Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

HE RARELY DREAMT, BECAUSE HE RARELY SLEPT.

For most of his life sleep had been a thing stolen rather than freely given. Campaigns, councils, patrols, petitions, training yards, crying children, responsibilities that multiplied faster than they could be discharged; there was always something demanding Baelor's attention. When sleep did finally come, it tended to be deep and mercifully empty. A few hours stolen from the world before duty came hammering at the door once more. 

When fortune favored him, sleep was dark and dreamless. More often it was haunted. Regrets prowled through his nights like hungry wolves, wearing familiar faces. Fallen comrades, old mistakes. The dead. They came one by one to sit at the edge of his bed and stare until dawn, and no matter how many years passed, they never seemed willing to leave him be.

Yet this was not sleep, no, sleep had beginnings and endings, this place had neither. At first there had only been darkness. Not frightening darkness, simply nothing. A vast and endless absence in which thought itself seemed to drift apart. Time held no meaning there. Days might have passed, moons, years. He could not have said. There was no sun to mark the hours, no moon to count the nights, no heartbeat save the distant echo of his own existence.

Then the dreams came, or perhaps they had always been there. It became difficult to tell.

They did not arrive gently, no, they tore themselves across his mind like banners in a storm.

One moment he would be standing upon the walls of a castle he did not recognize, and the next he would be ankle-deep in blood beneath a burning sky. Faces appeared and vanished. Places shifted. Men he had buried years ago spoke with the voices of the living. Dead comrades walked beside him as though no grave had ever claimed them.

Again and again he found himself upon battlefields during the Rebellions.

That much felt familiar, the stink of blood, the screams of wounded horses, steel striking steel, corpses beneath black clouds, he walked among them endlessly. Sometimes he searched for someone, sometimes something searched for him.

He never knew which was worse.

The faces changed, yet the fear remained.

He saw his sons often.

Valarr most of all.

The boy haunted his dreams with a persistence that frightened him more than any battlefield ever had.

Sometimes Valarr stood alone amidst the aftermath of war, surrounded by broken banners and bloated corpses, his silver-gold hair bright against a landscape drowned in mud and blood. Flames crawled across the ground toward him from every direction while the child stretched out one small hand and waited. Baelor would begin running at once. He always did. Yet no matter how hard he drove himself forward, the distance between them never lessened. The earth seemed to lengthen beneath his feet, each stride carrying him nowhere. He would shout until his throat bled, but the wind swallowed every word. And all the while Valarr grew farther away, becoming smaller and smaller against the fire-lit horizon.

Other nights the dream changed its face.

Then Valarr stood amongst the dead sons of Daemon. Their bodies lay strewn across the Redgrass Field where Bloodraven's arrows had found them, broken and tangled together in death. Baelor knew those corpses. He had seen them with his own eyes. Yet somehow Valarr was there amongst them, small and living amidst the slain, crouched beside the fallen princes as though he belonged to their number. Sometimes the boy would be trying to shield them, throwing his slight body across their bloodied forms while black-feathered arrows continued to rain from a grey sky without end. Sometimes it was the reverse, the dead princes gathering around him in a circle, their corpses riddled with shafts, as though even death could not stop them from attempting to protect one last child.

Baelor would run toward him. Always.... and always he failed.

The distance never closed, no matter how fast he moved, how desperately he called his son's name.

The battlefield stretched wider with every step, impossibly vast, swallowing ground faster than he could cross it. His legs burned, lungs tore. Still he ran.

Yet Valarr only grew smaller. Smaller and smaller, until he was no more than a pale shape amongst the dead, and then even that was gone. Only the arrows remained, falling endlessly from the sky.

And then there was sweet Matarys.  

He came less often than Valarr, yet somehow those dreams wounded more deeply.

Perhaps because Matarys never seemed frightened.

The boy would appear exactly as Baelor remembered him; bright-eyed, quick to laughter, forever struggling to stand still for longer than a few moments. Sometimes he was chasing a wooden sword through the halls of the Red Keep. Sometimes racing along a shoreline with the sea wind tangling his auburn hair. Sometimes sitting cross-legged beside a hearth, listening with complete seriousness to stories he had already heard a dozen times before.

The dreams were cruel in their simplicity, there was never blood at first, never death. Only memory of Matarys laughing, smiling, alive.

Baelor would watch from a distance, unable to call out, unable to move closer, trapped somewhere beyond the edges of the scene while the boy carried on without him.

Then something would change, the laughter would fade, the light would dim and suddenly the dream would remember the truth.vThe boy would begin to cough, a small sound at first, then another.

His face would pale, his movements would slow. Sometimes he would look up then, directly toward where Baelor stood watching, as if he knew something Baelor did not, as if he had accepted a fate his father still refused to understand.

The sickness always came differently.

Some nights Matarys lay alone in a bed that seemed far too large for him, sweat soaking the sheets while fever hollowed his face. Other times he wandered endless corridors searching for someone who never came. Once Baelor saw him standing in the middle of a crowded hall filled with courtiers and servants, calling for help while every soul walked past as though he were already a ghost.

That dream lingered longest.

Baelor had screamed himself hoarse trying to reach him.

No sound emerged, and no one turned or saw... Only Matarys. The boy's eyes found him across the hall, and smiled. Not because he was happy, but because he recognized him. The memory of that smile stayed long after the dream itself dissolved. It was not blame he saw there, that would have been easier to bear, but rather forgiveness. Gods help him, forgiveness.... but for what exactly ?

Baelor had faced armed men without fear. He had ridden into battle knowing he might die before sunset. He had watched brothers, cousins, friends and enemies fall around him and endured it all.

Yet nothing terrified him half so much as that smile.

Then another dream would begin.

Aerion appeared often as well.

Always burning.

Not dragonfire from the sky, nor some glorious death worthy of song. He burned upon the earth like any common man, screaming amidst mud and ash while flames devoured flesh and silver hair alike. Around him stood lords and knights and courtiers, their faces shifting from dream to dream yet always wearing the same expressions. Some laughed. Some pointed. Some merely watched. None moved to help him. Aerion screamed until his voice gave out, until only the crackle of fire remained.

Daeron came pale as milk, sprawled across sweat-soaked sheets with vomit staining his mouth and chest. Sometimes wine poured endlessly from his lips instead of blood. Sometimes he stared straight at Baelor with haunted eyes that seemed to know exactly what was coming and lacked the strength to flee it. More than once he looked already dead, though his chest continued to rise and fall.

Daella stood alone upon a windswept shore beneath a darkening sky. Black waves towered behind her, growing higher and higher with every heartbeat, vast as mountains and hungry as beasts. She never appeared afraid. That frightened Baelor more than terror would have. She merely watched the sea approach with a sad sort of understanding, her sandy blonde hair whipping about her face while the water rose to swallow her.

Rhae was always screaming.

He never saw her death itself, only the suffering that came before it. Sweat drenched her brow. Her face twisted in agony. Blood stained sheets and hands and floors. Sometimes she reached for him. Sometimes she reached for someone else. The cries echoed long after the dream had shifted to another horror.

Rhaegel came choking.

His hands clawed desperately at his own throat while his eyes bulged wide with panic. Whatever lodged there remained unseen, yet Baelor could hear the wet desperate sounds of a man drowning upon dry land. Again and again Rhaegel tried to breathe, and again and again the air refused him.

Aerys was worse in a different way.

He appeared wandering endless corridors, pale and trembling, muttering to shadows that no one else could see. Fear lived in his eyes, sometimes he laughed, or wept. Often he did both at once.

His father came as well, though never as a king.

In life, King Daeron had often seemed larger than the room he occupied. Even when age had begun its work upon him, there had been something formidable in him still, something that commanded attention without effort. The man who appeared in Baelor's dreams bore little resemblance to that memory. He was always in a bed. Always. Drenched in sweat that soaked through linen and blankets alike, thinner than Baelor had ever seen him, his cheeks hollowed, his skin stretched tight over bone. 

His hands trembled ceaselessly, plucking at sheets or clawing weakly at the air as though trying to seize hold of something only he could see. Blood stained his lips, dark and wet, trickling from the corner of his mouth to disappear into his beard. His eyes never seemed able to settle. They darted endlessly about the room, searching corners, doorways, shadows, as if danger lurked just beyond sight. 

Sometimes he mumbled to himself in a voice so faint Baelor could scarcely hear it. Sometimes he pleaded. Myriah. Baelor. Again and again his father called for them, reaching out with trembling fingers that never quite found what they sought. 

"Where is your mother?" he would ask. Or, "Find her." Sometimes there was blood on his teeth when he spoke. 

His mother came differently.

Princess Myriah never screamed. 

She never bled, never burned, nor drowned, nor suffered any of the terrible fates that visited the others. She simply sat and waited for him. Yet somehow those dreams wounded him more deeply than many of the others combined. He would find her seated beneath an orange tree, the scent of citrus in the warm air. Or beside a window overlooking a sea painted gold by the setting sun. Once she sat alone in a vast hall emptied of all life, her hands folded quietly in her lap as she watched him approach. 

There was always something wrong with her. She looked older than she should have, older than she had been the last time he saw her alive : lines marked the corners of her eyes, silver threaded itself through her dark hair. Sorrow rested upon her face so naturally it seemed she had worn it for years. Time touched her in the dreams when it touched no one else. It aged her slowly, relentlessly, as though even death could not spare her from waiting.

And she always asked him why, not why he had failed, her question was always simpler than that.

"Why did you leave?"

She would look at him with those dark Dornish eyes and ask again. Why did you leave? Why did you not come sooner? Why was I alone? Sometimes she said only his name. 

"Baelor?" As if she had been waiting for him a very long time and could not understand why he had taken so long to arrive.

He would try to answer her. Gods knew he tried.

His mouth would open, explanations would gather in his mind. Words he had never spoken aloud in life would rise to the surface. Yet none of them ever escaped him. His tongue turned heavy. His throat closed. The answers remained trapped inside him while she sat there watching, waiting with infinite patience. A mother waiting for an explanation that never came.

And then there was Maekar.

His brother appeared less frequently than the others.

A great stone pinned him to the earth. Blood covered half his face. One arm bent wrong beneath him while the other twitched and spasmed without cease. He tried to rise, always tried to rise.

Maekar had never known how to do otherwise. 

Yet every attempt only dragged him deeper beneath the weight crushing his face. Still he fought it, stubborn even in prophecy.

Egg was the strangest of them all.

Baelor rarely saw him clearly.

The boy was always somewhere beyond the smoke.

He could hear laughter drifting through grey mist and rising ash. Sometimes he caught glimpses of silver-gold hair darting between the smoke, vanishing whenever he tried to focus upon it. Sometimes there was only the outline of a figure running beyond reach, half-hidden by fire and shadow. 

Aegon never cried. 

Never screamed, or looked afraid. If anything, he seemed almost joyful. Yet with each passing dream he appeared older and taller. The round-faced boy Baelor knew slowly vanished, replaced by a young man broad in the shoulders and straight-backed, moving with a confidence that felt somehow wrong. More than once Baelor mistook him for Maekar at first glance. The shape was there, the height and bearing. Yet when the figure turned, it was not his brother. There was no beard, no pox scars. No hard-earned lines carved by years of war and disappointment. This man looked younger and older all at once. There was something feverish in him, something obsessive. A brightness that burned too hot behind the eyes.

