Chapter Text
I
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There were few things that truly caught Lyonel Baratheon’s attention, and women —though he enjoyed them— were hardly among the surprises life still held for him. Perhaps that was why he found it far more gratifying to enter every tourney he could or to throw himself into any venture that promised a dangerous sort of excitement. Perhaps it was why he so enjoyed keeping himself in a near-constant state of drunkenness, one that let him see the world only in broad strokes, comfortably blurred around the edges. But bedding women? No. That was nothing out of the ordinary for him.
And no, that girl had been nothing out of the ordinary either. In truth, during his time in Sunspear he had barely noticed her at all—or perhaps he had, but had been far too drunk to remember. Dornish wine was a damned marvel, after all, as were their banquets, laden with foods found nowhere else on the continent: exotic sweets and delicacies from the Free Cities he so rarely had the chance to taste. To Lyonel, that riot of colors, flavors, and scents was utterly hypnotic, and when combined with the effects of the wine it plunged him into a sort of constant haze, a trance in which he could see himself with anyone at all, without ever quite remembering what he had done.
What he did know was that he hadn’t gotten himself into trouble or offended anyone— otherwise someone would have punched him by now, and that hadn’t happened yet. So he could rest easy, confident that he hadn’t lost control too badly.
Dornish women were wonderful, of course. He would never want one as a wife —by his reckoning they were far too unruly, and the only unruly presence at Storm’s End was meant to be him— but they were excellent for a time. Especially since in Dorne everyone was a pack of promiscuous sinners, highborn girls included, and they were well versed in the art of pleasing a man without shame or false modesty, and without risking their reputations. That was one of the reasons most men in Westeros —aside from the incestuous Targaryen fuckers— wanted nothing to do with Dornishwomen. You never knew who they’d been with, or whether they had some bastard running about. They behaved like men, and a proper wife meant to carry a house forward needed at least a shred of decorum.
Still, that didn’t mean a man couldn’t enjoy himself when the chance arose, and Lyonel Baratheon loved enjoying himself.
Even knowing that the women there were far more forward, even knowing he shouldn’t be surprised if one of them turned out to be highborn —perhaps even a great heiress— the matter still caught him off guard.
It had been the third day of the festivities celebrating Princess Ellaria and her consort. That, too, was one of the strange things about Dorne: women could inherit, and men took their names. Lyonel would sooner cut off his own balls than take his wife’s name. He would never allow his house’s legacy to end with him, not over his dead body. But there it was considered perfectly normal, and he had been invited both as the head of one of the most important houses in Westeros and as the lord of the eastern borderlands.
Lyonel had been enjoying himself for nearly a week straight, because if those people knew anything, it was how to throw a feast. Best of all, he didn’t even have to mind his manners. He had fucked whomever he pleased, however he pleased, and it had all been such tremendous fun that he was sure he’d be reminiscing about it for months at Storm’s End, right up until tourney season began. Ending up with a girl was nothing unusual for him, but the way he’d ended up with this one was.
He remembered dancing, or perhaps drinking, or maybe accepting some absurd wager from a Dornish bastard, he wasn’t entirely sure. What he did know was that suddenly someone had grabbed him by the arm. He recalled being surprised to see a rather young girl staring at him with a frown. For a moment he’d thought she might be about to smash his face in over something he’d probably done and couldn’t remember.
Instead, without a word, she kissed him.
He didn’t resist in the slightest, and before he quite realized what was happening, it was he who had her pinned against one of the palace walls, shoving his tongue deep into her mouth. She didn’t seem frightened or hesitant—quite the opposite. She was utterly determined, as though that kiss carried stakes far greater than a simple night of pleasure.
He pulled back slightly, breathing hard, which seemed to annoy her.
“You’re a bit impatient, aren’t you?” he joked.
She frowned.
“I don’t want to talk to you,” she snapped. “Shut your mouth.”
And she kissed him again.
Lyonel thought about protesting, because for some reason her reply didn’t feel like part of a game, but when she started undoing the buttons of his trousers, he didn’t resist. Not least because her skin was astonishingly soft, and above all because she smelled so damned good. That was something he’d noticed about Dornishwomen: they smelled of spices, oils, all manner of things, because apparently they had the habit of bathing regularly. This girl smelled sweet, intoxicating enough to make him want to devour her whole.
