The Day of the Smith, when lords were accustomed to their ledgers and stewards to their accounts, was Otto's preferred day for correspondence.
He sat alone in his tower study long after the bells had rung the hour of the owl, a single tallow candle guttering beside a tray of crimson wax and the heavy bronze seal of the Hand. Below his narrow casement, the Blackwater lay black as pitch, pricked here and there by the orange riding-lights of anchored galleys.
The parchment before him was already crowded with the great names of the realm—Tully, Arryn, Lannister, Tyrell, Baratheon, Stark—written out in the Grand Maester's neat, unhurried hand. Prince Daeron's sixth nameday would be kept six weeks hence; sufficient notice for even distant banners to make the journey, provided they departed without delay.
Only three lines remained blank at the foot of the roll, arranged in the exact order of their tractability.
Otto dipped his own quill, holding it suspended a fraction of an inch above the vellum while the nib gathered a dark bead of ink.
Lord Corlys Velaryon, Master of Driftmark, and Princess Rhaenys Targaryen.
That line, at least, was clean. Two months had passed since the Dragonkeepers had brought Seasmoke back to the Pit, and Driftmark had swallowed the blade without a sound. No banners raised. No ships pulled from the Stepstones. Corlys had even sent gifts after the keepers for their voyage home. A gesture of courtesy from the proud patriarch, and one Otto could hardly afford to leave unrewarded.
Otto's quill scratched steadily across the vellum, completing the line.
He paused longer over the final two entries.
Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen, Princess of Dragonstone, and Prince Daemon Targaryen.
The names alone were enough to bring a faint ache behind his eyes.
Leaving them off the roll was out of the question, however; empty chairs on the dais would invite every court gossip from Oldtown to White Harbor to whisper of fracture—and worse, draw Viserys's suspicious eyes straight toward his Hand.
Yet even if the invitation was a necessity, their presence was a wildfire he had no desire to loose inside an orderly hall. Rhaenyra and Daemon never came quietly. They would arrive like a disruption in formal dress, and half the court would gravitate towards them, drawn to the volatile and the beautiful, until the evening Otto had so carefully arranged began to revolve around them instead.
And yet Otto had not entirely abandoned hope of a quieter feast. Rhaenyra and Daemon had scarcely troubled themselves with King's Landing since the wedding. Several letters had gone unanswered, invitations declined or ignored, and Dragonstone had become their preferred refuge from the court. Otto had little reason to suppose his grandson's nameday celebration would prove sufficient enticement to bring them back. Knowing Daemon, it would be further incentive to stay away.
He dipped his quill again, but did not yet set it to the parchment.
An invitation must be sent. That much was beyond question. Should they come, he would endure their presence and make the necessary accommodations. Should they decline—or, as seemed increasingly their habit, offer no reply at all—then the slight would be theirs to answer for. Viserys might grieve his daughter's absence, but he could hardly fault his Hand for extending the invitation.
Otto had no intention of being seen to hold the knife. If the ties between the King and his family were to fray, it would be far better that they did so by their own hands.
Otto set the nib to the parchment and wrote both names cleanly, pressing the seal of the Hand into the hot red wax before the ink had even finished drying.
The King's own letter was not part of Otto's design.
He learned of it three evenings later, when a novice maester mentioned that His Grace had called for parchment, beeswax, and his personal signet the previous night, then spent two hours at his desk with the door barred against attendants. Two mornings after that, a fast rider in Targaryen black-and-red cleared the Mud Gate bound for the coast, carrying a heavy sealed packet straight toward a waiting skiff.
Otto said nothing at the small council table that morning. He couldn't intercept a royal courier without risking the King's wrath, and he knew better than to question Viserys about matters concerning his daughter; that was one locked chamber in the Red Keep where the Hand held no key.
Eight days later, a single raven dropped out of the grey sky from Dragonstone.
Otto never laid eyes on the strip of parchment it carried. He needed only to observe the King that evening. Viserys ate half a capon with real appetite, laughed aloud at a clumsy jest from Lord Beesbury, and leaned across the board to ask the Master of Revels whether the musicians from Myr had arrived yet.
Across the high table, Otto folded his hands calmly over his knee and took a slow sip of watered wine.
She is coming.
Alicent heard it from Viserys himself the next afternoon.
She was seated in her solar with a thick history of the early Targaryen reigns open across her knees—genuinely reading, tracing the cramped lines of old High Valyrian lineage with one forefinger—when a soft, uneven knock sounded at the door.
