Chapter Text
Baelor I
The blow did not hurt.
Baelor would remember that, later- there had been no burst of agony, no flare of white light behind the eyes, no dramatic sundering of flesh and spirit. There had only been impact, a shuddering crack that seemed to travel through the bones of the world itself, and then the sudden and bewildering absence of everything once he had taken his son’s helmet off.
He became aware of his surroundings slowly: a steady wind that carried with it the scent of salt along with something metallic and ancient beneath it, like smoke drifting from a forge long cooled. The ground beneath Baelor was not grass but something coarse and warm. When he opened his mismatched eyes, Baelor found himself staring at a sky neither blue nor black, but a burning indigo streaked with veins of red-gold light that pulsed as though the heavens themselves possessed a heartbeat.
Baelor drew in a breath that did not burn his lungs and rolled onto his side with surprising ease. The shore stretched endlessly in either direction, a crescent of black glass sand meeting a dark, restless sea whose waves shimmered not with foam, but with embers- each crest breaking into sparks that hissed and vanished before touching land. Far beyond the water, jagged silhouettes rose against the glowing horizon: mountains split at their crowns, and from their varied peaks climbed columns of living flame.
Baelor pushed himself upright slowly, feeling for pain that did not come. His son’s armor was gone, leaving him in a comfortable black and red doublet he typically wore in the privacy of his solar. The weight of kingship, duty and expectation had been stripped from him as neatly as a squire unbuckling steel after battle.
Baelor’s hand rose instinctively to the back of his head. He pressed his palm there, fingers threading through peppered hair still damp from sweat, expecting to find the ruin of bone. But there was just hair. No wound or pouring blood to be found. He lowered his hand and stared at his palm, turning it once, then twice, as though it might reveal some trick of light or hidden seam in this strange, impossible place.
“I am dead,” Baelor said aloud, and his voice was clear in ways it had not been in the moments leading to his death. Baelor vaguely remembered stumbling through his words, almost as if he had been drunk, before darkness consumed him. It carried forward now, drawn toward the sea and the flame-lit horizon, as if the whole world itself were listening.
“You are,” came a woman’s voice behind him, threaded with something perilously close to pity.
Baelor turned.
She stood several paces away upon the black shore, the wind tugging at her hair as though reluctant to let it lie still. Baelor knew her face at once- not from memory, for she had died more than a century before his birth, but from portraits and songs and the detached descriptions of maesters who had tried to capture history in ink.
Princess Rhaenys Targaryen stood before him, not armored as she had been at Rook’s Rest, nor broken as the accounts had suggested she must have been in her final moments, but whole and radiant in a way that felt almost cruel in its youth. The overlooked princess looked younger than the chronicles claimed she had been when she fell in battle. Rhaenys appeared nearer to his own years, though time seemed to cling to her lightly. Her features were sharp and proud, her posture easy with the confidence of one who had once commanded a dragon and feared nothing born of men.
Rhaenys’ hair, long and dark as a storm-tossed sea, spilled over her shoulders in waves of Baratheon black. Though along one side, from temple to breast, ran a bold streak of Valyrian silver that was bright as an unsheathed blade.
Baelor’s breath caught. The sight of it struck him not as something foreign, but achingly familiar. Valarr’s hair had carried that same defiance of lineage, dark as his Martell inheritance, yet salted unmistakably with Targaryen light.
I may never see him again.
His hand rose once more to the back of his head, to press the memory down and still it, but the gesture faltered halfway and fell uselessly to his side. Rhaenys watched him with violet eyes that reflected the burning sky, and within them he saw no judgment, only pity.
Not condescension, but recognition.
“You are taking things well,” Rhaenys spoke with refinement, tilting her head slightly as if appraising him. “Most rage or deny it. Or, gods forbid, call for the Seven.”
Baelor allowed himself a thin smile, though it felt strange upon a face that no longer seemed bound by flesh. “I have always preferred clarity to hysteria.”
“I am aware,” The lanky woman agreed softly. “So did I.”
The wind shifted, carrying the distinct scent of ash between them. Baelor straightened, drawing what remained of his dignity about him like a cloak. “Princess Rhaenys.”
The princess in question inclined her head with easy grace. “Prince Baelor.” Weighted silence settled for a breath as neither made any move to continue the conversation.
It was Prince Baelor who broke first.
“You are not quite as the maesters described,” The dark haired prince said at last, studying her openly now. “They claimed you were… older. That the war had worn upon you.”
A flicker of amusement touched her dark purple eyes. “It did. In life.” Rhaenys stepped closer, and the black sand did not shift beneath her feet. “But this place is not unkind to those who come without poison in their hearts.”