And she had one hand on his cock, coaxing it hard.
There was no turning back.
“If you keep this up, I’m going to fuck you right here,” he panted, sliding his hands beneath her dress. That was another thing, the bloody dresses. No absurd layers to waste time with; most were silk or gossamer-thin fabrics made for the heat, and a man could have his lover naked in moments. Lyonel slipped his hands under her skirts, stroking bare skin. “You don’t want them watching how I do it, do you?”
She looked him in the eyes for the first time. They were light-colored, typical of the paler Dornish. There was barely any Rhoynar blood to be seen; he guessed she must come from one of the regions near the Red Mountains.
“What a scandal,” she said, though she didn’t look the least bit concerned. In fact, the thought twisted her lips into the faintest hint of a smile, the first he’d seen. A moment later she clicked her tongue. “This way.”
She didn’t call him my lord. She didn’t use any formal address at all. That was unusual, even in a land so different from his own, but it never crossed Lyonel’s mind that she might think him lowborn, the idea was too insulting to consider.
In any case, before he quite realized it, she had led him into a bedchamber and was undressing in front of him. He took in her body —sculpted, smooth, firm— and entirely on display. He didn’t worry much about anything after that, least of all when she settled naked on his lap and kissed him again, moving shamelessly against him.
It was one hell of a fuck—damnably good. It had been a long time since he remembered enjoying himself so much. Maybe it was the moment, or being away from home, or the days of celebration, or perhaps that little doll seemed made to move atop him like a wild beast. Whatever the reason, when he woke the next morning he was in an excellent mood—until he realized he wouldn’t be repeating the night’s pleasures, because the girl was gone.
She’d vanished.
The next thing he learned was that the bedchamber belonged to Tyronne Martell, cousin to the Princess, who shared it with his wife. Fortunately, Lord Tyronne was understanding when he learned that Lyonel had simply ended up there by chance, he had no desire to start an absurd conflict over a single tumble.
He never saw the girl again. He asked a couple of people about her, but didn’t press the matter. The end of the festivities mattered more, and she was probably just some servant girl who didn’t want anyone to know she’d overstepped. Lyonel didn’t care. In the end, she was only one of many. He wasn’t a man who fretted over his indiscretions, especially not at celebrations like that. Such things happened; there was no point dwelling on them.
A few days later he left Dorne and returned to Storm’s End, resuming his duties as the Storm Lord. He kept training, kept throwing himself recklessly into danger, and kept fucking whenever he pleased. He didn’t think of the girl again until that moment at Ashford, nearly a year and a half later, when —during one of the rare times he wasn’t completely drunk— he spotted her in the crowd, escorted by several knights.
He knew it was her at once. He remembered that even then she’d seemed far too elegant to be a common girl, though he’d taken her for nothing more than a courtesan. He saw her because amid the mud, the shouting, and the shit-smeared men, she stood out in blue garments, astride the lean, graceful Dornish horses that looked as though they’d stepped out of a painting.
He saw her and burst out laughing. Gods, really? How in the seven hells had he managed to fuck a noblewoman without knowing it?
Still, it wasn’t as though he was going to give it much thought. He was curious, yes, but there would be time for that later. His priorities came first: proving his skill as a knight, risking his neck a little, and drinking until his brain finally shut down. Those things came first, or at least his body told him they did. That was why he forgot about seeing her after winning one of the jousts, and why she slipped entirely from his mind when he went off to celebrate with his vassals, who were pleased enough to see their lord in good spirits.
It was then, as one tankard was replaced with another and he promised wine for everyone present at the Storm Lord’s expense, that his killjoy of a cousin, Burton Dondarrion, told him there was a feast being held in House Dayne’s pavilion. It wasn’t common for Dornishmen to deign to attend such tourneys—they preferred spectacle over the solemnity proper to battle—but Lyonel didn’t hesitate. The promise of more drinking, and above all the chance to taste Dornish wine again, was all the guidance he needed.
