Chapter 25 - Interlude - The Three Queens

The Queen of Thorns

Tywin came to her the evening of the trial.

Olenna had been expecting him. Her eyes and ears in the castle had reported the rumors spreading like wildfire through every corridor and servant's stair—the Reach contingent would be leaving Casterly Rock on the morrow, days before the tournament's official conclusion. A protest, the whispers called it. A statement. A refusal to grant legitimacy to the farcical proceedings that had nearly seen a true knight murdered in a courtyard for sport.

She had set herself up on the wide stone balcony adjoining her apartments, the one that overlooked the great expanse of the Sunset Sea to the west and the sprawl of Lannisport to the south. The afternoon had been hot, but evening brought a cool breeze in from the water that ruffled the curtains hanging by the open doors. Gulls cried somewhere above, and the distant sounds of the ocean drifted up the mountain on the wind.

Victaria sat across from her in a high-backed wicker chair, a piece of embroidery in her lap. The girl had been working at the same patch of flowers for the better part of an hour, her needle moving with the absent precision of someone whose mind was decidedly elsewhere. Olenna had not pressed her on it. The girl had her own troubles, and Olenna found she had little patience for them at the moment.

A knock came at the chamber doors inside.

Left stepped out onto the balcony a moment later. The tall young man bowed properly, his hand resting on the pommel of his sword.

"My lady. Lord Tywin Lannister is without. He asks an audience."

Olenna chuckled, the sound dry as old leather. "I am surprised it took him this long. And that he did not simply barge in like the lion he fancies himself."

Left looked uncertain. "My lady?" 

"Yes, yes, go let the man in before he hires a bard to sing that horrendous song of his to us." Olenna waved her hand. "We have suffered enough today without enduring the Rains of Castamere on top of it all."

Left bowed again and retreated inside.

Victaria looked up from her embroidery, her dark eyes wide with sudden alarm. "My lady, should I leave?"

"No, stay, girl." Olenna thought for a moment, then nodded to herself. "Stay. You might learn something."

She could see the girl's throat bob with nerves. She could not blame her entirely. Lord Tywin Lannister had a way of making even seasoned lords uncomfortable in his presence, and Victaria was barely eight and ten and from a lower branch besides. Olenna herself would have feared the Lord of Casterly Rock as a girl. But old age had a way of stripping away your basic instincts along with control of your bowels, and Olenna had long since stopped fearing men who could only kill her. What a fine release that would be.

The doors inside opened. Heavy footsteps crossed the chamber's marble floor, then Tywin Lannister stepped out onto the balcony, his face sharp and hard as a smith's anvil.

Cold green eyes swept across the space, instantly cataloging and dismissing Victaria before they came to rest on Olenna. He wore his finest evening clothes—crimson velvet with golden thread, a blood-red cape, a small lion brooch at his throat—but the fineness of his garb could not disguise the fury simmering beneath his impassive exterior.

He stared at her for a long moment, his jaw working tightly. The silence stretched.

"This is a mistake, Olenna," Tywin said at last.

"Oh, spare me the lecture if you can bear it," Olenna replied, settling herself more comfortably in her chair. "We are simply leaving a few days early. No need to twist yourself into knots over it."

"I will not have my house shamed."

"You and your daughter shamed yourselves today, Tywin. Do leave me out of it."

Tywin's voice took on that careful, controlled tone Olenna remembered from negotiations long past. "House Lannister had nothing to do with Ser Galad's trial. It was a matter between him and Ser Meryn and Ser Mandon of the Kingsguard."

Olenna scoffed loudly enough to startle a gull on the railing into flight. "Is that so? How fortuitous for you, then. So be it. I will pretend your fiction is true, and you need not be offended at our leaving, since you and yours had nothing to do with the trial. No?"

"It is my tournament you will be dishonoring," Tywin said, his teeth gritted now. "On my lands. I do not take dishonor lightly."

"And it was our knight, in your lands, under your watchful eye, who had to slay seven men in the most disgraceful trial in living memory." Olenna leaned forward slightly in her chair. "Perhaps, my lord, you should worry about stamping out such malfeasance within your own ranks instead of bothering this old lady about things she has no control over. I am no Lord of Highgarden, after all. Merely an old woman tending to her embroidery."

Tywin's voice grew quieter, which Olenna knew was a more dangerous sign than if he had raised it. "Is House Tyrell so sure of its position that it would make an enemy of House Lannister over a landless knight?"

"Is House Lannister in such a rush to fracture its new dynasty that it would create an enemy of House Tyrell in such times?" Olenna shot back. "With dragons sailing by King's Landing?"

