Rhaenys landed Meleys in a cove on the far side of the Dragonmont with the salt of the Gullet still drying on her cheeks. All she carried up the winding sea-steps was a small chest of dark, salt-stained leather tucked beneath one arm—packed not with gold or state trinkets, but with small, quiet things meant for two girls who had gone far too long without a grandmother's hands in their lives.
At the base of the wash-yards, she had intercepted a narrow-shouldered scullion's boy hauling baskets of salt-scrubbed linen, slipping a folded note beneath the coarse woolens.
"To the girls only," she had told him.
"Into their hands, or no one's," he had parroted.
"And if you're stopped on the stair?"
"I'm only a boy with the linens, Your Grace. Just hauling the wash up from the yards like I do every morning."
She had smiled then, and watched him go. Now she stood alone on the eastern terrace with the black sea roaring behind her, waiting to see whether blood would answer blood.
Dawn was bleeding across the sky in bruised streaks of gold and violet behind the jagged shoulders of the Dragonmont. High above on a ridge of dark basalt, Meleys crouched like a gargoyle cast in ember, her scarlet scales catching the first pale light of morning. The wind here smelled of brine, hot ash, and sulfur—a harsher, sharper wind than Driftmark's, carrying no warmth at all.
Rhaenys rested one gloved hand on the lid of the small chest beside her, feeling the cold bite through the leather. Every muscle in her shoulders was drawn tight.
Then footsteps sounded on the stone stair.
Not the light, breathless scramble of two girls stealing an hour away from their lessons. Heavy, measured boots. A man's stride.
Rhaenys turned before the figure even cleared the top step, a cold certainty already settling in her stomach.
Daemon Targaryen emerged onto the terrace first. He wore no crown—Daemon had never needed gold to walk as though the world had already ceded him ground—only close-fitted black riding leathers, Dark Sister slung low at his hip, his silver hair tied back from his sharp cheekbones.
For three heartbeats he stood in silence. Then the corner of his mouth lifted in that thin, dangerous curve she had known since they were youths.
"Cousin," he drawled. "Had I known you meant to call, I might have spared Dragonstone the embarrassment of receiving you by its scullery stairs."
Rhaenys didn't give an inch. The pale morning light caught the silver-white braids wound tight around her head, a crown of its own. "Better the scullery stairs than a barred gate, Daemon. Had I come calling by the front, you'd have found some reason to turn me away."
"Grandmother," Baela breathed, and Rhaenys opened her arms wide.
Daemon didn't forbid it. He simply watched as the girls crossed the space. Baela collided with her fiercely, and Rhaena slipped in a heartbeat later, pressing close enough that Rhaenys could lay a palm against the back of her head and breathe in the clean, familiar scent of her daughter for one precious second.
Then Daemon's voice cut across the quiet, lazy as a blade laid flat on oak.
"A charming bit of theatre, cousin. Though I confess, I thought the Princess Rhaenys above bribing scullions to smuggle notes in the laundry."
Rhaenys kept one hand resting lightly on Rhaena's shoulder as she met his eyes. "Is it a crime now, Daemon, to write to my granddaughters?"
"No," he said smoothly. "Though most grandmothers manage it with a raven and a wax seal. Even you, I should think, could afford the parchment."
"I'm afraid I've exhausted my patience for parchment," Rhaenys replied, her voice dropping cold and clear into the morning wind. "And what I can no longer afford is waiting on your courtesy to deliver it. Ravens to Dragonstone seem to lose their way between the rookery and the nursery."
Daemon's gaze flicked briefly toward Baela—whose chin had come up, listening to every word—before settling back on Rhaenys with a faint, dangerous amusement. "You mistake my hospitality. Had you wished to see them, you had only to ask."
"I did ask. Twice. Once to summon Driftmark's heir to his own seat, and once for my granddaughters." She didn't bother softening the edge of it. "Your wife sent back pretty words. You didn't even trouble yourself with those. 'Dragonstone suits dragonspawn better than Driftmark,' if I recall your hand correctly."
A muscle ticked once along Daemon's jaw. "They are safer here."
"They are yours here," Rhaenys corrected softly. "There is a difference, Daemon, though I know you've never cared much to draw it."
Baela's mouth twitched, fighting back a sudden spark of approval—not quite fast enough for Daemon to miss.
"Careful, cousin," he murmured, the amusement draining out of his voice at last. "You stand on my rock, uninvited, reaching into my house by stealth. Do not test how much family feeling I have left to spare this morning."
