The first weeks on Skagos passed in a hush. For Aemma, time seemed to soften, losing the sharp, brutal edges it had held in King's Landing. The grief for the queen she had been was a phantom limb, an ache that surfaced in the quiet moments, but it was a gentle sorrow. It could not compete with the fierce, grounding reality of the son in her arms. Baelon's weight was an anchor, his soft breaths a tide that washed away the memory of tolling bells.
Harry's citadel was a place of quiet wonders. The obsidian walls seemed to drink the harshness from the northern sun, leaving only a gentle, pearlescent light that filled every hall. The air was pure, laced with the scent of pine and the clean bite of distant snow, yet a magical warmth permeated the stone, chasing away any chill. He gave her space, a courtesy she hadn't realized she was starved for. There were no attendants, no ladies-in-waiting with their watchful eyes, no maesters with their solemn pronouncements. There was only peace.
Her trust was not given; it was seeded, and it grew in the soil of observation. One morning, the man named Sirius, his grim face a mask of duty, escorted her from the citadel's heights down to the sprawling port below. What she saw there stopped her breath.
Moored in a deep, impossibly blue harbor was a fleet. But these were not ships as she knew them. They were long, predatory vessels, crafted from a material as dark and seamless as polished jet. No oars protruded from their flanks; no masts reached for the sky. As she watched, one of the smaller ships, a craft Sirius called the Wraith, pulled away from the dock. It did not lumber; it glided, cutting through the water with an eerie silence and a speed that would have left the swiftest royal galley churning in its wake.
Aemma understood power. She had been married to a king, had sat at the heart of it her entire life. She knew the cost of fleets, the years of labor, the forests of wood. A single one of these silent hunters could cripple the Velaryon fleet before they could even raise their sails. Harry commanded more than a dozen.
She looked away from the ships to the people on the docks. They were healthy, well-fed, their children's laughter echoing in the crisp air. Their homes were not hovels of mud and thatch but sturdy structures of dark stone and timber. This hidden, impossible island was more stable, more prosperous, more powerful than the capital of the Seven Kingdoms.
The fear that had lived in her heart for a decade, the fear for her life, for her children, began to recede. It was replaced by a startling thought, one that was both humbling and liberating: her son was safer on this savage island than any king who had ever sat the Iron Throne.
While Aemma found a new kind of freedom in her gilded cage, Rhaenyra was fitted for hers in King's Landing.
The Great Hall was stifling, thick with the scent of sorrow, sweat, and fear. King Viserys, his face a ruin of grief, stood before the Iron Throne. He looked smaller than he ever had, a king diminished by the loss his Hand had so carefully managed. He raised a trembling hand, and his voice echoed in the sullen silence. He proclaimed his only child, Princess Rhaenyra, the Princess of Dragonstone and his rightful heir.
From the back of the hall, half-hidden by a tapestry, Harry watched. He saw the great lords of the realm—Stark, Tully, Baratheon—bend the knee. They swore oaths of fealty upon a future he had built from a lie, pledging their swords to a girl whose claim was secured by a tragedy he had authored. He watched Rhaenyra, a small, composed figure in black. She was regal, her face set like stone, but he could see the deep, hollowed-out sadness in her eyes. The crown had come at the cost of everything she loved.
Days later, seeking refuge from the whispers and the pitying looks, Rhaenyra fled to the one place that felt like home: the Dragonpit. The cavernous dome smelled of sulfur and power, and the great beast Syrax greeted her with a rumbling croon, nudging her with her massive golden head. Here, she was not just a princess or an heir. She was a dragon.
"She is magnificent," a voice said, startlingly close. "And she feels your sorrow as if it were her own."
Rhaenyra spun around. Leaning against a nearby pillar was the new lord she had barely noticed at court, the enigma from the northern island. Potter of Skagos. He was alone, his presence calm, lacking the grasping ambition she felt from every other man in the keep.
"The Dragonkeepers warn lords to keep their distance," she said, her tone sharp with suspicion.
"My home was built on a foundation of old magic and wild things, Princess," Harry replied, his eyes on the dragon, full of respect, not fear. "A dragon is not a beast to be feared, but a soul to be understood. I only meant that I see the weight you carry. A burden given to you before you had time to lay your others down."
His words struck her with the force of a physical blow. Everyone had offered condolences, then immediately spoken of her duty, her strength, her future as queen. He was the first person to see that she was still just a girl, drowning in grief.
"And what would a lord from a savage land know of my burdens?" she challenged, though the question lacked its intended bite.
"I know that a crown is cold comfort for a grieving heart," he said softly, his gaze finally meeting hers. It was direct, and full of a startling, unnerving empathy. "And I know that oaths sworn in a room full of sorrow can be brittle things."
He offered no solutions. He made no pledge. He simply stood there and saw her. The girl beneath the title. The daughter beneath the crown. Rhaenyra looked at him, truly looked, for the first time. He was an unknown, a shadow from the edge of the known world, and yet he seemed to see into the very heart of her.
"Who are you, Lord Potter?" she asked, a flicker of genuine curiosity cutting through the fog of her mourning.
Harry offered a small, sad smile, as if sharing a secret sorrow.
"A friend, Princess," he said. "Should you ever need one."