She looked up as he entered. Viserys was having one of his rare, clear days; his breathing came without that familiar wet rattle, and he lowered himself into the cushioned chair opposite hers without wincing or bracing his weight against the armrests.
"She is coming," he said.
Alicent didn't need to ask who. Only one name ever brought that specific, fragile brightness into her husband's eyes.
"Rhaenyra," she said evenly.
"And Daemon. And all the children." Viserys smiled—the slightly hesitant smile of a man who had reached out in the dark and scarcely dared believe his fingers had closed around what he wanted. "Every one of them."
Alicent let her face settle into the warm pleasure the moment required. "That is wonderful news, Your Grace. Daeron will be beside himself."
"I wrote to her myself," Viserys murmured, gazing past her shoulder toward the sunlit window. "After so long... I thought perhaps she might refuse. Yet she answered at once."
His eyes came back to Alicent then, searching her face for a long, quiet beat—as though some further word pressed against his lips, something softer or more apologetic that he couldn't quite find the bridge to cross. He let it go unsaid.
"I wanted you to be the first to know," he said gently.
"Thank you," Alicent answered. "I'm glad you told me."
When the door clicked shut behind him, Alicent sat motionless for a long while, her forefinger still resting between the vellum leaves.
She had expected the old, familiar tightness to clamp around her ribs at the thought of Rhaenyra walking back into the Red Keep. Instead, a stranger, quieter ache settled in its place. She could picture Viserys bent over his desk at midnight, his stiff fingers gripping a quill—a tired man trying to summon warmth back into his hall because the warmth inside his own chambers had gone cold without a word of explanation.
She knew the shape of his loneliness too well to resent it, and welcomed the distraction for both of them. Slowly, Alicent closed the heavy book, stood up, and went to summon the steward to review the seating rolls for the high dais.
At Driftmark, the raven arrived on a morning of grey clouds and a heavy swell crashing against the seawalls.
Rhaenys was in the dragon yard when the maester found her, watching Meleys pace the far basalt ridge with restless, clicking talons as a storm gathered out over the Gullet. She broke the crimson wax where she stood, one gloved hand resting against the warm stone of the parapet while the salt wind whipped her silver braids across her cheek.
She carried the parchment up to the solar at midday.
Corlys was bent over harbor ledgers with his steward, who took one glance at Rhaenys's face and bowed himself out before a word was spoken.
Corlys read the summons twice, laid it flat beside the inkpot, and leaned back in his carved chair, studying her face in the grey light from the window. "Your counsel?"
"We go."
Corlys's brow lifted slightly. "On the strength of a boy's nameday feast?"
"On the strength of decades of loyal service, a fleet the crown cannot replace, and the plain fact that refusing a royal summons two months after Viserys stripped us of Seasmoke would tell every lord in the realm that the blow landed," she answered. "Half the court has sent us condolences since the keepers sailed, fishing to see how badly Driftmark is bleeding. Walking into that hall unbroken—with our heads high and our banners flying—says more than any protest could."
Corlys turned his silver cup slowly between his weathered fingers. "You want them to see that it didn't break us."
"I want them to see that we cannot be broken," Rhaenys corrected. "There is a difference."
A faint gleam crossed his dark eyes. "And when Viserys corners me before the dais, fishing for the forgiveness he hasn't the spine to ask for?"
"You will be gracious," Rhaenys said smoothly, "and he will be grateful, and every lord in that room will see a man whose pride was never on loan from the Iron Throne to begin with."
Corlys sat quiet for a heartbeat, his gaze sharpening. "And how will you deal with Daemon? If Dragonstone answers the call?"
Rhaenys didn't blink. "If they come, we greet them as kin—before the court, where eyes are watching." She paused, letting the cold edge settle cleanly into her voice. "Everything else will keep until we are out of sight."
Corlys held her stare, reading it, and nodded once. He drew the parchment back toward himself and pressed one thumb over the wax. "Tell the maester we accept. With full courtesies."
At Dragonstone, the royal courier had arrived beneath a pale, sharp morning sky, his black-and-red cloak snapping in the cliff wind. Jace had glimpsed him from the training yard and thought nothing of it—until supper had ended and a servant summoned him alone to his mother's solar.