"I came for an hour," Rhaenys said, refusing to give an inch of ground. "Not to steal them. Not to turn them against you. Just an hour on Meleys, so they remember what the air feels like above the sea."
"An hour," Daemon repeated, and to Rhaenys's surprise, he inclined his head. "By all means then," he said smoothly.
Baela lit up like dry tinder and Rhaena let out a breath she seemed to have been holding since they arrived.
Then Daemon added, almost as an afterthought, "Caraxes and I will escort you."
He didn't look at Rhaenys as he said it—he looked straight at Baela and Rhaena, daring his cousin to refuse a father's company in front of his own daughters.
Rhaenys's fingers tightened inside her riding gloves until the leather creaked. If she objected, he would end the morning right there on the stone, and the wound would land squarely in Baela and Rhaena's chests.
"As you wish," she said.
Something bright guttered out in Baela's face; her shoulders dropped half an inch as the shape of the leash became plain even to her. Beside her, Rhaena stared down at the black flagstones, unwilling to meet anyone's eye.
Rhaenys saw the way Daemon's shadow was already creeping over the morning like cold fog, and would not allow it to persist.
She let her hands fall away from her riding gloves, letting the stiff tension drain deliberately out of her shoulders, and turned her back entirely on Daemon.
"Come, then," she said, warmth deliberately breaking back into her voice—rich, unhurried, as though the Prince of the Realm were no more than another gust of wind off the water. "Meleys hates to be kept waiting once she smells the morning thermals. And I brought a chest I had no intention of carrying back to High Tide."
Baela blinked, startled by the sudden shift, before a slow grin tugged at the corner of her mouth. Rhaena looked up, her dark eyes catching her grandmother's encouraging gaze.
They climbed together to the dragon yard, Rhaenys walking squarely between the two girls, keeping a warm hand at the small of Rhaena's back—anchoring her so she didn't slip half a step behind as she usually did.
Meleys was waiting on the broad volcanic shelf, twin ribbons of steam hissing from her nostrils into the morning chill. At Rhaenys's approach, the Red Queen let out a deep, rumbling purr that vibrated straight up through the soles of their boots. Baela stepped forward at once, eager and bright-eyed, already reaching out her hand to place upon the dragon's snout.
Rhaenys caught her wrist gently, taking her small hand in hers, and looked to her other granddaughter instead.
Rhaena stood a pace back, her fingers laced tightly together, watching the massive scarlet beast with a mixture of longing and hesitation. She had no mount of her own waiting in the Dragonmont. While Baela had Moondancer's fierce little shadow to claim, Rhaena had only ever watched the sky from the battlements.
"Here, sweetling," Rhaenys said softly, holding out her bare hand. "Come."
Rhaena hesitated for a single heartbeat, glancing once toward her father—who stood motionless near the archway—before stepping forward and placing her small, cold fingers into her grandmother's palm.
Rhaenys guided Rhaena's hand directly against the broad, scarred curve of Meleys's neck. "Don't be shy with her. She knew your mother before you were born. She knows your blood."
Beneath Rhaena's palm, the scarlet scales radiated a deep, steady furnace heat, thrumming with the slow, thunderous beat of the dragon's heart. Rhaena's breath caught in a sharp gasp, her fingers splaying wide across the warm hide as wonder broke clean across her face, washing away every trace of caution.
"She's so warm," Rhaena whispered, almost to herself.
"She always is," Rhaenys said, truly smiling now. "Now you, Baela, before she grows jealous."
Baela laughed aloud and pressed both palms flat against the dragon's shoulder, earning a low, rumbling snort from Meleys that ruffled the girl's silver curls and sent both sisters into a sudden, breathless fit of giggles.
For that span of heartbeats, Daemon ceased to exist.
"Up you go," Rhaenys ordered briskly, unbuckling the heavy riding chains. "Rhaena in front, where I can keep an arm around you. Baela behind—and hold tight to my belt, girl, I know how you lean into turns."
"I've never leaned into a turn in my life!" Baela protested, grinning wildly as she scrambled up the leather straps.
"You're your mother's daughter. You will."
Rhaena settled into the saddle directly before Rhaenys, leaning back against her grandmother's chest as Rhaenys locked the iron chain across them both and wrapped one firm arm around the girl's waist. Behind her, Baela's arms locked tight around Rhaenys's ribs, warm and solid.
Then a shrill, discordant whistle split the morning—leaner, harsher, grating against the ear after Meleys's deep-throated thunder. Caraxes. Daemon vaulted into his saddle with effortless grace, and Blood Wyrm and Red Queen launched together into the brightening sky.
