Jinx was still trying to decide whether Aerys looked pleased or merely less suspicious when the king shifted Dark Sister across his lap and looked toward Tywin. He had been watching the sword more than he wanted anyone to notice, mostly because every version of this conversation he had imagined since Winterfell ended with Aerys keeping it once he recognized what it was, and he had already begun sorting through the unpleasant collection of ways he might eventually get it back when the king spoke.
"Give the boy his sword."
For a moment Jinx genuinely thought he had misunderstood him.
Tywin seemed to have a similar problem, though the only sign was the fraction of a pause before he moved. Rhaegar turned toward his father quickly enough that surprise slipped through the careful expression he had been wearing all morning, Arthur's eyes went from the throne to Jinx, and even Barristan looked openly uncertain for a heartbeat before years of practice smoothed it away. Somewhere beside Jinx, Brandon breathed out a quiet, confused noise while Eddard simply stared at the king as though waiting for the rest of the order to arrive.
It never did.
Aerys settled farther back among the swords and ran one long nail over the arm of the throne while Tywin came up the steps to receive Dark Sister from him. "He has answered me when asked, returned what belongs to my house without childish protest, and offered to restore what traitors carried away," the king said, sounding increasingly satisfied with the explanation as he gave it. His gaze slid toward Jinx again, lingering in a way that made the skin between Jinx's shoulders itch. "I see no reason to deprive him of a weapon when he has shown that he knows how to behave."
That last word landed strangely.
Jinx looked at Aerys for perhaps half a second too long before dropping his attention toward the floor, mostly because he did not trust what his face was doing. He had spent days planning for threats, imprisonment, confiscation, interrogation, and several different varieties of royal stupidity, but apparently he had forgotten to account for the possibility that Aerys might decide to be nice in a way that somehow felt worse than being openly hostile.
Tywin descended the final steps and stopped in front of him with Dark Sister held across both hands. The Hand's expression gave Jinx nothing useful, although his eyes stayed on Jinx's face while the sword changed hands, and that made Jinx suddenly conscious of how much of a reaction he ought to have. Relief was easy because he actually felt it, but delight seemed dangerous, and gratitude toward Aerys required more effort than he was willing to waste when he was still sticky with dried blood and beginning to notice that two royal feasts had left him unbearably thirsty.
His fingers closed around the scabbard.
The familiar weight settled into his palm.
Then something in his head finally connected Aerys's words with a memory so mundane that it nearly made him laugh.
He remembered dogs.
Not any particular dog at first, just the basic thing everyone seemed to understand about training them. Make one sit, give it meat. Make it stay, scratch behind its ears. Repeat it often enough and eventually the animal stopped waiting for the reward before trying to please the person holding it.
Jinx's thumb rubbed slowly over the leather wrapping the scabbard while he looked back toward the throne.
Oh, you're rewarding me.
The realization was almost insulting, though not enough for him to do anything stupid about it. Aerys had demanded obedience, Jinx had given him enough of its shape to make him happy, and now the king was handing Dark Sister back as though it were something Jinx had earned by behaving well rather than something he had arrived with in the first place.
He nearly smiled.
There were worse arrangements.
Jinx had Dark Sister again, he was no longer in chains, Aerys wanted Blackfyre badly enough that execution had probably moved much farther down the list of immediate possibilities, and the king had just accidentally taught him what kind of response pleased him. The only irritating part was that continuing this would require Jinx to actually perform obedience with some consistency, which sounded exhausting even before he remembered that he was a Stark.
Then again, Starks could be patient.
His father had made an entire life out of it. Eddard could wait through almost anything once he decided enduring it was the proper thing to do, Benjen usually knew when silence would save him trouble, and Jinx had spent enough years pretending to sleep through arguments to consider himself reasonably talented at waiting when there was something worthwhile at the end.
His eyes drifted toward Brandon.
Brandon was staring at Aerys with the particular expression he wore when patience had already failed and violence was only being prevented by circumstance.
Jinx amended the thought.
Most Starks could be patient.
Lyanna and Brandon had apparently divided whatever portion of that inheritance should have belonged to them and thrown it into a river.
Eddard caught the direction of his gaze and followed it toward their elder brother. His mouth moved very slightly, not enough to become a smile, but Jinx knew him too well to miss the same thought occurring somewhere behind those grey eyes.
Jinx looked down again before Brandon noticed both twins silently judging him.
Dark Sister still needed somewhere to go, and fastening it back onto himself one-handed proved more annoying than expected because the remains of his clothes had not survived the voyage in anything approaching respectable condition. The belt was twisted, one loop had nearly torn free, and he spent several seconds fumbling with it before Eddard finally reached over without saying anything and held the scabbard steady.
"Thanks," Jinx murmured while fixing the clasp properly. Ned gave him a brief look that seemed to ask whether he was actually all right, and Jinx answered with the smallest shrug because explaining that he was full, sore, thirsty, politically terrified, and mildly entertained by the king trying to train him like a dog would take too long.
By the time Dark Sister sat comfortably against his hip, Aerys was still watching.
That reminded Jinx that he should probably do something appropriate.
He straightened, pushed a loose strand of black-and-silver hair away from his mouth, and bowed.
It felt wrong almost immediately.
Not painful or humiliating exactly, just unnatural enough that every Stark ancestor currently rotting beneath Winterfell probably shifted a little in irritation. Jinx ignored them and made himself stay down for the extra heartbeat that turned the gesture from reluctant acknowledgment into something Aerys could reasonably read as respect.
"Thank you, Your Grace," he said when he straightened, and there was enough roughness left in his throat from the chain and the ridiculous amount of food he had swallowed that the words came out less polished than he intended. He cleared his throat once and added, "I appreciate it."
Aerys visibly liked that.
Jinx noticed the small relaxation around his mouth and immediately filed it away somewhere useful, though before he could think much further the king's attention shifted past him toward Rhaegar.
The change was quick enough to make the air feel colder.
