Chapter 13: The Second Godswood Meeting
Three days felt like three years.
I'd trained every waking hour, pushed my body until muscles screamed, then pushed harder. But underneath it all, a countdown ran in my head. Seventy-two hours. Forty-eight. Twenty-four.
Three days until I could see her again.
Get a grip. She's a mission objective, not... not whatever this is.
But when I walked into the godswood at noon on day fifty-three, my heart rate spiked in a way that had nothing to do with combat readiness.
She was already there.
Helaena knelt near the weirwood's roots, watching a spider construct its web between two low branches. The web caught the afternoon light, turning it into something geometric and perfect.
I approached slowly. Sat down two meters away, same as before.
Five minutes of silence. Just breathing, watching her watch the spider. Septa Teora stood near the entrance, radiating disapproval.
"The ants told me you'd come." Helaena's voice was soft, matter-of-fact.
"The ants are wise."
Her lips twitched. Not quite a smile, but something close. "They also said you're burning yourself."
I went still. How could she—?
She turned, reached out, touched my bandaged hand with one finger. Gentle. Curious.
"Why?"
The question hung between us like the spider's web. Delicate. Easy to break with the wrong answer.
Truth. Or as much as I could give.
"Because I need to be strong enough to stand in fire and not burn." I looked at her, held her gaze. "There are... things coming. Bad things. And I won't be able to stop them if I'm afraid of pain."
Her head tilted. That bird-like motion. "You see the future?"
"No. I just pay attention."
"Then you're wiser than most." She released my hand, turned back to the spider. "Most people don't look. They just... exist. Moving through their days like the ants, but without purpose."
"Is that what you do? Look?"
"I see things." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "In dreams. In the patterns beetles make when they walk. In the way shadows fall." She paused. "People think I'm mad."
"You're not mad."
She glanced at me sharply. "How do you know?"
"Because madness is seeing things that aren't there. You see things that are there, just from angles nobody else considers."
Silence. The spider finished a section of web, moved to the next anchor point.
"My mother pities me," Helaena said quietly. "Aegon mocks me. Even Rhaenyra looks at me like I'm broken." Her fingers traced patterns in the dirt. "But you don't."
"Because you're not broken. You're just different."
"Different." She tested the word. "I like that better than mad."
We sat together, watching the spider work. Minutes passed. Maybe ten. Maybe twenty. Time felt strange in the godswood, like it moved at its own pace.
Then Helaena stiffened.
"The beast beneath the boards will come for the little ones."
Her voice changed. Distant. Like she was reading something written in the air.
My blood went cold.
"What?" I kept my voice level. Calm.
"The beast beneath the boards. It has two heads, but one is already rotting." Her eyes were unfocused now, seeing something I couldn't. "They'll ask her to choose. She'll choose wrong. Everyone chooses wrong."
Blood and Cheese. She's seeing Blood and Cheese.
"When?" I asked carefully.
She blinked. The distance in her eyes faded, replaced by confusion. "When what?"
"When will the beast come?"
"I don't know. The dreams don't have time. Just screams. Always screams." Her hands trembled. "My children—"
I took her hand without thinking. She didn't pull away.
"I won't let anything happen to your children. I swear it."
She looked at our joined hands, then at my face. "Why do you care? You don't even know them."
"Because you do. And because some things are worth protecting, whether I know them or not."
Her hand squeezed mine. Tight. Like she was drowning and I was the only solid thing in reach.
"The dreams show fire and blood and darkness. They show a white figure standing in the center, burning but not consumed." She leaned closer. "Is that you?"
"I don't know. Maybe."
"The butterflies say you're dangerous."
"I am."
"But not to me."
"Never to you."
The spider finished its web. A fly landed in it, struggled. The spider descended quickly, began wrapping it in silk.
"Death comes for everyone," Helaena whispered, watching the fly's last struggles. "But maybe it doesn't have to come for them. Not yet."
Septa Teora's voice cut through the moment. "Princess, you have lessons. We must return."
Helaena stood slowly, reluctantly. Brushed grass from her dress. Looked at me one more time.
"Will you come back?"
"Every third day. If you'll have me."
She smiled. Small. Fragile. Real.
"The butterflies would like that."
Then she was gone, walking toward the entrance with that strange, floating gait. Like she was somewhere else entirely.
I stayed beneath the weirwood, alone except for the completed web and its dying prey.
Two heads. The beast has two heads.
Cheese. I knew about Cheese from the informants' reports.
But Blood—the second head—I hadn't identified yet.
And Helaena's prophecy had a timeline problem. She'd said "one is already rotting." Past tense. Did that mean one of them was dead? Or dying?
No. Think. "Rotting" could mean morally corrupt. Or literally dying of disease.
I needed more information. Needed to find Blood before the beast could fully form.
I stood, headed for the exit.
Three days until I could see her again. Three days to hunt.
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