Rewriting Targaryen History

Chapter 96: Chapter 96: First Lessons

The training yard had changed while I was away.

Not in stone. The same walls held the morning light, the same racks carried blunted steel and practice swords, and the same sand drank sweat, blood, and pride in equal measure. What had changed was smaller and harder to forgive. My sons stood in it differently.

Jace moved with the careful discipline of a boy trying to become worthy before anyone could accuse him of being too young. Luke still watched too much at first, but he no longer flinched whenever a blade came near his face. He adjusted, breathed, and stepped again. That alone made the year feel less wasted, though I hated that his courage had needed a year without me to grow.

Ser Erryk worked with Luke, correcting his guard with patient hands. Ser Arryk stood across from Jace, wooden sword angled downward as he made him repeat a turn until the movement stopped looking like obedience and began to look like understanding.

I watched from the edge of the yard with my arms folded.

Rhaenyra had meant to come, but Aemma had woken furious at the world, Aeggel had hissed at everyone who tried to settle her, and the nursery had become a smaller battlefield. I had been dismissed with the dignity afforded to a man no longer useful in the face of a biting daughter and a young dragon offended by blankets.

So I came to the yard alone. Or nearly alone.

Grey Roach stood near the archway with two Unsullied, quiet as carved figures. He had returned to his place in the household as if the year had been only a longer watch than usual. The boys no longer stared at him as they had when younger. To them, Unsullied guards were part of the shape of home.

That thought comforted and troubled me in equal measure.

Ser Erryk stepped back from Luke. "Again, my prince. Do not offer me the same opening twice unless you wish me to believe you have grown fond of losing."

Luke nodded, cheeks flushed. "I am not fond of losing, Ser Erryk. I am trying to remember my feet and my hands at the same time."

"That is why we train them until they remember for you."

Luke tried again. The movement was still imperfect, but he did not retreat from the strike. He turned it aside and recovered quickly enough that Erryk gave the smallest nod.

Jace noticed. He tried to sharpen his own next motion and overreached. Arryk tapped him across the shoulder with the flat of his wooden blade.

"Your brother’s improvement does not require your immediate answer," Arryk said. "If you chase another man’s lesson, you will lose your own."

Jace swallowed the sting better than he would have a year ago. "Yes, Ser Arryk."

"Then show me you heard it."

He did. Not perfectly, but better.

The twins arrived shortly after, as loud as the morning had been restrained.

Aerion carried his practice sword as if it were already Valyrian steel. Rhaegar carried his point-down, both hands around the grip, eyes moving across the yard before they settled on the older boys. They were seven now. I knew that. I had been told it, written it, counted it. Yet seeing them ready to begin the lessons Jace and Luke had once begun made the number feel like theft.

Aerion grinned when he saw me. "Father, Mother said we are finally allowed to train properly, and Jace said proper training begins with being hit."

"Jace was trying to frighten you," I said.

Jace glanced over. "I was trying to prepare him."

"That is what older brothers call frightening when they want credit for it."

Aerion looked delighted rather than concerned. "I am not afraid of being hit."

Ser Arryk turned toward him. "That will make the first lesson easier to arrange."

Rhaegar looked at Arryk with grave interest. "Is fear useful if it makes someone careful, or does it make them too slow?"

The yard paused just enough for me to notice.

Erryk answered before anyone could make the mistake of laughing. "Fear is useful if you make it serve you. If you serve it, you will hesitate when you should move."

Rhaegar considered that. "Then courage is not the opposite of fear."

"No," Erryk said. "Courage is what remains useful when fear arrives."

Aerion frowned. "I thought courage was charging."

"That is sometimes courage," Arryk said. "It is also sometimes stupidity wearing a brighter cloak."

Aerion looked personally offended by the distinction.

The first lesson began with stance.

No blades swinging. No heroic lunges. No rushing toward imaginary pirates. Just feet placed correctly in the sand, knees bent, shoulders loose, sword held with enough strength to control it and enough restraint not to strangle the grip.

Aerion suffered as if he had been betrayed. "When do we strike?" he asked.

"When you can stand without inviting every man in the yard to push you over," Arryk replied.

"I am standing."

"You are leaning forward because your heart has reached the fight before the rest of you."

Rhaegar looked down at his own feet, then at Aerion’s, then at Arryk’s. He adjusted half an inch.

Erryk saw it. "That was better," he said.

Rhaegar nodded once. "Ser Arryk’s rear foot is not straight. It lets him turn faster."

Arryk’s brows lifted slightly. Erryk looked at his brother with a dangerous amount of amusement. "He has found you out."

Arryk did not smile, but the corner of his mouth threatened rebellion. "He has noticed one thing. Noticing is not yet knowing."

Rhaegar looked at him. "Then knowing is noticing enough things in the right order."

The unsettling part was not the sentence. It was that he seemed to mean it.

Aerion turned his head. "Rhaegar, stop making standing sound like sums."

"It has angles."

"It has boredom."

"It has angles that decide who falls."