Her gaze lingered on him then -searching, measuring- and whatever she found there seemed to satisfy her. “Welcome,” Rhaenys said quietly, “to the Eternal Flame.”
The name settled into Baelor like an inheritance reclaimed. He turned slowly, taking in once more the vast expanse of fire, sea and shattered mountains that crowned the horizon. “I suppose it is meant to resemble Valyria?”
“It remembers Valyria,” Rhaenys corrected gently. “Even when we do not. Our spirits align with Valyria, no matter how much of our ancient history is forgotten." Baelor soaked up her words without comment, though something in the phrasing pricked at him.
“You know who I am,” he said after a moment, only now recalling that the princess knew his name upon looking at him. Rhaenys smiled knowingly. “You are Baelor, son of Daeron the Good. Called Breakspear and the finest knight of your age. You were called hope.”
A pause.
“And,” she added, with a subtle arch of brow, “the King Who Never Was.” Baelor did not flinch at the title, he had made peace with his death as soon as it occurred, though he did find himself wondering what kind of King he could have been to Westeros when he first awoke.
“You mock me,” he said, though there was no heat in it. Rhaenys laughed softly, the sound warm as distant thunder. “Hardly. I claim kinship.”
Rhaenys gestured lightly to herself. “We are very similar, you and I. Measured, capable, loved by the realm and yet…” Her gaze drifted briefly toward the sea. “And yet we died before the chance was ever given.”
Baelor followed her gaze, watching as a distant wave crested in a scatter of sparks. “If given the chance,” he said slowly, “you would have ruled well.”
“As would you.”
Their eyes met again with shared certainty. The wind tugged once more at Rhaenys’ dark hair, lifting the silver streak so that it caught the light of the sky and gleamed. Baelor swallowed. “My sons,” he whispered.
It was not framed as a question, though Rhaenys could sense Baelor’s yearning for his boys. Her expression changed then, softening further, as though a shadow had passed across the sun. “They are not here,”
Not yet, the unspoken words seemed to linger between them.
Baelor’s jaw tightened but his voice remained even. “Not yet,” he repeated her sentiment aloud, testing it against the breeze in an effort to find comfort.
“No.”
The sea roared faintly in the distance, and the mountains flared brighter, as if in response to some movement beyond sight. Rhaenys studied him once more, and this time there was something like admiration beneath her pity. “You wish to see your children, more than any desire for the throne that evaded you in death,” she acknowledged.
Baelor’s gaze remained fixed upon the horizon. “I was the heir,” he sighed, his hand twisting slightly at the fabric on his side, “and as much as it marked my identity in my youth, the second Valarr was born I became a father first. Any desire for the throne was tempered by the desire to be with my son.” His voice faltered, just once as he repeated himself with burning emotion. “I am a father first...”
Rhaenys allowed him time to collect himself, she did not hurry him. The Eternal Flame seemed a place without urgency; the waves broke when they wished, the mountains burned without consuming themselves, and the sky pulsed in a rhythm that felt older than crowns and quarrels alike. “Come,” Rhaenys said at last, her voice firm, and began walking along the shore.
Baelor followed dutifully, for duty was what he excelled in. The black glass sand did not cling to his boots or shift beneath his weight. They walked in silence for a time, and as they did, figures began to appear further down the crescent of shore- shapes at first indistinct against the glow, then sharpening into forms unmistakably human.
A man stood nearest the waterline, surveying a harbor from underneath the balcony of some seaside keep. He turned at their approach, and Baelor recognized him at once from tapestries that hung in the Red Keep’s galleries, from illuminated manuscripts carefully rendered by maesters eager to flatter history.
King Viserys I Targaryen.
Yet this was not the broken monarch the records described in his later years. Certainly not the man whose flesh had rotted and whose body had been held together by poultices and prayer. No, this Viserys was whole. Slightly plump, yes, with a softness about the jaw and a warmth to his cheeks that spoke of indulgence and laughter rather than decay. His silver-gold hair fell neatly to his shoulders, unmarred by illness, and his violet eyes were bright- almost boyish in their clarity.
Viserys smiled when he saw them, and it was an open, easy smile, as though greeting a nephew long expected. “Ah,” Viserys nodded, stepping forward. “There you are.”
Baelor felt the need to bow his head, he was facing a monarch after all. “Your Grace.” The former king waved the title away with stark dismissal. “Please! There are no graces here. Only gentle ghosts and what we remember of ourselves.”
His gaze swept over Baelor in thoughtful appraisal, as one might study a portrait and find in it the familiar tilt of a beloved face. It was then that Baelor was reminded of his past studies of kings, that King Viserys I held a passion for the histories and the arts which was dimmed by the weight of his crown. “You look as I imagined you would,” Viserys murmured.