"My son stays," Aerys said, and whatever faint approval had entered his voice disappeared once Rhaegar became its target. His fingers tapped against the throne while his eyes moved next toward Arthur and Barristan, both of whom looked as though they would have preferred a bed, a healer, and perhaps several days without another royal conversation. "Dayne and Selmy as well. I have questions concerning what occurred in the North, what my heir knew, and why so much was apparently considered unworthy of my attention until today."
Rhaegar's shoulders stiffened.
Jinx noticed Elia move before she stopped herself.
Her hand had started toward Rhaegar's arm, probably without thought, but she caught the movement halfway and let her fingers settle against her own skirts instead. It was such a tiny thing that Jinx might have missed it if he were not already looking that way, and something about the speed with which she corrected herself made him glance from Elia to Aerys and then back again.
He did not like that.
Arthur took a quiet step nearer Rhaegar, perhaps because standing beside the Crown Prince was literally his duty and perhaps because neither of them was in a condition to survive another interesting development today. Barristan shifted with him, hiding the discomfort of his damaged ribs beneath a movement that probably would have looked effortless to anyone who had not just watched the man spend half an hour trying not to breathe too deeply.
Aerys made a dismissive motion toward the rest of them.
Jinx nearly turned with Eddard.
Then he stopped.
The stupid dog thought came back.
He stared toward the open stretch of floor between himself and the great doors while everyone around him began moving, and he could almost feel Brandon noticing that he had frozen. Leaving after being dismissed should have been obvious, except Aerys had not actually said Jinx could leave. Maybe it did not matter. Maybe asking would make him look ridiculous.
Then Jinx remembered the man had just handed him Dark Sister because he had behaved.
Gods, this is going to be annoying.
He turned back toward the throne.
Aerys had already begun leaning toward Tywin as though expecting Jinx and the others to vanish from existence once they were no longer useful, and his irritation was immediate when he noticed the movement in front of him had stopped.
"What?" the king asked.
Jinx had to suppress a sigh.
"May I leave, Your Grace?" he asked, and even as the words came out he became painfully aware of Brandon somewhere behind his left shoulder. He kept his eyes on Aerys instead because looking at his brother right now would probably ruin everything.
Aerys stared at him for a second.
Then the king smiled.
"You may."
Jinx bowed again because apparently he was committing to this now.
He turned before anyone could make him do a third one.
Brandon fell into step beside him almost immediately, sling held close against his chest and curiosity already fighting its way through whatever good sense the voyage had left him. They had made it perhaps ten paces before he leaned closer, careful enough to keep his voice beneath the returning murmur of the court, and asked Jinx whether he had genuinely just requested permission to walk through a door.
Jinx kept looking ahead.
"Yes."
He could feel Brandon staring.
Eddard appeared on Jinx's other side before the silence became unbearable, his bandaged torso making his stride slightly uneven whenever he put too much weight on one leg. He glanced at Brandon, then at Jinx, and for a few seconds the three brothers walked in a strange little cluster while servants hurried around the remains of the feast behind them.
Brandon apparently decided the situation still required examination. "You ask Father for permission less politely than that," he muttered, keeping his voice low enough that the words almost disappeared beneath the scrape of a platter being lifted somewhere behind them. "I've watched you leave his solar while he was still telling you not to."
"That was different."
"How?"
Jinx thought about it for perhaps three steps and realized he had no interest in explaining animal training inside Aerys's throne room.
"Father likes me."
Brandon's mouth opened.
Eddard made a quiet sound that might have been a laugh and immediately disguised it as a cough when Brandon looked across Jinx at him. The movement tugged something beneath Ned's bandages badly enough that his amusement disappeared almost at once, and Jinx instinctively reached toward his brother before stopping when Ned waved him away.
"Don't," Eddard murmured, slowing for half a step until the pain settled. "It only pulls when I laugh."
Jinx looked at Brandon.
Brandon lifted his good hand defensively. "I did nothing."
"You existed nearby."
"That is not generally considered an offense."
Jinx almost answered before remembering where they were and who might still be listening.
He let it go.
Oberyn caught up with them near the great doors, although caught up was generous considering Jinx had unconsciously slowed once he heard the uneven scrape of the Dornish prince's boots behind him. Oberyn had enough bandages wrapped around his torso that turning too quickly had become an involved process, and the trip from the center of the throne room had already put a slight tightness around his mouth that he would absolutely deny if anyone mentioned it.
Elia walked beside him.
She looked back once.
Jinx followed her eyes and found Rhaegar still near the bottom of the Iron Throne with Arthur and Barristan nearby. Aerys was speaking to Tywin again, too quietly for Jinx to catch the words from this distance, while Rhaella remained where she had been with her attention divided uneasily between her husband and son.
Elia faced forward before anyone could notice she had been staring.
Jinx pretended he had not noticed either.
The guards opened the doors.
Cooler air reached him from the corridor, carrying stone dust, smoke from wall torches, old rushes, and enough distant roasting meat that his stomach gave an entirely unnecessary little twitch. Jinx stopped walking for half a second and looked down at himself in disbelief.
"No," he muttered under his breath. "Absolutely not."
Eddard glanced over. "What?"
"My stomach made a noise."
Brandon looked genuinely alarmed.
Jinx rolled his eyes before either of them could decide that meant the last two feasts had somehow failed. "I'm full. I think it just smelled something."
"That sentence does not make me feel better," Brandon said as they passed through the doors, and for once Jinx could not really blame him.
The corridor outside was quieter, although not empty. Servants who had clearly found reasons to linger nearby immediately became very busy with tapestries, candles, trays, and pieces of wall that required intense inspection once the group emerged, while two guards at the far end tried and failed not to look directly at Jinx's mouth.
He became conscious of the dried blood still there.
"Do I have something on my face?" he asked, wiping his thumb across one cheek before looking at it. Nothing came away except a faint smear of grease.
Elia gave him a long look.
Jinx waited.
She reached into one sleeve, pulled out a folded handkerchief, and handed it over without saying anything.
That was answer enough.