The room was stiflingly warm from the hearth, smelling faintly of dried lavender and scorched parchment. Rhaenyra sat near the window-seat, one hand resting heavily atop the high, unmistakable swell of her belly beneath a loose gown of dark crimson wool. Near the fire stood Daemon, swirling an untouched cup of wine with the tight, restless stillness of a man who had argued a point to the bone, lost it, and was now swallowing the taste with whatever pride he could muster.
Jace stopped two paces inside the door, glancing once from his mother's tired face to Daemon's rigid shoulders.
"We are sailing for King's Landing," Rhaenyra said quietly. "For Prince Daeron's nameday feast."
Jace went still. "All of us?"
"Yes."
"When did you decide?"
Rhaenyra's eyes flicked briefly toward Daemon, who stared into the flames without speaking. "This afternoon," she said, resting her fingertips lightly against a folded square of thick parchment on the table beside her—not the Hand's formal summons, Jace noticed, but a heavier sheet bearing the King's own private seal. "Your grandsire wrote to me. He asked us to come."
Jace looked closely at his mother—at the faint violet shadows beneath her eyes, the heavy, awkward way she shifted against the cushions, and the sudden, unguarded softness around her mouth that had nothing to do with council politics. He had seen that same surrender the morning he told her he had written to Corlys.
His gaze shifted to Daemon, seeing much the same look in his eyes, though much better guarded by steel and anger.
Jace inclined his head. "Do you need anything from me tonight, Mother?"
Rhaenyra's expression softened, as she cupped the side of his face in one warm palm. "No, sweet boy. Get some rest."
In the cold stone corridor outside, Jace stood for a moment listening to the sea wind howl through the arrow-slits. Driftmark would be there. Corlys and Rhaenys would be in that hall, right alongside the boys and the girls.
Something for all of us, Baela had whispered on the gangplank.
It hadn't come by his own hand, yet the realm was giving them the room anyway. Jace turned down the gallery toward the girls' solar, already bubbling with excitement to break the news.
Three days before the first ships were due in the harbor, Otto Hightower sat once more across from Alicent on the cold stone bench of the Maiden's Garden, watching her check off entries in the household feast-rolls.
Two hundred seats in the throne room. Three kitchens burning day and night. Fresh rushes, aired tapestries, and a quiet, private word passed to the Master of Ceremonies ensuring the Velaryon seahorse banners hung directly beside the Targaryen three-headed dragon—for reasons Otto didn't bother explaining aloud.
"Lord Corlys's galley is expected on the fourth tide," Alicent said without looking up from her slate.
"I know," Otto murmured.
"And Rhaenyra and Daemon on the fifth morning, if the wind out of the Gullet holds fair."
"Then let us pray for rain."
Alicent turned a leaf of parchment. Between them, the stone maiden's broken pitcher poured its thin, endless thread of water into the moss-dark pool.
"Are you worried, Father?" she asked softly.
Otto considered the question with genuine care. "I am not worried, Alicent. I am attentive."
The faintest curve touched her lips. "Is there a difference?"
"Worry accomplishes nothing," he said evenly, folding his hands over his sleeve. "Watching ensures I am never surprised."
"You expect something to go wrong?" she asked.
"Something will go wrong," Otto said plainly. "It always does. The question is never if—only where the crack opens, and whether our hands are already resting on it."
"And if it cannot be managed?"
Otto's expression didn't flicker. "Then we ensure that when the wall comes down, it falls outward into the court—and not onto our heads."
Alicent looked back down at her accounts, dipping her quill neatly into the inkhorn. "I must see the septa before supper about Daeron's tunic. He has grown half an inch since the first fitting."
"Yes," Otto said, rising and smoothing the front of his doublet. "Children have a habit of doing that."
When his measured footsteps had vanished down the garden path, Alicent sat alone for a moment longer in the thinning autumn light, listening to the distant bronze bells of the sept toll the afternoon hour.
Six days.
In six days, the throne room would be packed shoulder to shoulder with people who hadn't stood beneath the same roof in months—carrying enough unspoken debts, fresh wounds, and hidden truths to sink a fleet. And at the center of it all, seated on the Iron Throne with his youngest son at his knee, Viserys would look out over the hall and believe, with all the stubborn tenderness left in his failing body, that he had finally made his family whole.
Alicent closed the ledger, tucked her quill away, and rose to go inside—hoping, for her husband's sake alone, that the illusion held until the last toast was drunk.