Chapter 5: Lemon Cakes and Lightning Strikes
The banquet hall thrummed with the low, polished murmur of courtiers at ease. Sunlight streamed through the high, leaded windows, painting hot bars of gold across the long table where platters of roasted fowl, steaming breads, and jewel-like fruits were being systematically dismantled. Roslin sat at the end of the high table, a place of honor that felt like an island. She picked at a piece of smoked fish, her eyes tracking the room’s true center of gravity.
Jace stood near the great hearth, one hand resting on the carved stone mantle, the other holding a goblet of wine he hadn’t sipped. A semicircle of lords hovered around him, their laughter a bit too loud, their postures a bit too eager. Ser Arryk was a statue three paces behind his prince’s shoulder, his eyes performing a slow, constant sweep of the room. Jace was listening to a portly lord from the Crownlands, his expression neutral, but Roslin saw the slight tension in his neck, the almost imperceptible tap of his index finger against the stone. He was bored. He was enduring.
She felt a pang of something like sympathy, quickly followed by frustration. He was over there, playing prince. She was over here, playing a decorative figurine. The hidden weight of the dagger against her thigh was a cold, hard secret, a whisper that contradicted everything about her current position.
A chair scraped beside her. She turned, expecting a servant, and found a man slouching into Jace’s empty seat. He had the Targaryen silver hair, but his was tousled, falling carelessly over a forehead flushed with wine or sun. His eyes were a lighter, laughing violet, and his smile was wide and easy.
“Well, this is a grim post,” he said, his voice a warm, conspiratorial drawl. He reached for the platter in the center of the table. “Stuck at the end of the world with the leftover capons. And you’re the famous Rose of Highgarden. I’m Daeron.”
“Cousin to the prince,” Roslin said, recovering her poise. She’d heard of him. The second in line. The charming one.
“Regrettably, yes. Makes family feasts a real trial.” He winked, piling two lemon cakes onto a small porcelain plate. They were perfect, glazed a pale yellow and dusted with sugar. He pushed the plate toward the space between them. “Rescue mission. Nobody should face a Tyrell with empty hands. It’s bad diplomacy. Try one. They’re sublime. The only reason to attend these tedious affairs.”
His manner was so open, so effortlessly friendly, that Roslin’s own social reflexes took over. She smiled, a real one, and took a cake. “You’re not with the others, currying favor?”
“Gods, no. Watching Jace be stoic is my favorite sport, but even that has its limits. He’s been in that same pose for an hour. I think he’s secretly asleep with his eyes open. A battle-hardened skill.” Daeron took a large bite of his cake, closing his eyes in mock ecstasy. “See? Sublime. You’re from the Reach. You understand the importance of a good dessert.”
He was flirting. It dawned on her slowly, not because she was naive, but because it was so devoid of the calculated pressure she felt from others. It was light, like the sugar on the cake. It felt like a game. She played along. “We consider it the final, crucial negotiation of the meal.”
“A philosophy I can champion.” He leaned closer, his voice dropping to a stage whisper. “Between us, I think he only commands such fear because he never indulges. No sweets, no laughter, no fun. It’s all battle plans and grim pronouncements. How’s a court supposed to relax?”
Roslin laughed, a soft, genuine sound she hadn’t realized was stuck in her throat. It was a relief. “Perhaps he hasn’t found the right incentive.”
“Perhaps he’s a lost cause,” Daeron sighed theatrically. He was about to say more when the air around them chilled.
The murmuring at the hearth had stopped. Jace was walking toward them, his movement fluid and silent, cutting through the hall’s warmth like a knife through silk. The lords scattered from his path. His focus was absolute, his violet eyes fixed on Daeron with a flat, dangerous intensity.
He stopped at the head of the table, his hand coming down to rest on the back of the chair Daeron occupied—his chair.
“Get out of my seat.”
The words were quiet, devoid of heat, which made them worse. They were simple fact.
Daeron didn’t startle. He leaned back, looking up at his cousin with exaggerated laziness. “It was empty. I was keeping your betrothed company. She was languishing from neglect. It was a mercy.”
“Now.”
Daeron sighed, making a show of reluctantly standing. He brushed nonexistent crumbs from his doublet. “Fine, fine. The sun always wins, I suppose.” He gestured to the lemon cakes. “At least take the lady’s advice. Try one. Live a little. It won’t kill you, though I know you’d prefer a dignified death in battle.”
Jace’s gaze flicked to the plate, then to Roslin. Her face felt warm. She saw the confusion in his eyes, seeing her easy smile, the half-eaten cake in her hand, the relaxed set of her shoulders beside his jovial cousin. It was a picture of a world he wasn’t in.
“I don’t like sweet things,” Jace said, the words aimed at Daeron but his eyes holding Roslin’s.
“Exactly my point,” Daeron smirked. “All steel and no sap. It’s tragic.”
Something snapped in Jace’s demeanor. A muscle leapt in his jaw. Without breaking eye contact with Roslin, he reached down, picked up the remaining lemon cake from the plate, and took a deliberate bite. He cheched, his expression unchanging, as if consuming ash. He swallowed.
“There,” he said, his voice gravelly. “Happy?”
Daeron stared, his smirk frozen, then melted into a real, delighted grin. “Astonished. I’ll mark the date. The day Prince Jacaerys Targaryen did something just to be contrary.” He gave Roslin an elaborate bow. “My lady, you are a witness to history. And a far brighter decoration to this table than he is.” With a final, mocking salute to Jace, he sauntered back into the crowd.
Silence pooled around their end of the table. Jace finally looked away from her, staring at the remains of the cake in his hand with distaste, as if surprised to find it there. He dropped it back onto the plate.
Roslin watched him, the earlier confusion crystallizing into a sharp, clear understanding. This hadn’t been about the cake, or the seat. It had been about territory. About Daeron’s easy intrusion into a space—physical, conversational—that Jace himself kept barricaded. He’d eaten the cake not to spite the sweet, but to spite the man who offered it. To prove a point she didn’t fully grasp.
“You didn’t have to do that,” she said softly.
“Yes,” he said, finally sinking into his reclaimed chair. He didn’t look at her. “I did.”
He signaled for a servant to bring him wine. The glassy, controlled mask was back, but she had seen the crack. The irrational, almost boyish impulse beneath the prince’s frost. The hall’s noise slowly swelled to fill the void Daeron had left, but the space between her and Jace was charged with a new, bewildering energy. He had, for the first time, done something for no strategic reason at all. And she had been the cause, and the witness.
She looked down at her own lemon cake, its sweetness now cloying on her tongue. The game had just become infinitely more complex.