And always there was fire, following him, just like Aerion.

Baelor never understood what he was seeing, only that dread settled into his bones whenever the dream came. The older Egg would keep moving forward without looking back while the flames grew higher and the smoke thicker. Then another voice would cut through the inferno.

A familiar voice.... none other than the hedge knight himself, Dunk. Loud enough to shake the dream itself.

"What have you done, Egg?!"

Again, and again, and again.

The words echoed through smoke and fire like a bell tolling for the dead. Baelor never saw Ser Duncan clearly, only glimpses. A giant shape lost within the flames, reaching for someone he could not save. Sometimes the voice sounded angry. Sometimes horrified. Sometimes broken-hearted. Yet the question never changed.

What have you done, Egg?

The older Egg never answered, and only kept walking.

The dragons were worse.

The dragons were always worse, they came falling from red skies.

These dragons were dying. Great wounded beasts tumbling from blood-colored heavens, their wings torn and broken, their scales split open as though hacked apart by giant blades. They screamed as they fell. Gods, how they screamed. The sound followed him even after him, haunting him even in his still sleep.

He could smell them before he saw them.

The stench always arrived first, rolling across the dream like a living thing. Burnt flesh and blood, if blood could even burn. Charred meat so thick in the air that it coated the back of his throat. Baelor knew that smell, any man who had survived enough battlefields knew it. Human flesh cooking over fire smelled little different from pork. Soldiers joked of it sometimes, when they wished to forget what they had witnessed. There was no humor here.

The smell grew stronger with every step, then came the screaming.

Not the dragons at first, a woman.

Somewhere beyond the smoke.

Her cries tore through the dream before he ever saw her, raw with agony, rising and breaking and rising again until they scarcely sounded human. It was the sort of screaming that stripped a man down to his bones. The sort that made him want to cover his ears and yet left him unable to look away. Baelor never saw her clearly. Only fragments. A silhouette beside some vast wounded shape. A hand reaching upward. Hair whipped by fire and wind, then smoke swallowed her again.

The dragons answered her, their roars shook the world.

Not the proud challenge of hunters ruling the sky, nor the fury of beasts descending upon prey. These sounds belonged to creatures in pain. Great wounded things crying out as fire consumed them from within. Their screams mingled with the woman's until Baelor could no longer tell where one ended and the other began.

He hated those dreams more than any of the rest.

The sound of them lodged beneath his skin and followed him even in his coma. Sometimes he thought he could still hear those cries lingering at the edge of silence,  he wanted to smash his own head against stone simply to drive the memory from it.

Yet the dreams always returned : the smell, the fire, the woman screaming... and the dying dragons answering her from the flames.

The stench of dragons rolled across the dreamscape long before the dragons emerged from the clouds, their bodies struck the earth with enough force to shake entire mountains. Sometimes they landed upon castles, sometimes upon cities, sometimes amidst armies that scattered beneath them like ants.

Their eyes haunted him most, not because they were monstrous but because they were afraid. These were not beasts raging in fury but rather creatures dying.

He would watch them claw desperately at the ground, wings shattered, throats leaking smoke and blood. Some tried to rise again, others merely writhed in agony until the life left them. Their scales peeled away in great blackened sheets. Fire leaked from broken jaws. Their cries echoed across empty landscapes littered with corpses and ash.

Once he saw a dragon so large its corpse stretched from one horizon to the other. Another time he saw three tangled together in death, their necks twisted around one another like lovers embracing.

Then came the voices.

At first they were distant, impossible to understand, whispers drifting through water.

Some belonged to strangers, some belonged to men he knew.

Occasionally he heard Maekar, occasionally Valarr. Once he heard Daeron laughing, once he heard Egg crying.

Those sounds came and went, but one voice remained.

A woman's voice. It reached him through darkness again and again, stubborn as a lantern burning against a storm.

Sometimes she sounded angry, sometimes exhausted or frightened. More often than not she sounded annoyed. The voice spoke endlessly.

He could never remember the words afterward.

Only the feeling of her soft fingers on his skin, or a hand against his brow. Cool cloth upon fevered skin, gentle fingers changing bandages. The scent of lavender. 

And suddenly the darkness began to crack, the dreams became brighter.

The voices became clearer, pain returned, real pain. The crushing agony inside his skull. The ache of broken bones. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, Baelor became aware that he was trapped.

He was trapped, buried somewhere beneath flesh and bone while the world continued without him.

He fought then. Gods, how he fought. Toward the voices, toward the light.

When he finally clawed his way back to the world, dragging himself up through layers of darkness and fever and endless dreams, he did not leave the nightmare behind. Some part of it came with him. For several dreadful moments there was no difference between memory, dream, and waking. 

They bled together until he could no longer tell one from the other. He was certain he stood once more upon the Redgrass Field. He could taste blood in his mouth. He could hear steel clashing somewhere beyond the smoke. The screams of dying men drifted through the haze. Beneath him lay Bittersteel himself, not imprisoned, not defeated, but alive and reaching once more toward everything Baelor held dear.

The certainty of it seized him completely. His father was in danger. His sons were in danger. Valarr. Matarys.  His pride and joy. 

He saw them in his mind as clearly as if they stood before him: Valarr with his solemn eyes and stubborn courage, Matarys sweet-natured and loyal, both of them vulnerable beneath the shadow of men who would gladly destroy them to seize a crown. The fury that rose inside him burned away everything else. There was no diplomacy left in him then. No patience, nor measured judgment. 

The prince who listened before speaking, who sought peace where others sought blood, ceased to exist. In his place stood the Hammer. The man who had broken rebels and ridden through battlefields slick with blood. The man who had buried friends, the man who would kill before he allowed harm to come to his family.

His hands found a throat.

He remembered that most clearly of all.

The feel of flesh beneath his fingers. The desperate struggle and the kicking and twisting. The frantic attempts to tear free. What shocked him later was the strength he possessed. Some distant corner of his mind knew his body should not have been capable of it, yet his grip felt stronger than ever before, as though some savage instinct had awakened within him and cared nothing for the limitations of flesh. His fingers tightened inexorably, the figure beneath him fought for breath, fought for life, and Baelor gave neither.

Then something intruded upon the dream.

A scent... wrong. Terribly wrong.

Bittersteel should have smelled of horse and leather and steel. Of sweat baked beneath armor. Of old blood dried into cloth. Instead there was lavender. Lavender and herbs and something clean beneath it. The scent came again and again, threading itself through the battlefield until it became impossible to ignore. Somewhere deep inside the madness, recognition stirred. He knew that scent. Had known it for days. It lingered whenever bandages were changed. Whenever cool hands touched fevered skin. Whenever a voice spoke softly above him while he drifted helplessly through darkness.

Anicia.

The realization tried to reach him, but the nightmare still held too much power. The enemy remained beneath his hands. The threat remained real. His sons remained in danger, whatever part of him recognized the scent could not overcome the certainty of what he believed he saw. He tightened his grip again, the struggle weakened. The figure beneath him seemed smaller now, frailer. Yet he was too far gone to question why.

He might have killed her, that truth came to him later.

At the time he only knew that he was winning.

Then the world exploded into noise.

Hands seized him from behind, voices shouted. The battlefield lurched and twisted around him. Someone dragged at his shoulders. Another tried to force his arms apart. For an instant he resisted instinctively. The strength was still there. He could have thrown them off. Even now the memory unsettled him. The ease with which he might have hurt them all, but amidst the confusion another voice broke through the fog, one voice familiar enough to cut through the madness.

Maekar.

Not distant and dreamlike, but real.

The sound of him cracked something inside Baelor's mind, the battlefield dissolved.

Bittersteel disappeared.

Suddenly there was no grass beneath him, only sheets. No blood-soaked earth, only a mattress. No rebel lord clawing for breath, only pain erupting behind his eyes as he was forced back against the bed. His skull throbbed viciously beneath its bandages. Every heartbeat sent fresh agony through his head, his chest heaved for air, hands were still clenched so tightly that his fingers ached.

It was only then that he looked properly.

His vision swam, everything appeared doubled. Faces blurred together at the edges. Yet even through the haze he saw a familiar braid. He saw bruises darkening pale skin. He saw fingers pressed protectively against a wounded throat.

And he smelled lavender.

Not Bittersteel, just Anicia... his healer.

The woman who had sat beside his bed while he lingered between life and death. The woman whose voice had followed him through fever dreams. The woman who had cleaned his wounds and endured his family's demands and somehow remained beside him through it all.

His gaze fixed upon the bruises around her throat.

The room around him seemed to fall away.

For the first time since waking, true horror settled into his chest.

Anicia had barely reached the corridor leading to Baelor's chambers when she found her path blocked.

Maester Yormwell stood squarely before the door like an aging fortress determined not to yield. The two guards stationed outside looked uncertain, their eyes shifting between the maester, the healer, and the prince's door behind him. Even the men accompanying Anicia seemed unsure whether they ought to escort her forward or drag her elsewhere.

The old maester made the decision for all of them.

"You will not be entering that chamber until someone has looked at your wounds, mistress."

Anicia blinked at him. "Yormwell, I'm fine."

The lie sounded weak even to her own ears.

The maester folded his hands into his sleeves. "No. You are not."

"I can walk."

"Yes," he agreed dryly. "A remarkable achievement."

Anicia opened her mouth to argue again, but Yormwell cut her off before she could begin.

"Your eyes are swollen red from strangulation. The wound on your neck has torn open the stitches and there is dried blood from your collar to your bodice. Hematomas are already forming over injuries that have barely begun to heal. You are pale, barely can talk;,. Exhausted. And judging by the way you're standing, you are one dizzy spell away from collapsing onto this floor."

His gaze swept over her with the merciless efficiency only healers seemed capable of inflicting upon one another.

"You look dreadful."

Anicia swallowed back the urge to roll her eyes, though the motion made her throat ache. One hand rose to rub at her brow, fingers lingering there as if they might somehow ease the pounding behind her eyes.

"Yormwell, you know as well as I do that I ought to see him." She crossed her arms. "Tell me true... is he still awake?"

"Stangely wide awake," the old man replied immediately. "Speaking, arguing, and demanding answers."

Relief flickered through her before she could stop it. "Then I should — "

"You should sit down."

They stared at each other. 

At last one of the Kingsguard cleared his throat. Ser Roland. The sound alone made her shoulders tense, she glanced toward him before quickly looking away again, unwilling to hold his gaze longer than necessary. The memories attached to his white cloak remained too fresh.

Still, when he spoke, there was none of the cold certainty she remembered from the trial. "You should allow him to tend to your injuries, mistress."

Anicia pinched the bridge of her nose. A maester and a Kingsguard agreeing with each other felt almost impossible to overcome.

Slowly she exhaled through her nose. "Fuck sake'."

Yormwell's expression immediately shifted into something dangerously close to satisfaction.

She pointed a finger at him. "Fine."

The old man looked entirely too pleased with himself.