Aerion looked at me for support. I gave him none. "Your brother may be right."

"That does not make him less annoying."

"No, but it may keep him alive."

Arryk corrected Aerion’s grip next. The boy wanted strength to mean pressure, and pressure made his hands stiff. Arryk loosened one finger at a time with calm persistence.

"A sword is not a rope you are trying to keep from being stolen," Arryk said. "Hold it firmly enough that it obeys, not so tightly that it cannot move."

Aerion huffed. "I would not let anyone steal my sword."

"You would if both your hands cramped before the fight began."

That earned a laugh from Jace, which earned him a look from Aerion that promised future revenge at dinner.

Luke, to his credit, came to Aerion’s rescue. "I held it too tightly when I started. Ser Erryk made me practise opening and closing my hand until it hurt."

"That sounds worse than being hit."

"It was less dramatic," Luke said. "That made it worse."

For the next hour, the yard became a place of small corrections.

Jace worked through guard changes while trying not to look as if he was working hard. Luke practised stepping into defence rather than away from danger. Aerion learned that eagerness did not make a sword move faster if his feet were wrong.

Rhaegar learned quickly enough that Erryk began changing examples to see whether the boy was repeating instructions or understanding them. He was understanding them.

That should have pleased me without reservation. Instead, I watched my seven-year-old son study violence like a language he intended to speak fluently, and something cold moved beneath my ribs. Not fear of him. Never that. But fear of the world that would reward such understanding too soon.

During a pause, Aerion wiped sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. "When do we use real swords?"

"When wooden ones stop finding you so easily," Arryk said.

"I have only been hit four times."

"Five," Rhaegar said.

"The last one barely counted."

"It counted because you complained."

Erryk looked toward me. "Your Grace, do you wish to correct the count?"

"I have learned never to stand between twins and arithmetic."

Aerion pointed his wooden sword at Rhaegar. "One day I will hit you so quickly that you will not have time to count it."

Rhaegar raised his practice blade with unnerving calm. "If you are quick because you are angry, I will know where you are going."

Aerion’s expression brightened. "Can I try?"

Arryk intervened before brotherly curiosity turned into a household incident. "Not today. Today you both learn how not to injure yourselves before an opponent earns the privilege."

The boys groaned, except Rhaegar, who looked as if postponement had simply given him more information.

When training ended, the younger twins were dismissed to wash before the smell of effort followed them into the keep. Aerion left complaining that his first proper lesson had contained too little glory. Rhaegar walked beside him, explaining that glory seemed to be a result rather than a method, which only made Aerion louder.

Jace and Luke remained a little longer. I stepped into the yard then.

Jace straightened immediately. "Father."

"You do not need to look as if I have arrived to inspect a garrison."

"I wanted you to see that I have been practising."

"I did."

"And?"

"And Ser Arryk is right. You chase perfection too quickly."

His face tightened. I placed a hand on his shoulder. "That is not a failure. It is a warning. There is a difference."

He breathed out. "I do not want anyone to say I was only praised because I am Mother’s heir after her."

"Then let them say it while you keep improving. You cannot duel every whisper."

Luke looked down at his practice sword. "Some whispers become louder if no one answers them."

I looked at him, and for a moment I saw Driftmark in his eyes. Not the blood. Not the blade. The memory of a child learning that some accusations were allowed to breathe because adults found them useful.

"You are right," I said. "Some must be answered. But not every answer needs to be given in the yard, and not every insult deserves the honour of shaping your hands."

Luke nodded slowly. Erryk had gone still nearby. He heard the truth beneath the words. So did Arryk.

I turned to them. "You have taught them well."

Arryk bowed. "They listen, my prince."

"Not always," Luke said.

Erryk’s mouth softened. "No boy listens always. Princes merely have more witnesses when they forget."

Jace looked embarrassed, which meant the lesson had landed.

I dismissed the boys soon after. Jace walked with Luke toward the keep, speaking low enough that I could not hear. Luke nodded once, then glanced back at me. He looked less small than he had when I left for the Stepstones. That was good. That was terrible. Both truths stood side by side and refused to make room for comfort.

When the boys were gone, I remained with the Cargyll twins.

The yard had emptied enough that sound softened. Distant steel from another corner. Hooves outside the gate. A gull making an ugly claim somewhere above the wall.

"I am grateful," I said.

Erryk lowered his practice blade. "It is our duty, my prince."

"It is more than duty when you refuse to flatter them."

Arryk’s expression remained composed. "Flattery is easy in royal yards. It keeps tempers smooth until battle makes the lie expensive."

"That is why I am grateful."

They exchanged the briefest glance. Twin-born men speaking without speaking.

I continued. "If they are careless, correct them. If they are proud, humble them. I would rather hear my sons complain of bruises than bury them because men were too polite to teach them properly."

Erryk bowed his head. "Then we understand one another."

Arryk studied me for a moment. "Some fathers do not enjoy watching their sons fail in front of others."