Baelor lifted a brow. “You imagined me?”
“Oh, we watch,” Viserys chuckled lightly, gesturing vaguely toward the burning horizon. “Not always and surely not everything, but enough.” Baelor noticed there was something affectionate in the way Viserys regarded him, something that made the prince straighten unconsciously beneath it.
“You are very like her,” Viserys added.
Baelor frowned faintly. “Like whom, Your-”
“Rhaenyra.”
The name settled between them, heavy despite the calm sea and glowing sky. Baelor had known of her all his life: the “Realm’s Delight” turned “Black Queen,” then “Rhaenyra the Cruel” in later accounts penned by those eager to justify her enemies. He knew the histories well; he had studied the Dance not as scandal but as warning.
It was recorded -often with thinly veiled criticism- that her father had loved Rhaenyra more than his other children. Watching him now, Baelor saw the truth in that statement. At the mention of her name, the former king’s smile faded, not entirely, but enough that grief traced the lines around his eyes like a shadow long familiar. “She had your composure, once motherhood tempered her.” Viserys revealed softly. “And your mannerisms. She-she was a great comfort to me, especially near the end.”
Baelor studied his grief carefully, before asking a question that had always sparked much debate between the scholars of his time. “Do you regret making her your heir?”
The answer came at once, fervent and sharp as what Baelor imagined dragonfire might sound like. “No.”
Viserys’ jaw tightened, his pleasant expression hardening into one of conviction. “She would have made a wonderful queen,” he spoke deliberately. “She had the will for it. Rhaenyra’s fire, gods be good, that fire was radiant on the girl. She loved the realm in her fashion- fiercely and imperfectly, as a dragon in her own right.”
His eyes darkened. “If only my sons had not killed her sons,” Viserys added quietly, “and usurped her throne.” The sea gurgled faintly in sympathy for the still grieving father.
Baelor did not flinch from the bluntness of it. “The histories record the war as… inevitable.” Viserys gave a short, humorless laugh. “Histories are written by sniveling men of the Seven who hold the quill and wish to see House Targaryen fall.”
Viserys turned slightly, glaring out over the ember-lit water, and Baelor felt blown back by his ancestors' rage. “They call it the Dance,” Viserys spat the word as though it tasted foul upon his tongue. “As if it were some elegant waltz of blades and banners. When in truth it was slaughter derived from pride, men afraid of a woman’s crown.”
Baelor absorbed that in silence.
“Would you have stood with her?” Viserys asked suddenly, turning back. “Had you lived in that time? Had you stood in the Red Keep when my body cooled and the whispers of rebellion began?”
The question, Baelor could tell, was not born from idle curiosity. As such, he did not hesitate to give his honest thoughts on the matter. “I have always regarded the Dance as a contrived war waged by Hightowers against Targaryens,” Baelor responded evenly. “I would have stood by Princess Rhaenyra’s side.”
Viserys’ breath left him in something that might have been relief. “Yes,” he murmured. “I thought you might.” They stood in companionable quiet for a moment, and Baelor found himself imagining the woman Viserys described, not the caricature painted by later maesters, but the fiery daughter seen through her father’s favoring eyes.
“Who might she have become,” Baelor asked slowly, knowing his query would reopen a wound not fully healed in the man standing before him, “had she been allowed to rule peacefully?”
Viserys’ gaze softened again, and for a heartbeat he seemed almost young enough to be merely a doting sire, not a king who had allowed catastrophe to emerge in his death. “She would have stumbled,” he admitted, though his tone was still alight with love. “Rhaenyra was endlessly proud, you see, and quick to anger when crossed. But Rhaenyra learned, she always learned. And she loved her sons beyond reason.”
“Their deaths broke her,” Viserys added solemnly. “One by one.”
Baelor’s thoughts flickered to Valarr, to Matarys- their futures now uncertain, or perhaps already written. He pressed that ache down with practiced discipline. “Do you often speak with her?” Baelor asked, though his question altered the air between them in a way he had not expected.
Viserys’ gaze shifted away, toward the distant mountains whose peaks burned without consuming themselves. His hands clasped more tightly behind his back. “No,” he whispered.
The word was smaller than before, lacking in conviction and full of sorrow instead. Baelor felt something tighten in his chest, the ache of a father separated from his children stirring deep within him. It allowed for empathy as he gently asked Viserys for confirmation. “She does not walk here?”
Rhaenys, who had lingered a respectful distance away, lowered her eyes while Viserys exhaled slowly. “Before Rhaenyra died,” he said, voice roughened by memory, “she had done things… that cannot be undone.”