The room Maester Yormwell commandeered for the task was little more than a storage chamber that had been hastily converted into a place for treatment. Shelves lined the walls, crowded with jars, dried herbs hanging from hooks, folded linens, and wooden boxes filled with supplies. A narrow table stood beneath a window no wider than a man's shoulders, allowing a shaft of afternoon light to cut across the room.

Anicia sat upon a stool while Yormwell busied himself with bowls and cloths.

The old maester spent the first few moments simply staring at her throat.

Anicia shifted uncomfortably beneath the scrutiny.

At length he reached forward and tilted her chin upward with two fingers, the movement was gentle enough, his expression was not.

The bruises had darkened considerably since she'd fled Baelor's chambers. Purple and blue fingerprints climbed along her throat and jaw, ugly against her skin. Where the stitches had torn, dried blood had crusted beneath her collar.

Yormwell clicked his tongue, then again, then a third time.

Anicia closed her eyes. "Please stop doing that."

The maester ignored her, instead he reached for a damp cloth and began cleaning away the blood with methodical motions.

The first touch made her flinch, his brows rose, and she immediately regretted reacting.

"There it is."

Anicia glared at him.

"As maesters go, you're remarkably smug."

The old man dipped the cloth into the basin again. "As patients go, you're remarkably foolish."

She attempted a retort, what emerged was little more than a rasp. The effort sent pain through her throat. Yormwell gave her a look, one that conveyed an entire lecture without requiring a single word.

Anicia sank lower onto the stool.

Satisfied, the maester resumed his work.

His fingers moved carefully as he examined the torn stitches. Once or twice he muttered to himself beneath his breath, the way old men did when cataloguing a long list of grievances.

The grievances appeared to be her.

After a moment he pulled a needle and fresh thread from a small leather case.

Anicia immediately straightened. "No."

Yormwell threaded the needle.

"Yes."

"No."

The maester inspected the thread. "Indeed."

She pointed weakly toward the door.

"Baelor — "

"Will survive."

"He nearly —"

"Which is precisely why I am sitting here stitching your throat back together instead of tending to him."

Anicia opened her mouth, then closed it again.

The old man nodded as though she'd finally shown a rare flash of wisdom.

"Good."

The needle pierced skin, Anicia hissed.

"Prince Baelor has spent the better part of an hour attempting to leave his bed." Another stitch. "He has been informed repeatedly that he suffered a fractured skull." Another. "He has chosen to ignore this information."

Anicia was unsurprised.

The maester looked equally unsurprised. "He demanded to see you." The needle passed through skin once more. "He attempted to stand." Another stitch. "He fell."

Anicia winced as the maester pulled the final stitch tight. Yormwell tied the thread off with practiced fingers, then sat back to inspect his work, squinting at the angry bruising spreading across her throat.

"How many times must I tell you the prince is fine before you begin behaving sensibly?" he asked, reaching for a clean cloth.

"I shall always worry," Anicia managed, the words rough and painful. "It is my duty after all"

"Aye?" Yormwell shifted the torn fabric at her collar with careful hands, examining the reopened wound beneath without disturbing the fresh stitches. "And what duty would that be?"

Anicia blinked at him.

"My duty as a healer, of course." She frowned. "What else would it be?"

The old man glanced at her from the corner of his eye, clearly amused by her confusion, then he gave a short scoff and returned his attention to the bandages.

"A healer," he repeated.

"Well... yes."

"You fret over him like a wife whose husband has ridden off to war."

Anicia opened her mouth then closed it, flabbergasted. "That ... that is absolutely not true."

"No?"

"No." She shifted upright, immediately regretting it when pain tugged at her throat. "I am his healer, nothing more, nothing less."

Yormwell made a noncommittal noise.

Anicia shot him a look, though it lacked its usual force. The effort of it pulled at the bruises blooming dark beneath her jaw.

"I have tended dozens of patients," she rasped stubbornly, each word scraping her throat raw. She sounded dreadful, and she knew it. "I worried over all of them."

Yormwell made a small sound deep in his throat and continued his work, trimming the thread with practiced fingers. "Aye, I am sure you did."

"I did." Anicia shifted slightly on the stool, wincing when the movement pulled at the bruises blooming beneath her collar. Her throat was raw enough that every sentence felt like dragging broken glass over an open wound, yet stubbornness carried the words out all the same. "I've always been too emotional where patients are concerned. It has been one of my flaws since I first began tending the sick. The prince is no exception."

Yormwell made a doubtful sound and continued his work.

Anicia pressed on regardless.

"People look at him and see a prince. They see titles, bloodlines, dragons, crowns waiting to be inherited. They see the heir to kingdoms and all the importance that comes with it." She shook her head carefully. "I don't, not when he's lying half-dead in a bed with his skull split open and his ribs blackened. Not when he's feverish, nor when he's bleeding. In those moments, he is no different from the stableboy thrown by a horse, or the old woman coughing her lungs apart in a village hut."

The maester's hands slowed briefly.

"To me," she continued, clearing her throat, "he is only a man. A wounded man. One whose blood is the same color as everyone else's. One whose heart stops the same way. One who suffers the same pain."

The old maester dabbed carefully at the reopened wound along her neck, wiping away the last traces of dried blood, then finally looked up to her.

"Did you survive torture for all of them?" he asked. "Did you stand beneath an executioner's sword for all of them? Did you bleed for them, argue with princes for them, and continue tending them after they put their hands about your throat?"

Anicia opened her mouth, but nothing came.

Yormwell tsked. "So that would be a no."

"That is not fair."

"Life rarely is."

The maester sat back slightly, studying the damage with narrowed eyes. The candlelight caught in the links of his chain as he shifted.

"For most patients, a healer worries because it is her duty," he said. "She changes bandages, mixes her draughts, says her prayers, and then goes home when the work is done. Yet every time I look for you, I find you seated beside Prince Baelor's bed as though the Seven themselves might steal him away the moment you turn your back."

Anicia lowered her gaze to her hands and said nothing.

What was there to say?

An hour ago she had stood in the forest insisting she would have let him die if it meant returning home. She had said it plainly, angrily, desperately. Yet the words sat ill with her now. After all, she had not let him die. She had crossed a line no sane person would have crossed. She had bargained with things she did not understand, cut her own flesh, given her blood, and bound herself to a fate she had spent weeks trying to escape.

For him.

The realization sat heavily in her stomach.

So instead of answering, instead of untangling thoughts she did not wish to examine too closely, Anicia seized upon the first safer subject she could find.

"Tell me about his condition, Yormwell," she said quietly.

The old maester glanced at her from the corner of his eye.

"Ah. Back to matters you can mend with herbs and bandages."

Anicia did not rise to the bait.

Yormwell sighed and returned to his work. He reached for fresh linen, carefully wrapping her injured hand while she watched in silence. When she attempted to pull away and muttered that she could tend the burn herself later, he fixed her with a look severe enough to silence further protest. He didn't say anything about her open palm or the burnt.

Only when the dressing was secure did he move on, taking a damp cloth and beginning to clean the dried blood crusted along the side of her neck.

"Before you ask, I will repeat this to you," he said, "the prince lives. He is awake. Alert, mostly..... Though not untouched by what happened to him."

Anicia's attention sharpened immediately.

"The blindness remains."

Her brow furrowed.

"The blindness?"

"The right side." Yormwell dabbed gently at the blood beneath her jaw. "As far as the other maesters observed this morning, he still cannot see from that eye."

Anicia swallowed carefully.

The old man continued.

"The weakness in his hand remains as well. His fingers do not move properly. He struggles to grasp objects. Worse still, he cannot reliably feel touch there."

That made her stomach sink : neurological damage.

She knew the signs well enough. "And his speech?"

Yormwell made a face.

"Improved from yesterday, certainly. But not normal. Sometimes he speaks clearly enough. Then a moment later the words catch. They emerge slowly, unevenly. As though his mind reaches them but his mouth arrives late."

Like glitches, she thought automatically, or pathways trying to reconnect.

The maester finished wiping away the last of the dried blood and set the cloth aside. "There is more."

Anicia looked up.

Yormwell rubbed at his beard. "The prince does not appear to favor the Common Tongue."

For a moment she simply stared. "What?"

"He understands it." The old man shrugged. "At least, we believe he does. But when he answers, the words come in High Valyrian."

Anicia blinked.

"What do you mean, High Valyrian?"

"I mean High Valyrian."

The maester looked mildly annoyed at having to explain it.

"He responds to questions in High Valyrian. Gives orders in High Valyrian. Asked for water in High Valyrian. Asked where he was in High Valyrian."

Anicia frowned.

"Maybe he's choosing to."

"No."

The answer came immediately.

Yormwell folded his arms.

"We tested it."

That did not sound reassuring.

"Tested it how?"

"The prince attempted to ask Ser Roland his name."

Anicia waited.

"He asked three times... in High Valyrian, then appeared genuinely confused when Roland failed to answer."

Something cold settled in her chest.

Yormwell seemed to notice.

"The words are still there," he said. "Some of them, common phrases. Simple responses. But they come slowly, and not always when he wants them. The High Valyrian comes naturally."

The more Yormwell spoke, the more a sick sense of familiarity settled over Anicia. She had been so distracted by the miracle of Baelor waking that she had almost missed it. Almost.

Pressure beneath the skull. Swelling trapped inside a space too small to contain it. Bruised tissue struggling to recover from damage that should never have been survivable. Difficulties with speech, problems with movement, changes in sensation. 

The signs lined themselves up one after another until she could no longer ignore what they resembled.

She had seen patients like this before.

Ordinary people lying in hospital beds beneath fluorescent lights, surrounded by machines that beeped and hummed while anxious families waited for answers no doctor could honestly give. Men and women who woke after head injuries to find pieces of themselves altered in ways that could not be stitched back together. Some forgot names, some forgot entire years, others could understand every word spoken to them yet found themselves unable to answer. The thoughts remained trapped somewhere inside, perfectly intact and impossibly distant at the same time.

She remembered one patient who could no longer speak English but answered every question flawlessly in Spanish, a language his family hadn't heard him use in decades. Another could recognize his wife but not his children. One woman spent weeks calling a spoon a fork and a fork a spoon, growing increasingly frustrated every time someone corrected her. The brain was strange, delicate, and endlessly complicated. It did not break in clean, predictable ways.

Neither, apparently, did Baelor.

The blindness in one eye and half in the other, the numbness in his fingers, the slurred words. His sudden reliance on High Valyrian while the Common Tongue seemed to slip through his grasp. None of it sounded mysterious when viewed through that lens.

"What else?" she asked quietly, wincing as she tried to flex her fingers.

Yormwell was silent for a moment, then he sighed.

"What concerns me most," he admitted, "is that His Grace seems aware that something is wrong."

Anicia looked up, the old maester's expression had grown considerably more serious.

"He becomes frustrated when words fail him, frustrated when he cannot see properly. Frustrated when his hand refuses to obey." He grimaces.  "Baelor for his patience is still a prince... and princes are not known for bearing helplessness gracefully."

Her fingers rested loosely in her lap while her mind worked through everything Yormwell had told her. None of it was random, and none of it was madness.

