Chapter 4: The Gift and the Gilded Cage
The scent of lavender was thick enough to taste, a purple haze hanging over the garden paths. Roslin sat on a white marble bench beneath a gilded arch, the warmth of the stone seeping through the thin silk of her gown. She held a book of poetry open on her lap, but her eyes were on the man walking toward her.
Jace moved through the gardens like a stormcloud drifting across a sunny field. He was out of place here, all black leather and restrained violence amidst the blowsy roses and humming bees. His silver hair was pushed back, sharpening the harsh lines of his face. He carried a long, narrow box of dark wood.
Ser Arryk followed at a discreet distance, a silent shadow, his hand resting on the pommel of his sword.
Roslin marked her page with a ribbon and set the book aside. She didn’t smile. Not yet. She’d learned that brightness seemed to alarm him, to make him retreat. She simply watched him approach, her honey-brown eyes calm, taking him in.
He stopped before her, the box in his hands. He didn’t sit.
“My lady.”
“My prince.” She gestured to the space beside her. “Will you sit? The sun is lovely here.”
He glanced at the bench as if it were a trap, then lowered himself onto the very edge of it, placing the box between them like a barrier. The space of two people could have fit in the gap he left. Up close, she could see the faint, pale scar that cut through his eyebrow, the tired tension in the set of his jaw.
“I have something for you,” he said, his voice flat. He didn’t look at her. He opened the box.
Inside, nestled on black velvet, lay a dagger. It was slender, its blade a rippling, dark grey smoke trapped in steel. The hilt was pale dragonbone, worn smooth, wrapped with silver wire. It was utterly beautiful, and utterly lethal.
Roslin’s breath caught. Not at the beauty, but at the statement. This was no pretty trinket. This was a tool of death, gifted by a man of war.
“It’s Valyrian steel,” Jace said, as if commenting on the weather. “Lighter than it looks. The balance is here.” He lifted it from the box, his grip easy, familiar. He turned it, and the cloudy metal caught the light, revealing hidden depths. He offered it to her, hilt-first.
She reached out, her fingers brushing his as she took it. His skin was calloused, rough. Hers was soft. The dagger was shockingly light, cool in her palm. It felt alive, humming with a silent, deadly potential.
“For protection,” he said, his violet eyes finally flicking to hers. “Not decoration.”
She tested the weight he’d spoken of, rotating her wrist slowly. The blade moved as if it were an extension of her own hand. It was a frightening feeling. Empowering.
“It’s beautiful,” she said quietly. “Thank you.” She looked from the blade to his face. That unreadable flicker was in his eyes again, the same one she’d seen when she’d offered the obsidian dragon. Conflict. Annoyance, maybe. “You don’t think I should like it. Because it’s pretty.”
“It’s not pretty. It’s functional. The beauty is a byproduct of its purpose.” He looked away, over the lavender fields toward the sea. “You should keep it close. Not in a chest. On your person.”
Roslin placed the dagger carefully back in its velvet nest. She closed the lid, the soft click final. “Will you show me? How to use it, I mean. Not just how to hold it.”
He barked a short, humorless laugh. “What would your septas say? A Tyrell rose learning to spill blood with a dagger.”
“I imagine they’d say a rose has thorns for a reason,” Roslin said, her voice still soft. She met his gaze and held it. “You gave me the thorn, my prince. It seems only fair you show me how to use it.”
He stared at her, really stared, his assessment cold and thorough. She didn’t flinch. She let him see the resolve beneath the gentle surface. The steel she was slowly tempering.
“Maybe,” he said, the word dragged out of him. He stood up abruptly, the moment broken. “I have council. Arryk will see you back to Maegor’s.”
He began to walk away, his black cloak stirring the lavender heads.
“Jace.”
He stopped, his back rigid. He rarely heard his name from her lips.
Roslin stood, the box in her hands. “The lemon cakes at tomorrow’s midday meal are supposed to be exceptional. Will you try one with me?”
It was such a small, absurd thing. A lemon cake. After a Valyrian steel dagger. After everything.
He half-turned, his profile sharp against the blue sky. “I don’t like sweet things.”
“I know,” she said. “But you might.”
She saw his jaw tighten. He gave a curt, barely perceptible nod, then strode away, Ser Arryk falling into step behind him, leaving her alone with the humming bees and the weight of the dagger box.
Back in her chambers, she didn’t lock the blade away. She slipped the dagger from its box, its cool weight a comfort. She knelt by her trunk and felt along the inner seam of her winter cloak, finding the cleverly hidden slit her mother’s seamstress had sewn years ago, ‘for gold, or for secrets.’ She slid the Valyrian steel blade inside. It lay flat and invisible against the thick wool.
A knock came at the door. Alys Rivers entered without waiting, her smile a practiced curve of politeness. “You summoned me, my lady?”
Roslin rose, smoothing her skirts. “I did. I find myself curious about the drainage issues in the lower vineyards of Dragonstone. The reports mention frequent flooding that spoils the rootstock. I was hoping you could explain the prince’s proposed solutions to me. You seem to understand his… practical mind so well.”
Alys’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. She understood the game. A lesson on irrigation was a declaration of war fought with parchment and politics, not hair-pulling and hissed threats. “Of course,” Alys said, her voice sweet as poison. “It’s a complex problem. It requires a firm hand. And an understanding that some things are simply too soft for the environment. They drown.”
Roslin’s returning smile was just as sweet. “Then we must learn to build better drains, mustn’t we? Please, begin.”
As Alys spoke, her words laced with subtle barbs, Roslin listened, her hands folded neatly. She felt the hidden weight of the dagger against her thigh, a secret truth beneath the pretty silk. He had given her a weapon. Not a ring, not a promise. A sharp, honest piece of his world.
She intended to learn how to wield it. And she was starting with the terrain.