Daemon stepped forward slowly.
Not like a man looking to intimidate children, and not like a prince asserting authority, but like a swordsman testing the balance of a blade he already suspected was true. Dark Sister hung loose in his hand for a heartbeat before he slid it back into its sheath with deliberate care.
"If you're lying," Daemon said, voice even, eyes fixed on the three of them, "you'll hang before the sun sets."
Bellatrix grinned.
Daemon's gaze flicked to her, unimpressed. "If you're telling the truth," he continued, "then you'll answer something only one man alive should know."
The hall leaned in without realizing it. Even Viserys held his breath.
Daemon's eyes hardened. "What's the score between me and Jeanyx. Sparring. No tourneys. No spectators. Just steel."
For half a second, there was silence.
Then Bellatrix practically bounced on her heels.
"Oh! Oh! I know this one!"
Sirius shot her a look. "Bellatrix—"
"It's tied!" she blurted, unable to stop herself, eyes bright with almost childish delight. "One hundred and forty-nine to one hundred and forty-nine. Papa says you never let him forget the last bout because he slipped in gravel and you still counted it as a win."
The sound Dark Sister made as Daemon's fingers tightened around the hilt was soft, but final.
He stared at Bellatrix for a long moment, searching her face for cracks, for tells, for the slightest hint of rehearsed deceit.
There were none.
Daemon exhaled, a shaky breath he hadn't realized he was holding, and sheathed the blade fully.
"That's true," he said quietly.
The room erupted into murmurs, but Daemon lifted a hand and they died instantly.
"Only three people knew that score," he went on. "Me. Jeanyx." His jaw tightened. "And Ser Nathan."
A ripple of recognition moved through the older knights. Nathan had been dead four years, his grave marked by a dragonstone cairn.
Daemon stepped back, giving the three of them space, and nodded once.
"They're telling the truth."
Viserys sagged.
Not dramatically. Not like a man losing composure. Like a man who had been carrying a weight on his chest for years and finally felt it lift. He stood from the Iron Throne, hands trembling slightly as he descended the steps, eyes never leaving the Marauders.
"So he lives," Viserys said, more to himself than anyone else.
Daemon didn't look at him, but he heard it all the same.
Viserys stopped a few paces from them. "Then answer me this," he said, voice thick. "Where is my brother."
Sirius answered without hesitation.
"He lives in his castle. On an island."
The word rippled through the hall.
"Not deep in the Shivering Sea," Sirius continued calmly, "but close enough that most maps pretend it isn't there. It's the true homeland of the First Men. Where they lived before they ever crossed into Westeros."
The northern lords stirred, disbelief giving way to something closer to awe.
"That's impossible," someone muttered.
"The First Men came from Essos," another said.
Rickon Stark hadn't spoken yet.
Now he did.
His eyes narrowed, sharp and cold. "You said Jeanyx lives there… with his children."
The word landed heavy.
Sirius met Rickon's gaze evenly. "Yes."
Silence stretched.
Rickon's voice came low and dangerous. "The only children known to be his were born at Winterfell."
Regulus' expression didn't change, but something in his posture sharpened.
"Those aren't the only ones," he said.
Bellatrix tilted her head, smiling faintly. "Not even close."
The room felt suddenly smaller, tighter, as realization crept in piece by piece.
Viserys swallowed. "Children," he repeated. "Plural."
Sirius nodded. "He's built a life. A family." His eyes flicked briefly toward the Iron Throne, then away. "One he intends to protect."
Rickon Stark's jaw clenched, mind racing ahead to implications he didn't yet dare voice.
Daemon looked at the three of them again, really looked this time, and for the first time since they'd arrived there was something like pride in his eyes.
"He always did go too far," Daemon muttered.
Daemon Targaryen was many things, and stupid had never been one of them.