Yormwell noticed the look settling across her face. "You know something."

It was not a question.

Anicia rubbed tiredly at her eyes. "I think I know what's happening."

The old maester straightened slightly, leaning back. "Then tell me."

She hesitated, not because she doubted herself, but because she already knew how difficult this explanation would be.

"In my ... homeland," she began carefully, "we understand the brain differently."

Yormwell's brows knitted together. "The brain is the brain."

"No." Anicia shook her head. "Most people think of it as one thing, one organ.... but it isn't, not really. Different parts control different functions."

The maester listened without interruption.

"The injury he suffered..." She searched for words he would understand, waving her good hand around. "Imagine the brain as a castle."

Yormwell snorted softly. "A castle, of course."

"It works."

He gestured for her to continue.

"If a section of a castle wall collapses, the entire castle doesn't fall. But whatever was housed in that section is damaged. The kitchens may burn while the armory survives. The stables may be destroyed while the tower stands untouched."

Understanding began to creep into the old man's expression.

"And you believe this happened to the prince?"

"I know it did." Anicia leaned forward slightly. "The fracture in his skull wasn't just dangerous because of the bleeding. The bone pressed against the brain beneath it, the swelling did too."

He crossed his arms slowly, narrowing his grey eyes at her curiously. 

She tapped lightly against her own temple. "Somewhere under all of that, tissue was injured."

Yormwell's face grew more serious. "The eye."

"Mhm, possibly."

"The hand."

"Yes."

"And his speech."

Anicia nodded. "Especially his speech."

The old man fell silent.

She continued before he could interrupt.

"In some injuries, a person knows exactly what they want to say, but the pathway between thought and language becomes damaged."

She paused. "The words are still there."

Yormwell's gaze sharpened. "But?"

"But finding them becomes difficult."

His expression darkened. "You're saying the prince has forgotten how to speak?"

"No, no." The answer came quickly. "No, that's the important part."

Anicia shook her head.

"He hasn't forgotten language. If he had, he wouldn't understand you. He wouldn't know who people are. He wouldn't be trying to communicate at all." She leaned back. "This sounds more like damage to whatever part of the brain governs speech."

Yormwell absorbed that in silence. "The High Valyrian?"

"That part is more complicated."

The maester gave her a look. "I gathered."

Anicia sighed. "We learn languages differently. They aren't always stored exactly the same way."

Yormwell blinked.

"Stored."

"Remembered, then."

She rubbed her forehead.

"What I mean is that one language can survive damage better than another."

His brow furrowed deeper. "How?"

"I don't entirely know." That at least was honest. "I've seen patients lose one language and keep another. I've seen patients forget names but remember songs. I've seen patients unable to form sentences who could still pray perfectly."

A long silence followed.

"The brain is strange," she finished.

"That," Yormwell muttered, "is the first thing you've said all morning that sounds sensible."

Despite herself, Anicia almost smiled, the old maester paced a few steps.

"Will it return?"

Anicia wished she could offer him certainty.

A few weeks ago she would have. She would have explained the injury, outlined the possibilities, listed the outcomes she expected and the ones she feared. Medicine was built upon probabilities. Not certainty, perhaps, but close enough.

Now she carried the memory of a blood pact tucked away like a festering wound. She carried the knowledge that an old woman with white eyes had promised Baelor would return to himself. She carried the impossible fact that a man who should have died had opened his eyes instead.

How was she supposed to measure any of that?

Yormwell was looking at her expectantly, waiting for an answer, waiting for the confidence healers were meant to provide.

Anicia lowered her gaze briefly. The truth was that she did not know anymore where medicine ended and whatever else had touched Baelor began.

His sight was returning.

That alone should have been remarkable.

With a blow in that location, with swelling that severe and pressure trapped inside the skull for so long, blindness would have been among her greatest concerns. Permanent blindness. Partial, perhaps, if fortune favored him, but blindness all the same.

Yet every day he seemed to recover a little more. Perhaps it was natural, perhaps it wasn't. She could not tell, and that uncertainty frightened her more than any diagnosis she had ever given.

Her fingers tightened slightly against her bandaged hand before she forced them to relax.

At length she gave a small shrug.

"I don't know," she admitted.

The words felt strange coming from her.

Yormwell's jaw tightened.

"The swelling has already improved. That's good." She gestured toward the castle. "The fact that he's awake is good. The fact that he recognizes people is good. The fact that he understands language at all is very good."

"But."

"There is always a but."

She exhaled. "The brain heals differently from other parts of the body."

Yormwell folded his arms. "You mean slowly."

"Sometimes."

"And sometimes not at all."

Anicia looked away. "Yes."

Outside, somewhere beyond the small chamber, a bell rang faintly across the castle grounds. Neither spoke for a while.

Finally Yormwell broke the silence.

"Should we tell him?"

Anicia laughed once, not because anything was funny but because the alternative was screaming.

"He already knows."

The old maester frowned. "What makes you say that?"

Anicia thought of the frustration Yormwell had described. The repeated attempts to speak. The confusion when words failed, the anger.

"The first thing patients notice isn't what they've lost." She stared at the floor. "It's what suddenly becomes difficult."

She took a breathe.

"And if Prince Baelor is half the man everyone claims he is, then he's already realized something is wrong."

Yormwell looked toward the door leading back to the prince's chambers.

"And when he asks?"

Anicia swallowed carefully against the pain in her bruised throat, and closed her eyes, no answer coming to her?

She rose when Yormwell finally declared himself satisfied with her bandages, though every part of her protested the movement. Her throat still felt raw and swollen, each swallow a reminder of fingers closing around her windpipe. The fresh linen around her hand pulled unpleasantly when she flexed her fingers. Even so, she followed the old maester from the small chamber and back into the corridor without complaint.

What was one more hurt at this point?

Their footsteps echoed softly against the stone as they made their way through the castle. Guards stepped aside as they passed. Servants lowered their heads. Somewhere far away she could hear the distant sounds of life continuing as though the world had not shifted upon its axis that morning.

Anicia barely noticed any of it.

Her thoughts had drifted elsewhere : back to the forest. Back to Magda.

The old woman had sounded so certain.

He will be himself again.

At the time Anicia had dismissed them as another one of the crone's maddening prophecies. Yet now, after hearing Yormwell describe Baelor's condition, she found herself wondering.

Could the magic heal this too? Her stomach twisted at the thought.

The rational part of her mind rejected it immediately. A damaged brain was a damaged brain. She knew that. She had seen it countless times before. Patients survived strokes only to lose language. Survivors of head trauma woke unable to recognize their own families. Some never walked again. Others never spoke again.

The brain did not forgive injury easily.

Yet nothing about Baelor's recovery had been normal, nothing. A week ago she had been certain he would die, then he had survived. Days ago she had believed he would never wake, then he had opened his eyes, and now Yormwell was telling her his sight had already begun to improve.

That gave her pause.

The fracture had been severe, worse than severe.

She remembered the feel of it beneath her fingers when she had opened the wound again to relieve the pressure. Remembered the unnatural softness of damaged bone. Remembered the blood.

With an injury in that location... Realistically, he should have been blind. The swelling alone should have destroyed far more than it apparently had.

Yet according to Yormwell, the prince could see from portions of the damaged eye now, not well, not clearly, but better than before. So, improving.

After everything she had witnessed lately, Anicia found herself increasingly suspicious of unlikely things.

Magic....

The word still felt absurd even inside her own head, nut absurdity had ceased to matter the moment she had watched Magda's eyes turn white. The moment she'd heard another voice speak through the old woman's mouth. The moment she'd cut her palm open and spoken words from a language she did not understand. Yeah, that was fucked up to say the least.  The moment a dead man opened his eyes, was also fucked up.

Anicia rubbed at her forehead.

Perhaps Magda had been right; the rite had done more than wake him, perhaps it was still working. Perhaps somewhere inside that broken skull, pathways were mending that should not have been able to mend... or perhaps she was grasping at hope because the alternative was easier to understand and far more cruel.

They reached the final staircase.

Yormwell climbed it steadily despite his age.

Anicia followed more slowly.

At the top stood the familiar corridor leading toward Baelor's chambers, the sight of it made her stomach tighten.

Her hand rose unconsciously toward her throat again.

She remembered the panic, the certainty that she was dying. The terrible realization that the man she had sacrificed everything to save was about to kill her. Her steps slowed, only for a moment.

Then she forced herself onward, because another memory followed close behind the feel of Baelor's hands around her throat, one that sat far less comfortably with her anger. When she closed her eyes, she did not see the bruises he had left behind or the desperate struggle upon the bed. She saw his face. She saw the complete absence of recognition in his mismatched eyes. Saw the confusion there, the panic, the blind terror of a man trapped somewhere far away from the room around him. 

Yormwell had been right, damn him. 

Of all people, she should have recognized what she was looking at. She had spent years studying injuries of the mind as well as the body. The prince had not truly been awake when he attacked her. His eyes had been open, his body had been moving, but whatever part of him made him Baelor had still been caught inside some nightmare his wounded brain could not escape. Understanding that did little to ease the ache in her throat or the memory of her lungs screaming for air, yet it settled stubbornly inside her all the same, refusing to be ignored.

Ser Roland and Ser Donnel still stood watch before the double wooden doors leading to Baelor's chambers. 

Somewhere beyond those heavy oak panels sat the man himself, awake for the first time in weeks, breathing, speaking, and somehow still alive despite every law of medicine insisting otherwise. 

God, what had her life become? 

Not so long ago her worries had consisted of hospital schedules, difficult patients, overdue paperwork, and whether Rosie had remembered to eat breakfast before school, of calling Nat her best friend to update her on life, send a text to her mom for an important appointment she has the next week. Now she was standing inside a castle in a world that should not exist, preparing to face a prince she had dragged back from death through blood magic after bargaining away her future to a witch in the woods. 

Sometimes she genuinely wondered whether there was a camera hidden somewhere, whether this was all some elaborate joke at her expense. Some impossible prank designed to see how much absurdity one person could endure before finally breaking. Yet the soreness in her throat felt real enough. The stone beneath her feet felt real enough. The ribbon tucked inside her bodice felt real enough.

Her fingers brushed unconsciously against her chest where the green ribbon remained hidden beneath the folds of her dress. His ribbon. No, hers. The favor she had stubbornly refused to give him properly before the trial, only for him to take it anyway and tie it around his wrist for luck.

The same ribbon that had slipped free during the struggle. She had pocketed it without really understanding why. Perhaps because returning it felt impossible now, perhaps because she was not yet ready to decide what it meant.

Ser Roland noticed her first. 

His gaze swept over her carefully, lingering on details she wished he would ignore. The fresh bandages circling her throat. The bruises already darkening beneath pale skin. The places where Yormwell had cleaned away the blood and stitched the wound closed once more. 

Her hair had been redone into its usual braid, her face washed, her dress straightened as much as possible, but there was only so much dignity one could restore after being strangled by a prince before half the castle. She looked cleaner but she certainly did not look well. Her hands trembled despite every effort to stop them, and the moment she noticed Roland's attention drifting toward them she tucked them both firmly behind her back like a child caught doing something embarrassing.