She showed him as sharp a smile as her toothless mouth could provide.

"No, I do not think so. We could do worse, Tywin. Could make demands. Could make public proclamations. You are lucky indeed that my son rules the Reach and not I, for I would not contain myself to the simple theatrics of leaving a tournament early." She paused, letting her smile sharpen further. "Now, will that be all, my lord?"

A vein on Tywin's forehead was jumping, she could see. His gold-flecked green eyes stared darkly at her own, and for a moment Olenna thought he might actually lose his composure. That would have been a sight worth recording for posterity, Tywin Lannister losing his temper in front of an old woman and her lady-in-waiting.

But Tywin Lannister did not lose his temper. He had not lost it in the many decades she knew him, and he would not lose it now.

He let out a simple breath through his nose. Then he gave her the smallest of nods.

"So be it. Safe travels, my lady."

He turned on his heel and stormed out of the balcony, the heavy fabric of his red cape sweeping behind him. The doors inside opened and closed. Heavy footsteps faded down the corridor beyond.

Olenna let out a breath she had not realized she had been holding.

Victaria, whose eyes had grown wide enough that they looked to be jumping out of her face, waited until she was certain Lord Tywin was well away before she dared to speak.

"That was..." Victaria began, her mouth ajar. She seemed unable to find the proper word.

"Yes," Olenna said. "That man can still make my heart race after all these years. And not in the fun way a fine man could in my younger days, mind you."

She picked up the cup of watered wine from the small table beside her and took a small sip, more to steady her hands than from any real thirst. Her heart was indeed pounding. She would not admit it to Victaria, but the encounter had cost her more than she let on. Tywin Lannister was no ordinary man, and standing up to him was no ordinary thing.

But she had done it. And he had retreated. That was what mattered.

"Be careful which lessons you take from this, girl," Olenna said, setting her cup back down. "Men like Tywin Lannister must be handled with great care. Oh yes. But you must never show weakness to his like. A bare throat is an invitation to even the weakest of predators, and Tywin Lannister is a lion indeed, even if our dear woodsman knight did his best to defang him today. That gave me the upper hand. Without Ser Galad's victory, I might have been more conciliatory. With it, I could afford to push."

"I see, my lady. Thank you for the lesson."

Olenna waved the gratitude away, turning her gaze out toward the Sunset Sea beneath the great mountain that House Lannister called home. The water glowed orange and red in the dying light, the colors shifting as the sun sank toward the horizon. Lannisport spread out below them to the south, a thousand chimneys already sending up smoke from evening cooking fires.

The girl would need plenty of lessons, Olenna thought, given she could still be so foolish.

To think she had actually gone and fallen for a mere sergeant in their household. A sergeant! At least Olenna had acted quickly enough to kill that sentiment in its crib. Ben the sergeant accompanying Ser Galad meant he would be too far away for those particular feelings to blossom into anything inconvenient, and the arrangement also served the dual purpose of keeping an eye on the knight and on young Garlan.

A shame, really. If it had been the woodsman himself Victaria had fallen for, then perhaps a match there could be arranged now that Ser Galad's star had risen so high. The girl was pretty enough, and well-bred. She might have caught his eye in time.

But the heart wanted what it wanted, and Victaria's heart had wanted a sergeant. Sometimes even the best-laid plans had to bend around such foolishness.

No matter. Olenna had other plans, plans that did not require any marriage arrangements.

If it were up to Olenna, Ser Galad's star would only rise higher, despite her previous doubts about the young man.

She had already sent letters in advance to her agents in Highgarden with her instructions. Every bard, minstrel, septon, and maester in House Tyrell's pockets—and there were a great many of those indeed—would spread the heroics of Ser Galad of Dunstonbury. His war record at Grey Garden where he had defeated the Ironborn champion, Ser Harras Harlaw, in single combat. His tournament victories at Lannisport, where he had won the archery contest, the joust against Ser Jaime Lannister himself, and the grand melee. His trial by seven, where he had slain seven anointed knights in solo combat to prove his innocence against false charges.

And of course, his intimate connection with House Tyrell. The house that had raised him to knighthood. The house of his loyal squire, with whom he traveled the countryside even now.

Before the year was out, Olenna intended that the tale of the Woodsman Knight of Highgarden would be on the tongues of every smallfolk and every lordling from Dorne to the Wall.

A man so beloved by the realm would be a powerful asset, even one who insisted on being landless and wandering. Especially one who insisted on being landless and wandering. Tied to no faction, beholden to no lord but Tyrell, he could be a sword that pointed in whatever direction House Tyrell needed when the great game of dragons and lions and kings finally returned to Westeros.

