Chapter 18: The Reunion
The morning light was kinder, falling through the arbor in soft, dappled pieces. Naerys sat on the stone bench, the same one Gwayne had draped with a shawl weeks before. Baelon was a solid, wriggling weight in her lap, intent on cramming a fistful of crushed violet petals into his mouth. She gently pried his fingers open, brushing the debris away. “Not food, my love. Pretty, but not food.”
The scent of roses was heavy, mingling with the damp earth smell from the fountain. Its water was perfectly still today, a dark mirror reflecting the tangled branches above. She felt enormous, a vessel stretched to its absolute limit. Every breath was shallow. The baby within was quiet, a rare stillness that felt like gathering force.
Then she saw them.
Two figures passed from the shadow of the Tower’s postern gate into the sunlit garden. They moved with a familiar, predatory grace that made the air catch in her throat. Silver-gold hair, pale as moonlight. One wore it cropped short, rebellious and practical. The other’s was braided in an intricate coronet. They were thinner than she remembered, harder around the eyes, but they were them.
Baela and Rhaena.
Naerys’s hand flew to her mouth. A sound escaped, a choked gasp of pure disbelief. She hadn’t seen them since King’s Landing, since the black despair after her mother’s death, before the Greens had carved up the remnants of their family. She was a prize to be secured; they were threats to be sidelined.
Baelon, sensing her shock, stared up at her with his wide, violet eyes—Rhaenyra’s eyes, Daemon’s eyes.Their eyes.
“By the dragon,” Baela breathed, stopping a few feet away. Her voice was rougher, a soldier’s voice. Her gaze swept over Naerys, taking in the heavy swell of her pregnancy, the Hightower colors of her dress, the healthy boy in her lap. A complex storm of emotions crossed her sharp features. Relief.Pain. A hint of defensive fury.
Rhaena stepped forward first, her movements more fluid. She knelt on the flagstones before the bench, her hands hovering, as if unsure where to land on this changed version of their little sister. “Naerys,” she whispered. The name was a prayer.
“How?” was all Naerys could manage, tears already hot on her cheeks. “They said you were both at Driftmark, that you couldn’t…”
“Your lord husband,” Baela said, coming to stand beside Rhaena, her arms crossed. Her tone was not quite accusatory, but deeply wary. “A raven arrived, sealed with the Hightower beacon. An invitation. No, a summons. Discreet, but clear. He said you had need of us.”
Gwayne. He’d said nothing. Not a word. The secret, orchestrated kindness of it left her winded. He’d reached into the careful partitions of their fractured world and pulled them through.
Rhaena’s hands finally settled, one on Naerys’s knee, the other on Baelon’s curly head. The toddler stared at this new stranger, then broke into a gummy, dribbling smile. “This is him?” Rhaena asked, her own eyes glistening. “This is Baelon?”
Naerys nodded, her voice thick. “Baelon, meet your aunts. Your real aunts.” The word held a weight of fire and blood.
Baelon reached out a sticky hand and grabbed a lock of Rhaena’s braid. He yanked. Rhaena laughed, a wet, happy sound, and gently freed herself. “He has our father’s grip.”
They moved to a wider stone seat near the silent fountain. Naerys felt their eyes on her, cataloging every detail. The way she held herself, the quality of her clothes, the ease with which she handled the child. She saw the question burning behind Baela’s guarded gaze.
“Tell us,” Baela said finally, cutting through the pleasantries about the journey and the weather. She leaned forward, elbows on her knees.“Everything. Start with him. The Hightower.”
Naerys took a slow breath. She bounced Baelon lightly on her knee. “Gwayne is… not what I expected.”
“They never are,” Baela muttered.
“No. Listen.” Naerys’s voice found a firmer ground. “He has never raised his voice to me. He has never used my family’s defeat as a whip. He reads to me. He brings me mint water when I’m sick with heat. He remembers that I like the apricot tarts from the kitchens and has them sent up when I’m sad.” The words tumbled out, a quiet torrent. “He plays with Baelon for hours, lets him climb all over him like a tree. He talks to my belly, tells this one stories about willows and river stones.” She looked at their skeptical faces. “He carried me here, to this bench, when I could barely walk. He kneels on the gravel to rub my back when it aches. He looks at me… like I’m a person. Not a trophy. Not a key to a dynasty. A person.”
