Led By Fiery Passion (currently being revised)

Part 11

A soft voice whispered her name, accompanied by a gentle shake at her shoulder.

"Aenyra..."

She blinked her eyes open slowly, squinting into the dim light. "Lucerys?"

Her brother stood beside her bed, eyes wide and brimming with tears. His lower lip trembled.

"What's wrong? Are you hurt?" she asked, sitting up quickly.

"It's... it's Father," he choked out, his voice breaking as tears spilled freely down his cheeks.

For a moment, she just stared, her heart thudding as the weight of his words slowly sank in.

She didn't need him to say more. The look on his face said it all.

Aenyra felt the air leave her lungs. She lay frozen, her mind catching up to what her heart already knew.

Their father was gone.

The three children huddled close to their mother as they watched their belongings being packed back onto the ship that had brought them here. The sky above Driftmark was gray, casting a somber light over the harbor as the wind tugged at their cloaks and hair.

Aenyra stood still, her arms wrapped tightly around Lucerys, who clung to her like a shadow. Jacaerys stood silently on the other side of their mother, his face unreadable. He hadn't spoken a word to Aenyra since the night before.

Joffrey sniffled in Rhaenyra's arms, his small hand clutching the edge of her sleeve. Their mother said nothing—her face composed, her expression calm yet distant. The stillness of her demeanor, so controlled in the face of everything they'd lost, only made Aenyra's anger simmer beneath her grief.

How could she look so put together? So unaffected?

It confused her.

It frustrated her.

And deep down, it hurt.

I can't believe he's gone.
Ive lost Harwin and now Laenor...

She hadn't cried when the maester told them. Not at first. She had just sat in silence, trying to understand how something so permanent could happen so suddenly. One moment, she was on Dragonstone, laughing during morning sparring with her father—his voice teasing, his hand firm on her shoulder—and the next, he was... gone. Gone like smoke, like he had never been there at all.

She held Lucerys closer, letting her chin rest gently on his curls as a single tear traced a slow path down her cheek. She knew she had to be brave. She was the oldest. The one the others would look to. But inside, she felt as small and lost as they did.

And it wasn't just Laenor.

No one had said it directly, but she'd overheard enough. The King and Queen had already departed for King's Landing with her children in tow—Aegon, Helaena, and... Aemond.

His name sent a pang through her chest.

Why did you have to leave? she thought bitterly. I need you right now... here, with me. Everything's falling apart.

Her lips trembled as she turned her face away, trying to hide it. A small, broken whimper escaped before she could stop it. She swallowed hard against the lump rising in her throat, but the tears came anyway—hot, heavy, and endless, sliding down her cheeks from her already red, swollen eyes.

She didn't speak. Didn't try to comfort her brothers with words she didn't have. She just stood close, pressing her forehead to Luke's and letting her tears fall quietly as their ship rocked gently in the harbor.