Prideful, yes. Arrogant to a degree that bordered on art. Reckless enough that half the realm whispered his name like a curse and the other half like a prayer. But beneath all of that lived a mind sharp enough to cut stone. If Daemon had ever wanted the chains of a maester, he could have earned them in months, not years. He read obsessively when something caught his interest, dissected tactics, histories, languages, and theories with a hunger most men never noticed because he preferred a sword in his hand to a quill. His greatest flaw was never a lack of intelligence, only that his pride and impatience often strangled it before it could fully breathe.
And right now, with Dark Sister locked in an iron grip at his side, that mind was spiraling.
In the span of minutes, his entire world had tilted.
His little brother, the only person besides Caraxes who had ever truly understood him without judgment, without fear, without expectation, was alive. Not merely alive, but powerful in ways Daemon had spent a lifetime obsessing over. Real magic. Not the hollow pageantry of court sorcerers or the brittle rituals Valyria had left behind like bones picked clean. Magic that froze armies, bent shadows, reshaped steel, and terrified gods.
And standing before him were three children who should not exist here.
Three noble children whose disappearance had nearly torn the Riverlands apart, whose absence had haunted councils and ravens and quiet conversations for six long years. Children who now spoke with confidence, power, and a terrifying certainty that only came from being raised by someone who did not fear the world.
By being raised by Jeanyx.
Daemon's jaw tightened as he stared at them again, really stared this time. They weren't bluffing. Their posture, their discipline, the way they moved without ever fully relaxing, it screamed training. Not knightly drills. Not courtly polish. Something older. Sharper.
Something closer to war.
And then there was the last revelation, the one that refused to settle no matter how many times his mind circled it.
Children.
Plural.
More than the Stark-born ones whispered about in half-forgotten rumors. More than the ghosts Winterfell never spoke of aloud.
Jeanyx had children. Several of them.
That alone made Daemon's thoughts stutter.
His brother had hated children. Not disliked, not been indifferent. Hated. They were loud, demanding, messy things that disrupted thought and order. The only exception had ever been Rhaenyra, and even then Jeanyx treated her like a clever little dragonling rather than a child, teaching her how to think, how to watch, how to never be small even when the world wanted her to be.
Daemon remembered it clearly. The way Jeanyx would tolerate no other children near him, how he'd flinch at shrill laughter, how he'd vanish from feasts the moment babies were brought in.
And now this same man had built a life around them.
Not just tolerated them. Chosen them.
Daemon felt something unfamiliar twist in his chest.
Jeanyx had always had rules for the world. Quiet, inflexible ones. He despised waste. Hated cruelty without purpose. Had no patience for weakness masquerading as virtue. And above all, he had one iron law Daemon had learned early and never forgotten.
Blood mattered.
Family mattered.
Everyone else was optional.
And suddenly it made sense in a way that unsettled Daemon far more than any threat ever could.
Jeanyx didn't hate children.
He hated children that weren't his.
The realization struck like a blade sliding between ribs, slow and precise. All those years, all that distance, all that silence. Jeanyx hadn't run from responsibility. He had run from being used. From being shaped into something he wasn't by kings, septons, and expectations that saw him as nothing more than a tool.
Daemon's grip on Dark Sister loosened slightly.
If Jeanyx had built a family, a real one, far from Westeros, far from the Iron Throne and its rot… then the man standing somewhere beyond the sea now was not the boy Daemon remembered.
He was something sharper.
And if these children were any indication, something far more dangerous.
For the first time in a very long while, Daemon Targaryen felt something close to weakness.
Not fear.
Anticipation.
The thought hit Daemon all at once, sharp and undeniable, cutting through the chaos in his mind like a blade finding a gap in armor.
He stepped forward before Viserys could speak again, before the court could drown itself in questions and fear.
"Is there a way," Daemon said, his voice steady despite the storm behind his eyes, "to contact my brother."
The words echoed through the throne room.
Every gaze snapped back to the three Blacks.
For a heartbeat, none of them answered.
Sirius and Bellatrix exchanged a look so fast it would have been missed by anyone not watching for it. No words passed between them, but something unspoken did. Then, in unison, they turned and stared at Regulus.