The silence that followed was heavy. The fountain remained still. A bee droned past.
Rhaena studied her. “You care for him.”
It wasn’t a question. Naerys looked down at Baelon’s hair, stroking it. “He is my friend. In this tower, that is… everything.”
Baela’s jaw worked. She was trying to reconcile this image with the name Hightower, with the memory of Otto’s cold ambition, of Aegon II’s triumph. “And at night?” she asked, her voice low and blunt. “How is he with you at night? Does he treat you as a person then, or as a wife?”
The memory of the bath, of his skilled, worshipful hands in the steamy water, flashed with vivid heat. But so did the memory of the frantic, grateful darkness that had preceded it. Both were true. Both were theirs.
Naerys felt a flush creep up her neck. She met Baela’s hard gaze. “He is gentle. He is… attentive. He asks. He listens.” She chose her words with a delicate precision, building a truth that could shelter the whole, complicated reality. “There is a distance, sometimes. A space he keeps for himself. But he crosses it for me. He makes sure I am… cared for. In all ways.”
Rhaena’s eyebrow lifted almost imperceptibly. She understood the nuances, the things unsaid. Baela, more literal, pressed. “He doesn’t hurt you.”
“Gods, no.” Naerys’s answer was instant, fierce. “It’s not like that. It’s never been like that. If anything, he’s…” She searched for the term, then settled on the raw, modern truth Gwayne had once shown her. “He’s generous.”
Baelon squirmed, reaching for Baela’s leather bracer. With a sigh that was almost a surrender, Baela unfastened it and let him gnaw on the edge. “Generous,” she repeated, testing the word. She looked from the contented child to her sister’s face, which, despite its weariness and strain, held a light Baela hadn’t seen since before the war. It wasn’t the wild, dragon-riding freedom of their girlhood. It was something quieter, more fragile, and perhaps more astonishing for having grown here, in enemy soil.
“I don’t trust him,” Baela stated flatly.
“I don’t need you to,” Naerys replied, just as flat. “I do.”
The standoff held for a moment, then fractured as Baelon, bored with the bracer, let out a demanding chirp and launched himself toward Baela. She caught him by instinct, her stern expression breaking into one of startled, awkward affection as he settled against her.
Rhaena smiled, reaching over to smooth Baelon’s hair. “He has our blood. That’s what matters.” She looked at Naerys, her gaze soft and knowing. “You’ve built a life here, sister. A strange one. A guarded one. But you’ve built it. We just needed to see it.”
The tension seeped away, replaced by a weary, shared recognition. They were all survivors, making what they could from the ashes.
Inside Naerys, deep beneath the layer of conversation and emotion, a massive, slow roll began. A stretching, turning motion that made her catch her breath and place a hand low on her belly. The baby was awake, and it felt different. Not a kick. A settling. A sinking, profound pressure that radiated down through her pelvis.
Both sisters saw the change in her face. The color drained, her eyes widening slightly with a focus that turned inward.
“Naerys?” Rhaena’s hand was on her arm.
“It’s… it’s time,” Naerys whispered, the words full of awe and sudden, sharp fear. “The baby. It’s coming now.”
The still water in the fountain seemed to shiver, though no wind blew. The garden, for a heartbeat, was utterly silent. Then Baela shifted Baelon firmly onto her hip, her soldier’s instincts taking over. “Right. Up you get.” She took Naerys’s elbow, her grip firm and sure.
Rhaena was already moving toward the tower, calling out in a clear, commanding voice for the maester, for the midwives, for Lord Gwayne.
As they helped her rise, Naerys clutched at her sisters, the anchors from her past, now present for the future being born. The momentum of the day, of their reunion, had suddenly, irrevocably, shifted. It was all moving forward now, rushing toward the edge of something new, with the scent of roses and the echo of their hurried steps on the stone path.