Jinx wiped his mouth while they walked, and the first pass came away red enough that he made a face. "Oh."
Oberyn glanced over and snorted, immediately regretting it when the movement pulled at his bandaged ribs. His next breath came shallow and irritated, and Jinx slowed again without thinking while Oberyn muttered something unpleasant in Rhoynish about ships, Starks, ribs, and whichever god had invented stairs.
Jinx was still cleaning dried blood from beneath his chin when he remembered Dark Sister.
His free hand dropped instinctively to the scabbard.
It was there.
For some reason he checked twice anyway.
The sword bumped lightly against his thigh as they continued through the corridor, and Jinx found himself thinking about Aerys again before his attention wandered toward Eddard's bandages, then Brandon's sling, then the fact that none of them had actually been told where they were supposed to go now.
He glanced ahead at the branching passage.
"Does anyone know where our rooms are?"
Nobody answered immediately.
Jinx looked from Eddard to Brandon, then toward Oberyn and Elia.
Oberyn finally sighed and rested his good hand against the wall for a moment while he adjusted whatever was pulling beneath his bandages. "Wonderful. We survived the North, the sea, your appetite, and your king, and now we are going to die lost in a hallway."
Elia reached over and fixed one of the loose wrappings near her brother's shoulder while telling him not to be dramatic. Jinx leaned against the opposite wall for a moment, still holding her bloodied handkerchief and trying to remember whether he had seen a servant assigned to them before the throne room swallowed everyone's attention, while Eddard began looking back toward the nearest intersection for someone who might actually know where guests were supposed to sleep.
By the time the steward finally led them into the guest chambers, Jinx had stopped caring whether the rooms had originally been prepared for them or hastily stolen from some lesser lord who had been unfortunate enough to arrive in King's Landing at the wrong time. The only thing that mattered was that the doors closed behind them, the noise of the court faded to a distant murmur beneath thick stone, and for the first time since Blackwater Bay he was surrounded by people who already knew what he was capable of and therefore had no reason to stare at him as though he might suddenly grow another head.
The chambers themselves were larger than anything Jinx would have bothered asking for, a connected stretch of sleeping rooms, washing rooms, and a shared solar with tall windows overlooking one of the Red Keep's inner yards. Brandon barely glanced at the carved furniture before dropping onto the edge of the nearest bed, his injured arm still fixed in its sling while his good hand worked unsuccessfully at the buckle of one boot, and Eddard made it only a little farther before the stiffness in his stride became too obvious to ignore.
Jinx noticed the darkening stain beneath Ned's bandages before Ned seemed willing to acknowledge it himself, and the sight pulled him across the room without much thought. "You opened something again," he murmured as he crouched beside his twin and reached toward the linen wrapped around his ribs, but Elia caught his wrist before his fingers could disturb the knot and gave him a look that made him immediately reconsider pretending he knew what he was doing.
"You can help by not pulling dried cloth out of a wound with your bare hands," Elia told him while guiding his hand away, and there was enough exhausted patience in her voice that Jinx did not argue. She moved toward the basin a servant had left warming beside the hearth, and Jinx stayed close enough to watch without interfering while she dampened the linen first and worked the stained layers loose one careful piece at a time.
The damage beneath looked worse than Jinx had expected, though he knew most of it had come from the voyage rather than the walk through the city. Bruising spread across Ned's ribs in ugly shades of purple and yellow, several cuts had been stitched beneath his arm, and one had opened enough during the climb into the Red Keep that fresh blood had begun gathering along the thread, which made Jinx remember the ship in pieces he did not particularly want.
Ned bracing himself against a broken mast while the deck rolled beneath them came first, followed by Dark Sister in his hands and Jinx himself somewhere on the other side of the blade. He remembered the yellow at the edge of his own vision, remembered how loudly everyone's breathing had sounded when the food was gone, and then stopped following the memory before it could reach the part where Ned had refused to put the sword somewhere fatal even when doing so would have been easier.
Jinx looked away and found Oberyn lowering himself into a chair with the slow care of a man determined not to let anyone see how much sitting hurt. Nearly everything beneath the Dornishman's neck remained wrapped in fresh linen, and Elia divided her attention between her brother and Eddard with the resigned competence of someone who had spent the entire voyage surrounded by men who repeatedly discovered new ways to injure themselves.
Brandon finally gave up on the boot and used his teeth on the buckle, which would normally have earned him at least one comment from Jinx, but none came. The room had become pleasantly quiet around them, filled with the small noises of water being poured, cloth tearing into cleaner strips, the fire shifting beneath the grate, and people breathing carefully because too deep a breath reminded half of them why they were bandaged.
Jinx decided washing himself would probably make everyone more comfortable, though nobody had actually suggested it. The smaller room adjoining the solar contained a deep basin already steaming from fresh water, and he spent the first few minutes bent over it with a cloth pressed against his mouth while dried blood loosened from his skin and stained the water pink.
The gold cloak captain's blood had dried beneath his jaw and along the side of his neck, and removing it took longer than Jinx expected because several places had mixed with blood from his own split lips. He rubbed at one stubborn patch, hissed when the cloth caught tender skin, and found himself thinking again about Aerys handing Dark Sister back as though the king had merely returned a dropped glove rather than one of House Targaryen's most famous lost weapons.
That still did not fit any of the plans he had brought south.
Jinx had considered confiscation likely enough that he had spent several nights at Winterfell deciding how long he could safely wait before trying to recover the sword. He had imagined Rhaegar arguing for its return, Rhaella possibly intervening, a negotiation over Blackfyre, and one especially stupid version in which Jinx simply stole Dark Sister out of wherever Aerys locked it and accepted whatever happened afterward, yet apparently none of that mattered because the king had decided obedience deserved a reward.
The comparison with animal training came back while Jinx rinsed the cloth, and this time he let the thought sit there instead of trying to decide whether it offended him. Aerys wanted a certain response, Jinx had given enough of that response to please him, and Dark Sister had been returned immediately afterward, which was simple enough to understand even if the idea of being handled that way made something stubborn inside him push back.