Regulus exhaled slowly, already knowing he had lost.
"Of course it has to be me," he muttered, rubbing his temple. Then, without another word, he moved to the center of the hall and sat down cross-legged on the cold stone.
Rickon Stark frowned. "What is the boy—"
"Shh," Bellatrix snapped without even looking at him. "He's trying to contact Papa."
That single word sent a ripple through the room.
Before anyone could react further, Viserys rose from the Iron Throne. When he spoke, it was not as a brother, but as a king.
"Silence."
His voice cracked like a whip.
Every lord, knight, and servant obeyed instantly. Steel slid back into scabbards. Whispers died in throats. Even the great hall itself seemed to hold its breath.
Regulus straightened his spine, closed his eyes, and placed his hands on his knees. His breathing slowed, then deepened, falling into a rhythm that felt… wrong, somehow. Not prayer. Not spellwork as the maesters described it. Something older. Something internal.
The air began to change.
At first it was subtle. A pressure behind the eyes. A faint ringing in the ears. Then the torches along the walls flickered, their flames bending inward as if drawn toward an unseen center.
The Blacks felt it first.
Sirius's breath caught as the familiar presence brushed against his mind, vast and cold and achingly known. Bellatrix grinned, sharp and feral, even as her fingers trembled. Regulus's jaw clenched, sweat beading at his brow as he pushed deeper.
Then the northern lords felt it.
Rickon Stark stiffened, the hairs on his arms rising as if winter itself had leaned close. Several men muttered prayers to the Old Gods without realizing they had begun.
And then the Targaryens felt it.
Daemon froze.
The sensation slammed into him like a memory he hadn't known he was missing. The air tasted faintly of frost and metal. Of moonlight on steel. Of something vast and coiled just beyond sight.
Viserys's knees nearly buckled. Rhaenyra clutched her mother's sleeve, eyes wide, breath shallow. Rhaenys pressed a hand to her chest, face pale.
Even the dragons outside roared.
Not in anger.
In recognition.
The magic surged.
Light bent inward at the center of the throne room, folding and refolding like glass being shaped by invisible hands. Shadows stretched unnaturally long, then snapped back. Frost spiderwebbed across the stone floor in a perfect circle.
And then—
Something flickered.
A silhouette formed, wavering, half-there and half-not. The outline sharpened slowly, painfully, until a figure stood where nothing had been moments before.
Semi-transparent. Pale as moonlight through ice.
Jeanyx Targaryen.
Gasps tore through the hall.
Some staggered back. Others dropped to their knees without realizing they had moved. A few simply stared, mouths open, minds blank.
He looked exactly as Daemon remembered—and nothing like he had left him.
Long silver-blond hair, partially tied back, the rest falling freely down his back. His frame was leaner, sharper, almost willowy, as if carved rather than grown. His features were softer now, echoing Alyssa Targaryen so strongly it made Viserys's chest ache.
His eyes opened.
Violet.
Cold.
Focused.
They swept the room in an instant, taking in banners, armor, faces, the Iron Throne itself. When his gaze landed on Regulus, there was the faintest softening, a thread of warmth breaking through the ice.
"Well," Jeanyx said, his voice echoing faintly, layered with something deeper beneath it, "that took longer than expected."
Daemon's breath left him in a single, broken sound.
"Brother," Daemon whispered, stepping forward before he could stop himself.
Jeanyx's eyes snapped to him.
For the first time since he appeared, something real crossed his face.
Recognition.
And something dangerously close to relief.
Jeanyx stared at Daemon as if committing him to memory all over again.
Not the reckless prince he remembered storming corridors with a blade on his shoulder and laughter on his lips—but this Daemon, older in the eyes, coiled tight with grief and fury both. For a breath, the projection wavered, the frost at Jeanyx's feet cracking faintly as if responding to something inside him.
"…you look like shit," Jeanyx said at last, tone dry, familiar, painfully normal.
The hall exhaled in disbelief.
