Chapter: The Cupbearer's Eyes
Rhaenyra remembered the first time Syrax's wings unfurled beneath her. She had been seven, her hands trembling as Daemon lifted her into the saddle, the smell of dragonfire thick in her nose. The ground had fallen away, the Red Keep shrinking into toy-sized towers, and her heartbeat had matched Syrax's wingbeats. The world had opened in that flight vast, terrifying, beautiful.
That same year, her brother Rhaegar had opened another world for her. Not one of flame and wind, but of letters scratched carefully on parchment, sounds that twisted her tongue into strange shapes. English, he had called it, a tongue no lord nor maester at court knew. At first it was their game a secret bridge only the two of them could cross. She would stumble through the words by candlelight, ink blotting her hands, while he whispered corrections. When she grew frustrated, he would smirk, "If you can master Syrax, you can master this too."
It was in those whispered lessons that she began to notice how her brother's eyes drifted elsewhere toward the lords in their finery, the maids who carried gossip like wine, the Hand moving through the Keep with his papers. "Words are power, Nyra," he told her once, rolling the foreign syllables like coins in his palm. "And hidden words, doubly so." She did not fully understand then. She only liked the feeling of sharing a secret with him.
The years turned, and when their tenth name day approached, the twins were carried to Dragonstone. The black cliffs loomed like the jaws of some ancient beast, the dragons wheeling above the smoking mount. Here, for the first time, Rhaegar spoke to her not as a playmate, but with the weight of command in his voice.
They sat in a high chamber overlooking the sea, the wind carrying the cries of dragons. He handed her a slim piece of parchment covered in neat, foreign lines. "Not just practice anymore," he said. "You will keep these words. Use them to write what you see, what you hear. The lords of the council. The Hand of the King. Even our father when he speaks too freely."
Rhaenyra blinked at him. "Why me? Why not you?"
"Because I cannot be everywhere. But you… soon you'll stand beside the king himself. A cupbearer sees more than most."
The truth of it struck her, even if she did not say so. Their father thought of her place as ceremonial, a way to keep his daughter close. But her brother's eyes burned with something sharper. He meant for it to be more.She agreed with a silent nod, fingers tightening around the parchment. That night, when torches painted the halls of Dragonstone in gold and shadow, she lay awake thinking not of her name day feast, but of this new charge. She would watch. She would listen. And she would write not in the tongue of her sire's court, but in the secret one her brother had given her.When they returned to King's Landing, the Keep seemed different to her eyes. She was still the king's daughter, still young, but the weight of her cup felt heavier now when she poured for lords at table. Her ears pricked at every word, sorting jest from truth, bluster from meaning. Otto Hightower liked to lean too close to her father, his voice soft, persuasive, always pressing. Lord Corlys, when present, spoke more boldly, his hands cutting the air like sails in wind. Others lingered, scheming at the edges.None of them noticed the girl who bent her head politely, eyes lowered, pouring wine. But Rhaenyra noticed them. And later, by candlelight in her chamber, she wrote in English. At first the words came haltingly, crooked letters and misshapen spellings. But slowly the notes began to flow.She wrote of how the Hand lingered after council, of which guards favored which lords, of the servants who carried their tidings through the halls. She wrote of her father's weariness, the way he sighed more deeply each day, and of the queen's sharp gaze measuring every corner of the court.It was not yet deep knowledge, nothing a spymaster would envy. But it was a map taking shape,lines, corners, shadows. A map she alone could read, written in the hidden tongue that bound her to Rhaegar.
Sometimes, when she met her brother's gaze across the hall, she wondered if he too was filling pages with secrets. He never said outright, but his faint nods told her enough.
Her life as cupbearer was meant to make her small, an ornament at her father's side. But in her secret script, she grew tall. She grew sharp. She grew watchful. And though she smiled like any dutiful daughter, inside she carried fire ,fire taught by dragons, and a language no one else in the realm could read.