Obedience itself was going to be the difficult part, though Jinx knew patience was not foreign to the Stark blood no matter how much Brandon and Lyanna tried to disprove it. Ned could endure almost anything once duty convinced him there was a reason, Benjen had learned early that silence kept him out of half the trouble his siblings created, and Jinx had always been willing to wait when waiting meant he could avoid doing considerably more work later.
He washed the last of the blood from his chin and looked at himself in the small polished mirror beside the basin. The silver streaks through his black hair looked brighter beneath the candlelight than they had before the Wall, and for a few seconds he wondered what Aerys had actually seen when looking down from the throne, because Jinx doubted the king had seen a boy even once after the cage reached the hall.
When he returned to the solar wearing a loose borrowed shirt, Eddard had been rebandaged and Brandon had somehow succeeded in removing one boot but not the other. Oberyn had acquired a cup of wine despite Elia having very deliberately moved the tray away from him earlier, and Jinx decided not to ask how because whatever answer he received would probably encourage the man.
Dark Sister rested where Jinx had left it across a low table near Ned. He sat beside the sword rather than immediately fastening it back to himself, and for a while he listened to the room settle while the exhaustion beneath the food in his stomach finally began catching up with him.
He had almost closed his eyes when someone knocked.
The servant who entered looked young enough that Jinx suspected somebody older had found an excuse to send him instead, and the boy kept his attention respectfully above Jinx's shoulder while delivering the message. Queen Rhaella requested that Prince Jinx attend her privately when he had rested and washed enough to feel able, and Her Grace had apparently emphasized that she did not expect him immediately.
Jinx looked toward the bed and then toward the servant again, trying to decide whether queens actually meant things like that when they said them. Eddard caught the hesitation but did not offer advice, and Jinx appreciated that because he was already tired of guessing how every sentence inside the Red Keep might secretly mean something else.
"Tell Her Grace I'll come shortly," Jinx said while reaching for Dark Sister and drawing it closer to his chair. The servant bowed and left quickly enough that Jinx suspected the captain's missing arm had already become part of Red Keep servant lore, and Jinx stayed seated for another minute before deciding that if Rhaella had bothered to ask privately rather than summon him before half the court, making her wait simply because he wanted a nap would be rude in a way he could not blame on politics.
Rhaella received him in a solar inside Maegor's Holdfast that felt almost strangely ordinary after the throne room. Warm afternoon light crossed a carpet patterned with faded dragons, an older lady sat near the window with embroidery in her lap, and there were no councillors, guards, or courtiers hovering close enough to turn every word into something that could be carried elsewhere by supper.
Jinx bowed when he entered, though the gesture came more easily this time than it had beneath Aerys. Rhaella noticed his hand resting near Dark Sister afterward and gestured toward the chair opposite her, waiting until he had settled before looking at his face carefully enough that he became aware of the places around his mouth where the skin was still raw.
Her first question had nothing to do with Blackfyre.
She asked whether he was still hungry.
Jinx stared at her long enough that Rhaella's expression softened slightly, and he found himself answering more plainly than he had intended. "No, Your Grace. I think I ate enough to offend every cook in the castle, and I'm fairly certain at least one steward wanted to cry when he saw the platters."
A small smile appeared before Rhaella looked down at her hands, and the change made her seem younger than she had beneath the throne. "Then the kitchens will survive you after all, which is fortunate because Aerys ordered enough food prepared for another siege once he learned how much you required."
Jinx leaned back a little in the chair and found himself wondering whether that was a joke or simply something true that happened to be funny. "I don't normally need that much," he admitted, rubbing one thumb along the edge of Dark Sister's scabbard before realizing what he was doing. "Starving for two days made everything worse, and the arm on the road was more of a snack than a meal, which is a sentence I probably should have avoided saying to a queen."
Rhaella's eyes widened for a moment before laughter escaped her, quiet enough that the older woman near the window smiled without looking up from her sewing. The sound surprised Jinx more than anything else had, not because he thought queens incapable of laughing but because he had not heard much of it from Rhaella in the throne room, and he found himself smiling back before remembering that he had technically just made light of eating someone's arm.
"I have heard worse things in this castle said with much less reason," Rhaella told him after the laughter faded, and something about the sentence made Jinx's smile disappear more slowly than it otherwise would have. She did not explain what she meant, though she did not need to, and Jinx noticed the little space left behind in the conversation where Aerys might have fit if either of them had wanted to put his name there.
Rhaella's attention drifted toward Dark Sister a moment later. "You checked that sword twice while you were leaving the throne room, and I wondered whether you realized you were doing it."
Jinx looked down at his hand.
His fingers were resting over the pommel again.
"No."
"My husband did."
That made his hand stop.
Rhaella did not seem pleased to have unsettled him, and she gave him enough time to think before continuing. "Aerys notices gratitude very carefully when he believes he has caused it, and he remembers who responds to his favor in the way he expects. He may forget kindness done for him, but he rarely forgets kindness he believes he has done for someone else."
Jinx sat quietly for a moment, and the animal-training thought returned so quickly that he nearly wondered whether she could see it on his face. "I thought he was rewarding me," he said eventually, keeping his voice low because saying it aloud made the idea feel less clever and more uncomfortable. "Like giving a dog meat after it does what you wanted."
Rhaella's gaze stayed on him.
She did not laugh this time.
"Something like that."
Jinx had expected correction, perhaps offense at describing her husband in those terms, and the simple agreement made him look at her more carefully. There was no bitterness displayed for his benefit, only a tired familiarity that suggested she had spent far longer understanding Aerys's habits than Jinx had spent alive.
Rhaella lifted one hand and adjusted a loose strand of silver hair behind her ear while considering what to say next. "The difficulty is that refusing the reward can anger him just as much as resisting the command, because then he believes you have rejected not only the gift but the version of himself he was trying to show you."
Jinx frowned slightly.
"That sounds exhausting."
"It is."