Viserys did not list them, for he did not need to. Baelor knew of them all from his studies. Atrocities and harsh judgments, vengeance taken too far when desperation curdled into cruelty. “Some of it was understandable,” Viserys added, almost defensively. “They murdered her children and usurped her birthright. They forced her hand at every turn.”
He swallowed. “But blood does not wash away blood here. The Eternal Flame does not admit those whose souls are… unrighteous."
Baelor looked toward the glowing horizon, trying to comprehend a realm that judged worthiness not by crown nor lineage, but by the weight of one’s choices. “And her sons?” he asked carefully.
“All here,” Viserys whispered. “Lucerys. Jacaerys. Joffrey. Aegon. Even little Viserys, though he is not so little now.” His voice broke slightly on the last name.
“They walk these shores and speak with me, my precious grandsons. They laugh as boys again.” Viserys closed his eyes briefly. “And she is not among us.”
The devastation in Viserys was raw, deep and enduring. Baelor felt it like a physical blow. He thought of Valarr again -of Matarys- and for one fleeting moment, he wondered whether they would live lives righteous enough to stand upon this shore beside him. The thought terrified Baelor, but again he pushed it away with the same discipline that had steadied him in battle.
His sons would live long, righteous lives, because Baelor had raised them well. And they were good boys. They would join him in this afterlife, they would.
Viserys drew in a breath and steadied himself, though the sadness did not leave his face. “I failed Rhaenyra,” he confessed with sadness etched into his purple eyes, the eyes of a man haunted by decisions, or lack thereof. Baelor regarded him. “You named her heir.”
“I also sired her rivals,” Viserys replied, shame flickering across his features.
The question rose in Baelor’s mind unbidden, but he gave it voice nonetheless. “Why did you continue to have children with Alicent Hightower” he asked with the curiosity of a man who had thought this very same question a thousand times over, “when she so clearly plotted against your heir and encouraged her own children to resent her? Why allow them dragons?”
Baelor made sure that his words were not accusatory, just honest in their curiosity. He breathed a slight sigh of relief when Viserys did not bristle, but simply looked down. When he finally spoke, his voice was softer than the sea’s murmur. “I thought love would be enough,” he answered morosely.
Baelor said nothing, allowing the man to continue his explanation. “I thought that if I declared Rhaenyra firmly, publicly and repeatedly… if I trusted my sons to honor my word… if I refused to see malice in the eyes of those who smiled at me… Aegon did not even want…”
Viserys trailed off, and mortification colored his cheeks more deeply than sickness ever had. “I did not wish to see the storm gathering,” he finished with a shake of his head and a cold chuckle. “So I pretended it was not there.”
The admission hung between them, heavy but unadorned. There was no defense in it, only the regret of a ruler and a father who doomed his child. Rhaenys stepped forward then, her expression gentle but resolute. “That is enough for now,” she said softly, placing a comforting hand on her cousin’s shoulder. Viserys nodded once, unable or perhaps unwilling, to lift his gaze again at the man who resembled his daughter in her later years.
Baelor inclined his head in respectful farewell, though he sensed their conversation was far from finished. As he turned to follow Rhaenys back along the shore, he felt the weight of what he had learned rest upon him. The Eternal Flame was not merely a place of peace.
It was a place of reckoning.
Rhaenys did not speak as she led him further along the crescent shore. The Eternal Flame shifted subtly as they walked. The mountains burned brighter for a breath before dimming, and the sea cast up sparks that lingered longer upon the air like falling stars reluctant to fade. The wind here was warmer, melded with something almost tender beneath the ash. “They are not far,” Rhaenys said at last.
Baelor did not need to ask whom she meant. He felt them before he saw them- a hum in the air, the unmistakable resonance of dragonblood gathered together, like notes of the same song harmonized in different registers. They stood near a low outcropping of dark stone that jutted into the ember-lit sea. Five figures arranged not formally, but in easy familiarity, as though this were some quiet family garden rather than the shore of eternity.
The first to turn at their approach was a young man with curly hair swept back from a strong, earnest face. If not for the brown hair and kind eyes, Baelor would have assumed him to be his own nephew Aerion. But instinctively he knew who this was, as if the Eternal Flames whispered the name to Baelor through the wind.
Jacaerys Velaryon
Jacaerys stood tall, shoulders squared, as his posture bore the quiet weight of responsibility that so often marked an heir. One that had also been present in Baelor himself at that age. There was a steadiness to him, and Baelor could tell the boy lacked arrogance and bluster. He had the calm assurance of someone raised with expectation and who had chosen to meet it rather than resent it.
For a fleeting, piercing instant, Baelor did not see Jacaerys, or Aerion. He saw Valarr.
