Chapter Text
Morning light came into Baelor's chamber in layers. First, the pale wash against the upper stones, where the Red Keep's towers caught the sun before the rest of the city woke to it. Then the slow spill through the narrow window, turning dust into a faint drifting veil above the floorboards. The room held its own heat—the hearth still alive with coals banked through the night, glowing red beneath a soft crust of ash, breathing warmth without flame, steady and drowsing.
The air carried all of it at once: wood smoke folded into the spiced candles on his desk, linen warmed by iron, the faint trace of herbs pressed into cloth and tucked near the bed where Yormwell always left them. Beneath that, sharper, the smell of breakfast still lingering on the table—eggs gone cold, bread broken and left half-eaten, the faint metallic edge of watered wine.
Already dressed in dark wool trousers and boots scuffed at the edges despite the last polish, he stood at the foot of his bed while Barret gathered his linen shirt from where it had been laid across the cedar chest. The morning air felt cool against his skin despite the heat rolling softly from the hearth. Every few moments, his hand found the carved bedpost, fingers curling loosely around the polished wood before drifting away again.
"Your Grace." Barret held the shirt open before him.
Baelor slipped one arm through, then the other, ducking his head as the linen settled over him. Barret was already at work before it had finished falling into place, drawing the collar straight beneath his jaw, pulling gently at one shoulder where the seam had twisted. He tended to Baelor as he always did—close without crowding, efficient without haste, years of routine worn into instinct. He fastened each cuff, smoothed the sleeves from shoulder to wrist, working out folds most men would never have noticed. He gave the shirt one last tug where it disappeared beneath the waistband of Baelor's trousers, satisfied only when every line lay as it should.
A soft hum escaped him—low, absent-minded, a tune Baelor had heard often enough over the years that he no longer thought to place it, only to enjoy it in the quiet before the day's chaos found him.
Outside, the Red Keep was waking in its own rhythm. Somewhere far below, a bell rang once, distant, swallowed by stone before it could fully arrive in the room. Footsteps moved along corridors he couldn't see but could almost map by sound alone, a servant's quick pass, the slower weight of a guard, a door opening and closing again. Life in the castle didn't rise so much as accumulate, layer upon layer, until the day stood fully formed around him.
Barret brought the doublet next. Deep crimson wool, black silk worked into the panels, dragons stitched across the breast so finely they'd scarcely loosened despite years of wear. It had accompanied him through countless councils, feast days, and audiences, the wool softened with time until it rested on him as easily as any garment ever had—one of the few he reached for by preference rather than necessity.
Baelor slipped his arms into the sleeves. Barret settled it over the linen beneath, closing each fastening in quiet succession until it hid the plain shirt and the lingering signs of another difficult night. The aches remained where they always did, tucked behind his eyes and deep in his skull, but no one waiting beyond these chambers would see them. They would see their king.
Barret stepped away to retrieve the crown from where it rested on a dark velvet cushion atop the desk. Even after all these years, he handled it with the same quiet reverence, as though the crown itself demanded it.
"Your Grace."
Baelor lowered his head. The circlet settled against his brow, cool gold meeting warm skin. Barret adjusted it by the smallest measure until it sat as it always should, fingertips lingering only long enough to be certain.
"There." He smoothed a crease near the shoulder, a final excuse to fuss, then stepped back. Baelor's attention wandered past him, to the place by the door where it so often came to rest.
Duncan stood straight-backed in white armor, one hand resting on the pommel of his sword. His broad frame seemed almost too large for the corner he occupied, and Baelor found himself wondering—not for the first time—whether years of standing in that same spot had left some mark on the stone beneath his boots. It was such an ordinary sight now that he scarcely noticed himself looking for it. Only in Duncan's absence did the chamber feel strangely incomplete.
His gaze lingered long enough for Duncan to look back. The corner of Duncan's mouth lifted into that crooked grin Baelor knew too well, and something wound tight in his chest eased before he had the chance to resist it.
