Chapter Text
THE SMALL COUNCIL chamber was full when she arrived.
Not in the way she remembered, though. Usually, there was the murmur of lords arguing over taxes and pensions, the sound of scribes etching the topics of the day. But not today. All those men were absent. Their chairs empty and voices silenced.
This wasn’t just a meeting with her grandfather, King Daeron, at all. Today, the room held only Targaryens.
Her grandfather, King Daeron, sat at the head of the stone table carved from a single slab of dark granite brought from Dragonstone a century ago, its surface scarred by a hundred years of gold rings and goblets and the careless drag of dagger points. Behind him hung the banner of their house: a three-headed dragon, black on red, the silk so old it has faded to the color of dried blood. Rumored to be from the Conqueror's time.
Her father stood beside the king, bent slightly as she murmured something low into Daeron’s ear. Her brother Aelar lounged in a similarly ancient chair like he was attending a luncheon rather than a council meeting. His hand was stretched out, fingers tapping idly against the table in a rhythm that did not match the grim smile he was giving her.
And, worst of all, leaning against the far wall like he was part of the stonework: Maekar.
Clearly, it was not a family welcome. But an inquiry.
Valarra crossed the room slowly, her footsteps echoing softly in the chamber’s circular, stone walls. The chamber has always smelled faintly of smoke and wax and the sea. The keep had been restored once since the conqueror's time. Shortly after the riots that left the stone stained black with ash during Maegor’s time, the infamous selfish king who thought the throne made them immortal.
The small council chamber always reminded her of a war tower rather than a place to govern kingdoms. Thick walls, narrow windows that barely let in anything but the sea breeze, and a heavy, stone table that felt more like a forging blade than a piece of furniture. Conquest, not comfort. Targaryens seemed to build everything like they expected they’d have to defend it from enemy armies.
She bowed her head low. “You sent for me, Your Grace.”
“Come, sit,” Daeron said.
Her father smiled at her, gesturing to a seat beside him, but she did not miss the tension coiling in his shoulder. This smile was different from the one he gave her upon her return. He was not smiling because he was happy to see her, but because whatever this was—whatever they were about to discuss—was going to be unpleasant and he wanted her calm. Unguarded, even,
His eyes were full of apology, buried deep beneath the weight of duty and sacrifice and all the other invisible cuts the Heir to the throne carried alongside them. He loved her, she never doubted that, but he would always serve the realm first. She’d learned that lesson on her wedding day.
She glanced once toward the wall.
Maekar hadn’t moved. He was still watching her. The look is neither sympathetic nor pitiful. Instead, he watched her in the way she’d seen him study maps spread across war tables. Trying to find where the line would break, and the enemy would pour through. She wasn’t sure which side he painted her with. Enemy or ally. Green or red. For six years, she had been a Hightower, and though her father and brother certainly didn’t treat her like it, Maekar certainly has not.
She took a seat, lacing her hands together to settle herself.
Finally, Daeron looked at her, steepling his fingers beneath his silver beard.
“Lord Gwayne Hightower is dead,” he said. It had been some time since she had heard her husband’s name spoken out loud in this city.
In Oldtown, it had plagued her everywhere. In corridors, in letters, in the mouths of the maestaers and septons at the citadel who watched her too closely. In the servants, her husband’s family had surely paid to monitor her as soon as her husband drew his last breath.
The day after her husband died, Oldtown’s towers lit up with a green blaze, its beacon visible for miles. It rose above the city like something ancient and watchful. A reminder that before the Targaryens, before the conqueror, they had been kings.
Old power, Older than dragons, it seemed to warn.
“He was poisoned,” the king continued.
“So the maesters whisper.”
“So does half the realm,” he replied sharply, brows lifting.
The silence was taut, a string pulled precariously thin.
Her father reached for her hand, squeezing gently around her thin fingers the way he used to when she was just a girl frightened of shadows. “Oldtown has requested an inquiry,” he said. “Lord Gwayne was a healthy man only in his thirtieth year. They do not think he simply fell ill.”
Valarra slid her hand from her father’s grasp. “Yes, I’ve heard the rumors Oldtown turns. They suspect my hand in it.”
“And did you?” Daeron said, leveling a look at her. The words didn’t hint at accusation. The look he gave her did not feel like a trap she had to evade. Didn’t promise punishment if she confessed. This was a King with his generals at his side, asking a commander for the truth before deciding where it was best to send his forces.
Her mind clicked into place.
None of the regular Lords who sat at the small council was here. No master of coin nor ships, no maesters. No scribes keeping the details of the meeting taking place. Just her father, the Hand of the king. Her brother, his heir. And his brother, the anvil.
This was family, the crown, their blood.
Certainly not a council, but a war table.
House Hightower had not sent a letter pleading for an inquiry. They sent a letter demanding the truth. Demanding blood, or gold, or an apology.