It was all moving forward now, rushing toward the edge of something new, with the scent of roses and the echo of their hurried steps on the stone path. Baela’s grip on her elbow was uncompromising, a martial escort through the blooming labyrinth. Rhaena had already vanished ahead, her voice sharp as a spearpoint in the still air, calling orders up the tower’s throat.
They navigated the cool, shadowed corridors, Naerys’s breath hitching not from effort but from the relentless, tightening press deep within her. It was a fist of muscle slowly clenching, then reluctantly letting go. “It’s too early,” she muttered, more to herself than to Baela. “The maester said another week.”
Baela snorted, adjusting Baelon on her hip. “Babies are terrible at schedules. I’ve stormed castles with more advance notice.” Her attempt at levity was strained, undercut by the tension in her own arm holding Naerys upright.
Their chamber door was open, the room stirred into readiness. A fire crackled, negating the tower’s damp chill, and fresh linen had been laid across the bed. Gwayne was already there. He turned from the hearth as they entered, and the look on his face—sharp alarm instantly schooled into focused calm—pierced through Naerys’s gathering fear. He crossed the room in three long strides, not to Baela, but directly to her, his hands coming up to frame her face.
“Breathe,” he said, his voice low and steady, his hazel eyes holding hers. “Just breathe with me. In.” He took an exaggerated, slow breath, his chest expanding, and she found herself mirroring him. “And out.” The air left her in a shuddering rush. “Good. That’s it.”
Over his shoulder, Naerys saw Baela watching, her expression unreadable as she passed a confused Baelon to a hovering nursemaid. Baela didn’t leave. She leaned against the carved post of the bed, arms crossed, a silent, violet-eyed sentinel.
“The midwife is coming. The maester too,” Gwayne said, his thumbs stroking her temples. He was already guiding her toward the bed, his arm a solid bar around her back. “Tell me what you need right now.”
“The… the cushions. From the chair.” The words came between breaths as another slow, deep ache began to build in her spine. He was moving before she finished, snatching the embroidered cushions and arranging them behind her as she sat, then reclined, against the headboard. He wedged one firmly behind the small of her back, exactly where the pain gathered.
The next hours dissolved into a rhythm of tightening and release, a slow, inexorable tide. The midwife, a broad, no-nonsense woman named Maysa, arrived and took charge with quiet efficiency. Gwayne did not relinquish his post. He knelt by the bedside, his sleeves rolled to the elbow.
When Naerys’s neck grew damp with sweat, a cool, damp cloth appeared in his hand, wiping her brow and the line of her throat. When she groaned through a particularly grinding contraction, his palm was there for her to squeeze, her nails digging half-moons into his skin without a flinch from him. When she thirsted, a cup of water with a straw was at her lips. He never asked; he anticipated.
“Look at me,” he murmured during a fierce peak, his face close to hers. His other hand was on her monstrous belly, feeling the rock-hard contraction beneath his palm. “Here, not inside. Look right here. It’s a wave. It will pass.”
She locked onto his gaze, her world narrowing to the warm hazel of his eyes, the faint scar on his brow, the absolute certainty in his voice. She rode the pain anchored to him, and when it ebbed, she slumped back, panting, her head lolling toward his hand, which still cradled hers.
Baela watched it all from her post. She saw the way Naerys’s frightened eyes sought Gwayne’s before the midwife’s, the way her fingers clung to his. She saw the tenderness in his ministrations, a practical, unsentimental tenderness that was more convincing than any poetic declaration. He adjusted pillows, fetched warmed honeyed wine at a whispered word from Maysa, and once, when Naerys trembled from exhaustion and strain, he simply slid onto the bed behind her, letting her lean the full weight of her back against his chest, his chin resting on her silver-gold hair.
“I can’t,” Naerys sobbed once, deep into the night, her voice raw. “It’s too much.”
“You are,” Gwayne corrected softly, his mouth near her ear. His arms were around her, supporting her. “You are doing it.Right now. Look what you’re doing.” He placed her own hand on the crown of damp, dark hair the midwife had just revealed. Naerys’s breath caught on a shattered gasp, her fingers trembling against the wet, tangible proof of her child.