The answer came so plainly that Jinx laughed before he could help it, and Rhaella did too, though hers carried a weary edge that made the moment feel less like humor and more like recognition. For a few breaths neither of them spoke, and the silence was comfortable enough that Jinx realized he had stopped sitting as though every question might become an interrogation.
He shifted sideways in the chair and let one leg stretch out beneath the table. "So I take the gifts, act grateful, and remember that none of it means I'm safe."
Rhaella watched him for a moment before nodding. "That is a better beginning than most people manage."
Jinx glanced toward her.
"Did you?"
The question escaped before he decided whether it was appropriate.
Rhaella's hands became still in her lap.
Jinx almost apologized, but something in her expression told him not to make the moment smaller by pretending he had not asked. She looked toward the window for a while, where afternoon light had begun turning warmer against the stone, and when she answered the words came more quietly.
"No."
Jinx waited.
Rhaella drew a slow breath and rested one hand over the other again. "I learned gradually, and there were things I mistook for affection because I wanted them to be affection, just as there were punishments I thought I could prevent if I became better at predicting what he wanted. Neither belief was especially useful."
Jinx looked down at Dark Sister.
He did not know what to say to that, and for once he did not feel compelled to find something.
The older lady continued sewing by the window as though she had heard none of it.
Eventually Jinx said, "My mother would hate this place."
Rhaella looked back toward him.
The thought had arrived from nowhere, but once spoken it felt obvious enough that Jinx continued. "She can barely tolerate Father trying to decide things for us when he's actually being reasonable. If she had to spend more than a week around Aerys, she'd probably try to throw him out a window."
Rhaella's mouth opened in surprise.
Then she laughed hard enough that she covered it with one hand.
Jinx joined her before deciding whether he should, because the image of Xuehara getting both hands around the king and deciding the Iron Throne room had too many stairs for a proper argument was vivid enough that restraint became difficult. The older woman near the window finally stopped pretending not to listen and lowered her embroidery long enough to hide a smile behind it.
"I should not encourage that image," Rhaella said once she recovered, though amusement remained in her eyes. "Especially because I met your mother once years ago, and I believe she might actually attempt it."
Jinx brightened with immediate curiosity. "You met her?"
"Only briefly, at court when you were very young. I remember thinking she was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen, and then today I discovered that she was already older than most of the ladies surrounding her."
That brought them naturally back to Xuehara's age, and the conversation wandered away from Aerys without either of them seeming to choose the change. Rhaella wanted to know whether Jinx's mother had always looked so young, whether the royal families of Yi Ti truly aged as slowly as he had claimed, and whether Jinx expected the same for himself.
Jinx admitted he had no idea what he expected because his blood had become complicated enough that prediction seemed pointless. He explained how his mother's family could remain physically young for decades before age began catching them quickly near the end, and Rhaella listened with more fascination than skepticism, especially when Jinx described a great-grandfather who had been two years old during the Great Council of 101 AC and lived until 214.
Rhaella stared at him for several seconds after doing the arithmetic.
Jinx smiled.
"You're doing the same face everyone made earlier."
"I am trying to imagine being over a hundred years old and still having family complain that I have not yet become sensible."
"That's apparently common."
Rhaella laughed again, and Jinx found himself relaxing enough to start telling her smaller things he had not intended to mention. He described his grandmother complaining that Westerosi people aged too quickly because they spent too much time being angry indoors, which had apparently been her explanation for nearly everything from wrinkles to gout, and Rhaella countered with the observation that if anger shortened life then half the Red Keep should have been dead before she married.
The conversation became easier after that.
Jinx stopped calling her Your Grace every time he answered, though he still remembered often enough not to become disrespectful, and Rhaella seemed to stop weighing every question before asking it. She wanted to know what Yi Ti looked like when he last visited, whether the imperial gardens really had bridges carved from single pieces of jade, and whether Xuehara's mother still kept Daemon's grave beneath the white-flowering tree Jinx had mentioned at Winterfell.
That last question changed the mood without breaking it.
Jinx looked toward the window while remembering the garden, the black stone without a name, and his grandmother standing beside it before telling him things she had kept from her own daughter for decades. "She still visits him," he said after a while. "Not every day anymore, but enough that the gardeners know not to disturb her when she goes there."
Rhaella's expression softened.
"She loved him."
"I think so although for the those of the yi ti royal family love is a luxury so most of us go with desire."
Jinx picked at a loose thread near his sleeve before adding that his grandmother never described it in those words. She talked about Daemon cheating at tiles, refusing medicine, arguing with healers, hating tea, and occasionally waking from dreams with the names of his dead sons in his mouth, which felt more honest to Jinx than telling him she had loved a dead rebel prince for five years.
Rhaella listened without interrupting, and when Jinx mentioned Daemon refusing to return to Westeros because he thought the country had already taken enough from him, something quiet passed through her face. She did not ask what he meant by it, perhaps because she understood without explanation how a place could become inseparable from pain.
Jinx noticed and left the subject there.
When he eventually rose to leave, nearly an hour had passed without him realizing it.
That surprised him more than anything else.
Rhaella stood as well and looked toward Dark Sister while Jinx fastened the sword properly around his waist. "If Aerys begins giving you more things, remember what we discussed, but do not become so suspicious that you refuse everything out of pride. Sometimes surviving a person means accepting what is useful without confusing usefulness for affection."
Jinx tightened the buckle and glanced up at her.
"I can do that."
"I think you can."
There was enough warmth in the answer that Jinx paused.
Rhaella stepped closer before he could decide what to say and adjusted the collar of his borrowed shirt where it had folded inward against the raw skin near his neck. The gesture was so unexpectedly maternal that Jinx went completely still, not because he disliked it but because it reminded him of Xuehara doing the same thing whenever he appeared for dinner looking as though he had dressed himself in the dark.
Rhaella noticed his expression and withdrew her hand. "Your mother would probably object if I sent you back looking like that."
Jinx looked down at the corrected collar.
"She would blame me anyway."
That earned one last quiet laugh from Rhaella, and Jinx bowed before leaving with a little less effort than he had used when entering.