Lyonel did not hesitate long. Still holding a tankard half full, he pushed himself to his feet and headed toward the area where the Dornish tents had been raised. The Dayne pavilion stood out even among the others: pale fabrics, restrained embroidery, and that almost ceremonial air that always seemed to cling to the House of the Sword of the Morning. But it did not stand alone. Smaller tents clustered around it like satellites, and though the crowd was thinner than at the celebrations of the Reach or the Stormlands, the atmosphere was different—more contained, yet in its own way more intense.
As he crossed the threshold, the first thing that struck him was the smell. Spices, strong wine, incense. It hit him square in the face and drew an automatic grin from him. There were few Dornishmen present, yes, but each of them seemed to take up the space of three ordinary men. Vivid colors, discreet jewels, long, appraising looks. Lyonel moved forward without the slightest shame, nodding to whomever he pleased and accepting a cup that appeared in his hand as if by magic.
That was when he saw her.
Amid the whites and violets of House Dayne, among the sandy hues and muted reds of lesser houses, several Fowler sigils stood out. Hawks embroidered with precision, wings outstretched against blue fields, fabrics that recalled the clear sky above the Red Mountains. And there, in the middle of that small but lively group, she was.
It took little to recognize her. First the way she moved: confident, at ease, as though the place belonged to her. Then her face—more serious than he remembered, but with the same expressiveness in those light eyes, alert and alive. She was speaking with two Dornish knights, gesturing with a cup in hand, and at one point she let out a brief laugh, tilting her head. Lyonel felt a sharp tug low in his stomach.
“Fuck…” he muttered to himself, before laughing again.
House Fowler was one of the oldest and proudest in Dorne, lords of the passes of the Red Mountains, natural guardians of the routes that connected the south with the Marches. They had always been hawks watching from on high, controlling who came and who went, and that position had made them both indispensable and an eternal thorn in the side. To the Dornish, they were a bulwark; to the lords of the Marches, a constant threat.
Tensions with the marcher houses were nothing new. Skirmishes, disputes over roads, raids that never quite became open war but left enough dead that no one forgot them. And, of course, the Baratheons always ended up involved one way or another. Storm’s End was the hammer that fell when things grew too unruly, the reminder that the border existed for a reason and was not to be crossed lightly.
Lyonel had grown up on tales of Dornish hawks and mountain lords, of brittle truces and inherited hatreds passed down like sigils. He had never given it much thought; to him they were names, maps, old grudges that justified training and patrols. Gods, he really had had a good eye.
It was amusing, when he thought about it, though he wasn’t sure his personal advisers would find it half as funny as he did.
He took a long pull from his cup before deciding to approach. He wasn’t in any hurry; in fact, he leaned for a moment against one of the tent’s posts, watching her without the slightest attempt at discretion. She hadn’t seen him yet —or pretended not to— and he allowed himself that small advantage. He remembered her scent, the way she had looked at him only once, as if weighing him. He remembered, too, the curt command to shut your mouth, and a silent laugh shook his chest.
At last he stepped forward, then another, until he was close enough for his presence to be felt. One of the Fowler knights noticed him first and turned, frowning at the sight of the dark-haired giant with the black stag embroidered on his chest. Lyonel raised his cup in greeting, brazen as ever.
She turned a heartbeat later.
For a very brief instant, her expression froze. It wasn’t pure surprise, nor open anger—it was something more complex, a fleeting pause in which Lyonel knew, with absolute certainty, that she had recognized him at once as well. Her eyes narrowed slightly, assessing him just as she had that night, and then she recovered her composure with insulting ease.
“Well, if it isn’t the Lord of the Storm,” she said, her own cup in hand. There was a faintly mocking lilt to her voice, though Lyonel had the impression she was not particularly pleased to see him. “I saw you in the lists this morning.”
A way of telling him she had recognized him then. Lyonel wondered whether, the day they had met in Sunspear, she had known who she was speaking to. Probably—she had been the one to approach him, but now she seemed far from pleased, quite the opposite.
“I regret not having the honor of knowing the name of the charming lady with whom I am speaking,” he replied, never losing his smile. There was something about it all —an unspoken game— that was not only amusing, but exciting.
She glanced sideways at the knights with her, then turned back to him.