And it would return. Of that, she had no doubt at all.

She picked up her own embroidery from the small table beside her and resumed her work, her gnarled fingers moving with practiced ease. The gulls cried below. The sea sparkled. Lannisport began to light its evening lanterns one by one as the dark gathered.

The Reach would leave Casterly Rock in the morning. Tywin Lannister would seethe in his great hall. The realm would whisper of trials and woodsmen and seven dead knights.

And Olenna Tyrell would set the stage for what came next.

xxx

The Queen of the Seven Kingdoms

Cersei sat in her usual seat, dressed in crimson silk and gold thread despite the wretched heat of the early afternoon. The Lannister banner above their box hung limp in the still air. Below them, the tilt lane stretched long and dusty, raked smooth by servants who had undoubtedly hoped for a larger audience than the one that had actually appeared.

The king’s chair sat empty beside her.

"This is intolerable," she muttered, fanning herself with a silk fan painted with golden lions. "I am being roasted alive in this box while Robert had the sense to stay inside the Rock’s cool stone halls. Tell me again, father, why I must endure this?"

Her father did not answer immediately. Lord Tywin Lannister sat to the empty throne's other side, his green eyes fixed on the tilt lane below. He did not even bother looking at her.

Dressed in Lannister colors instead of his usual white cloak, Jaime sat on the other side of their father, looking distinctly uncomfortable. His leg from the melee still pained him, Cersei knew. He had refused milk of the poppy this morning, complaining that it dulled his senses, and now he shifted in his chair every few minutes as if seeking some position that would not aggravate the wound.

"Father?" Cersei tried, more for the sake of filling the silence than anything. "Surely Robert's absence makes my own attendance pointless. I do not understand why I had to be dragged out here at all."

"You are a Lannister, Cersei." Tywin's voice could’ve sliced through metal. His eyes had not moved from the lane, but his tone left no room for further argument. "You are also the queen, useless as that title may often seem in your case. Have you not already cost this house enough this week?"

Cersei seethed silently, lowering her fan to her lap. She would not give her father the satisfaction of an outburst. Not here, not in public, where the few nobles still in attendance threw occasional wary glances up at the royal box. But the words burned in her chest like coals.

How dare he speak to her so?

She was the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. She had given Robert his heir and his second son. She had endured that drunken brute's rough handling for years, had smiled through every infidelity, had managed the running of his court while he hunted and whored. And her thanks for all of this loyalty was her own father's scorn?

She blamed his foul mood on the Tyrells, of course. The whole lot of them had ridden out of Casterly Rock at dawn, their banners flying defiantly as they made for the road back to Highgarden. Lord Mace at the head of his column with his ridiculous green cloak billowing. Lady Olenna in her carriage no doubt cackling at the trouble she had caused. The children waving to common-born well-wishers as if they were leaving some triumph rather than fleeing in disgrace.

Upjumped stewards, all of them.

Cersei had already raged about them to Jaime that morning when they had taken their breakfast together, and he had said nothing. Just watched her with those green eyes that had grown so strange and quiet since the trial. Her brother was not himself these past two days. The fall from his horse against that man in the joust, perhaps. Or the leg wound from the melee. Or something else, something deeper that Cersei could not quite identify.

The thought of the trial made her glance down at the sparse crowds gathered for the finals.

Pathetic. Truly pathetic.

The finals of the jousting, the culmination of two weeks of celebration after the great victory over the Greyjoy Rebellion, and the stands sat half-empty. Where two days ago thousands had crowded the hillocks to watch the grand melee, now only a few hundred souls had bothered to come. And where the noble stands had been packed shoulder to shoulder with lords and ladies in their finery, now perhaps a third of the seats sat occupied.

The cause was obvious enough. The Tyrells and most of the Reach had left. Many of the Vale lords had gone with them in solidarity, including Lord Yohn Royce. The Riverlands contingent was much diminished. Even some of the Stormlanders had departed early.

But it was more than that. There had been grumblings all day from the smallfolk about the fate of the Woodsman Knight. The talk of the streets and taverns and market squares of Lannisport had been of nothing else for two days. It seemed all anyone wanted to speak of was his trial and the unfairness of it all.

Cersei sneered behind her fan. The fools. Justice was whatever those with power decided. The smallfolk were always so quick to fall in love with whichever pretty face the gods threw their way—a tournament champion, a handsome knight, a rebellious lord. They knew nothing of how the world truly worked. They knew nothing of how kingdoms were ruled.