The corridor felt colder afterward.
He walked several steps before realizing he was smiling faintly.
That disappeared when the same nervous steward from earlier came hurrying toward him.
There had been a change in his rooms.
Jinx closed his eyes for half a second and already knew he was going to hate whatever came next.
Far behind him, inside the queen's solar, Rhaella returned slowly to her chair and looked toward the closed door longer than necessary before taking up the cup she had forgotten to drink from. The boy had entered her rooms watching everything like something recently cornered and had left laughing about his mother, which felt small enough that she did not examine why it mattered to her yet.
The older lady near the window resumed her embroidery.
Rhaella reached for her own work and found that she had forgotten where she left off.
While Jinx was sitting in Rhaella's solar and discovering, with some surprise, that the queen could laugh hard enough to cover her mouth when his mother was involved, Rhaegar was discovering that his father had no intention of allowing the morning to end merely because the court had finally emptied. Aerys dismissed the last petitioners, minor lords, and lingering courtiers with enough irritation that the throne room cleared quickly, but Rhaegar, Arthur, Barristan, Tywin, Varys, and Grand Maester Pycelle were ordered to remain and follow him into the smaller council chamber overlooking the Blackwater, where questions could be asked without half the city hearing the answers before supper.
Rhaegar had wanted a healer before another conversation, although he knew better than to say so. The bruising beneath his ribs had stiffened while he stood before the Iron Throne, and every few steps the bandage around his left hand pulled against the swollen fingers beneath it, but Arthur looked considerably worse and Barristan had begun favoring one leg again after hiding the injury successfully through most of court. Neither knight complained, which somehow made Rhaegar feel worse about complaining even privately inside his own head, so he took his usual seat and tried to find a position that did not press his ribs against the carved arm of the chair.
His father did not sit immediately.
Aerys paced near the head of the table with the restless energy that usually meant his thoughts had begun moving faster than anyone around him could safely follow, returning repeatedly to Blackfyre, Dark Sister, Bloodraven, and the hidden daughter Daemon had apparently left in Yi Ti. The king seemed less interested in whether each part fitted perfectly than in how they might fit around him, and Rhaegar recognized enough of his father's habits to know that the morning's revelations were already being rearranged into a story in which Aerys had discovered them through his own vigilance.
Tywin allowed him to speak until the repetitions began.
"There is another matter concerning Prince Jinx that should not be ignored," the Hand said once Aerys had finally taken his chair, and Rhaegar noticed Varys's eyes shift toward him before anyone else moved. Tywin rested both hands upon the table rather than looking toward Rhaegar, his voice carrying the same measured restraint he used when discussing grain accounts or armies. "Whatever his position within House Stark, his mother's blood grants him recognized royal status in Yi Ti. Lady Xuehara is not merely descended from their imperial house, and her son has been acknowledged there as a prince."
Aerys looked at him as though Tywin had interrupted something important to discuss embroidery.
Rhaegar had expected more interest after the king's reaction to Blackfyre, but the mention of Yi Ti produced little beyond irritation. His father waved one hand and muttered that every distant land seemed to contain emperors, god-kings, princes, and men claiming descent from the moon, while the Seven Kingdoms remained under a single Iron Throne that mattered considerably more to him than whatever titles eastern courts chose to hand a Stark boy.
Tywin did not argue with the insult itself.
"The title matters only if those who granted it choose to make it matter," he said, and Rhaegar could hear the caution beneath the plain wording. "Yi Ti is distant enough that no army will cross half the known world over an insult tomorrow, but distance does not erase trade, wealth, envoys, or influence in the eastern cities. If the boy is imprisoned openly or harmed while held by the Crown, there may be consequences we gain nothing by inviting."
Aerys's mouth tightened before Tywin reached the end, and Rhaegar knew from experience that the truth of the argument had already become secondary to the fact that Tywin was the man giving it. "If his eastern grandmother wishes to sail across the world and lecture me about how I discipline one of my own lords' sons, she may attempt it," the king said while pulling one sleeve farther over his wrist. "He is in Westeros now, born to a Stark father and beneath my laws. I will not have some yellow-roofed palace beyond Qarth deciding what I may do in King's Landing."
Rhaegar saw Pycelle lower his eyes toward the table before the Grand Maester's expression revealed whether he thought correcting Aerys's geography was worth dying over.
Tywin left the matter there.
That was probably why he remained Hand.
Varys had been listening with his hands hidden inside his sleeves, and when the silence became uncomfortable enough that Aerys began looking around for someone else to blame for it, the eunuch shifted slightly in his chair. "There is, however, another object from the North which may prove considerably less distant, Your Grace," he said, his pleasant voice drawing Rhaegar's attention before the words themselves did. "The accounts reaching King's Landing mentioned an egg, yet very little was said of it this morning."
Rhaegar felt something in his stomach tighten.
Arthur looked toward him.
It was barely a movement, but Rhaegar knew the knight well enough to catch it.
Aerys caught only the word that mattered.
"Egg?"
The change in his father was immediate enough that Rhaegar forgot his ribs for a moment. Aerys leaned forward over the council table, irritation giving way to a sharp interest that looked altogether too similar to the expression he had worn when Blackfyre was mentioned, and the dark little glint behind his eyes made Rhaegar remember Jinx clutching the fungus-covered thing beyond the Wall while everything around him died.
Varys seemed to notice the danger at almost the same time, although he had already opened the door. "A dragon egg, according to several of the surviving reports," he continued carefully. "Recovered in the same expedition that produced Dark Sister, unless the accounts have confused two separate events."
"They have not," Aerys said, and his fingers began tapping against the table. "Where is it?"
Rhaegar answered before Varys could.
"With Jinx's belongings under guard, Father, and I would strongly advise leaving it there."
Aerys turned toward him.
Rhaegar had only a few seconds to decide exactly how much truth could be shaped into something useful, and the memory of the egg made the lie easier because most of what he needed was not really a lie at all. He remembered the unnatural cold around it, Jinx's hunger worsening after it was recovered, plants blackening while the boy clung to it, and the disturbing little movement beneath the shell in the sanctuary.
