Rhaenyra felt the heat of shame rise in her cheeks.
She was the king’s favorite daughter.
She had been educated by the finest tutors in the realm and the Citadel.
In matters of intelligence and politics she should have outstripped her little brother by leagues.
Yet the simplest chain of cause and effect had never once entered her head.
It was mortifying.
She took Baelor’s face between her hands and kneaded his cheeks with deliberate firmness, as if the pressure might squeeze an explanation out of him.
“My dear brother,” she said, each word measured, “you spend every day on your knees in the Starry Sept.
How do you manage to think of these things?” Baelor endured the mauling without protest.
Pride still edged his voice.
“Outside the hours of penance, Maester Orville teaches me the history and laws of Westeros.
You yourself taught me High Valyrian.
In three more years I will have finished every classical history still left in Oldtown.” Rhaenyra released his face with a soft snort.
“Fine.
I can’t argue with that.” She pulled him into her arms and held him against her chest.
“The royal hunt begins in six days.
Come home with me.
Father will be glad.” Baelor’s answer carried a thin, residual bitterness.
“If he were truly glad, he would have come himself instead of sending messages through you.” Six years.
If Rhaenyra had not flown to Oldtown every fortnight, Baelor might have believed himself a prince cast into exile, quietly abandoned by his own blood.
She pressed her forehead to his and spoke more gently.
“Father never meant it that way.
King’s Landing is a nest of endless business.
And the letters kept arriving, insisting you must remain here and complete your atonement before the Seven.
That is why he never came.” Baelor’s expression cooled.
“Those letters—did they come from the Faith, or from House Hightower speaking in their name?” “Both,” Rhaenyra said, frowning.
“Why?” “Nothing important.
Just two more names for the list I keep in my head.” He smiled, the curve of his mouth polite and entirely empty.
Rhaenyra rolled her eyes.
“Could that smile look any more false?” “I thought it was sincere.” He leaned into her, suddenly heavier, breath short.
The long day had drained what little strength he possessed.
“Sleep,” she murmured, stroking his back the way a mother would.
“I’m here.” Baelor closed his eyes and slipped under almost at once.
Only then could Rhaenyra study him properly.
Half a month since her last visit, and he had grown thinner still.
The shadows beneath his eyes had deepened into bruises.
If this continued— She shook him lightly.
“Brother.
We leave for King’s Landing tonight.
All right?” He did not hear her.
In the dream the colors black and green tangled like living lightning in a driving rain, two vast shapes tearing at each other until both dissolved into nothing.
Baelor stood beneath the storm, wiping rain from his face again and again, trying to fix the blurred images in memory.
Then the rain vanished from his clothes as if it had never fallen.
The sky cleared without warning.
A single dragon filled the air above him.
Its wings could have shadowed half a castle.
Its body was black steel, scarred and seamless.
Horns jutted from either side of its skull.
He knew it at once—the same beast that had haunted him for years.
This time it did not turn its fire on him.
It simply beat those enormous wings and flew toward the distant, glittering city of King’s Landing.
Baelor’s raised hand dropped slowly.
He stared after the creature, unanswered questions thick in his throat.
Dizziness took him.
When his eyes opened again, Rhaenyra’s face was the first thing he saw.
“Awake?” she asked, smiling.
“How was the sleep?” “With my sister here, how could it be anything but good?” “Liar.
You talked in your sleep—something about black and green.
Made no sense at all.” She tapped his forehead with one finger.
Baelor shook his head.
“I don’t understand them either.
The dreams are always strange.
Neither Maester Orville nor the septons can make sense of them, and I’m only a child.” Strange or not, the black dragon that returned again and again still mattered.
“Sister,” he asked, “does our family keep any dragon that breathes green fire, has a body like black steel, and wings large enough to cover half a castle?” Rhaenyra considered.
“None of ours match that description.
But there is a wild dragon that does.
They call it the Cannibal.” “The Cannibal?” “They say it is of the same generation as Vermithor and Sheepstealer—second-generation giants.
It prefers the corpses of other dragons.
Sometimes it steals eggs from Dragonstone.
How large it truly is, no one agrees.
The smallfolk tell every story under the sun.” Baelor nodded once and filed the name away.
