The Moment Before the Flame
Rhaenyra didn’t wait for them to speak first anymore.
The meeting had barely begun before she unrolled a scroll and began reading.
Grain shortages. Harbor fees. Storm’s End threatening tariffs again.
She had notes.
She had solutions.
She had a voice that no longer shook—even when Beesbury sighed, even when Merryweather asked for clarifications he didn’t need.
Vaena didn’t interrupt.
She sat two seats away, quiet, fingers steepled, watching her niece with the same expression she wore during war briefings.
Daemon, standing near the archway, tilted his head slowly.
“She’s not playing anymore,” he muttered under his breath.
“Good,” Vaena said. “She’s not a piece.”
Rhaenyra felt the shift.
Not in herself. In the room.
They still didn’t like her. That much was obvious. But they’d stopped trying to talk over her.
Instead, they now waited for her to finish.
Some of them even nodded.
Some of them even wrote things down.
And she noticed everything.
She noticed that her name no longer sounded like a question when they said it.
It sounded like a warning.
That night, she found her aunt sitting by the window, reading a letter with a wax seal already broken.
“A raven from Driftmark?” Rhaenyra asked.
Vaena looked up. “A confirmation.”
“Of what?”
“That Corlys Velaryon no longer doubts you.”
Rhaenyra blinked. “Is that supposed to impress me?”
Vaena smiled. “No. It’s supposed to frighten them.”
Daemon didn’t know when it happened.
Maybe it was when Rhaenyra stopped flinching during sparring.
Maybe it was the way she looked at him now—like she saw more than just the man who used to knock her into the mud.
Maybe it was the way Vaena had stopped giving her orders.
“She doesn’t need me anymore,” he said once, leaning beside Vaena as they watched the princess descend the stairs into court alone.
“No,” Vaena replied. “She needs you differently.”
He looked at her sideways. “You planning to vanish when she’s ready?”
“I’m planning to step back,” Vaena said.
Daemon scoffed. “Same thing.”
Later, alone in her chambers, Vaena lit every candle.
Not for light.
For clarity.
She pulled out a folded piece of parchment—Rhaenyra’s very first court report—written in her own hand, ink still a little uneven.
And she read it again.
Then again.
And when she finally looked up at the flames, she said aloud, softly:
“Almost.”
It started with a delay.
Vaena was supposed to attend the council that morning.
She never missed them.
But when Rhaenyra arrived—early, cloak swept around her shoulders, boots clean, expression hard—her aunt’s seat was empty.
She didn’t ask why.
She just sat.
And spoke first.
Lord Harroway objected to a new harbor tax.
She let him finish.
Then replied, “Would you rather Driftmark stop shipping wheat to your ports entirely?”
He went red.
She didn’t raise her voice.
Vaena wasn’t sick.
She just… didn’t come.
She sat in her solar, hands in her lap, a fire going quietly.
She already knew what had happened before Alyra arrived.
“She handled it,” Alyra said, smiling.
“I know.”
“She quoted you.”
“She’s not supposed to.”
“Everyone looked at her like—like she was already sitting on the throne.”
Vaena looked toward the fire.
“She will be.”
Daemon found Rhaenyra alone on the steps of the training yard.
No blade. No armor.
Just her. In silence.
“You didn’t need me in there,” he said, nodding toward the hall.
“No.”
He dropped beside her. “Does it scare you?”
“That I didn’t need anyone today?”
He nodded.
She exhaled slowly. “A little.”
They sat in silence.
Then she said, “She’s leaving, isn’t she?”
Daemon didn’t lie. “Not yet. But soon.”
That night, Vaena wrote three letters.
One to Driftmark.
One to the Vale.
And one, unsigned, to someone no one in court knew she still kept in contact with.
When Alyra asked what they were for, she only said:
“When the wind changes, you secure the sails.”
The next morning, Rhaenyra stood in her aunt’s chambers holding a page of her own writing.
“I want your opinion,” she said.
Vaena took it.
Read it.
Said nothing.
“Too much?” Rhaenyra asked.
“No,” Vaena said. “Too careful.”
Rhaenyra smirked. “Your influence.”
