queen.
Rooms. Jewels. Protection. Secrets. Access. Dangerous mercy.
This Rhaenyra burned eggs and laughed at herself.
Mysaria crossed the kitchen and turned off the stove.
Rhea was still smiling when Mysaria took the spatula from her hand.
“You are not a cook,” Mysaria said.
“No.”
“Nor subtle.”
“Also no.”
“Nor quiet.”
Rhea smiled. “Definitely no.”
Mysaria should have said something cutting.
Instead, she touched the flour dusting Rhea’s cheek.
“You are happy,” she said.
Rhea’s expression shifted.
Not away from happiness.
Deeper into it.
“Yeah,” she said softly. “I am.”
The answer opened something in Mysaria that had been locked for centuries.
She kissed her.
Rhea made a surprised sound, then kissed her back, warm hands finding Mysaria’s waist.
The kitchen smelled terrible.
The smoke alarm began to scream.
Rhea pulled back and burst out laughing again.
Mysaria, against all sense, laughed too.
---
It took Mysaria months to stop flinching from happiness.
Not visibly.
She was too disciplined for that.
But inside.
Every time Rhea loved her easily, something in Mysaria stepped back.
When Rhea bought two toothbrushes without asking.
When she said, “Come over tonight,” as if expecting yes but not demanding it.
When she introduced Mysaria to her friends not as a useful woman, or a secret, or a person whose loyalty had been earned through pain, but simply as “Missy, my girlfriend.”
My girlfriend.
Mysaria had nearly dropped her wine.
Rhea noticed.
Of course she did.
Later, on the walk home, Rhea bumped their shoulders together.
“Was that okay?”
Mysaria looked at her. “What?”
“Girlfriend.”
The city glowed around them. Neon signs. Wet pavement. Cars moving slowly through rain. A world with no ravens, no torches, no dragon-shadows crossing the moon.
Mysaria slipped her hands into her coat pockets.
“It was accurate.”
Rhea laughed softly. “That’s not an answer.”
“It is one.”
“It’s a very Missy answer.”
Mysaria glanced at her. “And what is that?”
“Technically true. Emotionally evasive.”
Mysaria stopped walking.
Rhea stopped too.
For one sharp second, old instinct rose.
This was how Rhaenyra had always been dangerous too.
She saw.
Not everything. Not at once. But enough. Always enough to make hiding more difficult.
Rhea’s face softened.
“Hey,” she said. “I’m not mad.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Mysaria looked at her.
Rhea stepped closer, careful but not timid.
“I can call you something else if girlfriend feels too much.”
Mysaria gave a quiet laugh. “You are very generous with titles.”
“I have many ideas.”
“I fear them.”
“You should.” Rhea smiled. “Beloved menace is on the list.”
Despite herself, Mysaria smiled.
Rhea’s hand brushed hers.
A question.
Mysaria let her take it.
Rhea’s fingers were warm.
“I liked it,” Mysaria said.
Rhea’s smile went soft.
“Girlfriend?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
“And Missy.”
Rhea’s thumb moved over her knuckles. “Yeah?”
“Yes.”
Mysaria looked at their joined hands.
In another life, Rhaenyra had held her hand in secret rooms, in council shadows, in beds where the crown had always been present even when set aside.
This was different.
No one stared. No one bowed. No one calculated.
They were two women holding hands on a rainy sidewalk.
Equal in the eyes of the world because the world did not know them.
Mysaria had never imagined equality could feel so ordinary.
So quiet.
So devastating.
---
The first time Mysaria told her, it was not planned.
She had planned it many times.
In careful versions.
Soft versions.
Cruel versions.
Versions where she told everything and Rhea did not believe her. Versions where Rhea believed and broke under the weight. Versions where old memories came rushing back and ruined the very thing Mysaria loved most about this life.
Her light.
Her freedom.
Her self untouched by fire.
Mysaria never spoke.
Until summer.
Until a beach house rented for three days because Rhea had said, “I want to go somewhere with terrible cell reception and excessive snacks.”
Until sunset.
Until Rhea fell asleep on a blanket beside her, sun-warmed and peaceful, one hand resting open between them.
Mysaria sat watching the tide.
And remembered another shore.
A hidden cove.
A dragon in the grass.
A queen with silver hair saying, I wanted there to be a place in the world where no one asks anything of you.
Rhea stirred.
Opened her eyes.
Smiled sleepily.
“Hi,” she said.
Mysaria’s heart broke so gently she almost did not notice.
“Hello.”