“Why do you ask?” He told her everything—the years of nightmares, the green fire, the way the beast had always tried to swallow him, and the dream he had just left, in which the Cannibal simply flew toward the capital.
“Sister, the Cannibal is flying to King’s Landing.
The only two dragonriders of our house are away.
Could there be danger?” Rhaenyra smoothed his hair.
“Ease your mind.
We have more than Syrax and Caraxes.
Vermithor, Silverwing, and Dreamfyre are all older than seventy.
None of them would fall easily to a wild beast.” She stood and took his hand.
“Come.
We’re going home.” The word settled in Baelor with complicated weight—neither pure dislike nor true eagerness.
Yet anything was better than remaining under Hightower eyes, eating tasteless food in the shadow of the Starry Sept.
“Home,” he agreed.
They left the sept together.
Syrax circled above the city; the moment she sensed her rider she dropped into the nearest open ground with a heavy beat of wings.
Rhaenyra had just reached to help Baelor onto the saddle when Mond Hightower appeared at the head of several dozen archers and household guards, blocking the path.
“Princess,” Mond called, voice ringing with righteous certainty, “the prince’s body is not yet healed, nor has the curse of the Seven been lifted.
To take him from this place without leave is a grave offense.” Rhaenyra’s brows drew together.
“The royal hunt is days away.
My brother wishes to see his father.
Is that now a crime?” She had not expected Mond to gather so many bowmen so quickly.
The watch kept on Baelor was tighter than she had guessed.
Mond stood firm.
“It is not a question of right or wrong, Princess.
The prince remains under the punishment of the Seven and must continue his penance in the sept.
That is the king’s command.” Otto’s latest letter had been clear: the king’s mind on the succession was beginning to shift.
Mond would keep Baelor sealed in Oldtown by any means necessary—easier to dispose of him quietly beneath the cloak of piety, and useful as a constant reminder of Hightower power.
Rhaenyra’s hand tightened on her sword hilt.
She opened her mouth to speak the command in High Valyrian.
Baelor’s voice cut across hers first.
“Sister.
Let me speak.” He climbed onto Syrax’s back with deliberate care, then addressed Mond in the Common Tongue, cold and precise.
“Lord Mond, you once told me you know the laws of the realm well.
Tell me—what is the penalty for surrounding the king’s firstborn son with armed men?” “Prince, the matter before us is that you cannot—” “Mond Hightower.
Your prince commands you to answer the question.” Mond looked up at the thin boy on the dragon’s back—the dark circles, the fragile frame, the unmistakable authority of a Targaryen who had already claimed the right of a dragonrider.
For a heartbeat he forgot to breathe.
“According to the laws of the realm,” he said at last, voice shaking, “to raise arms against a member of the royal blood is to lose one’s head.” “Good.” Baelor turned to Rhaenyra and switched to High Valyrian, voice low and clear.
“Sister.
Command Syrax.
Burn every archer standing behind Mond Hightower.” Rhaenyra did not hesitate.
“Syrax.
Dracarys.” The golden dragon opened her jaws.
Yellow fire washed over the Hightower soldiers in a single, roaring sheet.
Men screamed.
Some threw themselves into nearby puddles, but the flames clung and would not die.
Mond stared at the burning men, then at Rhaenyra, face twisted by fury and fear.
“Princess—what is the meaning of this?” Baelor answered for her.
“Lord Mond, are you questioning a princess of the blood?” “I seek only justice for my men.” Baelor’s laugh was soft and entirely without warmth.
“You surrounded a prince and a princess with soldiers and call it justice?” He leaned forward slightly on the saddle.
“I advise you to leave.
Otherwise the next bodies rolling on the ground will not belong to soldiers alone.” Only then did Mond remember the old saying that had traveled the Seven Kingdoms for a century: House Targaryen needs no army.
It has dragons.
He weighed the cost, then bowed his head.
“I understand, my prince.” He gathered what remained of his sworn knights and withdrew.
Rhaenyra swung back into the saddle behind her brother.
“Hold tight.” She tightened the reins.
Syrax leapt skyward, leaving Oldtown and its careful piety far below, wings beating hard toward the capital of House Targaryen—King’s Landing.