For several long seconds nobody spoke. The corridor remained strangely quiet.

The doctor swallowed and immediately regretted it as pain scraped down her throat. She drew a careful breath instead, straightened her shoulders, and forced herself to stand a little taller. If she was going to do this, then she would do it properly. She gave a small nod.

Roland exchanged a look with Donnel. Whatever passed between them appeared sufficient. Together they reached for the doors and pushed them inward. One stepped through first before announcing her presence into the chamber beyond.

"The healer, Your Grace."

And just like that, the waiting was over. 

There would be no more forest paths, no more excuses, no more hiding on forgotten benches pretending the world had stopped turning. Beyond those doors sat the man whose life she had saved, whose throat she had nearly crushed beneath impossible expectations, whose fingers had left bruises around her neck only hours ago. 

For better or worse, she would have to face him now.

The words had barely left Ser Donnel's mouth before Anicia felt every muscle in her body tighten.

She remained where she was, standing upon the threshold while the doors swung wider before her. It was absurd, really. She had walked into sickrooms carrying news of death. She had performed procedures that made grown men faint. She had watched patients code on operating tables and forced herself to remain calm while chaos erupted around her. Yet somehow stepping into this room felt harder than any of that.

Because this time she was not afraid of what she might find.

She already knew, Baelor was awake. The realization still felt unnatural.

The chamber itself looked much as it always had. Morning light spilled through the narrow windows, falling across stone walls and polished furniture. The hearth burned low. The familiar scent of herbs lingered in the air beneath the sharper smell of medicines and old blood. Yet despite how little had changed, the room felt entirely different.

Because for the first time since she had entered it, the prince was no longer lying motionless between life and death.

He was sitting upright.

Pillows had been piled behind him to support his back. One arm rested across his lap while the other remained close to his side, stiff in a way that immediately caught her attention. His bandages were still in place around his head, though fresh linen now replaced the bloodied wrappings she had removed earlier that morning. Sunlight caught in strands of brown hair.

He looked terrible.

Weeks of unconsciousness had carved themselves into his face. His cheeks were hollow. The bones of his jaw stood sharper beneath pale skin. There was still bruising around one eye, faint traces of yellow and purple fading into the surrounding flesh.

And yet.

He was awake, actually awake.

Baelor was looking at her too. His mismatched eyes fixed upon her the moment she entered.

Blue Lilac and brown. Clear and focused.

Anicia wanted to cry.

The urge came so suddenly it almost caught her off guard. Her eyes burned, filling before she could stop them, but she blinked rapidly and forced the tears back where they belonged. She would not cry here. Not in front of half the royal family. Not in front of the man who had nearly killed her. Not after everything.

Across the room, Baelor was staring at her with an intensity that made her skin prickle. His eyes narrowed slightly, not in suspicion, but in concentration, as though he were trying to force her features into focus. She remembered what Yormwell had told her only moments ago. His sight was still damaged. Recovering, perhaps, but damaged nonetheless.

She wondered what exactly he could see when he looked at her. Whether the bruises appeared clear, whether the blood, whether the fear, whether the disappointment.

The doctor became painfully aware of everything at once. The bruises around her throat. The sting of freshly placed stitches. The exhaustion settled so deeply into her bones she wondered if it would ever leave. The ribbon hidden against her chest beneath layers of cloth. The phantom memory of his fingers crushing her windpipe while she fought for breath.

Most of all she became aware of his gaze.... It traveled slowly across her face before descending toward her neck, and there it stopped.

She watched the understanding gradually arrive, like a blade being pushed inch by inch beneath armor. 

His eyes remained fixed upon the dark bruises encircling her throat. The shape of fingers was unmistakable now. Angry blue and purple marks standing out starkly against pale skin. Even from across the room they were impossible to miss.

The room itself seemed to shrink around them.

Only then did Anicia fully register who else occupied it.

Prince Maekar sat beside the bed, leaning forward in his chair, one arm resting against his knee. For once his attention was nowhere near her. His entire focus remained fixed upon his elder brother. The sight felt strange enough to be unsettling.

Three other maesters lingered near the walls.

She recognized Maester Roderik immediately, looking just as perpetually annoyed as he always did, his mouth compressed into a thin line while his sharp eyes studied everything taking place.

Yormwell had stopped near the doorway.

The Kingsguard remained where they stood.

And Valarr. The prince was seated beside his father's bed.

The boy clung tightly to Baelor's arm as though afraid someone might take him away again. His white streak of hair caught the sunlight spilling through the windows, and when his gaze found Anicia she saw something there that almost hurt more than the bruises.

Pity. Pure, aching pity... and guilt.

He knew, of course he knew. Half the castle probably knew by now. Anicia suddenly wished the floor would open beneath her feet.

The silence stretched.

Baelor's gaze finally lifted again to meet hers again, whatever he saw there made something tighten visibly in his face.

His jaw shifted, one hand clenched against the blankets, then unclenched. When he finally spoke, the words came slowly, carefully, as though he was forcing each one through unfamiliar terrain.

"The healer."

His Common Tongue was rougher than before, yet the voice was unmistakably his.

Anicia swallowed, the movement hurt. 

"Your Grace." The words emerged as little more than a rasp.

She curtsied as gracefully as she could

His eyes flickered briefly at the sound, toward her throat again. A long silence followed.

Then, very quietly, Baelor asked, "Did I do that?"

From the look on his face, Anicia suspected he already knew the answer. The question was not born of ignorance. It was born of dread, some part of him had already pieced it together from the way everyone in the room stood too carefully around him, from the silence that had settled after his awakening, from the bruises he could not quite see but clearly sensed were there. He simply needed someone to confirm it.

The doctor gaze drifted briefly toward Maekar.

The prince stood beside the bed with one hand scratching thoughtfully at his bearded jaw, his customary scowl fixed firmly in place. If a stranger had entered the room, they might have thought nothing remarkable had happened at all. His elder brother had returned from the edge of death after a week of uncertainty, yet Maekar looked as though someone had interrupted him during an unpleasant chore. Then again, perhaps that was simply Maekar. Joy, relief, anger, concern — they all seemed to wear the same face once they reached him.

Anicia cleared her throat and immediately regretted it. Pain scraped through her neck like broken glass.

"Did nobody inform you, Your Grace?" she managed.

Her eyes shifted from her to Maekar, nothing.

Then to Yormwell, nothing there either.

Then across the room toward Lord Ashford and Lord Tully, who stood near the far wall pretending not to listen while clearly listening to every word.

Nothing from them.

Her gaze went back to him. 

"I want to hear it from you." The words emerged in High Valyrian, slower than they ought to have been.

Maekar let out an audible groan. "He says he wants to hear it from you."

Anicia glanced toward Yormwell, silently asking for rescue.

The old maester merely nodded. Coward.

She exhaled slowly.

"Yes," she admitted at last. "But I know you were not in your right state of mind. Truthfully, it happens with patients sometimes."

Not like that, the thought remained safely inside her head. Most patients woke confused and disoriented. They shouted, cried, occasionally they lashed out.

Most patients did not strangle their healer with enough force to reopen stitches and leave bruises dark enough to be seen from across a room. Most patients had not been dragged back from death through blood magic either.

Baelor's jaw tightened. His hands, resting atop the blankets, curled slightly.

"I..." He swallowed. The simple motion seemed to cost him effort. "I tried..." His brow furrowed in frustration. "I tried to see you."

The words came haltingly, broken by pauses as he searched for them.

"I unfortunately..." He took another breath. "Cannot see much of the damage I did."

Anicia almost laughed from the absurdity of it. Only Baelor Targaryen could wake from a coma, nearly murder someone, and immediately concern himself with whether he could properly inspect the injuries afterward.

"It is fine, Your Grace," she said softly. "You needn't concern yourself."

The effect was immediate, his expression hardened with disagreement.

"What I did was disgraceful."

The room fell silent, even Maekar stopped fidgeting.

Baelor's gaze remained fixed upon her throat. He could not see the bruises clearly (Yormwell had already explained as much) but he knew they were there. Knew every mark had been left by his hands. Knew she stood before him with swollen eyes, a damaged voice, and fresh stitches because of him.

"It does not matter what dream held me," he continued slowly, forcing the Common Tongue now despite the visible effort it cost him. "It does not matter what I believed I saw."

His fingers tightened against the blankets. 

"I laid hands upon a woman under my protection." The words seemed to disgust him. "A healer, a woman who saved my life."

Anicia shifted awkwardly watching the people around her embarrassingly, the entire room suddenly felt far too interested in the conversation.

"Your Grace — "

"No." He swallowed again before continuing. "If I possess enough sense to know what happened, then I possess enough sense to apologize for it."

His eyes found hers again. God, they looked exhausted. The exhaustion of a man who had awoken to discover he had become the very thing he despised.

"I am deeply and most grievously sorry, Anicia. No excuse I might offer could lessen the shame of what I have done."

Seven save her, a part of Anicia wanted to cross the room and embrace him. Wanted to tell him it was alright, that he had not known what he was doing, that she forgave him. There was even a foolish, traitorous part of her that wanted to press a kiss to his brow and make that look of guilt disappear from his face.

Then her throat throbbed, and the memory returned at once.

His hands, the crushing pressure, the helplessness. The certainty that she was dying. The warmth that had risen to her face as air vanished from her lungs. The impulse died as quickly as it had come.

The prince noticed, and his mouth tightened.

The thought came unbidden. Was she angry with him?

It was a strange thing to concern himself with, stranger still that it should matter.

Baelor had spent his life weathering the displeasure of lords, princes, kings, and rivals. Men had cursed him, resented him, accused him of weakness and ambition in equal measure. Their opinions had always mattered only insofar as they affected the realm. Personal feelings were luxuries he had long ago learned to set aside.

Yet he found himself watching Anicia all the same.

Watching the way she refused to meet his gaze for long. The careful distance she maintained whenever she approached the bed. The stiffness in her shoulders. The way her hands trembled despite her obvious efforts to hide it. She answered his questions when required. She examined him with the same diligence she always had. She spoke of his injuries, his recovery, his treatment.

But something had changed. Perhaps it would have been more comforting if she had shouted at him. 

Was she angry? Perhaps. She had every right to be, yet anger alone did not seem to explain what he saw in her eyes. There had been fear there when she first entered the room, not the fear a servant might feel before a prince. The fear of someone who remembered exactly how close death had come.

Baelor found that harder to bear than any wound in his skull. His hand tightened slightly against the blanket.

Across the room Maekar shifted his weight and clasped his hands, the motion making Anicia flinch before she could stop herself.

"If we are done with apologies," he said, "I would sooner have my brother examined than watch him drown in remorse."

"Maekar."

Baelor's gaze moved toward his younger brother.

The warning sat plainly between them, but Maekar ignored it, as younger brothers often did.

Baelor turned his attention elsewhere. "Were her wounds tended?"

The question came in High Valyrian.

His eyes had found Yormwell.

The old maester understood enough of the language to follow the exchange. He gave a small nod before answering in the same tongue.

"Yes, your Grace. The stitches were redone. Her neck cleaned and dressed. She fought the treatment more stubbornly than any knight I've seen after battle."