Vaena set the page down. “If they strike now, what do you do?”
“Make them regret it.”
“And if they strike through someone you love?”
Silence.
Rhaenyra met her eyes.
“I burn it down,” she whispered.
Vaena smiled.
And said, “Almost.”
The raven arrived before sunrise.
A fire at the harbor. Minor damage. But the flames had jumped to a shipment from Driftmark—spices, goods, and six barrels of trade-bound silver.
A political fire, not just a literal one.
And Vaena wasn’t there.
The servants whispered that she had taken the morning in seclusion. No illness. No note. Just… gone.
So when the Small Council gathered to respond to the crisis—
It was Rhaenyra who led.
“I’ll send a message to Corlys personally,” she said, calm as rain. “I’ll make it clear that Driftmark will be compensated in full—by the crown. And the merchants involved will be overseen during the next shipment. No exceptions.”
Lord Beesbury cleared his throat. “And the coin for this compensation…?”
“Will come from the royal coffers,” Rhaenyra replied. “From the private royal coffers.”
The room murmured.
“Do you speak for the king now?” someone asked.
She looked at her father.
Viserys didn’t say a word.
But he nodded. Just once.
And that was all she needed.
Daemon stood at the back of the room, leaning on a column, arms crossed.
He didn’t smile.
But he also didn’t move to help her.
Because she didn’t need it.
Not anymore.
Afterward, Rhaenyra returned to Vaena’s solar.
Her aunt was waiting.
The fire was low. Tea gone cold.
Rhaenyra didn’t speak first.
Vaena finally said, “And?”
“It’s handled.”
“Good.”
Another pause.
“You weren’t there.”
“I didn’t need to be.”
Rhaenyra nodded.
“That’s what I thought.”
That night, Viserys sat alone in the royal chapel, staring at the statue of Aemma in silence.
He whispered:
“She doesn’t need me.”
Then added—like it hurt:
“She doesn’t need me anymore.”
He didn’t cry.
But something inside him cracked.
“You’re sending me away?”
Rhaenyra’s voice didn’t tremble. It just felt… thin.
Vaena, standing by the map table, didn’t look up. “I’m sending you out. There’s a difference.”
“To where?”
“The Vale.”
Rhaenyra blinked. “Alone?”
“With two knights and your name. That’s all you need now.”
The words hit like a sword pressed flat against her chest. Cold, sharp, but… clean.
Rhaenyra nodded once. “How long?”
“A week. Maybe more. Long enough for them to see you speak without me standing behind you.”
“Why now?”
Vaena finally met her eyes.
“Because if I wait any longer, I’ll keep protecting you. And you’re past needing protection.”
The carriage ride to the Vale was quiet.
She didn’t sleep. Didn’t write. Just stared out at the trees, arms crossed over her lap, practicing lines in her head.
Not lines Vaena gave her.
Lines she’d written herself.
Daemon watched her leave.
He said nothing to her at the gates. Didn’t wave. Didn’t bow.
He just stood with his arms crossed, sword slung low at his hip, eyes fixed on the carriage as it disappeared down the stone road.
“She’s going to scare them,” he said quietly.
Vaena, standing beside him, didn’t smile.
“That’s the idea.”
In the Vale, Rhaenyra met with Lady Jeyne Arryn and stood before the court in a gown that didn’t shimmer and a voice that didn’t shake.
She negotiated land trade. Promised naval cooperation. Politely refused a marriage proposal.
And when someone muttered, “She’s only a child,” she turned and said:
“Then you’ve all just been bested by one.”
Back in King’s Landing, Vaena took down her war maps.
One by one.
She handed the scrolls to Alyra. Burned the spare copies. Dismissed her informants one at a time.
Daemon watched her from the doorway.
“You’re really going.”
“No,” she said. “I’m just no longer necessary.”
He tilted his head. “She’ll miss you.”
“She’ll survive me.”
He stepped forward, voice softer.
“And if she wants you to stay?”
Vaena smiled faintly.
“She won’t ask.”
Rhaenyra returned a week later to a throne room full of people who bowed just a little deeper.
She didn’t ask for Vaena.
She didn’t need to.
Because Vaena was already gone.