"The egg is cursed," Rhaegar said, allowing enough unease into his voice that his father would hear warning rather than possession. "Whatever preserved it beyond the Wall did not leave it clean. We saw enough during the journey back to understand that men exposed to it for too long become unstable, and the effect appears worse in those with strong magical blood."
Aerys's fingers stopped.
That was the first good sign Rhaegar had received since entering the room.
Pycelle looked up with sudden scholarly interest, though Rhaegar continued before the old man could begin asking questions that might dismantle the useful simplicity of the warning. He explained that the egg had been surrounded by old fungus and something that behaved less like ordinary decay than the remnants of whatever magic had preserved it, and that Jinx himself believed its presence had worsened the madness beyond the Wall rather than merely accompanying it.
Aerys's gaze narrowed. "And yet the Stark keeps it."
Rhaegar expected that question.
"He has already been affected by it, and whatever relationship exists between them appears different," he said, choosing the last word because he did not know enough to safely choose another. "That does not mean anyone else should test it. If the effect truly responds to magical blood, then those descended from Old Valyria may be among the worst people to keep near it."
The room became very still around that implication.
Aerys had spent his life believing Targaryen blood made him exceptional, and Rhaegar watched the same belief turn unpleasantly inward when exceptional blood suddenly became a reason something might harm him more severely than an ordinary man. His father glanced toward his own hands as though madness might already be waiting beneath the skin, then looked at Arthur and Barristan for confirmation.
Arthur took a careful breath before answering, and pain tightened the corner of his mouth despite his effort to hide it. "I cannot speak to the nature of the magic, Your Grace, but I saw what happened after the egg was recovered. Prince Jinx deteriorated very quickly, and nothing about the object struck me as safe."
Barristan gave a slow nod beside him. He added only that he would not willingly keep the thing near sleeping men until someone understood it better, and the plainness of that answer seemed to carry more weight with Aerys than anything elaborate could have.
The interest left the king almost as quickly as it had appeared.
Not entirely.
Rhaegar knew his father too well to believe a dragon egg had been forgotten, but the hungry curiosity was gone, replaced by the guarded disgust Aerys reserved for things that threatened to be dangerous specifically to him. He ordered the egg kept wherever it presently was, forbade anyone from bringing it into his chambers, and then spent another few breaths muttering that perhaps northern sorcery had finally found something useful to do by keeping such filth away from proper dragons.
Rhaegar let him.
Varys looked at him from across the table.
There was no smile on the eunuch's face now, only a quiet attention that made Rhaegar wonder how much of the lie he had believed and how much he had simply recognized as necessary.
Tywin returned to Jinx instead.
The Hand did not challenge the king's dismissal of the Yi Tish title again, though he questioned what Aerys actually intended to do with the boy now that execution had apparently become inconvenient. Rhaegar heard the word boy and almost laughed at how little it matched the thing everyone had watched inside the cage, but exhaustion made the thought disappear before it developed into anything useful.
Aerys already had an answer.
Jinx would remain in the Red Keep.
Rhaegar looked up before he could stop himself.
His father noticed.
The king's expression sharpened with satisfaction, and he began describing the arrangement as hospitality rather than confinement. Prince Jinx had travelled far, survived regrettable circumstances, carried valuable information concerning Blackfyre, and deserved rooms appropriate to both his Stark birth and whatever eastern title Tywin seemed so determined to respect.
Rhaegar knew where the sentence was going before Aerys reached it.
"He will be given chambers in Maegor's Holdfast," the king decided while settling farther into his chair. "Near enough that I need not wait half a day whenever I wish to speak with him, and guarded properly so no fool decides the boy can be stolen from beneath my roof."
Rhaegar thought about objecting.
Then he imagined exactly what Aerys would hear if his son argued that Jinx should be housed farther away from the king.
He stayed quiet.
That felt cowardly enough to irritate him, though Arthur's small shift beside him suggested the knight understood why he had done it. Rhaegar rubbed the side of one swollen finger beneath the bandage and wondered whether Jinx would recognize the room for what it was before anyone explained it.
He suspected the answer.
The suspicion did not make him feel better.
Aerys moved on to Blackfyre again, and Rhaegar found himself listening only enough to respond when directly addressed. His thoughts had already wandered toward Elia, then toward the Stark brothers somewhere in the guest wing, and finally toward Jinx, who was probably sleeping through the first quiet hour he had been given in days while the Small Council rearranged his life several corridors away.
By the time the meeting finally ended, Rhaegar's ribs had stiffened enough that standing required one hand against the table.
Arthur noticed and offered no help.
Rhaegar appreciated him for it.
Barristan followed them toward the door while Tywin remained behind with Aerys, and Varys lingered near the windows as though the Blackwater had suddenly become more interesting than everyone leaving. Rhaegar had nearly reached the corridor before the eunuch's soft voice came from behind him, asking whether madness from the egg truly favored magical blood.
Rhaegar stopped.
Arthur did too.
Rhaegar looked back and found Varys watching him with an expression so mild that irritation became easier than fear. "I watched what it did to Jinx," he said after a moment, which was true enough to keep his voice steady. "I have no desire to learn how selective it is."
Varys inclined his head.
He did not ask again.
Rhaegar left before the Spider could decide on a better question.
Jinx had been out of Rhaella's solar for less than ten minutes when the steward found him.
He recognized the man by the worried set of his shoulders before remembering his face, and that was enough to make Jinx slow down despite how badly he wanted to return to the guest wing and finally lie somewhere that did not move beneath him. The steward bowed, began with an apology that was not technically an apology, and informed him that His Grace had reconsidered the arrangements for the Stark party.
Jinx listened until he heard Maegor's Holdfast.
Then he stopped.
The steward continued for another few words before realizing Jinx was no longer walking.
"My brothers are in the guest wing," Jinx said, and the question hidden inside the statement seemed obvious enough that he did not bother adding one.