The resemblance was not physical like Aerion’s in features, but in bearing and in the careful way Jacaerys’ gaze assessed before greeting, in the instinctive positioning of himself slightly forward as though shielding those behind him from unseen harm. They were both an heir’s heir.
Beside him stood a younger boy, near to manhood yet not quite arrived there. He was soft still at the edges, but his dark eyes carried shadows no youth should bear.
Lucerys Velaryon
Lucerys lingered half a step behind Jacaerys, close enough that their shoulders nearly brushed, as though his comfort lay in proximity. There was nothing cowardly in it- only affection, trust, and a desire for the safety once provided by a mother’s steady hand.
Baelor’s breath shuddered at the sight. Matarys had stood so near him in crowded halls, clinging not out of fear but out of habit, as if the world felt surer when measured from the space beside his father’s knee. Lucerys’ chocolate eyes lifted to Baelor now, wide and observant, causing something in Baelor’s chest to crack open with memories of his youngest boy.
Then there was the third.
Joffrey Velaryon
Young Joffrey grinned openly, darting between his brown-haired brothers with restless energy, a bold glint flashing in his stare. He moved like a spark- quick, bright and eager to prove himself. It was easy to see the dragonrider in him. Easier still to imagine him glancing toward a sky and thinking, why not? It was that boldness, Baelor knew, had been his downfall.
They were not alone.
Two men stood slightly apart, older, yet bearing the same blood unmistakably in their features. Aegon III Targaryen appeared nearer in age to Jacaerys than the histories would suggest, his face serious but not yet hollowed by the full weight of his reign. His gaze was both mournful and watchful as he was a king shaped by grief, now a brother first in this place.
Beside him stood Viserys II Targaryen, appearing in the prime of his thirties, composed and striking, silver hair falling neatly past his shoulders. There was something in the line of his jaw, in the intensity of his eyes, that reminded Baelor painfully of Maekar. He was his most Valyrian-looking brother, severe and beautiful and utterly unyielding.
It startled Baelor, that resemblance. For the first time since waking upon the shore, he felt the absence of his own brothers keenly. Maekar. Aerys. Rhaegel. Baelor had not yet seen them, since they still lived while he died, but he found himself already longing to see them again.
Even Maekar -especially Maekar- whose blow had felled him upon the tourney field. Baelor would never blame him. Not in that final heartbeat, not in the quiet clarity that had followed. Maekar had not meant to kill him; he had meant only to protect his own son, to shield Aerion from the pummeling fists of Ser Duncan the Tall in that chaotic Trial of Seven.
It had been a father’s instinct, and Baelor could not condemn that.
Jacaerys stepped forward first. “You are Baelor Breakspear,” he acknowledged the seemingly older man, though looks were deceiving in this realm. “We have watched you.”
Baelor inclined his head. “And I have learned of you.”
Jacaerys’ mouth curved faintly, approval glittering in his gaze. “You are very much like my mother.” Baelor raised a brow, it was now the second time he was compared to princess Rhaenyra by one of her closest kin. “In what way?” He wondered if her son would give the same response as his grandsire, something about similar mannerisms and whatnot.
“In the way you stand,” Jacaerys replied without hesitation. Aegon III chuckled softly at that, though there was no mockery in it and Lucerys moved closer now, studying Baelor with open curiosity that again reminded him of Matarys. “You miss them,” he noted with ease.
Baelor’s gaze dropped to the boy. “Yes.”
Lucerys nodded once, as if that confirmed something he already knew. “It feels strange at first,” he offered, almost shyly. “Being here without the ones you love most.”
The simplicity of the statement nearly undid him, the boy was effortlessly correct in his words. Lucerys had easily hit the target painted directly upon Baelor’s barely hidden suffering. Baelor knelt then, because he could not bear to look down at the boy any longer. He wished to meet him eye to eye. “And does it grow easier?” He asked tenderly.
Lucerys considered that. “No,” he shrugged, an attempt to look less emotional than he felt. “But I suppose you will grow stronger.” Jacaerys’ hand settled briefly upon his brother’s shoulder, not dissimilar to Rhaenys’ comfort for Viserys.
Baelor felt tears press against the corners of his eyes -tears that did not fall, for this place seemed to swallow them before they could form- but the twinge behind them remained. He reached out without thinking and brushed a hand lightly through Lucerys’ curly brown hair, the movement as instinctive as breathing for Baelor. Lucerys leaned subtly into the touch.
Aegon III watched the exchange quietly before stepping forward. “You were close to your brother,” he said to Baelor.
“Very” Baelor replied without hesitation.
Aegon’s gaze sharpened. “Maekar.”
The name felt like a pulse in Baelor’s chest. “My youngest brother, yes.”