“I am Alysanne Fowler,” she said, her expression hardening slightly. “Daughter of Lord Fenrir Fowler, Lord of Skyreach and Warden of the Prince’s Pass. I am here to accompany my brother, Gerrion. The Daynes invited us. ”
She gestured with her chin toward a short distance away. There stood a young man somewhat taller than she, broad-backed but with thin arms and legs, dressed in his house’s blue. They shared the same hair color and fine features; truth be told, he didn’t look like good tourney material. Lyonel thought any lance could snap him in two without much effort.
Lyonel raised his brows at her full introduction. For a fleeting second he thought of how absurdly close he had come to provoking a diplomatic incident of considerable proportions that night in Sunspear and the thought, far from unsettling him, drew a slow, dangerous smile to his lips.
He studied her as she spoke, noting the controlled rigidity of her movements, the way she kept her chin lifted, as though everything around her were slightly beneath her notice. It wasn’t empty arrogance; it was conviction. Lyonel knew that bearing well. And for some reason, it only made her more provocative.
“And what do you think of the tourney, my lady?” he asked, a distinctly playful note in his voice. “This year it’s more interesting than usual.”
He expected some reaction, however small. A twitch, a spark. But she gave him nothing. Her expression remained distant, almost bored, as though the question scarcely merited the effort.
“I find it the sort of thing uncivilized beings enjoy,” she answered without hesitation. “Men playing at war to feel important. I am here solely to support my brother. I find no interest in the rest.”
Lyonel let out a short, nasal laugh. That was genuinely amusing. Uncivilized. He felt something stir inside him, a mix of amusement and challenge.
“How curious,” he replied. “I would have sworn you more inclined toward chaos— perhaps because, for a moment, you reminded me of someone I once knew.”
He looked at her directly, making the implication unmistakable. The memory of that night rose in his mind with irritating clarity: the way she had moved, the determination with which she had sought him out, the brutal contrast with the woman standing before him now. For an instant he wondered if he was pressing too hard—but the mere chance of seeing her react was worth it.
She did not.
Or at least, not in the way he expected.
Alysanne merely watched him with calculated coldness, as though he were little more than a passing distraction. There was no flicker of recognition, no trace of guilt, not even the faintest hint of nostalgia.
“It isn’t possible that we know one another, my lord,” she said at last. “I do not associate with men from beyond the border. I find them coarse. And, if you will forgive my frankness, rather lacking in refinement.”
That, at least, landed true.
The remark struck him like an unexpected slap, not so much for the insult itself (Lyonel had heard far worse), but for the ease with which she delivered it, as if stating an unquestionable fact. He felt the amusement tighten inside him, turning sharp, abrasive.
“I suppose that depends on the sort of company one keeps,” he replied, his smile harder now. “Some would say that refinement is little more than a mask, one that slips as soon as the right doors are closed.”
His eyes locked onto hers, openly challenging. For a heartbeat he thought he had pushed too far. But Alysanne did not flinch. On the contrary, she met his gaze with equal resolve, a dangerous spark flashing there that reminded him —much to his annoyance— why he had never quite managed to forget her.
“Perhaps,” she answered coolly. “Or perhaps some people mistake arrogance for charm.”
The blow was clean.
Alysanne drew a slow breath, as though forcing herself to end the exchange, and softened her expression just a fraction.
“Excuse me, Lord Baratheon,” she added, her courtesy flawless. “I have matters to attend to.”
And with that she turned and walked away, leaving behind the echo of her words, and a Lyonel far less entertained than he had been moments earlier.
He remained where he was, cup still in hand, staring at the empty space she had left behind. His jaw tightened without his noticing. The wine no longer tasted the same. Nor did the music, the nearby laughter, or even the Dornish atmosphere that had so drawn him in at first.
“What a bitch” he muttered, more to himself than to anyone else.
Yet even as the thought crossed his mind, he knew it was not entirely true. What truly unsettled him was not the insult, nor the dismissal, nor even the veiled contempt. It was that, for the first time in a long while, someone had not bent beneath his presence. And that —no matter how irritated he was— was dangerously interesting.
Alysanne Fowler had chosen to accompany her brother Gerrion because she could see no other way to flee without it looking like a retreat. In Sunspear, rumors never ceased; they flowed like water through the palace fountains, whispered between columns, behind silk fans, in courtyards where bougainvillea climbed shamelessly over white walls. She felt them even when she did not hear them, like a constant pressure on her chest, an unwelcome presence reminding her that she was no longer untouchable, that something had broken in plain sight.