Baela shifted her weight against the bedpost. Her initial, rigid suspicion had softened into something complex and uneasy. This was not the performative duty of a politically careful lord. This was the ingrained, unthinking dedication of a man utterly focused on a single person’s welfare. He was not just there; he was woven into the process, a part of the architecture of her labor.
When the final, furious summit came, Gwayne’s voice was the only one Naerys heard. “Now,” he urged, his own voice strained with her effort. “Push through it. Push into my hand.” He had braced his hand where she could bear down against it. Her cry was guttural, a raw sound from a place before words.
And then it was over. The shocking, slick release, the sudden collapse of pressure, and the thin, indignant wail that filled the fire-lit chamber.
Naerys fell back against Gwayne, utterly spent, as Maysa worked swiftly. A moment later, a squirming, vernix-streaked bundle was laid on her chest. The baby’s cries subsided into snuffles, tiny lips searching. Naerys’s hands came up, reverent and shaking, to hold the life she had just delivered.
Gwayne’s arms still encircled them both, his head bent beside hers, looking down at the child. His breath hitched. A single, silent tear tracked through the dust and sweat on his cheek, falling into Naerys’s hair. He didn’t seem to notice.
“A girl,” Maysa announced, beaming. “A perfect, fierce little girl.”
Naerys laughed, a sound of pure, bewildered joy mixed with exhaustion. She looked up at Gwayne, her violet eyes wide and shining. “Visenya,” she whispered.
He nodded, a smile breaking over his face that was so unguarded and bright it transformed him. “Visenya,” he repeated, his voice thick. He leaned in and kissed Naerys’s sweaty temple, a long, firm press of his lips. “Well done. My brave, brave lady.”
From the shadows by the bedpost, Baela finally looked away. She stared at the roaring fire, her own face illuminated in the dance of flames. The last of her defensive fury, the carefully tended suspicion she’d carried like a blade since arriving, crumbled into ash. She had seen everything. The love was not a song, nor was it the passion of stories. It was this: the cool cloth, the supporting arm, the anticipating glance, the tear shed into her sister’s hair. It was quiet, it was real, and it was here, in the heart of the Hightower.
She pushed herself off the post and walked quietly to the door. She paused on the threshold, glancing back one last time. Naerys was whispering to the baby, Gwayne’s hand now stroking Visenya’s tiny, damp head, his other arm a cradle for them both.
Baela slipped out, pulling the door shut softly behind her, leaving them inside their unexpected, hard-won peace.
Baela slipped out, pulling the door shut softly behind her, leaving them inside their unexpected, hard-won peace. The corridor was cold and dark after the firelit intensity of the chamber. She leaned against the rough stone wall, letting the chill seep into her back. She could still hear the baby’s faint, mewling cries through the oak.
Rhaena was waiting a few paces down the hall, her face pale in the torchlight. “Well?”
“A girl,” Baela said, pushing off the wall. Her voice sounded strange to her own ears. “Visenya.”
Rhaena’s hand went to her heart. “And Naerys?”
“Alive. Exhausted. Whole.” Baela ran a hand through her cropped hair. “He never left her side. Not once. He caught her when she pushed.”
They stood in the silent hallway, the truth of the observation hanging between them. The distant crash of the sea against the base of the tower was the only sound.
Inside, the world had shrunk to a warm, quiet pool of lamplight. Naerys slept, a profound, unconscious slump against the mountain of pillows. Her hair was a damp silver tangle across the linen. Visenya, swaddled tight in soft white wool, slept too, a tiny, snuffling bundle in the crook of her mother’s arm.
Gwayne watched them from the chair he’d dragged so close his knees touched the bedframe. The adrenalin had drained away, leaving a hollow, trembling fatigue in its wake. His right hand throbbed where her nails had broken the skin. He looked at the crescent marks, dark and beaded with dried blood, and a faint, unaccountable smile touched his lips. He pressed the wounds to his mouth, a private, salty sacrament.
He waited until Naerys’s breathing deepened into the rhythm of true sleep. Then, with movements so careful they were agonizingly slow, he slid his hands beneath the sleeping baby. He lifted Visenya, feeling her startling lightness, the delicate hinge of her neck. She made a soft, protesting murmur, her face wrinkling, then settled against the warmth of his chest.