Barret brushed an imagined crease from the doublet's front, his last excuse to linger. Baelor inclined his head toward Duncan before turning his attention elsewhere, as though he hadn't been caught looking at all.
The morning had brightened while he dressed. Sunlight, no longer caught high on the towers, slipped farther into the chamber until it found the foot of the bed, climbed the carved posts, and reached his face. For a moment there was only warmth. Then the ache behind his eyes surged without warning, sharp enough that his breath caught. His lids narrowed against the brightness as he reached for the bedpost, grasping until his knuckles paled.
He meant to ask for the shutters.
But Duncan was already crossing the room, armor ringing with each step. Before the pain forced Baelor's eyes shut completely, he felt Barret's hands steady him at the waist as the chamber gave the smallest, uneasy sway beneath his feet.
"Your Grace?" Barret kept his voice quiet, though the concern beneath it was harder to hide.
Duncan pulled the shutters closed one panel at a time, until the harsh light narrowed into a soft strip along the floor, dropping away from Baelor's face. The relief wasn't immediate. The pain lingered where it had settled, sharp and insistent, leaving him nothing to do but stand there and wait for his body to catch up.
"Ah." Barret kept his hands where they were, waiting until Baelor's balance returned before letting him stand alone.
"Thank you, Ser." Baelor opened his eyes slowly, the room coming back into focus by degrees.
"Aye." Duncan hadn't moved from the window, though his attention never left him. "Unwise to face east, Your Grace."
Baelor looked to Barret first, catching the faint hint of amusement in the older man's expression, before returning his gaze to Duncan. "A lesson, it appears, I have yet to learn."
Duncan's mouth curved. "Then I shall continue tending to the shutters until you do."
Silence settled between them while Baelor waited for the pain to recede into something bearable. Barret's hands stayed at his sides through a few long breaths, and only let go once Baelor's breathing had steadied—not without one last assessing glance.
"Will you be needing anything else, Your Grace?"
There was a delay before he answered, as though it took a moment to properly hear the question. Baelor pressed his lips together, shook his head slowly. "No. I think I am dressed as I ever will be. Thank you, Barret."
Barret stepped back half a pace, admiring his work, before glancing sidelong at the table. "Not going to eat any more?"
He could already imagine Duncan's disapproval, so he kept his eyes on anything but the man across the room. "No. I've had my share this morning. You may take it when you leave."
Barret looked as though he meant to argue—Baelor saw it in the slight tightening around his eyes, the pause before he moved—but whatever he'd prepared to say went unspoken.
"As you wish, Your Grace." He dipped into a practiced bow before gathering the breakfast tray, the plates clinking softly as he balanced it against his hip. He cast one last habitual glance around the chamber to be sure nothing had been overlooked, his gaze moving from Baelor to Duncan, offering the Kingsguard the smallest incline of his head before he left. The door closed behind him with a soft click, the sound echoing faintly in the quiet.
Baelor let out a long breath through his nose, eyes closing as some of the tension left his shoulders. The chamber felt different without Barret moving through it—quieter, somehow, though not unpleasantly so.
A moment later, Duncan crossed the room. He stopped close enough that Baelor could feel the warmth of him without quite touching. The urge to lean into it was immediate, almost embarrassing in its simplicity.
"Ser Willem will be waiting for you after court."
"Dutiful as ever." Baelor opened his eyes. "I would have you there if—"
"Aye, I know." Duncan's gaze shifted to where the cloak waited, folded across the edge of the bed. "I do not want me being there to cloud any judgments."
Baelor studied the lines at the corners of Duncan's eyes, carved there by years beneath open skies more than by age. The sunlight caught the side of his face, turning the blue of his eye into something impossibly bright.
"If the council and you see me fit for the role, I shall uphold it with honor," Duncan went on. "If you find another better suited, I will be at your side regardless."