It was only luck that the hedge knight from the Reach had escaped her justice. Pure, undeserved luck. Had she known he could fight as he had…

She pushed the thought away. No matter. She would have other opportunities. Ser Galad of Dunstonbury was not the king of anywhere. He was a wandering knight, exposed to all the dangers of the road. Bandits could find him. Accidents could befall him. Hired blades could be paid to do what an entire trial of seven had failed to accomplish.

And if it were up to her, she would have already seized a few of those spreading the story of his trial and hanged them in the middle of the tourney grounds. That would teach the smallfolk to keep their mouths shut. An example had to be made. A queen who allowed her enemies to be glorified before her own people was no queen at all.

But her father had forbidden it. Let the talk die down on its own, he had said. Repression now will only feed the flames.

She did not agree, but she did not argue. There had been no arguing with Lord Tywin Lannister lately.

Down in the tilt lane, the trumpets blared their announcement.

Ser Barristan Selmy emerged first from his end of the lane, his white armor gleaming, his matching white cloak billowing behind him. He sat his white courser with the easy grace of a man who had been jousting since before Cersei was born. The crowd, what there was of it, cheered enthusiastically.

From the opposite end came Ser Jorah Mormont. The northern lord wore his armor of dark mail and plate with a black bear rampant on his green surcoat. His horse was a heavy destrier, dark as pitch, snorting and pawing at the sand. 

The lances dropped. The horses charged.

Splinter flew when Ser Barristan broke his lance cleanly against Mormont's shield. The northern lord was rocked backward in his saddle, his entire body twisting from the impact. For a moment Cersei thought he might fall. But he caught himself at the last instant, his knees gripping his horse's flanks with desperate strength, and barely managed to keep his seat.

Jaime frowned beside her. "Something is wrong with Mormont," he said quietly. "His riding is terrible compared to the last time I saw him. Like he can barely keep himself in the saddle."

Cersei knew and cared little for men throwing themselves against each other above horses, but even she could see a man riding like that had no chance against Ser Barristan. 

"You didn't think he could do what he did and suffer no consequences, did you?" their father asked without looking at either of them.

Jaime turned sharply to their father, his eyes widening. "What did you do?"

Tywin Lannister did not answer. He merely watched as the two knights wheeled their horses around at opposite ends of the lane, preparing for the next pass. Cersei studied her father's profile. The slight tightening at the corner of his mouth was the only sign of his satisfaction, and she felt a smile of her own beginning to form behind her fan.

The trumpets blared again and the horses took off. This pass, Ser Barristan brought down the northern knight cleanly. His lance struck Mormont square in the chest, and the bear knight tumbled from his saddle to crash into the sand in a shower of dust and broken lance pieces.

There were sparse cheers in the crowd, not the roar that had greeted the great moments of earlier days. Ser Barristan rode a victory circle along the lane before reining in before the royal box. He removed his helm and bowed deeply from his saddle. His white hair was damp with sweat.

"The match is yours, Lord Commander," Cersei called down to him. "A magnificent victory."

"You honor me, Your Grace."

But she barely listened to his response. She was watching her father, who had risen from his seat at last. Tywin Lannister's face was as composed as ever, but Cersei could read him better than most. There was something there. Some quiet victory.

"What did you do, father?" Jaime pressed again, his voice low.

"Nothing you ought to concern yourself with," Tywin said. He turned away from the tilt lane, smoothing his crimson doublet. "Rest assured, House Mormont will know that Lannisters pay their debts."

He swept from the royal box without further ceremony, his guards falling into step behind him.

Cersei watched him and allowed herself a smile. So her father had not gone soft after all. She had begun to wonder, after the way he had simply allowed Tyrells to leave Casterly Rock without consequence, after the way he had dismissed the Woodsman’s trial as something that should be quietly buried. She had begun to fear that age had finally dulled the Lion of the West.

But no. The lion still had teeth. They had simply been hidden behind his careful patience.

Mormont would learn the cost of attacking Jaime from behind in the melee, however inadvertent his actions had appeared. Lannisters paid their debts, both the kind paid in gold and the kind paid in blood.

Cersei lifted her fan again and resumed her cooling movements. The heat seemed less oppressive now. Even the half-empty stands seemed less of an insult.

One day, she promised herself, she would punish Ser Galad of Dunstonbury for what he had done to her. For the way he had looked at her with pity in her own chambers. For the way he had rejected her offer of the white cloak despite his low birth. For the way he had cut down her hand-picked champions in that courtyard, making a mockery of all her careful planning.

