Silver Princess || House of the Dragon

Chapter VIII ''The Dragon''

Maester said that the king should wake up soon, that it was nothing serious. Alicent sat on the side of the bed, while Valaerya stood slightly behind her, nervously crumpling the fabric of her sleeve with one hand. Every now and then she looked down at her hands, as if looking for burn marks, but found none.

The servants were just tidying up her room, and she wouldn't want to stay there right now anyway, she'd rather be with her father.

He saw it too. He saw that the flames did not harm her. She was still in shock when she thought about it and what was worse, she couldn't explain it in any way. Maybe she's dreaming? No, that's impossible... She had pinched herself too many times for it to be a dream.
But how else to explain it?

She didn't want to talk to anyone about it, someone else would think she was crazy... Maybe it would be better for her to tell her father - when he wakes up - that it was just his imagination? This will save her from having to answer questions she doesn't know the answer to. It will also avoid any guesswork or him trying to force himself to find a reason why his daughter is immune to fire.

"You can go, I will stay with the king." Alicent said, turning to her stepdaughter. Valaerya didn't move an inch.

"I won't leave my father alone." she said, and that's exactly what she thought.

Many times her thoughts were far away from King's Landing, she thought about what it would be like to escape from this place, to be somewhere far away from here. But could she live anywhere else? Without family, without all these amenities? Wouldn't escaping from here mean giving up her titles?

Besides, she really didn't want to leave her family. Father, sister... How could she leave her in this terrible court full of insidious vipers?

For now, she will limit herself to running from Ser Criston throughout the city.

"I just learned." Rhaenyra ran into the room, and Val stopped her as soon as she got quite close to the bed. She grabbed her hand, drawing attention to herself.

"The Maester said there is no need to worry." she said calmly to her, smiling as much as she could and holding her hand. For a moment, she considered pulling her aside and telling her about her discovery about herself, but quickly abandoned the idea. She didn't want anyone to start delving into this topic, she preferred to try to explore it on her own first.

"What happened?"

She was silent for a short moment before answering her sister's question.

"Father came to me and wanted to talk about something, but... Suddenly he fainted." she smiled weakly, grabbing sister's other hand as well. "Everything will be fine."

Rhaenyra wanted to say something, but then the king suddenly started mumbling something as he woke up in his bed. They immediately looked at him and were next to the bed.

"Father? How do you feel?"

She stood on the side and said nothing, letting Rhaenyra talk. It usually happened like this, the younger sister let the older one talk, she just watched and analyzed everything.

The father assured them that he felt fine, that he didn't know why he fainted, but everything is fine now. Despite everything, Alicent got up and went to inform the Maester that the king was awake and could be examined again.

Immediately afterwards, something, that Valaerya didn't expect, happened. Her father asked Rhaenyra to leave him with Valaerya for a moment, that he wanted to talk to her about something that he didn't get to talk about in her chamber earlier.

"What is it, father?" she sat down on the edge of the bed when the door to the chamber closed.
However, she couldn't have known that when Rhaenyra went on her way, Alicent had already returned. The Maester would arrive soon, and meanwhile she stood near the door and listened to the voices coming from inside the chamber.