Chapter 12
Helaena and Harry leave the pair to continue their crying in peace. Helaena clutches Jaehaera tightly, pressing her face into her daughter’s soft hair. She hasn’t seen her in over a year, and for most of that time, she wasn’t even sure if Jaehaera was still alive. She had already lost Jaehaerys, her son, in the worst way imaginable. Only a month ago, she had finally gotten Maelor back. To finally have both of her living children with her felt like a miracle. She refuses to think about Jaehaerys right now; she doesn’t want to fall apart.
She gently rocks Jaehaera in her arms, whispering soft reassurances while Jaehaera holds onto her like she might disappear again.
After a long moment, Helaena speaks, her voice hesitant. “I... started talking to someone. From the village.” She fidgets slightly, looking down at Jaehaera instead of at Harry. “He seems nice. His name is Tommer.”
Harry nods, letting her continue.
“He-“ She hesitates, then exhales. “He wanted to know if I had a surname.” She gives Harry a sheepish look. “I forgot, at first. Commoners rarely have one, and it’s been so long since anyone asked me that. I told him I did, but then I realized I couldn’t use Targaryen.”
She pauses, stroking Jaehaera’s hair absently. “Tommer told me he doesn’t have a surname either. So he was wondering… if we ever had children, what our surname would be.”
Harry blinks, caught slightly off guard. “Oh?”
“I panicked and made an excuse to avoid answering. And now I’ve been avoiding him for days, and I feel terrible about it.” She sighs, finally looking at Harry. “Would you, could you give us surnames?”
Harry tilts his head, thinking it over. It’s a fair request, but coming up with an entire set of names isn’t exactly easy. As he struggles to come up with ideas, Helaena offers a suggestion.
“What if you just… used words from your own language?”
That makes him pause. It isn’t a bad idea.
After a moment, he nods. “Alright. Vitas for you. Praeciptem for Aegon. Custodire for Aemond. Gaudium for Maelor. And Bellus for Jaehaera.”
Helaena repeats the names softly under her breath, testing how they feel. Then she smiles. “Thank you, Harry.”
Harry tells Helaena that if they don’t like the surnames, they can always choose different ones. She shakes her head with a soft smile. “No, we’ll love them,” she says, as if there was never any doubt.
They settle into simple conversation after that, gossiping about the village, about Tommer, about Helaena’s firsgenuine relationshipip. Her arranged marriage to Aegon doesn’t count, not in the way it should. Harry listens patiently, offering advice where he can, though Helaena teases him about sounding like an old man. He just shrugs. He is an old man inside, after all.
Aegon suddenly sprints into the room, absolutely covered in mud from head to toe, interrupting their peaceful moment. There’s dirt in his hair, smeared across his face, dripping from his clothes onto the floor.
Helaena stares for a second before she bursts out laughing. Harry snorts, shaking his head, while Aegon dramatically places a hand on his heart, looking deeply wounded by their reaction.
“Oh yes, go ahead and laugh at my suffering,” he says, voice thick with mock betrayal.
Harry smirks. “Oh, we will.”
Aegon huffs, preparing to throw back some witty retort, only for his gaze to land on the sleeping form of Jaehaera, still curled up in Helaena’s arms.
He freezes.
His breath catches in his throat, his posture stiffening. “Is that-?” His voice wavers.
Helaena nods, her eyes soft with unshed tears. “Harry found her. He saved her.”
Aegon doesn’t think, he just moves. One second he’s standing there, covered in mud, and the next he’s launching himself at Harry, wrapping his arms and legs around him in a tight, desperate hug.
“Thank you,” Aegon gasps, burying his face into Harry’s shoulder. “Thank you, thank you, thank you, ”
Harry blinks, momentarily caught off guard, but he doesn’t hesitate to support Aegon’s weight. He lets the other man cling to him, lets him sob against his shoulder.
After a moment, Harry walks them both over to Helaena. Aegon, still wrapped around him like a particularly needy koala, finally releases him in favor of cradling his daughter instead.
His hands shake as he holds her.
She’s so small.
So alive.
Tears fall freely down his face as he presses a kiss to her forehead, whispering words Harry doesn’t quite catch.
Helaena rests a hand on Aegon’s back. Harry watches them, knowing that, at least for now, they’re finally whole again.
Tyland woke with a jolt, the silence pressing in around him like a thick fog. The bed was warm, unfamiliar, and, for the second time in a long while, not soaked with blood or agony. He blinked blearily, instinctively reaching out to feel his surroundings. No chains. No straw. Just soft blankets and an empty space beside him.
His fingers brushed his face, his eyes, and he paused. There was an itch there. A phantom sting. But when he opened them, the world flooded in. Light.
Colour.
Clarity.
He gasped, staring wide-eyed around the room, his breath caught in his throat.
“I can… see…” he whispered, his voice cracking on the word.
He scrambled upright and promptly fell out of bed with a thud, tangled in sheets and panic and disbelief.
The memories from before came back in a dizzying wave.
The child. A little girl, he thought. They had fallen. A man had helped them, gently, efficiently. The same man who had fed him, who had healed him.
Who had given him his sight.
And then… the ears. The rush of sound, clear and sharp and overwhelming. He’d screamed. He remembered that now. Then darkness had taken him again.
But now…
He sat up slowly, looking around the room, heart pounding. The man and the child were gone.
He waited. Ten minutes. Twenty. An hour.
Nothing.
Still no footsteps at the door. No silhouettes.
Tyland pulled his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them tightly. He didn’t trust his legs yet, didn’t trust the strength in them to carry him through the unfamiliar space. But more than that, he stayed because he hoped.