Yes. One day she would have her vengeance. Her justice.

She would punish him the same way her father would no doubt punish Jorah Mormont and his piss-poor northern house. Slowly. Carefully. From shadows where he could not see the strike coming until it was too late.

The thought of his beautiful violet eyes widening with sudden understanding, of his perfect face contorting with the realization that his death had come for him at last, brought such pleasure to Cersei that she had to look away from the dispersing crowd to hide her expression.

She would not forget him. Not ever. Not for one single day for the rest of her life.

xxx

The Dragon Queen

A warm breeze rolled in through the open-faced side of the room, carrying with it the smells of the port town below, salt and pitch and roasting fish, the sour tang of unwashed bodies and the sweeter notes of tropical fruits being sold at the market. The afternoon sun beat down on the clear waters of the harbor, painting them in shades of blue and silver. Beyond the harbor lay the endless expanse of the southern sea.

Rhaella paced the length of the great table in the center of the chamber. Her bare feet made no sound against the polished black stone floor. She had grown accustomed to going without shoes in this heat, a small concession to the climate that would have shocked the lady she had been a decade ago. 

Then again, much had changed about the woman she had been a decade ago. Rhaella Targaryen, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, would never have countenanced living among pirates and slaves. The Rhaella of Ax Isle had little choice in the matter.

The black stone of the chamber's walls seemed to drink in the sunlight rather than reflect it. The stones felt slightly greasy to the touch, similar in look if not in feel to Aegon the Conqueror's hall in Dragonstone. The same kind of stone, perhaps, though built by hands far removed from the lords of Old Valyria. The Quartheen pirate who had raised these walls some two hundred years ago had clearly known what he was doing, however he had come by the knowledge. The fortress had outlasted its builder by far.

Lord Lucerys Velaryon sat at the long table, his hands folded on its polished surface. His face wore a mixture of embarrassment and irritation that Rhaella recognized well from his years on her husband's small council. The Master of Ships had been her constant companion through five years of exile, the closest thing she had to a confidant or advisor. He was a steady man, careful and thoughtful, and his current expression suggested he could already imagine whatever excuse his son was planning to offer.

"Your Grace," Lord Lucerys said, his deep voice careful. "Perhaps the messenger was wrong. Perhaps he heard only rumors of rumors. I do not think Monford would be foolish enough to do such a thing."

Rhaella shook her head as she turned at the far end of the table.

"It was not your son who conceived of this foolishness, my lord. Of that I have no doubt." She paused at the open side of the room, looking out toward the harbor below. "Unfortunately, I cannot say the same of my own."

Lord Lucerys did not respond to that. There was no proper response to be made.

Standing at the edge of the chamber, the warm breeze played with the loose strands of her silver hair, which had grown thinner these past years. The food on Ax Isle was plentiful enough—they had no shortage of fish or fruit or grain captured from various slaver galleys—but the worry had carved itself into her. She could feel her bones more sharply beneath her skin than she once had. She could feel the years more sharply too.

She had noticed how Viserys had grown increasingly restless of late. Especially, she thought, because she had not yet crowned him king. Her son respected her too much to rage at her about it openly, but she knew he had been growing anxious. The way his eyes followed the captains when they came to give their reports. The way he had begun training harder with Ser Willem every morning. The way he asked, with carefully controlled casualness, about news from the Seven Kingdoms whenever any reached them.

But Rhaella knew she could not declare him king. Not yet. Not until the truth of Elia and her children's whereabouts had been certified beyond doubt. Dorne had not answered their discreet attempts at contact for years now, not since that single brief acknowledgment when they had first escaped Dragonstone. Why Prince Doran kept his silence, she could not say. He had reason enough to hate the usurpers who had stolen his sister’s position and her son’s birthright. But Doran Martell was a cautious man, and cautious men did not commit themselves to causes that seemed lost.

Then there was the matter of the missing Kingsguard, Ser Arthur Dayne. And Lyanna Stark's babe, if such babe even lived still.

She shook her head sharply.

Those thoughts only served to perturb her further. Two grandchildren missing somewhere in the world, lost or perhaps dead. One grandson far away from her in the hands of the usurper's dog, even if supposedly protected by the Sword of the Morning himself, the finest knight of his generation. She trusted Ser Arthur to do whatever needed doing for that child. But trust was a cold comfort across thousands of miles of sea.

She already had enough problems without dwelling on what she could not change. Running their household, such as it was, and the island itself. Managing their captains and crews and the ever-growing population of their island. Negotiating with the various petty kings and pirate lords of the Basilisk Isles who would gladly see them gone if they could find the strength to drive them out. 