Daemon laughed. It tore out of him raw and hoarse, half a bark, half a sob. He didn't realize he was moving until he was standing at the edge of the frost circle, hand outstretched, fingers trembling inches from a brother he could not touch.
"You vanished," Daemon said. "You died. Or worse. We searched—"
"I know." Jeanyx's voice softened, just a fraction. "I felt it. Every time you burned half the realm looking for answers."
Viserys took a step forward, crown forgotten, king utterly stripped away.
"Jeanyx," he breathed, voice breaking on the name. "Is it truly you?"
Jeanyx turned then, and the resemblance hit like a blade to the chest. The same eyes. The same blood. But where Viserys carried warmth and hesitation, Jeanyx held stillness—controlled, deliberate, heavy with something earned.
"It's me, Vis," he said gently. "Or close enough for now."
Rhaenyra couldn't stop herself. "For now?"
Jeanyx's gaze flicked to her, sharp but not unkind. "This isn't my body. Think of it as… knocking on the door instead of walking through it."
Regulus sucked in a sharp breath, fingers digging into his knees. A thin line of blood trickled from his nose, spattering onto the frost. Sirius was instantly at his side, gripping his shoulder, grounding him. Bellatrix's grin never faded, but her eyes burned bright and wet.
"Papa's busy," she said lightly to the room, like she wasn't staring at a miracle. "This is him being polite."
Jeanyx huffed. "You always were insufferable."
"And you missed me," Bellatrix shot back.
A corner of Jeanyx's mouth twitched.
The dragons outside roared again, closer this time, restless wings beating against the air. Jeanyx tilted his head, listening to something none of them could hear.
"…they know," he murmured. "Good."
Daemon's hand clenched into a fist. "Where are you?" he demanded. "What did they do to you?"
Jeanyx's violet eyes hardened, frost creeping outward another inch.
"They didn't do anything," he said quietly. "I chose this."
That landed harder than any shout.
Viserys shook his head. "You would not abandon us. Not without—"
"I didn't abandon you," Jeanyx cut in, and for the first time, steel edged his voice. "I stepped between the realm and something that would have swallowed it whole. This—" he gestured to his own half-formed body "—is the price of keeping the story intact."
Silence fell again, heavier than before.
Daemon stared at him, searching for cracks, for lies, for any excuse to drag him back by force if he had to.
"Can you come back?" Daemon asked, softer now. Not a prince. Not a warrior. Just a brother.
Jeanyx met his gaze and didn't look away.
Jeanyx held Daemon's gaze for a long moment after the question, the frost at his feet thickening instead of spreading, as if even the magic itself had chosen restraint.
"No," he said finally, calm and immovable. "Not like that."
Daemon's brow furrowed.
Jeanyx's eyes flicked briefly—just briefly—toward the northmen, toward Rickon Stark, toward something far beyond the walls of the Red Keep. When he spoke again, his voice carried weight, the kind earned through loss.
"After what's happened recently," he said, "I won't leave again. Not my city. Not my children. I won't strip their defenses bare a second time just to soothe the realm's nerves."
A murmur rolled through the hall, confusion and tension tangling together.
Rickon Stark snapped upright as if struck. "Your children?" he barked, outrage sharp and unfiltered. "And what of your trueborn children, Targaryen? What of them? Your blood, your responsibility—"
The words echoed far longer than Rickon likely intended.
Jeanyx turned to him slowly.
Not angrily.
Coldly.
Violet eyes fixed on Rickon like winter settling in bones.
"My responsibility," Jeanyx said evenly, "is to those who live under my protection. To the ones I raised, taught, and bled for. Blood alone has never made a parent worthy."
Rickon opened his mouth again—
—and stopped.
Because no one stood with him.
Daemon hadn't moved, but his posture had changed, coiled and dangerous. Rhaenys's expression had gone unreadable. Rhaenyra stared at Jeanyx with something like dawning comprehension, lips parted, thoughts racing.
And Viserys—
Viserys looked around the hall.
Really looked.
The banners. The armor. The faces that did not belong to the North or Old Valyria. Lords whispering too freely. Knights who had no business hearing what had just been said.