She was the youngest of Lord Fenrir Fowler’s four children, and his only daughter. That fact had shaped her life from the beginning, though not in the way many might have expected. In Dorne, being a woman did not necessarily mean submission or silence; daughters could inherit, rule, even command armies if they wished. But Alysanne had been born at the end of the line of succession, too far from her house’s true power for her voice to be decisive, yet close enough to familial affection that no one ever thought to deny her anything. She had grown up sheltered, indulged, wrapped in the certainty that there would always be someone there to catch her if she fell.
It had made her free… and dangerously fragile.
Skyreach, with its sharp towers and cold stone corridors, had been her home only in childhood. The Red Mountains were a harsh place even for the Fowlers, but for a curious, spirited girl hungry for the world they soon became a cage. Alysanne remembered the ceaseless wind, the hawks wheeling over the cliffs, the sensation of always standing on a threshold: between Dorne and the rest of Westeros, between war and truce, between two cultures that never quite touched.
When she was sent to Sunspear to serve as a lady-in-waiting to Princess Ellaria, she was barely eleven years old. What might have been exile to another became a revelation to her.
Sunspear was everything Skyreach was not. Warmth, light, courtyards open to the sky, water running endlessly as though drought were nothing but a distant memory. The air smelled of citrus, salt, and spices brought from far-off lands; life there unfolded openly beneath the sun, unafraid of being seen. Alysanne fell in love with the city almost at once, with its markets bursting with impossible colors, with light fabrics that slid over the skin, with open laughter and conversations free of guilty whispers.
And above all, she fell in love with the court.
The Dornish court was unlike any other. It was neither rigid nor restrained; it was a living space, where politics mingled with music, where alliances were sealed over cups of spiced wine and dances could last until dawn. Women spoke without lowering their voices, men listened without feeling threatened, and desire was not a sin but a natural part of existence.
Alysanne absorbed it all with near-religious devotion.
She learned the Rhoynar customs, adopted their way of dressing, of thinking, of feeling. Though the Fowlers were largely of Andal descent and retained more martial traditions, they had always been loyal to House Martell—and she carried that loyalty a step further. Within her, a firm, almost dangerous conviction began to take shape: Dorne did not need the rest of the kingdoms. Dorne was different, better in many ways, more just. Ideas that, when spoken aloud, drew tense looks and uncomfortable silences. Ideas she learned to keep to herself.
Because even in Dorne, there were limits.
Beyond those mountains, Alysanne was certain her life would have been very different. She would have become a bargaining chip, promised to some lord twice her age, taught to smile and obey. Instead, she had grown up believing that love should be the heart of any union and her father had never denied her that belief. You will marry when you wish, and whom you wish, he had told her more than once. She had believed him without reservation.
That was why Tyronne Martell had mattered so deeply.
It had not been love at first sight, nor a romance fit for song. It was something that grew slowly, through late-night conversations, walks in the gardens, shared confidences. Tyronne was close to the princess, a second cousin of hers indeed, had access to everything Alysanne valued, and seemed to understand her in a way no one else did. In Dorne, premarital relationships were no scandal, and they were no exception. For years, Alysanne had assumed this was her fate—that all that waiting would culminate in a marriage as natural as it was inevitable.
Until it did not.
The news of his betrothal to the heiress of House Yronwood struck her like a hard blow to the stomach. It was not merely a personal betrayal; it was political, symbolic, almost cruel. The Yronwoods and the Fowlers had spent generations contesting supremacy along the border, two opposing visions of what Dorne ought to be. For Tyronne to choose a Yronwood —and an heiress, no less— was a public humiliation.
Alysanne did not know how to handle it.
She had never been taught how to lose, or yield, or accept a final no. Her pride shattered alongside her heart, and what remained was a toxic blend of rage, spite, and a desperate need to reclaim control. That night, during the princess’s wedding, she acted on that impulse alone. She did not think of consequences, or names, or ranks. Only of feeling alive, desired, if only for an instant.
And so she dragged a complete stranger into Tyronne’s bedchamber in a misguided act of vengeance—one that brought her little satisfaction, to the detriment of both her pride and her ego.