“He arrives in time,” Viserys II assured calmly. “All do, if their hearts allow it.”
Baelor studied him, this composed, intelligent man who bore Maekar’s severity softened by aged wisdom. “I look forward to speaking with him,” Baelor said. “There is nothing between us that requires mending.”
Viserys tilted his head slightly. “You do not resent him?”
“No. He acted as any father might,” Baelor defended his beloved brother with nothing less than the total devotion of a proud elder brother. “He sought to protect his son. If I fell, it was fate, not malice on his part.”
Joffrey cocked his little head at Baelor, the daring glint in his eye shone with acknowledgement. “Even though he killed you?”
Baelor’s gaze did not waver. “I love my brother,” he stated simply, as if that was all he needed to say. Aegon III and Viserys II exchanged a twin look that was long and assessing. Then, as though some private agreement had been reached, they turned back to Baelor with identical, faint smiles.
“Good,” they said together. “We must always love our brothers.”
The words panged within Baelor with startling familiarity. He had spoken them once himself not too long ago to a boy with daring eyes and a brazenly shaved head, trembling with anger after his brother behaved without honor for the millionth time.
Egg.
He smiled slowly now, recognition dawning. “Yes,” Baelor murmured. “We must.”
Rhaenys’ voice drifted toward them in the warm wind. “Baelor.” He rose reluctantly, allowing her to pull him from the brothers despite how badly he wished to stay right there until his own brothers appeared. “We have further still to walk.”
Lucerys’ hand caught lightly at his sleeve. “May I come?” the boy asked, chocolate eyes wide and pleading in a way that mirrored Matarys so painfully it stole Baelor’s breath. He looked down at him and the softness still clinging to his youth, even though Lucerys was technically much older than Baelor. He sighed, Baelor could not deny Lucerys when he looked at him with such a pleading face. “If you wish,” he allowed with a paternal pat of the head.
Rhaenys regarded them both, and her lips curved in quiet understanding. “Very well,” she smiled lovingly at Lucerys, and Baelor was reminded that the boy had been her heir, once upon a time. “But do not stray too far.”
Lucerys beamed brightly and slipped naturally to Baelor’s side, small hand brushing against his as they began to walk once more along the black glass shore. The Eternal Flame burned on around them, and for the first time since his death, Baelor did not feel entirely alone.
The black glass shoreline slowly gave way to living earth as they walked, though the transformation happened so gradually that Baelor did not notice it at first. The sand thinned beneath their feet until it scattered across a stretch of dark soil where stubborn green life had forced its way upward. Small white flowers dotted the earth in clusters, their delicate petals trembling under the constant wind that rolled in from the ember-lit sea. The air here smelled less of smoke and more of warm earth, and Baelor found the change oddly comforting, as if this strange afterlife allowed quiet life to exist beside fire rather than be consumed by it.
The sea still burned beside them, but its roar had softened. Lucerys walked close at Baelor’s side, his small hand occasionally brushing against the prince’s sleeve, reassuring himself that this new companion had not vanished like mist. Ahead of them sat a woman surrounded by silver haired children who looked just like her.
The woman’s verdant skirts were folded neatly beneath her knees as she gently turned over a smooth stone near the edge of the beach, her movements patient and delicate as though she feared startling whatever creature might lie beneath. When the stone shifted aside, a small beetle scuttled into the open, its glossy shell reflecting the dark azure sky like polished black glass. The children gasped in quiet delight, leaning forward eagerly while the woman extended her palm so the insect could crawl slowly across her skin.
Only then did she look up.
Her lilac eyes lifted calmly from the beetle to the approaching figures, acknowledging Rhaenys first before drifting toward Lucerys and finally settling upon Baelor with serene focus. Recognition flickered there- both calm and untroubled, almost as if she had been expecting him all along.
The woman was unmistakable even to Baelor, whose knowledge of everyone so far came only from histories and tapestries rather than living memory. The gentle Queen Helaena Targaryen inclined her head in quiet greeting, her expression peaceful and untroubled in a way the chronicles had never suggested she possessed in life. She looked neither haunted nor fragile as the maesters had described, but rather calm and composed, as though the storms that once raged within her mind had long since faded into distant and controlled thunder.
The children noticed the newcomers soon after their mother did, and each of them turned with varying degrees of curiosity toward the unfamiliar, Dornish looking prince. Jaehaerys Targaryen rose to his feet first with a seriousness that seemed almost too mature for such a small boy, his silver hair falling neatly across his pale brow as he studied Baelor with interest. His twin sister, Jaehaera Targaryen, remained closer to Helaena’s side, clutching the edge of her mother’s sleeve while she peered shyly at the newcomers through long pale lashes. The youngest, little Maelor Targaryen, seemed entirely unconcerned with strangers and instead remained cross-legged in the grass, deeply fascinated by an ant attempting to drag a crumb twice its size across the dirt.
