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—
Baelor Breakspear dies knowing the weight of a mace.
He dies knowing the sound of bone giving way beneath iron.
He dies with the sky of Ashford Meadow widening above him into something too pale to bear, and Ser Duncan the Tall holding him as though sheer loyalty could press life back into a broken skull. He hears Maekar shouting somewhere beyond the ringing in his ears. He hears Aerion’s voice, sharp and furious and afraid. He tastes blood. He thinks, distantly and with an ache too deep for pride, that at least the boy will live.
He does not feel the moment his heart stops. He just felt instead the weight of it all loosening—his father’s crown, his brother’s fury, his sons’ futures, and Dunk’s enormous hands trembling as though the knight could hold him in place by sheer stubborn will.
The sky above Ashford is pale. Too pale. It thins into white.
Then the light fractures.
And he inhales. The air smells of grass and cheap wine and trampled earth. His boots are steady beneath him. The crowd is loud.
He is standing.
Aerion still has the puppeteer by the hair. Dunk has not yet moved, and Egg has not yet revealed who he is.
Baelor does not allow himself the luxury of confusion. He moves because he remembers what happens if he does not.
His hand closes around Aerion’s wrist before the boy can twist the girl’s head back again. He steps forward, placing his body between prince and peasant, broad and unyielding.
“Aerion.”
He does not raise his voice. He does not need to.
The crowd quiets anyway.
Aerion’s violet eyes snap upward, bright with humiliation and temper, and then something flickers there that does not belong in this moment.
“Kepa,” Aerion breathes.
The word lands in Baelor’s chest like a stone dropped into still water.
Father.
For a heartbeat, something in him answers.
It is instinctive. Deep. Older than thought.
Then Aerion tries to jerk his arm free, scowling as though he has said nothing at all.
“You shame me before smallfolk.”
Baelor does not answer that. He releases him instead and turns to the puppeteer, steady and composed. “You are under my protection. No harm will come to you.”
Baelor then looks at Aerion, “You will return to your pavilion.”
Aerion hesitates. Then obeys.
Dunk lowers his raised fist slowly, confusion and relief warring across his honest face. Egg watches everything with sharp, bright eyes that miss nothing.
The meadow exhales.
No punch is thrown.
No accusation is made.
No Trial of Seven is demanded.
Baelor remains alive.
—
It is only when he is alone in the pavilion that the world begins to fracture.
Maekar enters without waiting to be announced. He never has.
Baelor looks up and stills.
His brother smells wrong.
Not leather. Not steel. Not the faint ash that clings to men who live near war and death.
Sweetness hangs in the air instead. Warm and heavy and intimate. Like the fruit that they always eat everytime they go to Dorne. It reaches Baelor before he understands it, slipping into his lungs, settling beneath his ribs, tugging at something that rises to meet it without permission.
Maekar closes the heavy door behind him. His expression is controlled, but there is tension threaded through it.
“You shouldn't have done that,” Maekar says. “You risked escalation.”
“I prevented bloodshed.”
“You risked yourself.”
Baelor holds his brother’s gaze.
The sweetness deepens. It makes his pulse shift.
“You are unwell,” Baelor says carefully. “You smell like star apples.”
Maekar’s lips curve, and the expression is soft in a way Baelor does not remember ever seeing.
“It is my heat. You should know my season.”
The word means nothing.
Baelor searches his memory for it and finds only blank parchment.
“Your what?”
“My heat,” Maekar repeats, stepping closer. Too close for court. Close enough that the sweetness becomes overwhelming. “I did not bring my suppressant to Ashford. I expected it next moon, not this one. But I know you'll help me if everything comes to worse.”
Baelor does not move.
“What is a heat?” He asks evenly, “and what is a suppressant?”
The smile disappears.
Maekar studies him sharply now.
“This is not amusing.”
“I assure you, brother, I am not attempting to amuse you.”
Silence.
The sweetness in the air turns sharp.
Maekar grips his jaw abruptly, turning his face toward the light.
“Were you struck?” he demands.
Baelor remembers the mace. The crack. The blood.
“Yes,” he says.
“Where.”
“In the head.”
The lie fits neatly over truth.
Maekar releases him immediately and calls for the maesters.
—
They murmur about memory displacement. About concussive trauma. About temporary confusion. They speak of rest and dim light and quiet.
Baelor listens, calm and composed.
He does not tell them that he remembers dying.
He does not tell them that his brother did not smell like this before.
He does not tell them that Aerion called him father.
When they leave, he remains seated in the dark for a long time.
His body hums faintly, restless in a way he does not understand.
The sweetness lingers in his senses long after Maekar is gone.
Alive, he reminds himself.
He is alive.
If this is madness, it is a generous one.
—
He waits until night to leave.
The guards assume he rests. The maesters assume he sleeps. Maekar assumes he obeys instructions.
Baelor slips through the rows of tents like a shadow.
He finds Dunk and Egg by a modest fire beyond the noise of the noble pavilions. Dunk is crouched low, trying to coax flame from damp wood with stubborn patience. Egg sits beside him, arms wrapped around his knees, watching with pointed commentary.
“You are smothering it,” Egg says.
“I am not.”
“You are.”