He reached for the cloak before Baelor could answer. The movement was so natural that for a moment Baelor nearly forgot it was something he shouldn't want. He simply watched as Duncan lifted it around his shoulders, the heavy fabric settling into place, fingers working the clasp at his throat—careful, steady. The roughness of his knuckles brushed skin, and despite the warmth of the room, Baelor felt a shiver move through him.
"You are as loyal as they come." His voice came barely above a whisper, jaw tightening as he caught himself watching Duncan's mouth.
"I try." Duncan smiled, gave his shoulders a light pat, and dropped his hands back to his sides. "How bad is the pain today?"
Baelor groaned, fighting the urge to scold him for asking. "I was hoping I might hide it from you, for once."
Duncan's smile softened. "You have never been good at hiding things from me. How bad?"
"Wretched." He blinked against it. "Kept me awake most of the night, persistent enough that I could do little more than lie there and wallow. It has eased some this morning, but I fear a dreadful long day waits for me."
"Any day you have court is a dreadful long day." Duncan shifted his weight, watching him with the ghost of a tease still in his eyes.
Baelor fidgeted with the ring on his finger, thumb tracing its edge as he turned it around his knuckle—an old habit, reached for whenever he needed a moment to gather himself. Only then did he force his eyes from Duncan's face. "Where will you go, when we part?"
Duncan pursed his lips, considering. "Could drag Egg along for some patrols. He's restless again, which means we'll end up in the training yard before long. He's been hunting for any excuse to show off that new sword Maekar gave him."
Baelor grinned at the thought, eyes drifting back to him as they always seemed to. "Please be sure he doesn't lose an eye with that thing. Or take yours with it."
Duncan chuckled, shaking his head. "That was one time—"
"And you nearly lost your eye." His gaze flicked briefly to the faint scar beneath Duncan's right eye.
"He told me I would look good with a patch."
"You would." The words left him before he could stop them. He blinked, cleared his throat. "A man can make an eye patch look respectable, I suppose."
Duncan's mouth twitched, the grin spreading wider than before. He said nothing of the remark, though the amusement in his eyes was impossible to miss.
Baelor held his gaze a moment longer than he meant to. There was no mockery in it, only that quiet amusement that always left him feeling as though Duncan knew more than he'd ever said aloud.
Seven save me.
The knock came soft against the chamber door, three measured raps.
The ease in Duncan's expression faded, replaced by the quiet attentiveness he wore whenever duty called. He straightened, hand shifting back toward the pommel of his sword, and took a step back.
Baelor waited until Duncan had gone still before he answered. "Enter."
The steward stepped over the threshold with a respectful bow, a leather book tucked beneath one arm. "Your Grace, the court has begun to assemble. The first petitions have already been presented to the heralds, and the Small Council awaits you once the morning audience concludes."
"Thank you, Gyles."
"The council chamber has been prepared."
"I would expect nothing less."
The corner of Gyles' mouth hinted at satisfaction. "If there is nothing further, I shall tell them you will arrive shortly."
"There is not."
The steward withdrew as quietly as he'd entered, easing the heavy oak door shut behind him.
Silence lingered only a moment before Duncan motioned toward the door and the corridors beyond. "Shall we?"
Baelor rolled his shoulders. The headache hadn't vanished, and wouldn't any time soon. It would sit with him through the day, coming in waves harsh enough to make him sick before lulling into something he could endure. Court would demand smiles where they were expected, patience where it would be tested, and judgments half the realm would believe should have gone otherwise.
His hand came to rest against the front of his cloak. "Let's not keep them waiting."
Duncan pulled the door open, and the corridor beyond was already alive with its usual morning bustle. Servants crossed between stairwells carrying baskets of folded linens. Farther down the passage, two boys hurried past, nearly colliding with a serving maid balancing a tray of steaming porridge. Voices echoed along the stone in overlapping currents. The peace of his chamber was almost too comforting to leave, and his hesitation showed before he finally crossed the threshold.