Rhea rolled onto her side. “You’re doing the faraway thing.”
Mysaria looked back at the water.
“Yes.”
“Old life stuff?”
Mysaria went still.
Rhea sat up.
“I mean…” She rubbed at her eyes. “Not literally old life. Unless you’re secretly immortal, which honestly would explain your posture.”
Mysaria almost laughed.
Could have deflected.
Should have.
Instead, she said, “I remember you.”
Rhea blinked.
Then smiled uncertainly. “From the coffee shop?”
“No.”
The tide moved in, silver under the sun.
Mysaria’s voice was steady. That surprised her.
“From before.”
Rhea did not speak.
Mysaria continued, “Another life.”
A gull cried overhead.
Rhea watched her face and did not laugh.
That was the first mercy.
“You were not called Rhea,” Mysaria said. “Not then.”
“What was I called?”
Mysaria looked at her.
“Rhaenyra.”
The name passed between them like flame.
Rhea repeated it softly.
“Rhaenyra.”
No recognition.
Only curiosity.
Mysaria felt grief and relief arrive together.
“You were a queen,” she said.
Rhea’s eyes widened a little.
“I was?”
“Yes.”
“Was I good?”
Mysaria closed her eyes.
That question.
So simple.
So impossible.
When she opened them, Rhea was still waiting.
Not anxious for glory.
Not hungry for reassurance.
Only asking.
Mysaria answered honestly.
“You tried.”
Rhea’s expression softened.
“That sounds sad.”
“It was.”
“Were you there?”
“Yes.”
“Were we…” Rhea hesitated. “Together?”
Mysaria looked down at the blanket.
“In ways we did not always have words for.”
Rhea was quiet for a long time.
Then she said, “Did I hurt you?”
Mysaria’s breath caught.
There she was.
Not memory.
Not recognition.
But something essential.
The same heart, perhaps, asking the same question in a kinder world.
Mysaria looked at her.
“Yes,” she said.
Rhea’s face fell.
“And I hurt you,” Mysaria continued. “And the world hurt us both. And power hurt everything it touched.”
Rhea swallowed.
Mysaria reached for her hand.
Rhea gave it immediately.
“But this is not that life,” Mysaria said.
Rhea’s fingers tightened.
“No?”
“No.”
Mysaria looked at her: this woman with sand on her calf, sunglasses tangled in her hair, a half-empty bag of chips beside her, eyes full of concern for a grief she did not remember causing.
“No crown,” Mysaria said.
Rhea gave a small, shaky smile. “Thank God. I would look weird in a crown.”
“You would not.”
“No?”
“You would look terrible in how well it suited you.”
Rhea was quiet.
Mysaria’s voice softened. “That was the problem.”
The sun lowered further. Gold over water. Gold in Rhea’s hair.
Rhea looked down at their joined hands.
“Do you want me to remember?”
Mysaria had imagined this question.
Dreaded it.
The answer came more easily than expected.
“No.”
Rhea looked up.
Mysaria’s eyes burned.
“No,” she repeated. “I want you free of it.”
Rhea’s lips parted slightly.
“I have spent all this time waiting for the darkness to find you,” Mysaria said. “For grief to come back into your eyes. For power to demand you again. For old wounds to make themselves known.”
Her voice wavered.
“But you laugh at burned eggs. You cry at animal rescue videos. You forget your keys. You buy lamps because they are ugly and therefore deserve love.”
Rhea’s eyes filled.
Mysaria touched her cheek.
“You are happy,” she whispered. “And I have never seen anything more beautiful.”
Rhea covered Mysaria’s hand with her own.
“I don’t remember being her.”
“I know.”
“But I’m sorry she was sad.”
Mysaria’s face crumpled before she could stop it.
Only for a second.
But Rhea saw.
Rhea moved closer and wrapped her arms around her.
Mysaria let herself be held.
That was still the miracle.
Not dragons.
Not reincarnation.
Not impossible memory.
This.
Being held by Rhaenyra Targaryen as an equal. Not a servant, not an informant, not a secret ally, not a woman half in shadow beside a throne.
Just Missy.
Just Rhea.
Two women on a beach, crying quietly while the sun set and the chips went stale.
Rhea kissed her temple.
“I don’t remember,” she said. “But I’m here.”
Mysaria closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
“And I’m happy.”
“Yes.”
“And I love you.”
Mysaria stopped breathing.
Rhea held her tighter.
“I know that part,” she whispered. “I don’t need another life for that.”
Mysaria turned her face into Rhea’s neck.
