SEE HOW IT SHINES

viii

When Viserra returns from her morning ride with Gaelithox, there is a small clay pot on the floor in front of her door. Frowning, she bends to pick it up, noticing a tiny square of parchment beneath it. Something about the perfect corners of the page gives her pause, her fingers tracing over the neatly folded edges. She glances around to see if she can spot whoever left the jar, but the hall around her is empty. Pushing into her bedchamber, she sets the curious gift down and opens the parchment, only vaguely aware that she's holding her breath.

For your arm. Apply twice daily and cover with cloth. Listen to me this time. A.

Viserra reads the note over and over until the perfectly-penned Valyrian letters start to swim on the page. She trades the parchment for the little jar and removes the lid, sniffing warily at the contents. The salve smells of honey and a variety of herbs she can't name, earthy and sweet. A common enough treatment, one she's received from maesters before for injuries more concerning than the shallow scrapes that trail over her hand and forearm—minor scratches, really, that would have healed on their own before the end of the week. Slowly, before she can stop it, a smile forms on her lips.

A thousand and one overlapping thoughts race through her mind as she lifts her sleeve. Not one of them makes sense. She dips her finger in the jar and smears a thin layer of the cream over the scraped skin, more confused than perhaps she's ever felt but too obedient to ignore the note written in her uncle's pristine hand.

The thoughtful instruction, the reference to their conversation, the single letter of his signature...one might almost mistake this as a kind gesture from a caring kinsman. But it's from Aemond. Aemond, the same spiteful, grouchy creature who called her a self-important little idiot just twelve hours ago. Aemond, the same wild-eyed, arrogant child who meant to dash out her brains with a rock eight years ago. Aemond, the same cold, unreadable knight who would curse at her and save her life in a matter of moments.

Viserra feels a giggle pry its way through her lips against her will. Aemond did this. For her. He granted her a kindness, unprovoked, without any expectation of gaining something in return. He made her a healing ointment out of concern for an injury that even a child would only cry about for a few minutes, and walked halfway across Maegor's Holdfast to deliver it to her so it would be waiting for her at dawn. Perhaps a maester made it, and perhaps a servant delivered it, but still! Aemond cared, for the first time in their lives, to do something kind for her. It's laughable. It's unfathomable.

And yet it's happened.

☆

"Is there anything else you wish to add, my king?"

Rhaenyra has never been so desperate to leave a council meeting. An ongoing battle with nausea in the mornings has left her weak to her impulses, and with her patience already thinned by Otto Hightower's very existence, she wants nothing more than to run from the chamber and fly for hours with Syrax. But it is her duty , that gods-forsaken chain around her feet, to sit in the stuffy chamber and wither away until the king dismisses her. And anyway, her poor stomach might implode altogether if she attempts to fly now. This babe has not been nearly as mild-mannered as the first five, which only worsens her worries that the birth will be equally as challenging.

But she cannot think about that now. She turns to the end of the table, where Father sits slumped in his chair, breathing heavily despite not having moved for the better part of the morning. Her heart aches at the sight of him, the man who once boomed with laughter and filled the Iron Throne like Aegon the Dragon himself, now reduced to a frail, rotting carcass with a crown. Viserys, First of His Name, clears his throat and winces from the effort. "Thank you, Otto. Yes, in fact, there is one more matter."