She never saw him again. Never sought him out.
Until Ashford.
She had disliked the tourney from the outset. The mud, the noise, the shouting, the violence celebrated as entertainment. Alysanne felt out of place, watching what she considered yet another display of the brutality of men beyond the mountains. She remained only for Gerrion, feigning interest, sheltering herself in her moral superiority.
Until one of the knights removed his helm.
The world stopped.
She recognized his face at once, though more than a year had passed. The hard-set jaw, the arrogant expression, that physical presence impossible to ignore. Memory returned sensations she had buried with care: the scent, the weight, the intensity of that night. And with them came horror.
The Lord of the Stormlands.
Damn.
Alysanne felt the blood drain from her face. For several seconds she heard nothing, saw nothing but him—there, laughing, celebrating a victory that suddenly felt unbearable. Everything she had wanted to leave behind condensed into that single figure: the mistake, the humiliation, the loss of control.
When she saw him enter the Dayne pavilion hours later, she knew the confrontation was inevitable. She prepared for it as one arms oneself for battle: hardening her expression, raising walls, reminding herself who she was. She would not let him unsettle her. Not again.
And when at last they faced one another, when their eyes met and he smiled as though it were all a game, Alysanne decided she would not grant him a single victory more. Not even the small comfort of admitting aloud that, for one night, he had been her weakness.
Because she had learned—at last—that even the proudest birds will crash if they forget where the boundaries lie. This time, she intended to stay aloft.
She repeated it to herself over and over as she walked away with measured steps, as though reciting it might make it less real. She could have slept with anyone. With a nameless knight, with a landless second son, even with a servant. In Dorne it would not have been a tragedy; it would have been an anecdote, one more reckless night in a life that had thus far been allowed to unfold without consequence. In truth, when she chose him, he had not even seemed particularly important. She remembered him only vaguely—shirtless, soaked in wine like a fool, laughing too loudly, drawing attention the way only men do who have nothing to prove… or who believe they have already won everything. No high lord, she had thought then, would debase himself by making such a spectacle.
And yet, he had been one.
Lyonel Baratheon.
The name now left a grit in her mouth, like sand between her teeth. Baratheon was not merely an important house; it was that house. The black stags had for centuries been a constant shadow over the Red Mountains, intervening whenever border quarrels threatened to become something greater. Fowler against Yronwood, Fowler against Caron, Fowler against whoever stood in the way. And always, at some point, Storm’s End appeared as the unwilling arbiter, a reminder that Dorne had limits—even when it refused to acknowledge them. It was not a cordial relationship, not in the least: it was tense, burdened with old grievances and inherited distrust.
And she had ended up in the bed of one of them.
To make matters worse, Lyonel Baratheon embodied everything Alysanne despised when she thought of men beyond the mountains. Drunk, loud, convinced that physical strength made up for every lack of refinement. Coarse in gesture, ill-mannered in speech, with a body large and excessive, seemingly designed for war rather than conversation. There was nothing romantic in it. She could not even console herself with the thought that she had fallen into the arms of someone admirable. No one in her circle would see it as a conquest; it would be fodder for mockery, cruel remarks, looks heavy with pity or scorn.
Gods, things could not possibly get worse.
The humiliation of Sunspear still weighed on her like a stone. She could still feel the heat rising to her face when she remembered it—the looks, the murmurs, the unbearable sensation of having shown too much of herself before too many eyes. She had left Sunspear with the perfect excuse—supporting Gerrion—but the truth was that she had been fleeing. Fleeing from herself, from her mistakes, from a heart that did not yet know how to mend. This was meant to have been a pause, a breath of air.
And now this.
Still, she had kept her composure.
She clung to that thought as she passed out of the pavilion. She had smiled just enough, spoken with cold politeness, raised walls with a skill she had not known she possessed. Pretending not to remember him had been the only sensible choice. Deny everything. Reduce it to nothing. Give him no crack through which to slip. If he thought that night had meant something, that was his problem. For her, it would mean nothing.
But inside, she was trembling.
As soon as the cold night air struck her face, she drew a deep breath, as though she had been holding it far too long. She walked a few more steps, away from the noise, until she allowed herself to lean back against one of the wooden tent poles. She lifted her cup and drained it in a single swallow, without savoring it, without the slightest shred of dignity. The alcohol burned her throat, and she welcomed the sensation. She needed anything that might soothe the knot in her stomach.