The steward nodded quickly and explained that Eddard and Brandon would remain there with Prince Oberyn and Princess Elia, while Prince Jinx had been granted private accommodations closer to the royal household. He called it an honor twice in less than a minute, which made Jinx trust it less each time.
Rhaella's warning returned almost word for word.
Jinx rubbed his thumb against the side of Dark Sister's scabbard and wondered how long Aerys had waited after giving him one reward before arranging another. Probably not long, judging from the speed with which servants had apparently moved furniture, food, and books.
"Fine," he murmured, mostly because refusing without even seeing the rooms would be stupid. "Show me."
The steward relaxed enough that Jinx immediately knew refusal had been considered possible.
That was useful.
They walked deeper into Maegor's Holdfast, crossing guarded passages and one narrow bridge where the stone beneath the windows dropped farther than Jinx cared to examine. He had spent enough time in castles to know when architecture was designed around comfort and when it was designed around keeping people controlled, and Maegor's seemed very fond of remembering that those goals occasionally overlapped.
His new chambers were beautiful.
Jinx disliked them almost immediately.
The main room was warm without being stuffy, with dark carved furniture, a wide bed beneath thick curtains, and windows positioned high enough to catch afternoon light without offering anyone an easy climb to the ground. A smaller solar connected to it through an archway, and beyond that stood a bathing room already supplied with steaming water, clean linen, oils, combs, and enough unnecessary little comforts that someone had either questioned half the castle about what princes liked or simply ordered everything.
The books made him stop.
One shelf had already been filled with histories of Valyria, dragonlore, maps of Essos, accounts of old Targaryen expeditions, and several volumes concerning ruins along the Smoking Sea. Jinx pulled one out before remembering he was supposed to be suspicious, flipped through a few pages, and felt mildly annoyed to discover it was a copy he had wanted for years.
Aerys was either very good at this accidentally or someone around him was.
Jinx put the book back.
Then he smelled the food.
A covered tray waited near the hearth beside bread, fruit, cold cuts of meat, cheese, broth, and a pitcher of water. Nothing approached the ridiculous quantity served in the throne room, but it was more than enough to keep the hunger quiet for several hours, and Jinx stood over it long enough to realize someone had remembered Rhaegar saying he needed food roughly every two hours.
That unsettled him more than the guards.
There were four of those outside.
The steward called them protection.
Jinx opened the door again just to look.
Four men tried not to look back at him.
He closed it.
By then the steward had begun explaining that additional food could be requested at any hour and that servants assigned to the adjoining passage had been instructed to respond immediately if Prince Jinx required anything. Jinx listened while walking toward the bed, sat on its edge, and bounced once before discovering that the mattress was offensively comfortable.
He lay backward without removing Dark Sister.
The steward stopped speaking.
Jinx stared at the canopy.
"Am I allowed to visit my brothers?"
The question clearly had not been expected.
The steward hesitated long enough to answer it anyway.
"His Grace gave no order preventing it, my prince."
Jinx looked toward him from the bed.
That wording interested him.
"No order preventing it" was different from "yes."
He considered asking more, then decided the steward probably knew less about Aerys's intention than Jinx did.
"Good enough."
The man bowed and left.
Jinx remained where he was, one leg still hanging partly over the side of the bed, and listened to the guards reposition outside the closed door. The room smelled faintly of wax, clean linen, old books, and roast meat, none of which were unpleasant enough to deserve his irritation.
He was still lying there when Eddard entered.
Ned did not knock.
Jinx liked that.
His twin came through the door with Brandon following several steps behind, and the two of them took in the room differently. Eddard looked first toward Jinx, then the guards visible through the open door before it closed, then the windows and the adjoining rooms, while Brandon's attention moved almost immediately to the food.
"Of course they fed you again," Brandon muttered while crossing toward the tray, though the complaint lacked much energy after the day they had survived. He lifted the cover from the broth, smelled it, and seemed disappointed that nothing interesting happened.
Jinx stayed on the bed.
"Apparently I'm special."
Brandon glanced over.
Jinx regretted giving him material before his brother could use it and turned his attention toward Eddard instead.
Ned had reached the books.
His fingers moved across two spines without pulling either volume free, and Jinx could tell from the way his shoulders sat that he had already understood the room. There were too many useful things here, too much food, too much comfort, and too many guards for it to be accidental.
Jinx waited for him to say something.
Ned did not.
That felt more like Ned.
He eventually crossed the room and lowered himself into the chair near the bed with enough care that Jinx remembered the reopened stitches beneath his bandages. "How long are you meant to stay here?"
Jinx turned his head toward him.
"No idea."
Brandon stopped examining the tray.
The room went quiet again.
Jinx found himself thinking about the ship, then immediately about waking inside the cage, then about Rhaella warning him not to mistake favor for safety. He rolled onto one side and looked toward Dark Sister's pommel near his hip.
"Ned."
Eddard's attention shifted.
Jinx took a second longer than necessary because the request irritated him even though he had already decided to make it. "Stay tonight."
Ned did not react in any obvious way.
He simply nodded.
That made it easier.
Brandon looked between them and started to say something before apparently deciding against it, which Jinx noticed precisely because Brandon deciding not to speak remained unusual enough to be interesting. His elder brother picked up an apple instead, tested it in his good hand, and wandered toward the window while biting into it.
Jinx closed his eyes.
For a few minutes nobody expected anything from him.
That lasted until another knock came at the door.
Jinx considered pretending to be asleep.
Eddard answered before he could.
A servant entered carrying a folded note sealed with the queen's personal mark, and Jinx recognized the wax before the message was read aloud. Rhaella was inviting them to supper later that evening, and the invitation included Jinx, Eddard, Brandon, Elia, and Oberyn, with Rhaegar expected to join them if his father released him from whatever questioning still occupied the prince.
Jinx opened one eye.
"He won't."
Eddard looked at him.
Jinx shrugged against the mattress.
"Aerys looked like he'd found a new hobby."
Nobody argued with that.