Gods, what would her ancestors think if they could see what House Targaryen had been reduced to? From dragonlords and kings to disgraced corsairs hiding like rats near the dread shores of Sothoryos. From riding the skies on creatures of fire and legend, to prowling the southern seas like scavengers, falling upon slaver galleys to feed themselves.

She looked out at the port town below. The view, at least, gave her some small measure of pride. Five years ago, when they had first landed here, the place had been a den of piracy and degeneracy. A scattered collection of huts and shacks and rotting wharves, populated by perhaps two or three hundred souls, pirates and runaway slaves and the worst sort of criminals fleeing justice from the Free Cities. The kind of place where a man might have his throat cut for his boots and his body left in the harbor for the crabs.

Now it was a proper port town. Not grand, perhaps, not by the standards of King's Landing or Volantis or even Duskendale, but proper nonetheless. Stone and timber buildings had replaced many of the lean-to shacks and huts. Streets had been laid out with some sense of order. A market square thrived in the center of the town, and proper docks now extended into the harbor where ships from across the southern seas put in for trade and repairs. The population numbered in the many thousands.

The fleet captains and soldiers who had escaped with them from Dragonstone formed the backbone of the town. Her own household servants had carved out their own neighborhood near the fortress. Lord Velaryon's men had built fine houses along the eastern slope of the harbor. 

Beyond these, the population had grown through accretion, freed slaves who had nowhere else to go, settling in their hundreds. Former pirates who had grown tired of the constant violence and welcomed a place where the rule of law, however roughly enforced, gave them peace. Merchants who saw the opportunity and came to ply their trades. Refugees from the various wars and land disputes that plagued the southern coast of Essos.

It was not the kingdom she had been born to. But it was something she had built with her own hands. She was proud of that, at least.

But could she say the same as a mother? That was the question that troubled her in the late hours of the night when sleep eluded her. Running the island and managing all their captains and men to keep from defecting had given her less time than she wished with her children. She needed to remedy that, if not with the fiercely independent Viserys then at least with little Dany, who still clung to her with all the desperate affection of a five-year-old whose mother was too often unavailable.

A knock came at the great wooden door then, and Rhaella was almost glad for it.

Lord Lucerys rose from his seat, smoothing his sea-green robes. "That will be them, Your Grace."

Rhaella turned from the window. She fixed her face into a stern grimace—the look that had allowed her to cow even the fiercest of pirates and captains these past years. 

"Bring them in," she said.

Escorted by two Velaryon knights in silver-and-blue armor, three young men entered the chamber. Viserys came first. Her son had grown tall in the past year, his thin frame stretched upward toward what would eventually be his full height. He wore a tunic of dark red silk and breeches of black wool, and he had taken some pains to comb his silver hair properly before being brought before her. 

But he looked tired, his skin tanned darker than she liked from weeks in the southern sun, and the way his violet eyes moved suggested he had been preparing his arguments for hours.

Behind him came Monford Velaryon, perhaps three years older, taller and broader through the shoulders. He wore the sea-green of his house, though his clothes were less fine than Viserys's. His face bore the chastened expression of a son who knew he had disappointed his father.

The third was Aurane Waters, Lord Lucerys's bastard. He was the same age as Monford, perhaps slightly older, with the same Valyrian features as the others—silver hair and pale skin and violet eyes, but with that subtle stamp of bastardy that Rhaella could not have defined but somehow always recognized. Perhaps it was the careless way he stood, with one hand resting easy on his belt. Perhaps it was the small smirk playing at the corner of his lips even as his half-brother kept his head properly bowed.

All three had the deep tans of men who had spent weeks at sea. Their silver-blond hair hung long and matted with salt and wind. They smelled, Rhaella noted with distaste, like they had not bathed properly since returning to harbor.

Viserys made as if to speak first, and Monford opened his mouth at almost the same moment. Both of them had clearly planned a thousand excuses. But one look from Lord Lucerys, a single sharp glance, set the two of them quiet, heads dropping further toward the floor.

Rhaella let the silence stretch as she studied them further. Viserys's fingers twitching against his thigh. Monford, who swallowed once, his throat working visibly. Or how Aurane kept sneaking glances at her and his father, that tiny smirk never quite leaving his lips.

He was audacious enough not to show contrition before his sire and his queen, that one. A bad influence on Viserys, perhaps? Possible. But her son was a prince of the blood. He should know better than to let bastards influence his judgment, half-Velaryon or otherwise.

When she finally spoke, her voice was cold and measured.