Ser Roland straightened from where he'd been waiting against the opposite wall, clasping his hands behind his back and falling into step without instruction. A moment later, Ser Willem joined them farther along, his white cloak fluttering against the stone as he took his place.
They'd gone barely a dozen paces before Yormwell appeared from an adjoining passage, a small satchel tucked beneath his arm. "Your Grace."
"Maester Yormwell."
The old man's eyes lingered on him only a moment. "And how fares your head this morning?"
Baelor gave a small nod to a servant who stepped aside as they passed. "Well enough."
A soft sound escaped Yormwell, somewhere between a sigh and a hum.
"I am well enough to survive court, Yormwell, I assure you."
"Hm." He adjusted the satchel. "I suppose, for this morning, that is the best I shall get."
Baelor gave him a knowing look before turning his attention to the stairs ahead. As they descended, the sounds of the castle grew louder, and the dull pulse behind his eyes grew with them. Petitioners crowded the lower halls beneath the watchful eyes of household guards. Lords in velvet and ladies wrapped in embroidered silk stood in quiet clusters, their conversations dipping into respectful silence as Baelor approached, rising again once he'd passed.
Heads bowed. Hands found hearts. Voices offered, "Your Grace."
He answered each with the same practiced nod, enough that no courtesy went unmet, though none invited conversation. By the time they reached the great doors leading to the throne room, the warmth of his chambers had become little more than memory. The weight on his shoulders had returned in full.
Duncan took his place half a step behind and to his right. Ser Willem and Ser Roland fanned out behind them as the guards stationed outside the doors brought the butts of their spears sharply against the stone, the sound rolling through the hall. One of the heralds stepped forward, drawing breath to announce him.
Baelor squared his shoulders, feeling the crown settle fully upon him. He almost looked to Duncan, to gather whatever quiet strength he always seemed to find in the man's presence. Instead, he kept his eyes forward.
He gave a single nod to the guards, and the doors swung inward.
The small council chamber was cooler than the throne room, though it offered him little relief.
Petitions had ended. The last of the courtiers had filed out, their voices trailing down the corridor until even the echo of them faded, but the weight of the morning had not gone with them. Hours of grievances and disputes had settled into a heavy pounding behind Baelor's eyes, one that sharpened with every small movement—the turn of his head, the shift of his chair, the simple act of lowering himself into his seat at the table's head.
He had hoped the council might offer some measure of order. It seemed a foolish hope now.
Maekar and Simon found their disagreement before the ink had dried on the first page of Gyles' notes, and the matter of Valarr's name-day tournament had somehow twisted itself into a debate over the crown's coffers. By the fourth interruption, Baelor pressed two fingers to the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes against the candlelight.
"If Your Grace would simply consider—"
"He has considered." Maekar cut across the table. "Twice now."
"Then perhaps a third time would improve matters." The Master of Coin's voice carried its usual smooth civility, the kind that managed to sound courteous while scraping like sand against stone. A neat stack of ledgers lay open before him, each page crowded with columns of figures he guarded the way another man might guard a castle.
"The treasury is healthy," Maekar said. "You speak as though we're preparing to ransom half the realm. It's a fucking name-day tournament."
"The people will cheer for a prince's name-day, yes. They'll cheer louder for a full granary and lower taxes. And should the gods bless Prince Valarr with a healthy child, there will be cause for another celebration soon enough. Perhaps we might wait to see what blessings we're truly given before spending as though they've already arrived."
Maekar started to stand, chair scraping hard against the stone, color rising up his neck. "You son of a bi—"
"Enough." Baelor's hand found his brother's forearm beneath the table, closing around it before the rest of the word could leave him. He turned to Simon instead, tilting his head just enough to hold the man's eye. "The treasury is your charge, Lord Simon. I've never faulted you for remembering that. But you will not speak of my son's child as though it were another line in your ledger."
Simon opened his mouth. Baelor didn't let him fill it.
"Valarr's name-day is not a waste of coin. It is a celebration of the heir to this realm. And if the gods are kind enough to grant him a child—me a grandchild—I will not sit in this chamber and hear it spoken of as though we must first ready ourselves to mourn it."