A corner of Baelor's mouth twitched, the expression vanished almost immediately when his gaze drifted back to the bruises at her throat, he could barely see, but her throat was so red adn violent that his blurred vision could notice it.

Anicia decided she had suffered enough scrutiny for one day, and so with considerable reluctance she crossed the remaining distance to the bed.

Only hours ago she had fled from this room convinced she never wished to see him again. Now she was climbing back onto the edge of his bed to perform a neurological examination.

Her hands trembled, and she hated that they trembled. She hated even more that Baelor noticed. For a moment she simply sat there, gathering herself. The mattress shifted beneath her weight.

The prince remained utterly still.

Across the chamber Valarr had been watching the entire exchange with solemn eyes far too old for a boy his age.

"Do not fear, my lady."

The words startled her, she had forgotten he was there.

Valarr offered her what he clearly believed was a reassuring smile. "My father is himself now."

God help her. The child sounded as though he were comforting her.

Anicia swallowed carefully and turned back toward the prince. "Look at me, Your Grace."

Baelor obeyed at once, she lifted her hands, the burned one protested immediately. Ignoring it, she held up both index fingers before his face.

"Can you see these?"

"Aye." His mismatched eyes narrowed slightly as he focused.

"Do not look away."

Slowly, she began moving her fingers outward, her attention fixed entirely upon his eyes. The right pupil tracked the movement first, the left followed a fraction of a second later.

Mhm, better. Far better than before.

She moved farther, Baelor followed obediently. His gaze wavered once, then corrected itself.

Around them the room had gone silent, even Maekar seemed content to keep his counsel for once. Anicia scarcely noticed.

His tracking was not perfect, but it was present. That alone was more than she had expected to find after an injury of this severity. She shifted slightly on the mattress and ignored the protest from her bruised throat as she spoke again. "If you will please follow my finger again, your Grace."

Baelor did.

This time she moved it more slowly, drawing it upward, downward, then side to side. She watched for hesitation, for nystagmus, for any sign that his eyes could no longer coordinate with one another. The movement remained somewhat sluggish, but he followed.

Better.

Yormwell leaned forward slightly. "Well?"

"Alive," she muttered.

Maekar snorted, and Anicia ignored him, as always. 

"Can you see Lord Ashford?"

Baelor's gaze shifted past her. "A shape."

"How many fingers?"

She held up three.

A pause followed. "Two."

"Three," Anicia corrected.

Baelor frowned.

"Then I see two Lords Ashford."

That earned a bark of laughter from somewhere near the wall, probably Lord Tyrell.  Even Maekar's mouth twitched.

"That may be an improvement," the younger prince observed.

Lord Ashford looked less pleased.

Anicia moved on before the conversation could derail. "Close your eyes."

Baelor obeyed.

"Now open them."

Again he obeyed.

The movement was equal.

No obvious drooping.... Good. She placed two fingers lightly against the back of his hand, he almost groaned in delight at the feeling of her skin against his.

"Can you feel this?"

"Yes."

"Here?"

She moved to his forearm.

"Yes."

His answers came more quickly now.

The hesitation that had marked his speech earlier seemed less pronounced. Interesting.

She pressed against his shoulder. "And this?"

"Yes."

Then she took his right hand.

Baelor watched the movement more than he felt it. Her own hand looked worse than he remembered. Fresh bandages wrapped her palm and wrist, the linen spotted faintly where blood had seeped through despite efforts. Even lifting it seemed to cost her something. There was a stiffness to the way she moved, a faint tremor she could not entirely conceal. 

His gaze lingered there for a moment before drifting upward. He noticed then the swelling around her eyes, the discoloration at her throat where his fingers had been, and the way she held her head ever so slightly to one side, as though the weight of it pained her.

Another injury.... He did not remember seeing that one before. He clenched his jaw, how many wounds had she collected while he lay senseless in this bed?

Anicia appeared oblivious to his scrutiny.... Or perhaps she simply chose to ignore it. Her attention remained fixed upon the task before her.

"This is the hand that concerns me," she said, turning his palm upward. he could see her beauty mark above her lips much more clearly. 

Yormwell had already warned her. The right side remained weaker. Not dead, not paralyzed, but diminished. A lingering consequence of the blow to his skull.

"Grip my fingers."

Baelor complied silently.

Weak.... not terribly weak, but weaker than it should have been.

She felt the imbalance immediately.

"Again."

He squeezed harder. The tendons stood out beneath his skin. Still weaker...  she switched sides.

"Other hand, you grace."

This grip nearly crushed her fingers.

Anicia winced.

"Well. One side of you still wishes me dead."

Baelor closed his eyes briefly, Maekar looked away and Valarr immediately appeared scandalized.

"Father does not wish you dead."

The certainty with which he declared it made several men in the room suddenly find the walls fascinating.

Anicia coughed and regretted it instantly.

Baelor looked miserable, so she decided to spare him.

"Push against my hand."

She pressed against his forearm. He resisted, then the other arm.

The difference remained obvious.

Not paralysis but weakness, mikely lingering neurological damage. Perhaps temporary.

She continued down the examination methodically : leg strength, foot movement, reflexes, questions about sensation, questions about pain, questions about memory.

The last part interested her most.

"Do you know who you are?"

Maekar let out an exasperated curse. "Seven bloody hells, of course he knows who he is."

Anicia did not even look at him. "Your Grace, please."

Baelor stared at her, a little stupid twitch of a smile on his face. "I should hope so."

"Humor me."

"I am Prince Baelor, son of King Daeron the second, Lord Hand, heir of the Iron Throne and protector of the realm."

"Good. Where are you?"

"My chambers."

"Full name?"

He blinked. "Anicia."

"No. Yours."

Something suspiciously like amusement appeared in his eyes. "Baelor Targaryen."

The room relaxed slightly.

Anicia continued. "What year is it?"

He answered.

"Who is king?"

Another correct answer.

"What happened to you?"

The room grew quiet once more, Baelor's gaze drifted briefly toward the ceiling, narrowing his eyes.

Then toward her. "A... mace." His trembling fingers slowly moved unconsciously toward the bandages around his head.

"I recall a trial." A pause. "Then darkness."

Anicia nodded slowly.

That made sense, traumatic brain injuries often swallowed memory. There were gaps and fragments. Entire days that might never return. The fact that he remembered anything at all was encouraging.

When she finally leaned back, exhaustion settled over her all at once.

The examination had taken longer than she realized.

Baelor watched her carefully. "Well?"

She considered the question, then considered how much truth to give.

"You should be blind."

The room froze. Maekar's head snapped toward her and Yormwell looked horrified.

Anicia pressed onward. "You should not be speaking, nor know your own name."

Baelor stared.

"So either you are very fortunate..." she said, remembering the witch in the forest, the blood, the bargain, the impossible awakening, "...or something happened that I cannot explain."

Maekar folded his arms. "Fuckin' wonderful."

Anicia looked at him.

"What?"

"My brother survives having his skull caved in only for his healer to announce he is medically impossible." A pause. "Father will be delighted."

Anicia rubbed absently at her burnt palm before remembering Yormwell's lecture and lowering her hand. Every eye in the room had turned toward her now, even Lord Ashford and Lord Tully abandoning any pretense of disinterest. They were waiting for answers.... she was not entirely certain she possessed any.

Still, she straightened slightly and forced herself into familiar ground. Medicine, at least, was something she understood.

"The blow to Your Grace's skull damaged far more than bone," Anicia began, folding her hands before her as she searched for words simple enough for the room to understand without losing their meaning. "When the skull cracked, the injury caused swelling beneath it. The brain sits trapped within bone, it has nowhere to expand when injured. So the swelling presses against the surrounding tissue, and depending on which part is affected, different functions begin to fail."

She glanced toward Baelor before continuing.

"The injury appears to have touched several regions. Most notably the left frontal lobe, particularly an area responsible for forming speech." She paused, realizing the names meant little to anyone present. "Think of it as the part of the mind that gathers thoughts and turns them into words. Your Grace still knows what he wishes to say, but the road between thought and speech has been damaged. That is why his words sometimes emerge slowly, why he struggles with the Common Tongue, and why High Valyrian seems easier. Languages learned earliest in life are often buried deeper. When the mind is injured, it sometimes reaches for the oldest paths first."

Maester Roderik frowned thoughtfully while Yormwell nodded along.

"The injury also appears to have reached part of the parietal lobe." Again she caught herself and clarified. "The region that helps the body understand touch, pressure, position. That would explain why some of his fingers remain numb and why sensation has not fully returned to his hand. The nerves themselves are not damaged. The messages simply are not being properly interpreted."

Her gaze drifted toward Baelor's eyes.

"And then there is the occipital lobe, at the back of the head, where he was struck. That is where sight is processed. The eyes may gather the image, but it is the brain that truly sees. The swelling affected that region as well. That is why his vision remains blurred and doubled."

A murmur passed between some of the men gathered in the room.

"The fortunate thing," Anicia continued, "is that these symptoms are already improving. His sight is returning. His speech, though impaired, is far better than it might have been. Realistically..." She hesitated, choosing her words carefully. "Realistically, a man who suffered such a blow could have awakened completely blind. He could have lost speech entirely, could have lost the use of an entire side of his body."

The chamber grew quieter, transfixed by her words and her intelligence.

Anicia looked directly at Baelor.

"The fact that Your Grace is sitting here speaking to us at all is remarkable, the fact that improvements continue each day is even more so."

Maester Roderik folded his arms, looking at her skeptically, as though the word itself offended him.

Anicia ignored him, instead she simply folded her hands once more.

"The brain heals slowly, far more slowly than bone or flesh. Some functions may return within days. Others may take moons. What matters now is rest, patience, and allowing the damaged tissue time to recover rather than forcing it before it is ready." I think you meant  to trust the magic to heal it slowly, a voice in her head whispered harshly.

Baelor's mouth tightened faintly.

"I don't quite understand the healing process," Lord Tyrell says, frowning and scratching his mustache.

"Think of it as a road," she said, turning to him, waving her hands as she explained patiently. "Messages travel from one part of the body to another. The injury damaged some of those roads. They are still there, but travel is slower."

"Can they be repaired?" He then asked, haughty nose in the air.

"Sometimes.... sometimes not."

That earned a grim silence.

She looked back toward Baelor.

"The fact that Your Grace can speak at all is encouraging. The fact that your vision has improved is encouraging. The fact that you can move every limb is encouraging."

"Yet?" Baelor's eyes had narrowed.

Anicia sighed. "Yet you still have significant deficits." She continued, this time looking at Valarr and Maekar. "He will tire easily, and may struggle finding words. His balance will be poor. The weakness in his right hand may improve, or it may remain. The same applies to his vision."

Baelor absorbed the information in silence. "What must be done?"

"Rest."

A shadow crossed his face immediately.

She knew that look, every surgeon knew that look. The look of a patient already planning to ignore every instruction given.

"You will continue resting," she said firmly. "You will eat and sleep. You will walk only with assistance until we know your balance is reliable."

"I am Hand of the King."

The room seemed to brace itself.

Anicia merely stared at him. "And?"

His brow furrowed, wincing at the pain under the bandages. "Duties remain."