Hoped the man would come back.
That this wasn’t some cruel dream.
That someone had shown him kindness was no fluke.
And still…
The door remained closed.
The silence pressed in again, but this time, he could hear it. And it only made the absence more painfully real.
A knock startled Tyland out of his thoughts. He sat up straighter, brushing his hair back and trying to make himself somewhat presentable despite the soreness in his limbs and the ache deep in his bones.
The door creaked open, and the scent of warm bread and something stewed wafted in before the young inn server did. She was carrying a tray balanced neatly on one hand and gave him a friendly smile when she saw him awake.
“Well, you’re lookin’ better than yesterday,” she said cheerfully as she set the tray down on the bedside table. “That handsome man from earlier must be a miracle worker.”
Tyland blinked, still reeling from the fact he could see her. That he could hear the warmth in her voice, see the curl of her smile. It almost knocked the breath out of him. “The man… he left?”
She nodded, adjusting the placement of the bowl. “Aye, just before sunrise. Left word with the innkeeper. Paid for your room, meals, and services for the next couple of days. Said you’d need time to get your strength back.”
Tyland’s mouth fell open slightly. “He did that…? What did he look like?”
She grinned, leaning against the bedpost a little. “Tall. Long black hair in a braid down his back. Pale as moonlight, like he hadn’t seen the sun in years, and those eyes. Gods, those eyes. Green like emeralds, proper enchanting. But tired too. The kind of tired you don’t fix with sleep.” She tilted her head, thoughtful. “He looked young, but there was something old about him. Like he’s seen too much.”
Tyland sat there, stunned, blinking rapidly. That description fit. It fit in a way that rattled something deep in his chest.
“He didn’t… leave a name?” he asked, voice soft, almost afraid to break the spell.
She shook her head. “No, I just made sure you were taken care of.” Seemed like the kind of man who doesn’t ask for thanks.”
Tyland exhaled, eyes stinging, not from pain this time, but from something else. Something warmer. Softer. He dipped his head gratefully. “Thank you… thank you so much.”
She gave him a kind smile and patted his shoulder gently before heading to the door. “I’ll be back in a bit to collect the tray. Don’t hesitate to ring if you need anything.”
And just like that, he was alone again. But this time…
Not lost.
Someone had seen him broken and still deemed him worth saving.
That thought lingered like a warm ember in his chest as he reached for the tray.
Tyland clung to the image of him.
He spent every waking hour of the next two days asking around the inn, the square, the market nearby, anyone who might have seen the man who’d saved him. Every person’s word painted the same picture: long black braid, emerald eyes, pale and quiet, cloak trailing behind him like mist. A man who slipped in and out of sight with the weight of the world on his shoulders, who never gave a name but left coins and kindness behind like breadcrumbs.
His saviour.
That word became a quiet obsession.
Tyland replayed every moment he could remember: the warmth of a hand helping him back into bed, the quiet murmur of a reassurance he couldn’t quite recall, the taste of food on his tongue, the sound of breathing, not just his own, for once. Someone had seen him, cared for him. Not for power or status, but because he was hurting. Because he was human.
It made something fragile bloom in his chest. Something foolish. Puppy love, perhaps. But more than that, devotion. As if a single act of kindness had wrapped its way around his ribs and refused to let go.
And so, when the two days were up and his body had finally started to obey him again, Tyland packed what little he had and left the inn. He didn’t know where to begin looking for his saviour, but he’d return home first. Heal fully. Then, perhaps… he’d start searching. Somewhere, the man was still out there.
As he made his way through the town’s edge, pausing briefly to collect his bearings, a pair of women gossiping by a cart caught his attention.
“I swear on my uncle’s grave,” one said, her eyes wide, “they say it was a god. Saved Daemon’s life and vanished. Some call him ‘Harylos’. Long black braid, pale, wears a cloak like shadows, ”
“That name,” the other whispered, “like something from the old tongues. You know what else? No one has seen Daemon since. Day after that creature vanished, he just disappeared.”
Tyland froze mid-step.
Long black braid. Pale. Cloak.
His breath caught. His heart began to race.
He didn’t know where Daemon had gone or who truly had saved him. But Tyland knew one thing with unshakable certainty.
That was a god.
That was his saviour.
And he was going to find him.
Tyland stepped into the bustling streets of King’s Landing, the world flooding in all at once.
Light, colour, motion, it was too much. The sun reflected harshly off stone and steel, every sound sharper than a knife. People moved like waves, shouting and laughing and crying, and Tyland stumbled, overwhelmed, heart racing. It had only been a few days since he’d had eyes again, his eyes, new and unfamiliar, and the quiet inn room had done nothing to prepare him for the chaos of the capital.
He tugged his hood low over his face, clutching the edge of his cloak like a lifeline. Focus. He just needed to get home. Back to the safety of his family’s walls. Back to something stable.
He took a sharp turn down a side alley, nearly colliding with a short, stout man animatedly speaking to a group of merchants.
“, and I’m telling you, it was Harylos! The new god, the Healer!” the man declared. “They say he appeared from smoke and shadow, saved the prince’s life, disappeared again! A miracle, I swear it!”
Tyland blinked, caught off guard. His lips twitched into the softest smile, heart-warming.
Harylos… the great healer and saviour.
He said nothing, just nodded faintly and slipped past them, a smile still on his face. His saviour was being honoured, revered. It felt right. It felt deserved.
His steps grew faster, steadier.
He needed to get home, yes, but now not just to recover. Now he had a purpose.
He’d find Harylos again.
No matter what it took.