All around the table, Valarra seemed to read the minds of the men around her. How do we handle these Hightowers? Their accusations? How do we handle you? It rang through her mind like a symphony.
Valarra sat a little straighter in her chair.
“If I had poisoned my husband, Your Grace,” she said, voice clipped. “I would not have chosen a poison that left him alive long enough to accuse me.”
Maekar barked a laugh, rupturing the silence like a blister. He dragged a scarred hand down his face as if wiping away tears. “That’s true,” he said, chuckling darkly. “She is not sloppy.”
Next to her, her father closed his eyes briefly, pinching the bridge of his nose. The King, however, seemed only amused.
“No one would jest that you are not of my blood,” Daeron said.
Valarra lifted her chin slightly. “I’ve never given anyone reason to suspect otherwise.”
“Yes,” Daeron continues, “Which is part of the problem we have. Whether you killed him or not matters far less than the fact House Hightower believes you did.”
There it was. The reveal of their hand. This wasn’t grief, nor justice, nor concern. This was the game of the throne.
“Then let them accuse me,” she said with a small shrug. “I am a princess of this realm, eldest daughter to the heir to the Iron Throne, and, in their eyes, a cold murderer. Let them accuse me, and we will see who survives whom.”
Her father might actually be glaring at her. A rare thing, if she was being honest. And one she disliked, too. Frustrating Baelor Targaryen was for her brother, or her uncle. She was not usually the cause of such ilk.
Her brother, on the other hand, seemed delighted. His fingers still tapping the stone council table, he seemed to be fairly enjoying this conversation as much as Maekar.
That, more than anything, made her nervous.
Her brother, his fingers tapping lightly in a tune against the stone table, looked like he was enjoying this conversation far too much. “Which is what I suggested,” he said. “What's a Hightowers word to ours? The realm will not believe them.”
Her father was definitely glaring at her now.
Valarra barely could stand looking at him. He was noble, and she loved him, but he always loved a fight he did not have to personally bleed for. And it had been six years since he got to engage in one.
“Which is why you are still learning how this works,” her father chided him. “One day, you will be a great hand. A greater man, too, I’d wager. But for today, you would cost the realm, and your sister, much shame.”
Baelor’s violet-brown eyes shifted, flancing only at his daughter. “As entertaining as it might be to see you war with the Hightowers,” he continued with a sigh, “we cannot afford another Dance. And we need Oldtown’s mines. For the fleet, the armories, and the coin. We cannot afford to anger the Hightowers and all their bannerman,”
Another Dance. The words hung in Valarra’s mind like a ghost. The last one had taken their Dragons from the world, the next might cost them their throne.
Every Targaryen for the past few generations grew up under its shadow. Brother against sister dragon against dragon. The realm, and their seat, unraveling all because of a queen usurped, or a prince had defended his birthright, or a child had been slain. It varied depending on which history or maester told the tale.
It mattered not. The Dance had taught the realm even a dragon could bleed.
Valarra glanced over to him. Marking the grays threading through his dark, Dornish hair. The lines crinkling the corners of his eyes. The last time she saw him, there was none.
Six years, she thought. Six years she had been sent off to be wed and to never see her father fade. And for those six years, he was here, fighting her grandfather’s wars in this chamber. He hadn’t even sat on the throne yet. She wondered how many more lines and gray would curl their way through her father’s features before that day.
She wouldn’t add to them. Not now, anyway.
“Then what would you have me do?” she said quietly.
It was Daeron that answered. “For now, you will remain at court in mourning. Visible. Grieving. Harmless.”
The corner of Valarra’s lips quirked. “Harmless?”
From the wall, Maeakr gave a quiet huff that might have been a laugh.
“As harmless as you can manage,” he said dryly, but with clear meaning. “Can you manage it?”
Valarra thought of Oldtown. Of the green banners pressing into the corner of her vision, of her husband's hand shaking. The way he looked at her as she watched his throat close and his eyes bleed. Not with love, and certainly not with apology.
His green eyes were full of accusation and betrayal.
Fine, she thought to herself. I can be harmless.
“I can certainly pretend.”
This time, Maekar did laugh. Just once. The sound quiet and sharp—a sword leaving its sheath.
Daeron pointed at him without looking. “And you will stop encouraging her.”
Maekar held his scarred hands up. “I didn’t say anything,”
Her father glared at him. “You never have to. That’s the issue.”
Valarra’s eyes drifted, just slightly, towards the man still braced against the wall, arms crossed, one boot keeping his balance. His face was turned towards the king, but his eyes were not.
Valarra looked away before anyone else could notice she was looking at all.
Another dance, she thought again. And for the first time since her return to King’s Landing, she understood something clearly.
This was not about whether she had killed her husband. This was about whether her husband’s family could start a war over it.
And whether her own would stop that war—or use it.