"I enjoy it less than I pretend. I still prefer it to watching them believe they cannot fail."

"That belief is a poor shield," Erryk said.

"It is no shield at all."

We walked toward the shaded side of the yard, where the weapons racks stood. Arryk began setting wooden blades back in order. Erryk inspected one for cracks before placing it aside to be repaired. Neither task required them to stay. Both used work to make conversation less exposed.

I watched them and felt an old memory rise without permission. Not a memory of this life.

A screen. A dim room. My own body thinner, weaker, aching in the familiar ways that had belonged to Heinrich Adler. Two white-cloaked brothers fighting in a hall that should never have held their blood. One called traitor by circumstance, the other loyal by the same cruelty. Steel between men who had shared a face, a cradle, a life. Erryk killing Arryk, then turning his blade on himself because surviving the act had been worse than dying from it.

I had watched it as fiction. I stood now close enough to see dust on their boots.

The horror of that never fully left me. The world I had entered had turned names from a screen into breathing men, and breathing men into possible corpses if I failed to move history from its old road. The Dance was not only dragons tearing each other from the sky. It was brothers ordered to make enemies of one another until love had nowhere left to go but a blade.

Erryk noticed my silence. "My prince?"

I looked at him, then at Arryk. "You have a difficult oath."

Arryk did not answer quickly. "Every Kingsguard does."

"Not every Kingsguard is asked to stand in a court where blood divides faster than law can mend." The words were dangerous enough that both men grew still. I did not soften them. "I do not ask you to answer what you cannot answer. I know the shape of your cloaks. I know you serve the King. I know oaths are not toys to be arranged for my comfort."

Erryk’s eyes remained steady. "Then what do you ask?"

"That you remember the boys are children before they are claims. Mine, Alicent’s, Daemon’s daughters, all of them. The court forgets that whenever it becomes useful."

Arryk looked toward the steps where my sons had disappeared. "Children grow."

"Yes. That is what frightens me."

Erryk lowered his voice. "You fear they will be made into banners."

"I fear everyone in this keep is already sewing."

Neither twin denied it. That earned more trust from me than any reassurance would have.

Arryk set the last practice sword onto the rack. "We can teach them to stand, move, and guard themselves. We cannot decide what men will ask them to become."

"No," I said. "But you can decide whether you help make them cruel."

Erryk’s expression tightened, not in offence, but in recognition. "I have no wish to teach cruelty."

"Good. Teach control. Teach patience. Teach them that strength without judgement is only danger with better posture."

Arryk gave a faint, dry look toward the yard. "Prince Aerion may require that lesson more than once."

"He may require it daily."

"Prince Rhaegar will require different watching," Erryk said.

I turned to him. "You saw it."

"I saw a boy who listens to the lesson beneath the lesson."

"That sounds like praise."

"It is praise. It is also a warning."

I appreciated that answer more than he knew. "He unsettles me sometimes."

Arryk looked surprised by the admission. I let him be surprised. "He is my son, and I love him. But he watches the world as if it owes him its pattern. That can become wisdom if guided well. It can become something colder if praised only for being clever."

Erryk nodded. "Then we will not praise cleverness when restraint is the better lesson."

A silence settled. I had not meant to say so much. The Stepstones had stripped certain habits from me, or perhaps returning home had made concealment feel briefly useless. Either way, the words now stood between us.

Arryk was the one who answered them. "My prince, when Ser Erryk and I were given white cloaks, our mother told us that honour would not always arrive wearing clean hands. She said we were to keep each other honest when the court tried to make obedience sound easier than it was."

Erryk’s face shifted, almost imperceptibly.

Arryk continued. "We have tried."

The simplicity of it cut deeper than ceremony. I looked between them again and saw not symbols, not future corpses, not men trapped in a scene I hated. Brothers. Knights. Teachers of my sons. Men who still had time.

"Keep doing so," I said.

Erryk inclined his head. "We will."

I almost told them more. Not the truth of Heinrich. Not the impossible thing. But something close enough to warn without madness. The words rose, then stopped. A man could not save everyone by confessing fear at every shadow.

Instead, I said, "If ever a day comes when men try to put you on opposite sides of a door, remember that doors can be refused."

Arryk’s eyes sharpened. Erryk understood less of the specifics and more of the plea.

"That is not always permitted," Arryk said.

"No," I replied. "But it should be remembered before obedience becomes the only thought left."

Neither promised. That was good. Promises made too easily in the Red Keep were usually worth less than silence. They bowed, and I left the yard before I could turn the moment into something heavier than it needed to be.

At the archway, I looked back once.

Arryk and Erryk stood beside the weapons rack, white cloaks falling from near-identical shoulders. They spoke quietly to one another, their faces turned in the same direction, divided by nothing more than a few feet of sand and the different shapes of their thoughts.

In another life, I had watched them die apart while standing close enough to touch. In this life, they had spent the morning teaching my sons how to hold a wooden sword without letting pride guide the blade.

That was not victory. Not yet. But it was something worth guarding.