"For five years," she began, "we have toiled in this half-forsaken corner of the world with one objective. One goal. The restoration of House Targaryen to the throne that was stolen from us." She paused, letting the words settle. "And you three had the gall to put all of it at risk. And for what? Flying our flags before King's Landing as a mummer's show? A boys' jape?"

As if he could no longer contain himself, Viserys's head snapped up. His violet eyes blazed with that particular fire Rhaella recognized from her own brother before him, and from her father before that.

"To send a message, mother!" Viserys said. "To the usurper and his dogs and all our enemies. To let them know the House of the Dragon still lives! That we have forgotten what was stolen!"

"You are three and ten, Viserys," Rhaella replied evenly. "And a prince besides. You should know better than to act on impulse against your queen's wishes. And the two of you—" Her gaze cut to Monford and Aurane. "—are older still. You should have known better than to indulge a young prince's recklessness."

"No." Viserys shook his head violently. "I'm tired of hiding. Tired of skulking in this jungle pit. All we've done is rescue slaves and send messages we don't even get answers to from supposed allies! Five years, mother! Five years of nothing! Enough! It's time we strike. Time we take back what is ours!"

The two Velaryon knights who had escorted the boys in stiffened at that. Their chests puffed out, almost imperceptibly. As if excited at the prospect of war and conquest.

Men were all the same, in the end. Rhaella had known this for many years. But at least Viserys could inspire these men with his words. That would be a considerable boon when the time came for him to lead. Aerys had never been able to inspire men. He had only ever been able to terrify them.

Rhaella sighed. "You are like cabin boys looking out of a porthole and thinking you see the whole world's oceans," she said.

Lord Lucerys let out a small snort before he could catch himself. She raised an eyebrow at him.

"Forgive me, Your Grace," Lord Lucerys said with a small smile. "It is only that... a few years back, I could never have imagined to hear you say such a thing."

She shrugged. "Perhaps I have spent too long with sailors and mariners. I have started to sound like them. But there is a reason behind it all."

She turned back to her son.

"Do you truly think that's all we have done, my son? That I sit here all day just watching the sun pass overhead?" Her voice turned icy. "That your queen is some idle creature who waits for fortune to fall into her lap?"

"No, mother." Viserys spoke quickly now, his fire dimming somewhat. "Of course not. I only meant—"

"I know what you meant, Viserys. Your fault is not ignorance, but recklessness." She walked closer to him then, her bare feet silent on the black stone. "Let me enlighten you, then. Even now, Ser Gerold risks himself daily in Slaver's Bay, meeting with sellsword captains and trying to negotiate contracts. Ser Oswell—brave Ser Oswell—has been gathering men from the isles and from all over southern Essos who would hold a sword for our cause. Where before we had nothing, we now have agents in Volantis and Lys and Tyrosh and as far away as Qarth. We have allies, or potential allies, in places you do not even know exist." She stopped before him. "But we are not ready. Not yet. And one boy's foolishness might have ruined everything we have been building."

Viserys looked at her, his mouth slightly agape. "I... I didn't know. I thought—I thought Ser Gerold and Ser Oswell had gone to Dorne or to the North. To beg for their support."

"They serve House Targaryen, Prince Viserys." Rhaella lifted her chin. "And House Targaryen does not beg."

The three boys reacted to that. Viserys straightened slightly. Monford's eyes widened. Even Aurane Waters looked properly chastened for once, the smirk finally fading from his lips.

Rhaella turned away from them, walking back toward the open side of the chamber.

"You three are dismissed."

They began to leave without a word, the two knights falling in behind them. But Rhaella called out before they reached the door.

"Oh. And neither of you is allowed on a ship for the next three moons. It will be the stables for all of you. Even a prince must learn how to shovel horse shit."

Viserys's groans of frustration carried back down the hallway as they departed. Rhaella stood at the open side of the room and listened until their footsteps faded away. Then she let out a long, slow breath that she had not realized she had been holding.

"Has there been word of Ser Gerold?" Lord Lucerys asked from behind her.

She nodded without turning. "The Windblown's contract with Yunkai ends next year. The other companies he has approached around Slaver's Bay ask double the price for any work that takes them away from the slaving cities."

She saw Lucerys nodding from the corner of her vision. "Aye, I can see it. There is easy money to be made for them there. The Ghiscari pay well to keep their slaves in check and defend against the occasional khalasar. We don't exactly have the gold to match their offers."

"No, we do not."

Lucerys licked his lips. He always did when he became nervous. "Your Grace,” he began cautiously, “perhaps it is time to revisit your—our—position on the Golden Company?"

