ULF
The morning training session was going well.
Jaehaerys had improved dramatically over the weeks—his balance steadier, his reactions faster, his understanding of space and threat growing daily. He could hold the circle now for minutes at a time before I pushed him out.
"Good. Better. You're starting to read my movements."
"You shift your weight before you push. Left foot goes back slightly."
He's noticed. Smart boy.
"That's called a tell. Everyone has them. The trick is finding your opponent's tells before they find yours."
We circled each other. I moved left; he compensated. I feinted right; he didn't fall for it.
Then, mid-session, he stopped.
"The men who visit you. They call Mother 'Queen.'"
I went still.
"You heard that?"
"I wasn't supposed to. I was in the bushes, practicing the hide-and-seek games you taught me." His violet eyes held mine. "That means I'm..."
He trailed off, working through it.
"You're a prince. Your father was king. Now your mother rules in your name until you're old enough."
"And the city that burned—that was our city?"
"Yes."
He absorbed this. Seven years old, but the way he processed information was years beyond his age.
"Is that why we're hiding? Because someone else took our throne?"
"Yes. Queen Rhaenyra. She says she's the rightful ruler. Your mother says otherwise."
"Which one's right?"
The question that started this whole bloody war.
"That depends on who you ask. The laws are complicated. Your grandfather Viserys named Rhaenyra his heir when she was young, but then he had sons with your grandmother Alicent. When he died, some people thought the throne should go to her, and others thought it should go to your father."
"That doesn't make sense. Either he named her or he didn't."
"You'd think so. But kings sometimes say different things to different people. And when they die, everyone fights over what they really meant."
Jaehaerys considered this.
"That's stupid."
I laughed—genuine, surprised.
"You're absolutely right. It's stupid. But it's also how the world works. People fight over power because power lets them protect what they love and destroy what they hate."
"Is that why you fight? To protect what you love?"
Yes. Exactly. Only.
"Yes."
"What do you love?"
"Your mother. Your sisters and brother. You." I crouched to meet his eyes. "And someone else. Someone you haven't met yet."
"Who?"
Our son. Your half-brother. Hidden in this very village.
"A story for another time. Finish your training."
He picked up the practice knife again, but his mind was clearly elsewhere.
I told Helaena that evening.
"He's figured it out. Or most of it."
She set down the mending she'd been doing—noblewomen didn't mend, but there weren't servants here, and she'd adapted.
"How much does he know?"
"That you're queen. That he's a prince. That King's Landing was ours before it burned."
"Does he know about the bounties? About people wanting us dead?"
"Not yet. But he's smart enough to work it out."
Helaena closed her eyes.
"I should talk to him."
"Do you want me there?"
"No. This is... this is something a mother should do."
I watched from a distance as she led Jaehaerys to the cliff overlooking the sea.
They sat together, mother and son, silhouettes against the evening sky. Helaena's silver hair caught the fading light. Jaehaerys's smaller form leaned toward her, listening.
I couldn't hear their words. Didn't need to.
She was telling him the truth—all of it. Who he was. What was at stake. The war that had cost them everything and the future they were fighting for.
Heavy burdens for small shoulders.
When they returned an hour later, Jaehaerys's face was pale but composed. He walked past me without speaking, heading into Corwen's house where his sisters waited.
Helaena stopped beside me.
"He asked if people would die when we fight to take back the throne."
"What did you tell him?"
"The truth. Yes. That's the burden of kingship—knowing your decisions cost lives."
"How did he take it?"
"Better than I expected. Worse than I hoped." She watched the door where her son had disappeared. "He asked one more question. He asked if he was ready."
"What did you tell him?"
"That no one's ever ready. We just do what we must."
I found Jaehaerys later, sitting alone on the beach.
The waves rolled in and out, endlessly patient, eternally repetitive. The boy who'd played with fishing nets two months ago now stared at the horizon with eyes too old for his face.
I sat beside him without speaking.
After a long moment, he said: "You don't have to carry it alone. That's what you told me when we first started training."
"I remember."
"Mother said the same thing. She said you and she would help me." He picked up a shell, turned it over in his small hands. "But I still have to carry it. The weight. The knowledge. That's what she meant."
"Yes."
"I wanted to be a fisherman. For a little while, I wanted that." He tossed the shell into the waves. "But I can't be. Can I? Not really. Not forever."
"Maybe not. But wanting things is never wrong. Even if you can't have them."
"Do you want things you can't have?"
Peace. A normal life. A family that can be together openly.
Yes. Always.
"Everyone does. The trick is not letting the wanting destroy you."
He nodded slowly.
"I'll be ready. When it's time. I'll be ready because you're teaching me and Mother believes in me." His young voice carried unexpected steel. "But right now, can we just... sit? For a while?"
"As long as you need."
We sat together, watching the waves, while the weight of kingship settled onto shoulders far too young to bear it.
That night, Helaena pressed against me in the darkness.
"He's seven. He should be learning songs and history, not war and kingship."
"He should. But the world doesn't care what children should be. Only what they must become to survive."
"I hate that you're right."
"So do I."
She was quiet for a moment.
"Our Aegon. The one with Dalla. Do you think he's happier? Not knowing who he is?"
Our secret son. Growing up as a fisherman's nephew. No crowns, no thrones, no burdens.
"Probably. For now. But one day he'll have to know too."
"Does he have to? Could we just... let him be normal?"
"Maybe. If that's what you want."
"I don't know what I want. Except for all of them to be safe. All my children. Even the one I can't acknowledge."
I held her tighter.
"We'll figure it out. One crisis at a time."
"One crisis at a time," she repeated. "That's how we live now."
"It's how we've always lived. We're just honest about it now."
She almost laughed.
"My impossible man."
"Your impossible Lord Protector of nothing in particular."
"Of everything that matters."
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