Viserys's voice shook, not with frailty but with the raw edge of anger poorly held in check. He had invested no small effort into this royal progress, sending ravens to half the realm, promising favors where he must, calling in old loyalties long left dormant.
It was meant to be a display of unity and royal presence.
And then his daughter had simply ignored him… and flown back on her own whim.
"The tourney at Harrenhal has already ended," Rhaenyra insisted, chin lifting in defiance. "When word from the Stepstones reached us, I returned at once. I stopped only long enough to take Syrax to Tidehead Island. Nothing was delayed."
Viserys knew when his daughter was trying to soothe him. She might claim urgency, but she had made her choice: she had returned, and she had no intention of leaving again.
"Hmph."
He dismissed her with a sharp snort and turned away, returning to the quieter conversation he had been having with Princess Rhaenys.
"I heard you sent Daemon's boy out of King's Landing?" Rhaenys asked, her tone too mild to be truly casual. She had always kept an eye on the younger generation of their house, especially the eldest among them: Baelon.
"It wasn't an expulsion. I granted him lands," Viserys answered, already anticipating the next question.
Rhaenyra hurried over the moment she heard Baelon's name, eager to interject.
"Oh?"
Rhaenys hid a smile behind a slow, amused curve of her lips. Her niece was many things, clever, bold, beloved, but subtle she was not.
"After Baelon reached Harrenhal," Rhaenyra said, "he founded an order he calls the Eight Knights. And he held a grand ceremony to greet me." Her voice warmed with reluctant admiration. "Proper banners, heralds, oaths spoken before the whole keep. A child shouldn't have done it so well."
Rhaenyra began speaking quickly, eager to recount every detail: the immense black stones of Harrenhal, the disciplined arrangement of the Eight Knights, and even the moment Baelon had burned incriminating letters to ash with a single breath from his young dragon.
She spoke with excitement, unaware of the shadows her words cast.
She was still young, she saw only the spectacle.
But Rhaenys and Viserys had spent their lives navigating the narrow, perilous heights of power. They recognized immediately the political shape of Baelon's every move.
"Baelon has a keener mind than his father ever did," Rhaenys said with quiet amusement.
In her memory, if Daemon had faced so tangled a matter, he would have solved it by splitting a man's skull with Dark Sister, or setting an entire household alight with Caraxes's flame. He tolerated few inconveniences and even fewer intrigues.
But Baelon…
He stirred tensions deliberately, yet kept them carefully balanced. He seized the traitor Illis, broke him publicly, and then used him as a tool to steady Harrenhal. He strengthened his own seat with every step.
Those were the weapons of a king, not a warrior.
"Of course he's capable," Viserys said, straightening a little. "Who do you think taught him? Baelon grew up under my roof."
His pride slipped through every word, as though his nephew's achievements were an extension of his own.
"He should reach the island soon," Rhaenyra said, thoughtful now. "When I got back to King's Landing, his fleet had already left."
"It will take several more days," Viserys replied. "Ships can't match dragons, and the fleet must sail around the whole of the Crab Claw."
He had never led armies, but he knew the shape of his own realm. The route from Crab Bay to High Tide was no swift journey.
"Then the timing is fortunate. Laenor returns tomorrow. He's wounded and must rest. Laena will ride Vhagar in his stead and fly for the Stepstones."
"Laena?" Viserys blinked. "She has truly tamed Vhagar?"
"Yes," Rhaenys said, pride unmistakable. "At twelve years old, she won Vhagar through her own merit. She always said she would never ride a lesser dragon. I didn't believe her... until she proved me wrong."
Among the Targaryens of their generation, only Rhaenys had managed to see all her children bond dragons.
Viserys exhaled slowly, some of his temper fading beneath nostalgia. "Time moves too quickly. When Corlys proposed Laena to me, she stood no higher than my waist."
"This world belongs to the young," Rhaenys murmured. "And Rhaenyra has grown into a fine heir."
A gentle lie, perhaps, but one Viserys took pleasure in hearing.
"Come," he said at last. "Let the maesters tend to the rest."
At her gesture, servants moved to prepare chambers for their company.
Several Days Later, The Arrival of the Fleet
Baelon's fleet reached the shores of High Tide beneath a sky swirled with wind and sea-salt.
A roar shattered the morning air.
High above the ships, Tyraxes burst from the cloudbanks, blood-red from wingtip to talon, brighter even than Meleys's deep scarlet. Pride and violence burned in the young dragon's bones. Even on foreign shores alive with the scents of other dragons, Tyraxes did not descend quietly.
He announced himself like a storm.
The sound rolled across the island. More than once, sailors had sworn that a dragon's cry could be heard leagues before its wings became a shadow on the horizon.
Another roar answered.
And another.
And a third.
Everyone on the island heard them, fisherfolk, guards along the shore, and the dragons resting on the white sand.
Syrax, dozing in the warmth of the sun, lifted her golden head and cried out, a high, eager welcome.
Meleys answered with a thunderous bellow that shook the stones of the nearby cliffs.
The last voice belonged to pale Seasmoke, lighter, swifter, distinctly its own.
Tyraxes spiraled downward, wings slicing the wind, scales gleaming the vivid shade of fresh-spilled blood. The dragon's color caught every eye along the docks.
"Tyraxes is the finest red dragon I've ever seen," one of the islanders whispered. "Bright as blood before the air darkens it."
Only those familiar with death spoke of blood so knowingly.
"Just like his rider," Viserys said, half-smiling. "A handsome little fellow."
The fleet docked. Gangplanks thudded into place.
Baelon descended at once, boots hitting the pier before half his escort had time to disembark.
"Princess Rhaenys. Uncle Viserys."
He greeted them with the solemnity of a grown man, not a boy of six. Within Highpeak Castle, he sought them immediately, he needed information, and they alone possessed it.
"We're glad you came," Rhaenys said, a hint of guilt clouding her expression. "It should have been us, the old relics, who answered this war. Not the children."
Baelon bowed his head slightly. His right hand still smelled faintly of wind and dragon-leather.
"It is all right, Princess Rhaenys. For the realm… and to support my father… As a Targaryen, and as Lord of Harrenhal, it is my duty to stand and fight."
Fine words, Viserys thought. Words any lordling might recite.
But spoken from the lips of a six-year-old child?
They carried a weight far beyond their size.
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A/N:The war begins here. If you think you know what comes next, you don't. BUT It's already waiting in the chapters ahead.
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