The Sound of Quiet Things
Rhaenyra didn’t sleep much anymore.
She wasn’t sure if it was the weight of the pendant around her neck, the whispers echoing in the halls, or the way Daemon hadn’t looked her in the eye in three days.
Maybe all three.
She still wrote, though.
Every night, by candlelight, she pressed ink to paper like it was armor. Nothing poetic. Just thoughts.
Half-finished phrases. One-liners. Words in Valyrian she couldn’t pronounce yet.
Last night she’d written:
“They’re not waiting for me to grow.
They’re waiting for me to fall.”
She hadn’t shown it to anyone.
Not even Vaena.
The court was buzzing before breakfast.
Not just with rumors. With movement.
A new lord had arrived. From the Reach. Lord Rowan—cousin to one of the Hightower bannermen. “Friendly” with the Faith. Big chin. Bigger opinions.
Vaena watched him from the balcony during his formal introduction. She said nothing.
Daemon stood beside her, arms crossed, mouth tight.
“They sent him to stir the pot,” he muttered.
“They sent him to taste the stew,” Vaena corrected. “They want to know if it’s boiling.”
He grunted. “You should’ve fed him to Vhaelyx.”
“Tempting.”
Later that morning, Vaena and Rhaenyra sat alone in the solar, a platter of honey bread untouched between them.
“They’re going to push you,” Vaena said. “Harder now. They’ll use new names. New masks. They’ll ask for smiles while sharpening their knives.”
“I can handle them,” Rhaenyra said, too fast.
Vaena raised an eyebrow. “You sound like me when I was fifteen.”
“I’m not fifteen.”
“No,” Vaena said softly. “You’re only eight. And already outgrowing your childhood like armor that never fit.”
She leaned forward.
“But listen to me, Rhaenyra. They don’t want your smile. They don’t want your crown. They want your throne. And when they come for it, they won’t be loud.”
Rhaenyra blinked. “Then how will I know?”
“You’ll know,” Vaena whispered. “Because the air will change. And no one will say your name unless they want it buried.”
Daemon spent most of the day in the dragonpit.
He didn’t ride. Just stood beside Caraxes, staring at the stone walls like they might answer the question burning behind his eyes.
He was restless. That much was clear.
He’d stopped speaking in council. Let Vaena talk. Let Viserys pretend to rule.
He hadn’t seen Rhaenyra since the feast.
Not properly.
And it bothered him more than it should.
She’s a girl, he told himself. A child with a crown they’ll never let her keep.
But she wasn’t just that.
She was a storm building at the edge of the realm.
And he’d always liked storms.
At supper, Lord Rowan spoke.
Of course he did.
Loudly. Carefully.
“Surely the realm would feel more secure if Princess Rhaenyra had a betrothal announced. A strong match. A traditional one.”
The words weren’t aimed at anyone. Which made them sharper.
Rhaenyra’s fork paused.
Vaena didn’t blink.
Daemon smiled. Not kindly.
Viserys cleared his throat. “We’re in no rush.”
Rowan chuckled. “And yet… the longer we wait, the more space we leave for… uncertainty.”
“Or for clarity,” Vaena said, voice like velvet drawn over broken glass.
Lord Rowan smiled back. “Your Grace, of course, should decide. But history favors… precaution.”
Daemon leaned forward.
“History favors fire.”
She found him by the fire.
Daemon always ended up there when he was avoiding something—wine in hand, boots scuffed, hair wild like he’d tried to tame it and given up halfway.
He didn’t look up when Rhaenyra walked in.
He just said, “Shouldn’t you be sleeping, little queen?”
She didn’t answer.
Didn’t move.
She stood in the doorway for a long time before saying, “You’ve been avoiding me.”
Still, he didn’t look at her. “I’ve been busy.”
“With what?”
He drank. “Things.”
“Lie better.”
That made him glance up—just long enough to see she wasn’t joking.
She stepped into the room slowly, the fire casting gold across her braid.
“You think I don’t hear them?” she asked. “The whispers. The looks.”
“I know you do.”
“Then why won’t you look at me?”
He didn’t have an answer.
So she kept going.
“They think I want you.”
“You don’t.”
“Maybe not now.”
Silence.
“But they already believe it. So what does it matter what I want?”
Now he looked at her. Really looked.
And for a moment, the air between them felt like the second before a match strikes.
“You scare me sometimes,” he said quietly.
Rhaenyra blinked. “Why?”
“Because you’re starting to sound like her.”
Vaena hadn’t slept.
Not because she couldn’t. Because she didn’t want to.
There was something wrong in the Keep.
Too many ravens arriving without names. Too many lords meeting behind closed doors. Too much quiet.
And quiet, she knew, was more dangerous than shouting.
She followed the servant girl with the green ribbon in her hair. The same girl who delivered wine to Lord Rowan. The same girl who bowed too quickly and never made eye contact.
Alyra was already waiting in the shadows.
“You were right,” she said. “She met with the High Septon’s cousin. Twice.”
Vaena didn’t blink.