"So does your brain."

Baelor remained unimpressed. "The realm does not cease because I am injured."

"The realm survived while you were unconscious." He opened his mouth, but Anicia raised a finger. "No."

The prince blinked... Anicia herself could not believe she had just interrupted the Hand of the King, yet exhaustion and strangulation apparently cured many social anxieties.

"Your recovery is more important than your paperwork."

"My paperwork?"

"The letters. The meetings. The arguing with lords. Whatever it is Hands do."

Maekar snorted. "Mostly arguing."

"Then someone else can argue for a few more days."

Baelor looked as though he wished to disagree.

Eventually Maekar stepped in. "When can we travel?"

Anicia hesitated, every face turned toward her again.... She hated being the person with answers. The answer she wanted to give was weeks. The answer reality allowed was something else entirely.

"Three days."

Yormwell frowned.

Baelor looked relieved.

Anicia immediately regretted speaking. "Three days if his condition continues improving."

"A week would be safer," Yormwell muttered.

"A month would be safer," Anicia replied.

"Then why three days?"

"Because nobody in this room will accept a month."

That earned no arguments, she pointed toward Baelor. "He cannot ride horseback."

"I can."

"No, your Grace."

"I have ridden since I was—"

"No."

His jaw tightened.

"A carriage, then?" Lord Ashford suggested.

Anicia shook her head. "Too rough."

"A litter."

"Perhaps."

She thought for a moment.

"Better yet, modify a wagon. Put a proper bed inside it. Cushions beneath the frame. Minimize the jolting."

The maesters exchanged thoughtful looks.

"Possible," Yormwell admitted.

Baelor looked deeply offended. "I am not an invalid."

"You were dead yesterday."

Anicia immediately wished she could swallow the words back. Too late, like always.

Baelor stared at her. After a long moment he huffed something that might have been reluctant amusement.

"Three days," he said.

"If your progress continues."

"It will."

Anicia pinched the bridge of her nose. "Do not force yourself."

"I will walk by then."

"You may."

"I shall."

"You may."

At length Baelor leaned back against the pillows, the effort leaving him visibly fatigued despite his attempts to conceal it.

Then his eyes found her again. "You will come as well, am I right?"

Anicia found herself without an answer.... The forest returned to her thoughts. Magda. The blood pact. You will go with him. The promise of King's Landing.

The possibility, however faint, of answers.

Her fingers brushed unconsciously against her bodice where the green ribbon remained hidden. Across the room Maekar watched her carefully, even Valarr seemed to be waiting.

Baelor simply held her gaze.

Anicia opened her mouth, then closed it again.

Too many answers crowded together behind her teeth, and none of them seemed fit to speak aloud.

Because I made a bargain with a witch, because she told me I would follow you, because I do not know if I can survive being near you.

Because I do not know if I can survive being away from you either.

Instead she pushed herself carefully to her feet. The mattress shifted beneath her weight. Her legs felt unsteady, her body still exhausted from fear, grief, and lack of sleep. She smoothed her skirts unnecessarily, brushing at wrinkles that were not there.

"I do not know, Your Grace."

The answer clearly displeased him.

"Whatever you desire shall be granted."

Anicia nearly laughed. There had been a time in her life when those words might have sounded miraculous. Now they only made her tired.

"My prince..."

"If it is coin, you shall have coin."

"It is not coin."

"If it is a position — "

"It is not that either."

Baelor frowned, then he glanced toward Lord Ashford. 

"If... If Lord Ash...ford fears inconvenience," he took a breath from teh effort of speaking full sentences and then continues. "I sh... shall compensate him for the loss. Any servant taken into my household shall be replaced .... tw...twice o-over."

The minor lord immediately straightened.

"Anything for Your Grace."

Anicia pinched the bridge of her nose, of course he would say that. Lord Ashford would probably have surrendered his entire household if asked.

"She was already dismissed anyway."

Every head turned toward Maekar, the prince remained lounging in his chair as though he had merely commented upon the weather. Anicia closed her eyes.

Lord Ashford suddenly found the faded hunting tapestry upon the far wall to be the most fascinating thing in the chamber. His eyes fixed upon it with almost desperate concentration, as though the stitched hounds and stags might leap free of the cloth and save him from answering. Baelor noticed at once. For all that one eye still struggled to focus and half the room appeared doubled to him, little escaped the Hand of the King when something was amiss. His gaze moved slowly from Lord Ashford to Maekar, lingering there. 

"And why, may I ask, would you dismiss her?" he asked.

Maekar's expression changed so little that another man might have missed it entirely, but Anicia saw the brief tightening around his eyes. So did Yormwell and Lord Ashford, whose face seemed to drain of what little color remained in it. Nobody had told Baelor. In the chaos of his recovery, amid the maesters, the fever, the prayers, and now the miracle of his waking, nobody had yet informed him that while he lay unconscious his younger brother had nearly sent his healer to the block. Nobody had told him that accusations of witchcraft had spread through the castle, that witnesses had been gathered, that servants had whispered and lords had judged. Nobody had told him how close the axe had come. 

Lord Ashford looked toward Maekar as if silently begging for rescue. Receiving none, his eyes darted instead toward Valarr. The boy lowered his gaze immediately, shame written plain upon his young face.

Anicia felt dread coil in her stomach.

This was the last thing she wanted discussed. Not while Baelor still struggled to sit upright without exhausting himself. Not while his speech stumbled and his vision blurred. Gods only knew how he would react if he learned the truth. 

Before the silence could stretch any further, she cleared her throat. The motion sent a fresh sting through the bruises circling her neck.

"I asked."

The words drew every eye toward her.

Baelor frowned. Confusion crossed his face. "You asked?"

"Mhm." Anicia nodded slowly. "I wished to leave Lord Ashford's service."

It was not quite a lie, not quite the truth either. Somewhere between the two.

The prince studied her for several moments. "Why?"

A dozen answers crowded together inside her mind.

Because your brother condemned me. Because I nearly died. Because I was accused of things I did not do. Because I do not belong here. Because I made a blood pact with a witch in the woods. Because I no longer know who I am.

Instead she looked away and fixed her gaze upon the floorboards. "I needed time."

Baelor continued watching her. She could feel it, perhaps because she knew he was searching for the truth. Perhaps because she knew he could tell she was withholding it. The prince had spent his life navigating courts, councils, and noble lies. He recognized evasion when he saw it.

Before he could continue pressing the matter, she spoke again. "I just ... I need to think. That is all. I will have an answer for you within the next three days."

For a moment she thought he might refuse.

The room seemed to hold its breath.

Then Baelor leaned back against the pillows. The simple movement cost him more effort than he would ever admit. She saw it in the brief tightening of his jaw, in the way one hand clenched the blanket before relaxing again. "Three days," he said at last.

"Three days."

His eyes remained fixed upon her. "As my healer has already decreed that I am to remain imprisoned in this bed for at least that long, I suppose I can endure the wait."

A faint snort escaped Maekar.

"What sacrifice. The singers shall write of it."

Baelor ignored him completely.

His gaze never truly left Anicia.

"Very well. Three days."

Relief seemed to ripple through the chamber all at once. Lord Ashford exhaled quietly. Valarr raised his head again. Even Yormwell looked grateful that no one had forced the conversation further. Only Maekar appeared mildly annoyed that the matter had been postponed rather than buried. Yet for all the room's relief, Baelor himself did not look satisfied. If anything, he looked more thoughtful than before. His eyes moved briefly between Ashford, Maekar, Valarr, and finally back to Anicia, as though piecing together fragments of a puzzle whose shape he could sense but not yet see.

Anicia recognized that look.

The prince might agree to wait, but he would not forget.

They left Valarr beside his father's bed.

The boy had refused to move farther than a few feet from Baelor since the prince had awakened, and for once nobody seemed inclined to argue with him. Baelor looked exhausted despite his efforts to conceal it, and Yormwell had already begun muttering about rest, food, and the dangers of too much excitement. 

Anicia wanted nothing more than to disappear. Her body felt heavy, every bruise and stitch making itself known now that the urgency had passed. She needed to wash the dried sweat from her skin, change her dress, perhaps sleep for a few hours if sleep still existed for her. 

After that she would have to find Enid and Joanna. God knew what they thought had become of her after she had vanished into the forest like a madwoman.

The thought alone was tiring.

She passed through the chamber doors without another glance behind her. Ser Roland stood where he always stood. Ser Donnel beside him. Neither stopped her, nor spoke. She was grateful for it.

The corridor beyond felt strangely quiet after the crowded tension of Baelor's chamber. The murmur of maesters, the rustle of parchment, Valarr's anxious hovering, even Baelor's halting attempts at speech — all of it faded behind her with each step she took. Her slippers whispered against the stone, the sound carrying softly through the passage.

To her own annoyance, she found herself already looking back in her mind.

Fuck, he was awake.

For weeks his recovery had been little more than a prayer wrapped in stubbornness. She had sat beside his bed wondering if he would survive the night, wondering if the next breath would be his last. She had argued with maesters, fought with fever, cleaned blood, changed bandages, and spent more sleepless nights worrying over him than she cared to admit.

Now he was awake. Broken, confused, half-blind, speaking more High Valyrian than Common Tongue and still recovering from an injury that should have killed him outright — but awake.

Hours ago she had been convinced he was about to kill her, before that she had been sobbing in a forest, begging an old witch to undo everything. Now she found herself thinking about the way his face had changed when he noticed the bruises around her throat.

Thinking about the shame in his eyes.

Thinking about the way he had asked her to come to King's Landing.

It would have been easier if she felt only fear, easier if she hated him. Instead there was only exhaustion and a hollow ache she could not quite name.

Despite everything, despite the terror and the bruises and the memory of his hands around her neck, a part of her had spent every day since the tourney praying he would open his eyes, and now he had, he was breathing and speaking. Being impossibly stubborn.

The thought should have brought relief.

She had gone scarcely twenty paces, too deep in her thoughts, before a hand closed around her wrist. She gasped.

Instinct moved before reason.

She jerked backward violently, ripping her arm free and stumbling a step away. Her free hand flew protectively toward her chest while her pulse slammed painfully against the bruises around her throat.

Maekar. Of course it was Maekar. Who else? The prince stood there looking faintly annoyed by her reaction.

Anicia stared at him.

The audacity of the man.

"My prince —" she began.

The title sounded more accusation than courtesy. Shock quickly gave way to something uglier. Disgust, open disgust. The kind she made no effort to hide. She wanted to scrub her skin.

"What in the fuck is wrong with you?" she demanded.

"What is wrong with — "

"You do not grab people!"

"I grabbed your wrist."

"You grabbed me."

Maekar looked unimpressed, then the prince folded his arms.

"Why the fuck didn't you tell him?"

She blinked. "What?"

"Inside." He jerked his chin toward the chamber they had just left. "Why didn't you tell him the truth?"

Anicia's stomach sank. She knew immediately what truth he meant, still she played dumb.

"What truth?"

Maekar stared at her. "The execution." Silence. "The torture." More silence. "You didn't tell him. You had every opportunity."

Anicia looked away first, a mistake, because Maekar immediately noticed.