For once, she did not answer cleverly.
For once, she did not make grief elegant.
She simply held on.
---
After that, things changed.
Not terribly.
Not dramatically.
Rhea did not suddenly become haunted by dreams. She did not start speaking High Valyrian in her sleep. She did not wake with a queen’s sorrow behind her eyes.
She remained Rhea.
But she knew now.
Enough.
Sometimes, she asked questions.
Small ones.
“Did I have siblings?”
“Yes.”
“Was I annoying?”
“Deeply.”
“Hot?”
“Insufferably.”
“Good. Some things are soul-deep.”
Mysaria would roll her eyes, and Rhea would look delighted with herself.
Other times, she asked harder things.
“Did you love me then?”
Mysaria always paused.
Then answered, “Yes.”
Rhea never asked if Mysaria loved her more now.
Perhaps she already knew.
Or perhaps she was kinder than a queen had ever had time to be.
One evening, months later, they stood together in Rhea’s apartment assembling a bookshelf.
Rhea had bought it secondhand and insisted they could build it without instructions.
This proved false.
After forty-five minutes, the bookshelf leaned dramatically to one side.
Mysaria stood back. “It has the posture of a dying lord.”
Rhea crouched on the floor with a screwdriver in her mouth. “Do not insult our child.”
“Our child is structurally unsound.”
“Our child is trying.”
“It will kill someone.”
“Probably me.”
“Then I forbid it.”
Rhea looked up, smiling.
The lamp behind her was ugly.
The kitchen still smelled faintly of garlic from dinner.
Rain tapped against the window.
No crown.
No council.
No dragon.
No darkness.
Only Rhea on the floor, hair falling into her face, grinning up at Mysaria as if happiness was not a thing one had to earn by bleeding first.
Mysaria sat down beside her.
Rhea handed her a screw. “You look emotional.”
“I am judging the craftsmanship.”
“You are emotionally judging the craftsmanship.”
Mysaria took the screw. “You are impossible.”
Rhea leaned over and kissed her cheek.
“Yeah, but now I’m your impossible.”
Mysaria stilled.
Rhea noticed and softened.
“Too much?”
“No.”
“Okay?”
Mysaria looked at her.
In the old life, she had never quite belonged beside Rhaenyra.
No matter how close they came, there had always been the throne. Rank. Blood. War. The terrible imbalance of a queen and the woman who knew too many secrets.
But here, Rhea sat on the floor of a rented apartment, holding a screwdriver, asking if a phrase was too much.
Here, Mysaria could say yes.
Could say no.
Could leave.
Could stay.
Could be loved without being useful.
Could love without kneeling.
She leaned forward and kissed Rhea slowly.
Rhea smiled into it.
The bookshelf creaked ominously beside them.
Mysaria pulled back. “If it falls, I will blame you.”
“It’s definitely going to fall.”
“You admit this?”
“I’m carefree now.”
Mysaria laughed.
Rhea’s face lit up.
“There,” Rhea said softly.
“What?”
“You laughed like you forgot to be careful.”
Mysaria’s heart turned over.
Rhea reached for her hand.
Mysaria gave it.
Once, Rhaenyra had been a dragon queen.
Now she was a woman who burned toast, bought ugly lamps, loved too openly, and tried to build unstable furniture.
Once, Mysaria had loved her through war.
Now she loved her through grocery lists, lazy Sundays, terrible singing, and quiet mornings where no one demanded anything of either of them.
It was less grand.
It was more holy.
The bookshelf finally collapsed at two in the morning.
Rhea laughed so hard she cried.
Mysaria, sitting amid screws and wooden planks and the ruins of their domestic ambition, found herself laughing too.
Happy.
Truly, foolishly, dangerously happy.
Rhea looked at her across the wreckage.
“Missy?”
“Yes?”
“Do you think she would like me?”
Mysaria did not ask who.
She knew.
She looked at Rhea: bright, ridiculous, alive.
Then she smiled.
“I think,” Mysaria said slowly, “she would envy you.”
Rhea’s face softened.
“And I think,” Mysaria added, crawling carefully over a fallen shelf plank to reach her, “she would be very glad you exist.”
Rhea touched her face.
“Are you?”
Mysaria kissed her palm.
“Yes.”
No hesitation.
No old fear.
“Yes,” she said again. “Every day.”
Rhea smiled.
The bookshelf lay dead beside them.
The ugly lamp glowed.
Rain softened the city outside.
And Mysaria, who remembered fire, discovered that happiness could be remembered too.
Not from before.
From now.