Chapter 39: Chapter 39: My Answer
This was the question that mattered.
Not because Viserys had asked it loudly, nor because the court had fallen into that hungry silence which made every breath feel borrowed. It mattered because every answer waiting on my tongue could become a weapon in another man’s hand. Dreams, darkness, the dead, the adversary in the North, the ruin of dragons, the shape of a future soaked in blood; all of it rose within me and died before it became sound.
In that hall, before Otto Hightower, Alicent, Criston Cole, and every listening lord in King’s Landing, prophecy would not sound like warning. It would sound like madness. Worse, it would sound useful to those who needed me discredited, and Otto would not even have to invent the accusation if I handed it to him wrapped in my own fear.
So I chose the truth that could survive daylight. "I know what I am to this court, Your Grace," I said. "Foreign. Landless. Useful in war and suspicious in peace. I do not pretend otherwise."
A few whispers moved through the hall, quick and low, but I kept my eyes on the King. Otto watched me from below the throne with the stillness of a man searching for where the blade had been hidden. Alicent stood beside him, careful and guarded, while Criston Cole remained near the King in his white cloak, his face held too still for peace.
"I have no castle in Westeros to carry your daughter away to," I continued. "No lord father waiting to use her name. No ancient seat that would ask her to become less than she is so my house might become more."
The whispers changed slightly. Not enough to become approval, not even close, but enough for the air in the hall to shift from certainty into doubt. That was the first thing Otto Hightower had not intended to give me. Uncertainty was a small thing, but in a room built to condemn, it had weight.
"I seek this marriage because Princess Rhaenyra chose me," I said. "And because I chose her in return. Not the throne first. Not the crown. Her."
Rhaenyra stood beside me without moving.
I did not look at her, because looking at her would have made the words seem crafted for her rather than spoken before the King. Yet I felt her attention sharpen, felt the air between us tighten with something more dangerous than affection. This was not a private confession beneath moonlight or ship canvas; it was a claim made before the realm’s teeth.
"I will not insult this court by pretending politics has no part in it," I continued. "It does. I have soldiers. She has duties few would envy. We both know what this match means."
That honesty landed harder than denial would have. A lord near the front murmured something to the man beside him, and a lady in pale yellow leaned forward as if hearing me properly for the first time. Otto’s expression did not change, but his eyes sharpened, because he had expected evasion and found admission instead.
"But I would not stand here if I only saw her as a path to power," I said. "There are easier roads to advancement than binding oneself to the most watched woman in the realm."
That struck the room harder than I intended.
Viserys’s eyes narrowed, not in anger alone but in recognition of the danger named too plainly before him. Alicent’s discomfort deepened, not because I had threatened her children, but because I had not.
A monster would have been easier to name, a grasping sellsword easier to hate, a fool easier to dismiss. I had given her none of those comforts, and unease settled over her like a cloak she had not chosen.
Otto stepped slightly forward, but Viserys lifted one hand. The Hand stopped. The court noticed, and Otto noticed that it noticed. Viserys had allowed him too much room already, perhaps out of trust, perhaps weariness, perhaps the lifelong habit of choosing civility over confrontation. Yet now the King kept silence for himself, and the hall remembered whose throne sat above them.
"I seek to stand beside her, Your Grace," I said. "Not above her. Not behind her with a chain in my hand. Beside her. If that is not enough, then I have no prettier answer to offer."
The silence that followed was not empty. It was working.
The words moved through the hall and changed as they touched different ears. Some heard insolence hidden inside humility. Some heard ambition dressed carefully enough to be dangerous.
Some heard a foreigner admitting he was foreign and found, to their irritation, that honesty did not sound like guilt. Others looked at Rhaenyra differently, as if remembering that the woman before them was not merely a claim in need of arrangement but a person capable of choosing and being chosen.
Criston Cole’s face remained still, but stillness had its own failures.
His fingers flexed once against the white leather of his sword belt before closing again. His eyes moved from me to Rhaenyra, then back, and in that small journey something bitter revealed itself before discipline buried it. He had heard me say aloud what he could not say, stand where he could not stand, and receive from her what his vows had made impossible.
I felt no victory in that. Only warning.
Viserys sat very still upon the Iron Throne. From below, he looked powerful, crowned, framed in swords, and far less gentle than men sometimes mistook him to be. Yet I could see the answer he wanted to give. No to the foreign captain, no to the army on Dragonstone, no to the complication standing before him in polished armour with Valyrian steel at his hip.
Then his eyes moved to Rhaenyra. Not the heir. Not the problem. Not the future war Otto saw growing in every shadow. His daughter. Aemma’s daughter.