Lucerys brightened immediately at the sight of them, his expression lighting with the familiar comfort of recognizing someone he loved. He stepped forward slightly from Baelor’s side and called out softly, his voice carrying warmth that made the quiet meadow feel almost domestic. “Helaena!” he said with easy warmth, as though greeting a favorite aunt rather than a queen from another age. Helaena’s face softened at once when she saw him, her calm smile melted in genuine delight as she greeted him by name.
“Lucerys,” she replied gently, her voice lilting with fondness for her nephew.
Helaena’s attention returned to Baelor soon after, and without any ceremony expected of a queen, she patted the grass beside her with an open palm, inviting him to sit with her children. The gesture carried neither formality nor hesitation, and Baelor found himself obeying almost automatically as he lowered himself into the soft grass beside them.
Behind him, Rhaenys rested a gentle hand on Lucerys’ shoulder, drawing the boy slightly closer as he watched the younger children with fascination. The beetle continued its careful journey across Helaena’s palm, its tiny legs tickling lightly against her skin while she observed it with calm curiosity. “I like this place,” Helaena’s gaze focused on the insect moving slowly across her hand. “There are always new creatures to meet here, and none of them are frightened.”
Baelor studied her quietly as she spoke, noting the easy steadiness of her voice and the peaceful clarity behind her words. The histories had described Helaena as a dreamer plagued by visions she could never fully understand, a woman whose mind drifted somewhere between prophecy and madness until grief eventually shattered what remained of it. Yet the woman beside him did not appear broken or confused, though a dreamy tenderness still lingered in her form. She seemed thoughtful rather than distant, and Baelor realized with surprise that she no longer carried the strained intensity of someone haunted by visions.
“You are… well,” Baelor said carefully after a moment, the observation coming out more tentative than he intended.
Helaena looked up at him with a slight tilt of her head, her lilac eyes bright with quiet amusement. “You expected me to be unwell?” She smiled faintly, not waiting for Baelor to stutter out an excuse. Helaena turned her palm slightly to guide the beetle toward Jaehaera’s waiting hands while she continued speaking. “I no longer dream of dragons.”
The words carried no sadness, only a gentle relief that calmed the air between them. Helaena watched as her daughter carefully received the beetle with reverent wonder, the little girl cradling it delicately. “The dreams were very loud when I lived,” Helaena spoke thoughtfully, brushing a stray strand of silver hair behind her ear. “They filled my mind until there was no room left for my own thoughts or small joys.”
She gestured lightly toward the grass around them, where insects buzzed and crawled unnoticed by the burning mountains beyond the horizon. “But here, the noise stopped. Now there is room again for me to think.”
Baelor felt something inside him alleviate at the certainty in her gentle voice, as though witnessing a wound finally healed after years of pain. Yet as he sat there beside her, another realization slowly began to take shape in his mind. The introductions he had experienced since waking upon the shore had not been random encounters or simple greetings between long-dead kin. Each meeting had carried a subtle idea of purpose, a careful observation that made him feel as though unseen eyes were measuring him against some unknown standard.
Helaena seemed to notice the change in his expression almost immediately. “You are noticing things,” she eyed Baelor as her voice lilted with amusement as she watched his thoughts unfold across his face.
Baelor blinked in surprise, momentarily unsettled by how easily she had followed his internal musings. He had dismissed the feeling as imagination born from unfamiliar surroundings. Now he realized it had not been imagination at all. “Yes,” he admitted after a moment, his gaze drifting briefly toward the distant shoreline where Viserys and the others remained. “These meetings do not feel accidental.”
Helaena giggled suddenly, and Baelor found that it was not a strange sound. Her laugh was bright and genuine in a way that felt almost mischievous. She pressed her fingers lightly to her lips as though entertained by some private joke only she understood. “You are being considered for something larger than life,” she said cheerfully, clearly delighted by the phrasing she had chosen.
Another giggle spilled into the indigo night from her narrow lips. “I suppose that sounds funny, doesn’t it?”
Baelor stared at her for a moment in stunned silence. “I had believed,” he said slowly, his voice carefully measured in order to hide the apprehension that could not be concealed on his face, “that death might involve fewer responsibilities.”
Helaena’s smile softened with sympathy, she understood the weight behind his words far better than Baelor would have expected. “Most people hope for that,” Helaena watched him with dreamlike compassion as she lifted her chin to feel the cool breeze on her ivory skin. “But sometimes rest must wait a little longer.”