“Faith and Reach,” she murmured. “Old tricks. Same poison.”
She stepped into the hallway outside the chapel, where the flickering candlelight revealed Lord Rowan mid-conversation with a man in septon’s robes.
They went still when they saw her.
Vaena tilted her head.
“You forgot to bow,” she said.
Neither of them did.
Daemon didn’t say goodbye.
He just handed Rhaenyra a training blade the next morning and said, “You’re late.
She grinned.
“I was watching the sunrise.”
“You planning to fight with sunbeams, or do you want to hit something today?”
She laughed, and it felt easy again. Just for a moment.
Then he added: “They’re never going to stop coming for you.”
“I know.”
“So make it hurt.”
Later that night, Rhaenyra sat in her room with her journal open and a quill between her fingers.
She wrote without thinking.
“He sees me. And that’s worse than being ignored.”
“Vaena watches. But she never tells me what she feels.”
“I want them to stop treating me like I’m fire—”
She paused.
Then scratched the line out.
Then wrote:
“—I want them to treat me like I burn.”
Viserys was supposed to speak.
It was a routine session. A small matter—an estate dispute between minor lords, barley fields and borderlines. Something any king could resolve in five sentences or less.
But Viserys froze halfway through.
He blinked. Cleared his throat. Looked down at the parchment in his hands as if it were written in High Valyrian backward.
Silence stretched.
The court waited.
So did the lords.
And then—
Vaena stepped forward.
Not quickly. Not dramatically. Just enough.
Her voice was calm. “If His Grace will allow, I can present the ruling.”
Viserys nodded once, his eyes somewhere far away.
And just like that, Vaena ruled in his place.
No one objected.
But the message hung in the air like smoke.
Rhaenyra saw it all.
From her chair beside the throne.
Her father’s hands had trembled.
He didn’t even notice when he dropped his crown at the end of the session.
Vaena picked it up.
Gently.
Quietly.
And placed it back on his head.
That image didn’t leave Rhaenyra all day.
That evening, the princess found her aunt at the top of the Maegor’s Tower, pacing along the old battlements with her arms crossed.
“You spoke for him,” Rhaenyra said.
“I had to.”
“He didn’t stop you.”
“No,” Vaena said. “He didn’t.”
Rhaenyra stared at her. “Is he dying?”
Vaena turned. For once, she didn’t try to soften the truth.
“He’s fading. That’s different.”
“Then what happens when he’s gone?”
Vaena stepped closer, tucking a loose strand of silver from Rhaenyra’s braid behind her ear.
“Then you speak.”
Rhaenyra swallowed. “I don’t know if I can.”
“You will.”
Across the hall, Lord Rowan poured wine for three men in a dim alcove of the guest wing.
His voice was low.
Measured.
“We must prepare for the possibility that the girl rules in truth before she ever wears the crown.”
One of the men scoffed. “She’s a child.”
“And her aunt is the one pulling the strings.”
They all drank.
One leaned forward.
“Then we cut the strings.”
The message came hidden in a tray of lemons.
A folded piece of parchment, barely creased, tucked under the silver bowl in Vaena’s chambers. Alyra found it first. Said nothing. Just placed it silently beside Vaena’s wine cup.
Vaena opened it.
One line.
“They will not wait for him to die.”
She read it three times. No signature. No mark. No mistake.
The words weren’t meant to frighten.
They were meant to tell her what she already knew.
Rhaenyra was summoned to court alone the next day.
No Vaena. No Daemon. Not even her father.
Just her, facing a room half-full of lords, most of whom avoided her eyes.
Lord Merryweather asked her opinion on tariffs in Dorne. A trap—she knew it.
Lord Beesbury asked if she could name all seven ports of the Vale.
She answered each question without blinking.
But her voice trembled once.
Only once.
And it was enough for Lord Rowan to smirk.
She caught it.
And that’s when she stopped answering.
She started asking.
“Lord Rowan, how many sons does your house produce each generation?”
“Lord Beesbury, are you aware the port in Ironoaks closed three winters ago?”
By the end of it, they were the ones fumbling.
And she didn’t even smile.
Daemon found her afterward, leaning against the godswood, breath shaky.
“I didn’t cry,” she said before he could speak.
“I didn’t say you would.”
“I wanted to.”
“Then next time, make them cry.”
She looked up at him.
“You scare them,” she said.
“You should scare them,” he replied.
That night, Viserys sat alone with Vaena in his chambers. He looked… smaller. His robes too big. His skin too pale. A man unraveling from the inside out.
“She’s better than me,” he said.
Vaena said nothing.
“I named her heir,” he continued. “But I didn’t prepare her. I thought naming her would be enough. Like writing a word makes it true.”
Vaena’s voice was quiet.
“You named her. I raised her.”
A beat passed.
He nodded once.
And whispered, “I’m scared.”
Vaena poured him wine.
“Good,” she said. “It means you’re finally paying attention.”
Later, Rhaenyra wrote one last sentence in her journal before blowing out her candle.
“I do not want to be queen.”
“I want to win.”
She closed the book.
And did not dream.