He stood, cradling her, and padded across the rush-strewn floor. He needed air. He needed to move. And, he realized, there were others who needed to see.
He found them in the smaller solar adjacent to the family apartments. A low fire struggled against the room’s inherent damp. Baela was staring into the flames, a cup of untouched wine beside her. Rhaena was pacing, her hands clasped tightly.
They both froze when he entered. Their eyes went not to him, but to the bundle in his arms.
“She’s sleeping,” he said, his voice husky from hours of murmured encouragement. He didn’t go to them immediately. He stood just inside the door, letting them look. “Naerys is asleep too. The midwife says both are perfectly well.”
Rhaena moved first, drawn across the room as if by a string. She stopped a foot away, peering down at the tiny face peeking from the swaddle. Her stern composure melted. “Oh,” she breathed, a soft, broken sound. “She has the Targaryen look. The silver hair.”
“It might darken,” Gwayne said, though he doubted it. He gently adjusted the blanket from Visenya’s cheek.
“No,” Rhaena whispered, her finger hovering, wanting to touch but not daring. “It won’t.” She looked up at him, her eyes glistening. “May I?”
He nodded, transferring the precious weight into Rhaena’s waiting, surprisingly confident arms. She nestled Visenya close, bending her head to smell the baby’s scalp. A tear fell, disappearing into the wool.
Baela hadn’t moved from the fireplace. Her posture was rigid, but her gaze was fixed on the scene. Gwayne walked over, stopping beside her. They watched Rhaena coo in High Valyrian, her voice a melodic stream of ancient, familial sounds.
“She’s beautiful,” Baela said finally. The words were stiff, forced out.
“She’s loud,” Gwayne replied softly. “She has a set of lungs that would shame a harbor master.”
A faint, grudging snort escaped Baela. “Good.”
They stood in silence for a moment, the only sounds the fire’s crackle and Rhaena’s murmurs.
“You stayed,” Baela said. It wasn’t a question.
“Where else would I have been?”
“Many men find urgent business elsewhere during a birth. Especially when the business is already concluded.” She glanced at him, her violet eyes sharp. “You got your heir from her last time. This was just… surplus.”
Gwayne absorbed the cut of her words. He didn’t look away from Rhaena rocking his daughter. “It was never business,” he said, his tone even, devoid of defensiveness. “Not with her.”
Baela’s jaw tightened. She swirled the wine in her cup, then set it down with a definitive click. She turned fully to face him, crossing her arms. It was a defensive pose, but her eyes had lost their battle-hardened edge. They were just tired. “What you did in there…” she began, then stopped, searching for words that wouldn’t come easily. “Watching you. I didn’t think it was in a Hightower to act that way.”
“It wasn’t a Hightower in there,” he said simply, finally meeting her gaze. “It was just a man. And his wife. And their child.”
Baela held his look for a long, assessing moment. The last of the fortress walls within her crumbled. She gave a single, sharp nod, looking back at the baby. “Thank you,” she said, the words quiet but clear. “For being there for her. For… caring for her. When we could not.”
The gratitude was raw, unpracticed, and all the more genuine for its reluctance. It acknowledged everything: the political prison, the forced marriage, the whole damned miserable war. And it acknowledged that within those constraints, he had made a choice. A kind one.
Gwayne nodded back, accepting it without ceremony. “She’s easy to care for.”
Rhaena glided over then, presenting Visenya like the most sacred of offerings. “She’s waking. I think she’s hungry.”
Gwayne took his daughter back, his large hands impossibly gentle. The baby’s violet eyes—Naerys’s eyes—were open, blurry and unfocused. She mewled, a tiny, rooting sound. “Back to your mother, little dragon,” he murmured.
He turned to leave, then paused at the doorway. He looked back at the two sisters, these remnants of a shattered dynasty standing in his family’s stronghold. “She’ll want to see you when she wakes properly. Both of you. Stay as long as you like.”
He didn’t wait for a reply. He carried Visenya back down the dark hall, toward the room where her mother slept, the baby’s hungry cries growing louder with every step, a demanding, vital song in the ancient, silent dark.