"Gods be good," he muttered. "You actually weren't going to tell him."

She rubbed tiredly at her forehead. "My prince — "

"No." For once there was no anger in him, only genuine confusion.... and that somehow unsettled her more. "No, explain it to me." His gaze fixed on her bruised throat. "Fucking explain why."

Anicia said nothing.

Maekar took a step closer. "I nearly had you killed."

At length Anicia snorted. "Thank you for finally acknowledging that, my prince."

Maekar grimaced, scarred pox face grimacing . "Not the point."

"No, I think it is exactly the point."

Silence followed at once. Anicia drew her arms across her chest, as though the motion alone might hold her together. Her gaze dropped to the stone beneath them, refusing the weight of his stare.

"It has nothing to do with you," she said at last, forcing the words out evenly. "I did not wish to add further worry upon him for what happened."

Maekar let out a short sound of disbelief.

"Worry?" he echoed. "What in all seven hells makes you think he would worry over a peasant woman being tried for witchcraft?"

Her jaw tightened. "And yet you seem very concerned he would know."

The words struck a nerve, he opened his mouth as if to answer, then shut it again. Nothing came out. The silence that followed was more telling than anything he might have said.

Anicia exhaled through her nose, steadying herself.

"It is not about me," she continued, more carefully now. "But surely you must understand what this looks like. Your family's name has been... strained, ever since. I am not blind to it. I am not stupid enough not to notice what whispers follow a court when something goes wrong." Her fingers tightened slightly against her own sleeves. "This would only add to it. More questions. More talk. More unnecessary strain on a man who has only just returned to wakefulness."

Her voice faltered for the briefest moment before she pushed on.

"So no," she said, quieter now, "I do not think he would go mad because it was about me, or because I nearly died." A pause, smaller, more honest than she intended... 

Perhaps part of me even hopes he would care, she thought stupidly.

She straightened at once, as though correcting herself.

"But that is not the point," she said. "The point is that I do not wish to burden an already recovering mind with matters that are not yet urgent to know."

She dipped into a curt, practiced curtsy.

"Good evening, Your Grace."

And then she turned away, already moving before he could find another argument to stop her.

The whore's cunt gripped his cock like a living leech, and Maekar felt every inch of the way she swallowed him — the slick, hot clutch of her walls pulling at his shaft on the retreat, the greedy suck of her at the base when he bottomed out. Like a leech, he thought, and the image made his stomach turn even as his hips kept pistoning. He said nothing. He never did. 

What was there to say to a paid cunt with glass eyes and a practiced back-arching routine?

The only sounds in the chamber were the wet slap of skin slapping skin, his balls tight against her ass with every drive, and her moans ... those too-loud, too-perfect moans bouncing off the cold stone walls. 

He could smell her : sweat and cheap rose oil and the sharp copper tang of her arousal mixed with his own. The straw mattress beneath them rustled with each impact, a dry, rasping counterpoint to the rhythm of their bodies.

He slid his hand down between them, across the slick plane of her belly, past the coarse thatch of her pubic hair, dark and wiry against his fingers. He grabbed a fistful of it and pulled, a punishing yank that made her gasp mid-moan. Then his thumb found her clit, that swollen pearl jutting out from its hood, and he pressed down hard, grinding it against the bone beneath as he rutted inside her.

The angle changed. She whimpered, the sound scraped against something raw in his chest.

"Oh — oh, yes, YES — my prince — "

Too loud. They were always too fucking loud. Every whore was too loud, taught to shriek and claw and cry out "Yes, my prince, yes!" as if he needed the confirmation that he was fucking them properly. 

He didn't slow down, there was something feral clawing up from his gut, a hunger that had been gnawing at him for three moons. His jaw ached from clenching, thighs burned. Sweat traced a slow path down his spine, pooled at the small of his back.

He thumbed her clit in tight, rough circles as he fucked into her, each thrust a hammer blow against the tension coiled at the base of his spine. 

He pulled out. The sound was obscene — a wet, sucking pop that left her cunt gaping, slick and pink and empty. She made a noise of protest, a small wounded thing, and he grabbed her by the hip and flipped her onto her stomach before she could finish it. Face down, ass up. That was how he wanted her. That was how he'd take what he needed.

She scrambled onto her elbows, presenting herself like the good little whore she was, and Maekar didn't make her wait. He lined up his cock — glistening with her, smeared with both of them — and shoved back in with one brutal, seamless thrust. She cried out, a real sound this time, not practiced. Her fingers clawed at the filthy sheet beneath her.

"Yeah," he grunted, the first word he'd spoken all night. "That's it. Take it."

He set a punishing pace, his hips slamming into the soft curve of her ass, his balls slapping against her wet cunt with every stroke. He could feel himself in her, could feel every ridge and pulse of her walls gripping and releasing, gripping and releasing, like her body was trying to milk him dry. He reached down and found her clit again, his fingers slippery with her juice, and he pinched it — hard — rolling the engorged nub between his thumb and forefinger as he fucked her through it.

"Don't you dare come," he growled, and she sobbed something unintelligible into the mattress. "Not yet. I'll tell you when."

He pulled his hand away and grabbed a fistful of her hair instead, yanking her head back so her spine arched, so he could watch his cock sliding in and out of her, watch her stretched pink flesh swallowing him whole. The sight of it (his shaft disappearing into her, wet and thick and glistening) made his gut clench.

He fucked her in silence after that, save for the wet squelch of her cunt and the crack of his pelvis against her ass and the ragged, animal panting of his own breath. He could feel the pressure building at the base of his cock, that familiar ache, that curling heat in his balls. He pulled out again, abruptly, and the sudden emptiness made her whimper, made her push her ass back against nothing.

"Stay," he said, and he shoved two fingers into her instead — thick and rough, crooked against her front wall, searching. He found what he was looking for : the spot inside her that made her gasp and shudder and clench around his knuckles. He pressed hard, rubbing that spongy ridge with the pads of his fingers while his thumb found her clit again, smearing her slick across the swollen bud in tight, vicious circles.

Her legs started shaking, whole body started shaking. She was close, he could feel it in the way her cunt was fluttering around his fingers, in the way her breath was coming in short, desperate hiccups.

"Now," he said. "Come on my fingers, let me feel it."

She shattered with a cry , her body convulsing against his hand, cunt milking his fingers in long, pulsing waves. 

He watched her come apart, watched the way her pussy clenched around nothing, slick and desperate, her thighs trembling as she arched off the bed.  His cock throbbed, still buried deep in that wet heat moments ago, and the sight of her unraveling was almost enough to make him spend right there, but he pulled out instead, because the rebellion had taught him one thing worth remembering : he wouldn't father bastards.  

He wrapped his hand around his heavy length, slick with the mess of her cunt, and pumped once, twice, groaning at the feel of his own grip.  His silver hair hung mussed across his forehead, dark eyes wild as he grabbed her hip and shoved her over, harsh, no gentleness in it. 

She turned without a word, round eyes locked on him, those tits swaying with the motion. He pinched one nipple hard, twisted until she gasped, then fisted his free hand in her hair and dragged her head down to where he stood hard.

Her mouth opened willingly. Greedy and stupid.

He didn't give her a second to adjust — he hammered himself inside her throat, his cock stretching her lips, sliding over her tongue, hitting the back of her throat before she could even breathe. She gagged immediately, tears spilling hot down her cheeks, choking around the thickness of him, but he didn't stop or slow. He fucked her face like he owned it, watched her nose press against his pelvis, watched her struggle to take all of him, her hands clutching at his thighs but not pushing, never pushing.

He held her there, buried to the hilt, her throat convulsing around him as she gagged, and the sound of it — wet, strangled, desperate — made his balls draw up tight. He pulled back just enough to let her breathe, a thin thread of spit and precum connecting her lips to the tip of his cock, and she gasped, coughed, tears streaking her cheeks.

But she didn't pull away.

"Such a greedy little mouth," he rasped, thumb dragging across her bottom lip, smearing the mess. "Open."

She did. Immediately. Her jaw dropped, tongue out, eyes glassy, waiting for him like a good little whore. He fed himself back inside, slow this time, letting her feel every ridge, every vein, the weight of him pressing down on her tongue. He watched her throat bulge as he pushed deeper, deeper, until her nose was buried in the coarse hair at his base and she was making those sounds again — those desperate, muffled sounds that went straight to his cock.

He held her there. Counted to five. Ten. Her fingers dug into his thighs, nails leaving crescents, but she didn't try to escape. She was crying openly now, drool spilling from the corners of her stretched lips, but her eyes stayed fixed on his, worshipful, ruined.

"Good girl." He pulled out slowly, let her gasp for air, then thrust back in before she could recover. He set a rhythm, fucking her face in earnest now, his hand fisted in her hair, using her skull as leverage. Each time he bottomed out she gagged, and each time the convulsion of her throat squeezed him like a fist, and each time she took it, she took it, and took it, and took it. 

When he was finished, he tossed a handful of coins onto the table without looking at her.

They struck wood and scattered in a brief metallic spill, rolling to a stop near the edge of the desk.

The woman took hurriedly the scooping of silver with a faint, knowing smirk touched the corner of her mouth as she straightened her clothing with unhurried hands. She had the air of someone already halfway gone before the dismissal was even spoken.

“A good evening to you, my lord,” she said lightly, though the words carried no warmth.

Then she turned and left his chamber without haste.

The door shut behind her with a soft final click.

For a moment he remained where he was, seated in the silence she left behind, the room suddenly feeling larger and emptier than it had any right to be. Only then did he begin to move again.

He pulled on his smallclothes with more force than necessary, as though clothing himself could restore some sense of order to what had just passed. His fingers dragged through his hair afterward, pushing it back from his face, then again, restless, as if he could not decide what to do with the unease settling under his ribs.

He crossed to the desk.

The wood creaked softly beneath his weight as he sat. For a long moment he simply stared at the blank parchment before him, one hand still pressed against his temple, the other hovering uncertainly above the page.

Then, as though deciding something, he reached for the quill.

Ink caught the nib, he hesitated only once, and then he began to write.

To His Grace, Daeron of House Targaryen, Second of His Name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men,

Father,

I write to inform you that Prince Baelor has awakened.

His recovery remains incomplete. The injury to his skull has left him weakened in several respects. His sight is not yet fully restored, one hand remains impaired, and his speech is affected at times. The maesters believe these conditions stem from the wound itself and expect improvement with time. Despite this, he is alert, speaks coherently, recognizes those around him, and has already begun attempting to involve himself in matters of governance, which should surprise neither of us.

The maesters advise continued rest before travel. After consultation with them, it has been decided that we shall remain here for three more days to ensure his condition remains stable. Provided no setback occurs, we will depart thereafter and begin the journey to King's Landing.

Prince Valarr remains at his father's side and has borne the ordeal better than I would have expected of a boy his age. The household has largely settled now that the uncertainty surrounding Baelor's condition has ended.

You should prepare the Red Keep for his return, though I would advise against expecting him to resume his duties immediately upon arrival. He will likely attempt it regardless.

I shall continue to oversee matters until we reach King's Landing and will send further word should his condition change.

Your son,

Maekar Targaryen