Far below, white surf shattered endlessly against black volcanic cliffs as Dragonstone shrank to a jagged shadow catching the early sun. Twenty yards off their wingtip, Caraxes paced them beat for beat.
Rhaenys saw him out of the corner of her eye—and refused to spare him a second glance.
Instead, she leaned forward over Rhaena's shoulder, raising her voice over the roar of the wind. "Do you see the headland up there? Where the white water breaks twice?"
Rhaena nodded eagerly, her hair whipping back against Rhaenys's cheek, her hands gripping the pommel with fierce delight.
"Watch!" Rhaenys called, and leaned sharply left, banking Meleys hard over the churning grey water.
The Red Queen rolled smoothly into the wind, wings cupping the salt air as the sea tilted dizzyingly beneath them. The rushing wind tore a wild, breathless shriek of pure laughter straight out of Baela's throat, and against Rhaenys's chest, Rhaena let out a clear, ringing cry—not in fear, but in pure intoxication, her shoulders loosening completely as she leaned into the turn right alongside her grandmother.
Rhaenys laughed aloud into the wind, feeling both girls pressed tight against her and the immense, living heat of the dragon surging beneath them. For a heartbeat, the years fell away, and it was another pair of small hands gripping her riding belt, another pair of high, breathless voices shrieking into the salt wind. She closed her eyes for a fraction of a second, letting the wind sting them dry, before banking Meleys smoothly toward the open bay.
When they finally dropped back onto the stone of the yard, both girls slid down flushed and wind-tangled, lit from within by a fierce, breathless joy that hadn't been dimmed by a single degree.
"That was better than I remembered," Baela blurted, then laughed breathlessly at herself. "No—that's stupid. I don't even remember flying with Mother. I only knew what it was supposed to feel like."
Rhaena, quieter, leaned in against Rhaenys's arm and whispered, "Thank you, Grandmother."
Rhaenys cupped each of their warm, wind-stung faces in her palms. "They should have let you fly long ago."
Neither girl dared answer that.
Caraxes touched down moments later, folding his long, serpentine neck with a hiss and a harsh clatter of claws on basalt. Daemon dismounted unhurriedly and strolled toward them.
Rhaenys kept her spine loose, refusing to let the girls see her jaw tighten. "I will come again," she said, holding his eyes.
Baela's grip tightened instantly on her sleeve. "Soon?"
"Yes," Rhaenys promised, forcing every drop of warmth back into her voice. "Soon."
She knelt briefly to unbuckle the salt-stained leather chest and press it into Baela's hands—a silver-backed comb glinting beneath sea-green ribbons and waxed sweetmeats. Before Baela could even lift the lid, Daemon stepped in beside them and casually laid one gloved hand over the top of the chest, drawing it gently out of his daughter's grip.
"Come, girls," he murmured smoothly. "Your maester has been waiting since dawn. Let us leave your grandmother to the wind."
Rhaenys stood motionless while Baela and Rhaena glanced back over their shoulders, caught between waving and obeying, before disappearing beneath the dark stone archway at their father's heels.
Only when she had fully lost sight of them did Rhaenys let the warmth drop from her face.
When she swung back into Meleys's saddle, every trace of softness had gone out of her movements. The Red Queen surged skyward with one thunderous crack of scarlet wings, climbing hard into the morning glare until the roar of the surf thinned to a whisper far below and Dragonstone shrank once more to a crouched black shadow against the sea.
Rhaenys banked Meleys hard toward Driftmark—and alone at last in the freezing rush of the wind, the armor she had worn for the girls' sake cracked clean open.
Her hands shook slightly against the leather reins, hot with a fury. She had given her granddaughters an hour of joy, yes—and to buy it, she had stood on Dragonstone like a beggar permitted an afternoon's visitation under the watch of a warder. She had smiled while Daemon called her blood-right an airing. She had watched him lift her own keepsakes out of her granddaughter's hands like contraband to be inspected behind closed doors.
And the worst of it—the thought that burned colder than the sea wind—was knowing what waited for her across the Gullet.
Once, she would have landed at High Tide knowing Corlys would match her fury blade for blade. Now, she pictured him seated calmly at his table, smoothing away the slight with that strange, new patience that had settled over him.
By the time the pale towers of High Tide rose out of the morning mist ahead, the raw ache in Rhaenys's chest had cooled into something sharp, heavy, and entirely her own. If Corlys had laid down their anger, she would not beg him to pick it back up. She was her mother's daughter, too—the blood of a Baratheon running beneath the silver hair—and she knew how to carry a storm alone.
Once, the fury had been theirs. Now, it was simply hers. And fury burns.