Baelor steps into the firelight.
Dunk nearly knocks the pot over in his haste to stand.
“Your Highness.”
Egg looks up.
And his face changes. Not fear. Not confusion. But gleeful recognition.
“Kepa?”
The word is soft this time. Questioning.
It sinks into Baelor’s chest like something that belongs there.
He lowers himself onto a log without ceremony.
“Yes,” he answers quietly.
Egg frowns faintly.
“You’re not supposed to be out of bed. I heard mother calling for the maesters.”
“I find myself dissatisfied with the maesters’ company.” Baelor smiles.
Dunk looks between them helplessly.
Baelor studies the boy—no, his boy. He sees himself in the stubborn line of his jaw. He sees Maekar in the sharpness of his eyes.
“Tell me about our family. Tell it to me like I don’t remember anything.”
Dunk immediately looks as though someone has handed him a blade by the wrong end. Probably wanting to question why Baelor is talking causually to his bald squire.
Egg does not hesitate.
“What do you want to know, Kepa?”
The word lands warmer this time.
Baelor folds his hands loosely over his knee. He chooses his questions with care.
“How long have your mother and I been bonded?”
Dunk chokes. Probably understanding the situation and who Egg really is.
Egg blinks, confused at the question, then answers plainly.
“As long as I can remember. You presented Alpha when you were sixteen. Mother presented Omega the year after. Grandfather had the High Septon bless the union before the court. Everyone said it secured the succession twice over.”
He says it like history that everyone knows. Like it’s carved into stone.
Baelor absorbs it.
“And our children?”
Egg smiles faintly.
“Valarr is eldest,” he says first, with clear pride. “He’s already acting like he owns the Red Keep.”
That name settles something inside Baelor immediately. Yes. Valarr belongs.
“Then Daeron,” Egg says. “Mother says he sulks too much.”
Dunk is staring now. Not blinking.
“Aerion,” Egg continues casually. “You know how he is.”
Yes, Baelor thinks. I do.
“Then Matarys,” Egg continues. “He follows Valarr everywhere.”
Baelor nods slowly. Those are his sons. They exist. That feels right.
“Aemon,” Egg adds. “He’d rather read than fight.”
Baelor smiles at that.
"My dear sisters, Daella and Rhaella, whom I think wouldn't get married with how protective you both are."
Baelor laughs at that.
“And me,” Egg finishes simply.
Dunk finally finds his voice.
“Begging your pardon, Your Highness, I didn't know that my squire is a prince,” he says carefully, “and is this a discussion I ought to be hearing?”
Baelor glances at him mildly.
“You have already heard it, Ser Duncan. And as for my son, it's not your fault. I'm apologizing for my son's deception. He gets that from me.”
Dunk looks at Egg.
Egg looks delighted.
"Aegon?"
"Yes, kepa?"
“You are our youngest son,” Baelor says carefully, watching the boy’s reaction.
Egg frowns faintly.
“Well, yes.”
“And you have always called me—”
“Kepa,” Egg says immediately. “Unless you’re angry.”
“And Maekar.”
“Mother,” Egg says, as if the question is strange.
Dunk makes a strangled sound.
“Mother,” he repeats weakly.
Egg turns to him with mild irritation. “Yes. What else would I call him?”
Dunk looks at Baelor as though silently begging for clarification about the structure of reality.
Baelor, however, is thinking.
Valarr. Matarys. Daeron. Aerion. Aemon. Aegon. Daella. Rhaela.
Six sons. Two daughters.
All of them real.
All of them his. All of them Maekar’s.
“Does your mother resent our bond?” Baelor asks quietly.
Egg’s expression sharpens instantly.
“No.” There is no hesitation.
“No,” he repeats more firmly. “He’d burn half the realm before he let anyone question it.”
Dunk looks faint again.
Baelor feels something inside his chest loosen in a way he cannot quite name.
“And you,” Baelor says carefully, “have always known us so.”
“Yes,” Egg replies. “You argue. You glare at each other in council. You pretend you married for politics.”
Egg leans slightly closer to the fire.
“But you always find each other again.”
Silence stretches.
Dunk clears his throat loudly.
“Your Highness,” he ventures cautiously, “forgive me, but it is not every evening that the heir to the Iron Throne sits at my fire discussing—”
“My marriage?” Baelor supplies calmly.
“Yes,” Dunk says weakly.
Egg beams.
Baelor studies the knight who once held him as he died.
“Ser Duncan,” he says evenly, “if I were to request your company on the road for a short while, would you refuse me?”
Dunk’s eyes widen.
“Your Highness, your husband would kill me.”
Egg snorts.
“Mother would absolutely kill him,” he corrects cheerfully.
Baelor almost smiles.
“He may attempt retrieval,” Baelor says with quiet diplomacy.
Dunk rubs both hands over his face.
“I am but a hedge knight,” he mutters. “I am not equipped for being hunted by an Omega prince in heat.”
Egg bursts into laughter.
Baelor stills slightly at that word again.
But this time, instead of confusion, something low and instinctive stirs in his chest.
Alive, he thinks again.
He is alive.
And apparently married.
He looks at Dunk.
“Make room,” he says calmly. “It seems I have missed several years of my own life.”
—