The king straightened.
"The court," Viserys said, voice carrying without strain, "is still in session."
Silence snapped into place.
He raised a hand.
"Only those of Northern blood and Valyrian descent are to remain," he declared. "All others are dismissed."
For a heartbeat, no one moved.
Then chairs scraped. Boots shuffled. Lords stiffened, bristling, but none dared argue. One by one, they filed out—eyes darting back toward the frost circle, toward the half-faded prince who had just redrawn the lines of power without lifting a hand.
The doors closed.
The throne room felt smaller after that. Quieter. Heavier.
Jeanyx exhaled slowly, the projection flickering faintly again as Regulus grimaced, pushing through the strain. Sirius steadied him. Bellatrix watched the doors like she'd dare them to reopen.
Jeanyx's gaze returned to Daemon.
"If you want me," he said, not unkindly, "you'll have to come to me."
The frost cracked softly beneath him.
"And when you do," he added, eyes sweeping the remaining faces, "come prepared to understand why I chose this."
Rhaenys was the first to move.
For a moment she hesitated, pride warring with something softer, something older. Then she stepped toward the frost-ring, her voice measured but not unkind.
"Cousin," she said, meeting Jeanyx's violet gaze. "I remember you. Faintly. We did not spend much time together… but I would understand." A pause. "Tell us about your children. Perhaps then we will see why you value them so fiercely."
The question hung there—careful, almost vulnerable.
Before Jeanyx could answer, Daemon spoke.
"Does there need to be a reason," he said flatly, eyes never leaving Jeanyx, "to guard one's own child? To know they are yours?" His mouth curved slightly, sharp as a blade. "If anyone should understand that, dear cousin, it would be you."
Rhaenys turned on him, glare cutting like Valyrian steel.
She didn't deny it.
Didn't need to.
The truth of it sat between them, heavy and uncomfortable. Her jaw tightened, pride refusing to yield even as she knew Daemon was right.
Viserys cleared his throat, the sound gentle but deliberate, a king smoothing the edge of a blade before it cut too deep.
"What my cousin means," he said carefully, "is that we wished to understand what kept you away for so long."
Jeanyx regarded them all for a moment.
Then he nodded once.
"Very well."
His projection steadied, the frost brightening faintly as if responding to memory rather than magic.
"My heir," he said, without hesitation, "is Arya."
Rickon Stark scoffed sharply. "You already have an heir," he snapped. "His name is Eddard."
Jeanyx didn't look at him.
"Until those children stand before me," Jeanyx replied evenly, "I will not claim them. Not in name. Not in blood."
The words were final, not cruel—just absolute.
He continued as though uninterrupted.
"Arya," he said, and something warmer entered his voice, "was wild from the moment she was born. She never cried to be comforted—she commanded." A faint smile tugged at his lips. "Even as a babe, she ruled the room like a queen who simply expected obedience."
Daemon's brows lifted slightly.
"As she grew," Jeanyx went on, "the mischief showed itself. She followed her own rhythm, always. Loudly. Publicly declared she would never be a lady." His eyes flicked to Rhaenyra for half a heartbeat. "Demanded I teach her swordsmanship."
A soft chuckle rippled through the remaining court.
"She has as much promise as Daemon or I did at that age," Jeanyx said quietly. "And twice the will."
He paused, then continued.
"Then there is Alysanne."
Rhaenyra blinked. "Like the Good Queen?"
"Yes," Jeanyx said gently. "And for a reason, child."
His gaze softened.
"She alone inherited the classic silver-blond hair," he said. "All the rest carry my lilac eyes—save my son Thor." A breath. "Alysanne is… extraordinary."
Viserys leaned forward slightly without realizing it.
"She understood concepts I struggled with at her age," Jeanyx said. "Things you or Daemon would not have grasped so young. Every lesson I taught her, she absorbed. Inventing fascinates her—though she's too young to truly assist, she watches everything, asks the right questions."
A beat.