The change in him was small, but it entered the room like a draft beneath a door. His face softened before he could stop it, and pain moved there, old and familiar, the kind of pain that did not fade because men placed crowns over it. Rhaenyra’s earlier words had not left him. They remained in him, working beneath the surface, reminding him that he had once chosen comfort in grief and called it marriage.
Otto sensed the shift. "Your Grace," he began, careful as ever, "fine words should not blind us to the practical danger. Captain Galeris speaks well, but he remains what he has admitted himself to be. Foreign, landless, and commanding men whose loyalty is not to the Iron Throne."
"No," Rhaenyra said before Viserys could answer. "Their loyalty is not to the Iron Throne. Nor are the gold cloaks loyal to the Iron Throne before the man who commands them. Nor are household guards loyal to banners before the lords who feed them. Do not make ordinary command sound like treason because it belongs to someone you dislike."
Otto turned to her with perfect patience. "Princess, you mistake caution for dislike."
"No," she replied. "I recognise dislike when it dresses as caution."
Alicent stepped forward then, perhaps to soften Otto’s edge or perhaps because she feared the room slipping where she did not want it to go. "Rhaenyra, no one wishes you unhappy. But you must understand how sudden this appears. Your father is asked to accept not only a marriage, but a new power upon Dragonstone."
Rhaenyra looked at her, and for a moment the court fell away from the two of them. Once, perhaps, they might have spoken as friends. Now every word between them carried Aegon, the succession, dead affection, new motherhood, fear, and the slow transformation of girlhood into rival camps.
"I understand sudden choices made in the Red Keep," Rhaenyra said.
Alicent’s face tightened.
The blow was quieter than the one given to Viserys, but it found its mark all the same. Alicent looked down for half a heartbeat, and when she lifted her eyes again, the courtly softness had thinned. She was uncomfortable now not only because I had sounded reasonable, but because Rhaenyra had reminded her that suddenness had once carried her from companion to queen.
Viserys stirred. "Enough." The word was not spoken, but the room felt it.
The King leaned forward, and the swords around him caught the light. "I will hear no more turning of old griefs into fresh wounds."
Rhaenyra lowered her head slightly. "Father."
Alicent folded her hands before her again. "Your Grace."
Otto bowed, but not before his mouth tightened with the faintest irritation. He had expected to guide the questioning, to steer it toward danger, delay, and the unspoken fear of Rhaenyra gathering strength around herself.
Instead, the room had begun to see too many human faces in the matter. Rhaenyra was no longer only defiant; I was no longer only foreign, and Viserys was no longer able to pretend this was merely policy. That did not mean we had won. It meant refusal had become more expensive.
Viserys turned his gaze back to me. "Captain Galeris, if this marriage is allowed, you will receive no claim through it."
"I understand."
"You will hold no authority over Dragonstone except by my daughter’s permission and mine where the Crown’s rights are concerned."
"I understand."
"Your army will not move from Dragonstone, nor be increased upon Westerosi soil, nor take service from any lord of the realm without the knowledge of the Crown."
"I understand."
Otto’s eyes narrowed slightly, already measuring those terms for future use. He would twist them if he could, tighten them if allowed, and one day perhaps claim breach where none had been intended. But conditions were better than refusal, and spoken terms could be answered, recorded, and survived.
Viserys looked to Rhaenyra. "And you will understand, daughter, that this choice cannot be treated as a private pleasure once made. If he is to be your husband, the realm will judge him through you and you through him."
"I know," she said.
"Are you sure?" Viserys asked, and there was more father than king in it.
Rhaenyra held his gaze. "No father, but I am learning."
Something in that answer moved him. It was not apology, not surrender, and not the easy obedience he might have wished from her. It was better than that, perhaps worse. It was his daughter admitting that the world was teaching her by force, and that she was listening.
Viserys looked at her for a long moment. Then he looked at me. "I do not like this match," he said.
The hall went still. The words were not shouted. They did not need to be. They fell from the Iron Throne with the bluntness of royal honesty, and for a brief moment I saw satisfaction flicker in Otto’s eyes.
Alicent seemed to breathe a little easier. Criston Cole’s expression remained carved from white stone, but some small tension in him shifted, as if pain had been given hope of reprieve.
Viserys let the silence stretch. Then he continued. "But I will not make a prisoner of my daughter and call it duty."
The room changed again.
Rhaenyra did not move, but I saw the words strike her. Not triumph. Not even relief at first. Something older and more wounded. For all her defiance, for all her careful answers and sharp truths, some part of her had still waited to see whether her father would choose command over her.
Otto stepped forward. "Your Grace..."
Viserys’s head turned. The Hand stopped at once. "No, Otto," the King said. "You have advised. I have heard."