She closed her eyes for a moment.
“Too much drink?” a familiar voice pulled her from the haze. Right beside her stood her brother Gerrion, watching her with open skepticism beneath the dim night light. “I told you not to mix the wine with that vile spirit.”
For a moment, the pressure in her chest eased, as though Gerrion’s mere presence had opened a crack through which air could return. She opened her eyes slowly and turned her head toward him. There he was, lounging lazily against a post, wearing that expression of his— half mocking, half concerned— that she knew so well.
Gerrion was only a year and a half older than she was. Too little for there ever to have been a true hierarchy between them. They had grown up almost like twins, sharing tutors, punishments, escapes, and confidences at Skyreach before she was sent to Sunspear. At times he was a complete idiot—loud, reckless, incapable of keeping a secret even if his life depended on it—but he was her brother. And, for all that, her anchor.
“No,” she said at last, pushing herself away from the pole and straightening slightly. “I just… felt overwhelmed for a moment.”
She tried to make her voice sound steady, unconcerned, but she knew she had not quite managed it. Gerrion knew her far too well to swallow a half-formed lie. He narrowed his eyes, studying her more closely than she would have liked.
“Mm,” he murmured.
He did not press her at once, but neither did he let it go. He stepped closer, lowering his voice.
“I saw you earlier,” he added. “In the tent. With that Baratheon git.”
Alysanne’s stomach lurched so violently she nearly cursed aloud. She felt the heat rush back to her face, felt the knot the wine had briefly soothed return with renewed force.
“It’s nothing,” she said too quickly.
Gerrion arched a brow.
“That’s the most obvious lie I’ve heard from you in quite some time. You’re losing your touch, little sister.”
Damn it. Alysanne pressed her lips together and turned her gaze toward the darkness of the camp. For several seconds she simply listened to the distant murmur of the feast, the occasional whinny of a horse, the metallic clatter of poorly set armor. She thought of all the reasons she should say nothing. That Gerrion could not keep his mouth shut. That it was humiliating even to herself. That she gained nothing by sharing it.
But she also thought of the weight she had been carrying for months, of how tired she was of pretending everything was under control.
“Do you remember…” she began, swallowing. “When I told you I slept with someone in Tyronne’s bed during the princess’s wedding?”
Gerrion frowned, startled by the shift in tone.
“Of course I remember,” he replied. “Not your finest move, by the way.”
Alysanne closed her eyes for a second before finishing it.
“Well. It was him.”
A thick silence followed. Gerrion blinked once. Then again. His expression shifted from confusion to recognition—and from there to absolute horror.
“Wait,” he said slowly. “Wait. What?”
He stared at her as though trying to decide whether she was serious. When it dawned on him that she was, that it was not a joke, he brought a hand to his forehead.
“By the Seven… Alysanne.”
And then, against all odds, he began to laugh.
An open, ringing laugh, impossible to contain. He doubled over slightly, bracing himself against the nearest post, while she stared at him with a mixture of indignation and murderous intent.
“It’s not funny.”
“Oh, it absolutely is,” he replied between laughs. “The bloody Lord of the Stormlands! You fucked a bloody stag— gods, this is a good one.”
“You’re an idiot,” she snarled, feeling her cheeks blaze. “A loud-mouthed idiot. I shouldn’t have told you.”
She turned, intent on leaving, but Gerrion caught her arm gently, his smile finally fading.
“Hey,” he said. “I’m not telling anyone.”
She looked at him with suspicion.
“I mean it, Lys,” he added. “I care about you too much to do that. Besides, I don’t fancy being poisoned in my sleep. But gods… the fucking Lord Baratheon. Father would be so mad at you. ”
She sighed, shaking herself free of his grip, still sulking.
“Go to the hells,” she muttered.
She crossed her arms over her chest, settling on a decision with a firmness she desperately needed to believe.
Whatever happened, she would stay away from Lyonel Baratheon. As far away as she possibly could. She would endure the tourney, feign normalcy, and as soon as her brother had fulfilled his obligations, they would return to Dorne.
Home.