The former prince of Dragonstone exhaled slowly and folded his hands together, his shoulders tightening with growing unease. “I died believing my duties were finished,” he said quietly, more to himself than to her. “It appears I was mistaken.”
“You are necessary,” Helaena replied simply.
Baelor emitted a crooked sound at her concession. Of course he would need to do more, it seemed that even in death he could not simply exist. “For what purpose?” Baelor questioned, though he already suspected her answer. He had a reputation well earned for being quite intelligent when he was alive, which he carried even in this afterlife.
“For the survival of our House, and of Westeros.”
The words landed with finality, Helaena’s lilac gaze almost stern on his princely features while she watched the corners of his lips pull downwards. The children beside her continued their quiet exploration of insects, blissfully unaware of the weight of the conversation unfolding above their heads.
Baelor studied her closely now as he felt precise tension seep into his broad shoulders, every instinct honed thoroughly by the gravity of her tone. “Then I suspect prophecy is involved.”
Helaena brightened instantly, clapping her hands softly with delighted approval. “Yes!” she exclaimed. “You know of Aegon’s dream.”
Baelor nodded slowly, recalling the secret whispered through generations of Targaryen kings and Dragonstone heirs. “The Conqueror foresaw a darkness rising in the North that would destroy the world of men unless a Targaryen sat the Iron Throne to unite the realm against it.”
Helaena’s expression turned thoughtful. “That part is true.” Baelor felt his concern deepen at her pause, not enjoying the twist in his gut as she continued with severity. “The Prince Who Was Promised is real.”
The words hung in the air between them like falling embers.
“The Fourteen Flames saw it long before Aegon dreamed of it,” Helaena peered up at the burning mountains with a twinkle in her shining lilac eyes. “They feared that when the dragons died, the Prince might never be born and they worried.” Her tone was oddly practical, a tone Baelor suspected she did not use often.
Baelor’s dark brow furrowed. “So the gods involved themselves in Westerosi affairs?”
Helaena nodded. “They whispered to someone and told him which line the Prince would come from.” Baelor felt a chill that had nothing to do with the wind. “That seems… unwise.”
Helaena laughed softly. “Well, yes. Funny how it does not take much sense to know that the interference was a bold choice to make.” While Helaena’s words could have been taken as accusation against their Valyrian deities, her almost reverent tone made it hard for Baelor to truly discern the eccentric woman’s thoughts on the matter.
She leaned back slightly, allowing Jaehaera to place the beetle carefully into her small open hand. “The problem,” Helaena sighed lightly, stroking her daughter’s wispy hair with a calm that, in Baelor’s mind, did not match the intensity of the topic at hand, “was that the Fourteen Flames did not know everything.”
Baelor’s mismatched eyes narrowed. “So they acted without understanding the entire prophecy? I assume meddling with fate in such a way is entirely forbidden.”
Helaena smiled sheepishly, as if she were the one at fault here and not the gods of Old Valyria. “They did it anyway.”
Baelor sat very still at the revelation, wishing that he could stand and pace around the enchanted forest he found himself in, but old habits required him to honor the woman of the highest station and stay seated. No, Baelor was left to fidget like a child instead while he absorbed the implications of the gentle queen’s words. “And by interfering, they set into motion the very destruction they hoped to prevent.”
Helaena nodded. “They cracked history.”
Baelor thought of the dragons dying and of the senseless wars that followed. The touch of madness that crept through the blood of his brother Rhaegel and even the madness he suspected of his nephew, Aerion. “It all started with the Dance,” he murmured.
“Yes. That is when the Fourteen Flames realized there were things outside of their control. The Flames made me a dreamer, but no one listened. So they decided on a more forward approach when they reached the height of their desperation. That is where the world began to break.”
Baelor felt himself sit back, balancing on his palms with a curious numbness. He had expected many things upon waking in the afterlife, divine conspiracy had not been among them. “I fail to see,” he said after a moment of deep contemplation, “where I enter this story. I was born long after the Dance,” he continued. “And died before the end of the world.”
Helaena giggled again as Jaehaera placed the beetle gently back onto the grass. She placed a soft kiss on her daughter’s hair before answering. “The Fourteen Flames have been allowed to send two people back, to correct their mistakes and start again from the moment they lost control.”
Baelor felt his stomach sink at the news, his suspicions about to be confirmed in its entirety. “To change the Dance.”
She looked at him brightly, always enjoying whenever people understood her without strife. “And you are one of them, Prince Baelor Targaryen.”
Baelor closed his eyes briefly. Of course he was. A long sigh escaped him. “I see,” he said, opening his indigo and amber eyes again, staring out toward the burning sea. “So I am not meant to rest in peace after all.”