It was the first true rebuke of the day.
Small, perhaps, but small things echoed loudly when spoken from above. Otto bowed deeply, and his face remained composed. That made him no less dangerous. If anything, the grace with which he accepted the check told me how little he believed the matter finished.
Viserys looked down at us. "You may wed."
The words should have brought release. They did not.
They brought calculation, movement, and whispers barely restrained. Around the hall, faces changed as men revised their understanding of the future. Some looked surprised, others displeased, a few intrigued. Several glanced at Otto as if waiting to see whether defeat was truly defeat when the Hand still stood so near the throne.
Viserys raised his voice enough to cut through the murmurs before they grew. "The marriage will be conducted under royal authority. Contracts concerning the host on Dragonstone will be presented to the Crown. The number, placement, supply, and command of those soldiers will be recorded and reviewed. Captain Galeris will swear before witnesses that he claims no right to rule through my daughter, and that his men remain bound by lawful conduct while upon Westerosi soil."
"I will swear it," I said.
"You will swear it after my council has written the terms," Viserys replied. "Carefully."
I bowed. "As Your Grace commands."
His eyes held mine. "Understand me, Captain Galeris. You marry my daughter. You do not marry her claim, her island, or her crown."
"I understand, Your Grace. I would never dare think otherwise"
"Let us hope for your sake that remains true."
There was no warmth in that. But there was permission.
Rhaenyra curtsied, and though her composure held, I could feel the force of what she contained. "Thank you, Father."
Viserys looked at her, and for a moment the hall saw too much. A king who had yielded, a father who had been struck by love and guilt, a man trying to preserve peace by granting something that might one day help destroy it. He nodded once, and then the crown settled back over him like armour.
"The court is dismissed," he said.
The hall broke into motion.
Not chaos, not openly, but release. Courtiers turned to one another, whispers sprang to life, gowns rustled, boots scraped, and men began shaping the decision into stories before we had even stepped back from the throne.
By sunset, I would be the foreign husband approved by royal wisdom, the foreign danger Viserys had failed to stop, the sellsword who had charmed the Princess, the captain who had humbled Otto, or the knife Rhaenyra had placed against her own claim.
Alicent remained near the base of the throne, her hands folded so tightly that her knuckles had paled. She looked at Rhaenyra, then at me, and I saw fear wrestling with discomfort. If I had raged, threatened, boasted, or grasped openly, she could have hated me cleanly. Instead, the court had murmured uncertainly, Viserys had softened, and Rhaenyra had gained what she wanted without looking mad.
That made me worse than a monster. It made me plausible.
Criston Cole still stood near the King.
His eyes found mine across the hall, and this time the silence between us felt almost physical. There was no challenge in his posture, no breach of duty, nothing the court could name or punish.
Yet the polished stillness of him had cracked enough that I could see what waited beneath: jealousy, humiliation, and the wounded pride of a man forced to witness another receive what he could not even ask for.
I inclined my head slightly. He did not return it.
Rhaenyra saw enough. Her expression closed for a heartbeat, and then she turned away from him as if the movement cost nothing. That, more than anger, told me the wound between them had a history I did not yet fully know. Criston’s jaw tightened once before the white cloak swallowed him again.
Vaeron remained beside me, silent as he had been since we entered the hall.
Some might have mistaken that silence for absence. I knew better. He had watched every shift, every hesitation, every face that warmed or hardened at the King’s decision. Later, in some private room with locked doors and too little wine, he would give me the battle map of the court as if it were a coastline filled with reefs.
For now, he said nothing. That was wisdom.
Royal guards approached with courtesy arranged over command. Our veterans were gathered and guided with careful politeness, their weapons respected and watched in equal measure. No one called us prisoners. No one needed to. The Red Keep had mastered the art of chains that looked like hospitality.
Rhaenyra moved beside me as we withdrew from the throne. "You answered well."
"So did you."
"I wounded him. I could see it in his face. But it was necessary."
"Yes."
Her face tightened, but she did not look back at Viserys. "He gave permission."
"He did, albeit against counsel."
"Yes, but it is clear that there is no trust."
"No."
Ahead, the doors opened to the corridor beyond. Behind us, the court continued whispering, growing louder now that the King had ended formal silence. Otto stood near the throne with perfect composure, speaking quietly to Alicent while Viserys watched the hall with tired eyes. The Hand did not look defeated. That troubled me more than anger would have.
As we passed beneath the carved lintel and left the throne room behind, the weight of the decision followed us into the corridor.
The King had given us permission. The court had given us nothing.
And as Otto Hightower bowed with perfect grace behind us, I understood that some men looked most dangerous when they appeared to accept defeat.
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