"And she is kind," he added, voice lowering. "Genuinely. She visits orphans. The elderly. On weekends she brings them food herself. No guards. No spectacle." His eyes closed briefly. "She is the sort of soul the world tries very hard to break."
Silence settled, reverent.
"And then," Jeanyx said, opening his eyes again, "there are Loki and Thor."
Daemon snorted softly. "Of course there are."
Jeanyx almost smiled.
"They are… a mixture of all three of us," he said. "Thor is kind. Caring. Proud to a fault." A pause. "Dangerously so."
"And Loki," he continued, voice turning dry, "is quiet. Cunning. Mischief is his favorite language." A faint shake of his head. "I've lost count of how many times I've made him scrub paint from houses after turning them ridiculous colors. Or dyeing the lake."
Bellatrix laughed openly.
The frost at Jeanyx's feet shimmered—not with cold, but with memory—and for the first time, no one in the room questioned why he would not leave them unguarded again.
Jeanyx's attention drifted, not because the room had grown dull, but because something tugged at him in a way no council, no dragon, no crown ever could. His violet eyes narrowed slightly, focus sharpening beyond the faces of kings and cousins, past banners and torchlight, until it settled on a shadow that did not quite belong.
Behind one of the great stone pillars, half-hidden and very deliberately still, a small figure watched.
A little girl.
She couldn't have been more than four or five, dark lashes peeking over the curve of the pillar as if she thought stone alone could shield her from being seen. And yet—Jeanyx felt it instantly, a quiet, almost painful familiarity that struck deeper than blood recognition ever had.
She looked like him.
No—she looked like them.
Like Alyssa Targaryen.
The resemblance was uncanny. The same sharp cheekbones softened by youth, the same silver-blond hair catching torchlight like spun moonfire, the same eyes—violet, bright, observant—far too old for someone so small. From the few surviving paintings of his childhood, Jeanyx knew that face intimately. He had worn it once. So had his mother.
For a heartbeat, the projection wavered.
Daemon noticed.
He followed Jeanyx's gaze, then stilled. His expression shifted—not into surprise, but something quieter, protective. He turned slightly and spoke, his voice gentler than anyone in the room was used to hearing.
"Aelyssara," he said. "Come here."
The girl startled, clearly debating the wisdom of obeying. Then she peeked out fully, saw Daemon's open hand, and padded forward on soft steps, clutching the hem of her dress like a lifeline. She stopped beside him, eyes darting up at the frost-ring, at the shimmering figure within it, curiosity warring with shyness.
Daemon rested a hand on her shoulder.
"This," he said, pride unmistakable beneath the roughness, "is Aelyssara Targaryen. My daughter."
The room reacted all at once—sharp intakes of breath, widened eyes, Rhaenyra's head snapping up in disbelief—but Jeanyx heard none of it.
He was staring at the child.
Then he laughed.
A quiet sound, incredulous and almost warm, like ice cracking under spring sun.
"…you finally got along with the Bronze Bitch?" Jeanyx asked.
Daemon clicked his tongue, offended more on principle than sentiment. "Tsk."
He glanced down at Aelyssara, fingers tightening just slightly on her shoulder, then looked back up at his brother.
"I was drunk," Daemon said plainly. "Depressed. You vanished, the world felt wrong, and I made a spectacularly poor decision." A pause. Then, softer, honest. "But I don't regret it."
He looked down again, and this time his voice changed.
"She's mine. And I wouldn't trade her for the realm."
Jeanyx's expression shifted, something deep and understanding settling into place. He nodded once.
"Fair," he said. "Daughters have a way of finding the cracks in a man's armor."
Aelyssara tilted her head, studying the glowing man with open curiosity now. She took one cautious step forward, just enough to test the frost's edge, eyes shining.
"You're pretty," she said matter-of-factly.
Daemon froze.
Bellatrix snorted.
Jeanyx blinked—and then smiled, truly smiled, the expression transforming his face into something achingly familiar.