Rhaella turned toward him fully then. Lord Lucerys swallowed visibly.

"I understand your hesitancy, of course," he continued, choosing his words with care. "Given who founded the company. But they are the best in the field, the best by far. And they would take our contract, I am certain of it. Many of them who still hold to their old houses would gladly take pardons and lands in the Seven Kingdoms as payment. Lands we can easily take from the usurper's allies once we have destroyed them in battle."

Rhaella's jaw worked for a moment. This was an old argument between her and her councillors. Lord Lucerys had been pressing it for years now, each time more directly than the last. He was right that the Golden Company was the best of the sellsword companies. He was right that they would likely accept their contract. He was right that the Lannisters and Baratheons and their allies had estates aplenty that could be promised as payment.

But she had grown up during the time of the last Blackfyre Rebellion. She had been a child still when Ser Barristan Selmy had killed Maelys the Monstrous on the Stepstones, ending the male line of the Black Dragon forever. Her parents and grandparents and the surviving knights who had served them had told her stories of the rebellions. The same warning was woven through every one of them.

Never trust anything Blackfyre. Never. The Golden Company had been founded by Bittersteel after the First Rebellion, and for a hundred years they had carried the Black Dragon banner alongside their own. They had supported every subsequent rebellion. They had bled and died for the Pretenders.

But perhaps desperate times made for strange bedfellows. She did not have the luxury of choosing her allies these days.

Beyond the Golden Company, they had not yet tried to hire any of the companies that usually stayed around the western Free Cities and the Disputed Lands either. Those were too close to the Seven Kingdoms. Too likely to attract the attention of King's Landing and that whispering spider Varys. They had been forced to look far away, to keep east of the Rhoyne where Varys's network of little birds was sparser.

In truth, Varys himself remained a mystery to her. She doubted he was completely unaware of their whereabouts—the man's reach extended further than she liked to imagine. And yet he had not told his new master where to find them. Or if he had, the Baratheons had chosen not to act on the knowledge. Either possibility was strange. Either possibility unsettled her.

"Leave me to think for now, my lord," she said at last. "I will give you an answer on the morrow."

Lord Lucerys bowed. "As you wish, Your Grace."

He retreated from the chamber, his footsteps fading as Viserys' had before him, and Rhaella stood alone in the room with its open-faced wall and its black stone floor and its great painted table, a mockery of Dragonstone's own great council room.

The afternoon stretched out before her like an unfinished tapestry. Down in the harbor, a few galleys were putting in to dock. Some of theirs, she recognized by the cut of its hull, returning from some weeks of raiding along the slave routes. The cries of gulls drifted up from below, sharp and lonely. A child laughed somewhere in the streets of the town. Music played in a tavern, the cheerful skirl of pipes barely audible from this distance. The smell of cooking fish came stronger on the breeze now.

A simple, ordinary day on her ragged little kingdom at the edge of the world.

And her mind, as it always did when she was alone for too long, wandered back to the dreams.

They had begun some months ago. At first only occasionally—once a week perhaps, then twice. Now nearly every night. Strange dreams. Vivid in ways that her ordinary dreams had never been. 

She wondered if she was a dreamer like her ancestor Daenys the Dreamer, who had foreseen the Doom of Valyria and saved her family from destruction. The blood ran true sometimes, even after centuries of dilution. 

But her dreams were not of doom. Her dreams were of conquest. Of conquest, and of dragons.

She saw them sometimes in the depths of those visions. Great creatures of flame and shadow, moving through skies that were not the skies of Ax Isle, hunting through valleys that were green and wild. She heard their cries echoing across landscapes she did not recognize. She felt the heat of their breath as if she stood beside them.

That was another reason she had been so cautious about showing their hand too soon. Something she had not told any of her councillors. Not even Lord Lucerys.

She was more convinced than ever that for House Targaryen to retake their throne, they would need the power that had united the Seven Kingdoms under Aegon the Conqueror in the first place.

Dragons.

And perhaps, if her dreams were true, if the blood of the Dreamer truly ran through her veins, then the answer lay closer than anyone might have imagined.

Not in Valyria, lost to the Doom and the Smoking Sea. Not even in Dragonstone, their ancestral home.

But here. Closer. To the south.

Deep in the green jungles of Sothoryos, where true dragons, the legends whispered, still lived in places no man had ever dared to map.

She spent almost an hour looking out over the harbor, and there she thought about the dreams that came to her in the dark hours of the night. The dragons calling to her in voices that were not voices.

Calling her home.