"And you," he said gently, voice softening in a way that made Viserys's throat tighten, "are dangerous."
Aelyssara beamed, clearly taking it as a compliment.
Jeanyx's gaze lingered on her, recognition blooming fully now—not just of blood, but of legacy, of the strange, unbroken thread that bound them all together despite distance, war, and time.
"Yes," he murmured, more to himself than the room. "Daughters really are the key to a father's heart."
The frost hummed softly, the magic straining, but Jeanyx did not look away as if afraid that, if he did, the moment might vanish just like he once had.
The thought came to Jeanyx suddenly, clear and practical, cutting through the warmth of the moment like a blade laid gently on a table.
"You could come to me," he said, almost casually, though the words carried weight. "Daemon. Rhaenys. Fly to my island."
The reaction was immediate.
Corlys Velaryon stepped forward, jaw tightening. "Absolutely not—"
"Enough."
Viserys raised his hand, not loudly, not angrily, but with the quiet authority that reminded everyone why he sat the Iron Throne. Corlys stopped mid-sentence, lips pressing into a thin line, frustration contained but very much alive.
Viserys looked back to Jeanyx, then to Daemon, his expression thoughtful rather than fearful.
"It may be the best course," Viserys said slowly. "I do not know how far this island of yours lies, brother… but I will not have my youngest brother stand alone without the company of his family longer than necessary."
Daemon didn't hesitate.
"I'll go," he said immediately, as if the decision had already been made the moment Jeanyx spoke. "If he's standing at the edge of the world, I'd rather be there with him than waiting on a throne room floor."
Viserys nodded once, then turned to Rhaenys. His voice softened, the king giving way to the man.
"Cousin," he said. "Can you do me this favor?"
Rhaenys barely let him finish.
She waved it off with a dismissive flick of her hand, chin lifting slightly. "Family is not a favor, Viserys." Her gaze shifted to Jeanyx, steady and sincere. "And he is my cousin as well."
Something eased in the room at that.
Before Viserys could speak again—
"I want to go too!"
Rhaenyra's voice cut through the hall, sharp and unyielding.
Aemma reached for her instantly, fingers catching at her sleeve. "Rhaenyra—"
But the princess twisted free, eyes blazing, that unmistakable Targaryen fire burning bright. For twelve years old, she carried herself like someone twice her age and half as patient.
"He's my uncle," Rhaenyra said, chin lifted defiantly. "I have a right to see him."
Daemon, Viserys, and even Rhaenys raised their eyebrows in near-perfect unison.
Jeanyx studied her, really looked at her, seeing the stubborn set of her jaw, the unyielding spark behind her eyes. He exhaled softly.
"And is Syrax strong enough?" he asked, not unkindly, but honestly. "My island lies deep in the Shivering Sea. Skagos and Braavos are the nearest neighbors… and neither is close."
The room went still.
That was no short flight.
Rhaenyra didn't blink.
"I can fly with Cousin Rhaenys," she said immediately, voice firm, almost daring anyone to contradict her. "Meleys can carry the distance."
Aemma opened her mouth to argue—
—but Rhaenys spoke first.
"She can," Rhaenys said calmly. "And she will."
Aemma stared at her in disbelief. "Rhaenys—"
"She is a dragonrider," Rhaenys replied, turning slightly, her tone gentle but resolute. "And this is family business."
Jeanyx's lips curved faintly, something between amusement and approval.
"Very well," he said. "But understand this—once you cross the Shivering Sea, there is no turning back halfway. Not for weather. Not for fear."
Rhaenyra met his gaze without hesitation.
"Good," she said. "I don't turn back."
Daemon laughed quietly under his breath, pride unmistakable.
The frost shimmered brighter for a moment, the projection beginning to strain again as Regulus shifted, breathing hard. Jeanyx glanced at him briefly, then back to his family.
"Prepare yourselves," Jeanyx said. "The journey will not be kind… but it will be worth it."
And for the first time since his disappearance, the path between Jeanyx Targaryen and his blood was no longer theoretical.
It was set.