The silence that followed had weight to it. Simon seemed, for the first time that morning, to understand he had stepped somewhere he shouldn't have. His gaze dropped to the papers before him. "Of course, Your Grace."
Valarr had asked for little enough—a few days of celebration, a respectable purse for the lists, music and feasting enough to mark the occasion and no more. Baelor would have granted him twice that without a second thought. The boy had earned it, if nothing else in this world.
Simon would count the cost of every pavilion raised, every cup of wine poured, every singer and knight who stood in the lists. Maekar saw the honor owed the crown, the message it sent to the realm beyond these walls. Baelor saw only a son who had known too much grief for one so young, and wanted, for a few days at least, to give him something else to carry.
Wax candles burned low along the far windows, their scent folding into old ink and older oak. Gyles' quill scratched steadily across parchment, recording whatever grievances Simon meant to see answered in the days ahead. Across the table, Yormwell leaned forward, his chair groaning beneath him as his eyes settled on Baelor's face and stayed there. Every sound in the room had sharpened since morning. Every scent sat heavier than it should.
Baelor could hide the pain from most men in this chamber. He'd known the moment he met Yormwell's gaze, though, that the old man saw straight through the effort.
"We do have the matter of our new Lord Commander to discuss." Simon's eyes traveled the length of the table to find him. Baelor recognized what followed before it arrived—he'd seen it enough times now, whenever the talk turned toward Duncan. "The position cannot remain vacant forever."
The chamber had grown close and stuffy, the fire built higher than the day called for. Sweat prickled beneath Baelor's collar, a small discomfort easy enough to ignore were it not for the way the room swayed faintly each time he lowered his eyes to the papers before him. The ink blurred, resolved, blurred again. He read the same line twice and carried away none of it.
He'd spent the better part of the night turning this very discussion over in his mind. Every conclusion he'd reached in the dark hours had come apart again by morning, worried thin by his own doubt. The court—and likely half the realm beyond it—would expect something other than the choice he had already made.
"Ser Jacke Morrigen has trained and fought beside many of the men under consideration." Baelor glanced toward Gyles. "We'll hear his thoughts before we go further. Send for him."
He was grateful for the quiet that followed while they waited—grateful for anything after a morning that had offered him no silence at all, not since the moment he'd stepped from his chambers. Maekar settled back into his chair with a creak of old wood. Simon thumbed through his papers, careful not to meet the glare his brother kept leveled at him. Maekar's jaw had set into that familiar hard line, fingers drumming once against the armrest before stilling. Baelor knew the look well enough by now. Whether it was aimed at Simon or at Baelor himself, for sitting there and enduring it, he couldn't have said.
His attention drifted to Ser Willem, still stationed along the far wall where he d taken up his place at the start of the meeting. The Kingsguard rarely moved unless duty demanded it of them, but Baelor had learned, over the years, to notice what other men overlooked—the shift of weight from one foot to the other, the flex of fingers once, then twice, before going still again. Small tells. Old wounds that had never quite finished healing, even now, years past Ashford.
The doors opened. Ser Jacke Morrigen crossed the chamber and bowed deeply once he reached the table.
"Ser Jacke." Baelor gestured toward an empty chair. The man declined it with a small shake of his head, more at ease on his feet than he'd been in a chair for most of his life, and no one at the table thought to press him on it.
"We're discussing the appointment of the new Lord Commander."
Jacke's gaze moved down the table—Simon first, then Maekar—before settling back on Baelor. "I see."
No one rushed to fill the quiet that followed. The sharp edges of the earlier argument had dulled without disappearing entirely; Baelor could still feel the shape of it in the room, the things left unsaid, waiting for another opening to slip through.
Simon took it first.
"The question is not whether Ser Duncan is a skilled knight." His fingers smoothed a crease from the corner of a page. "No one at this table doubts that."
Baelor watched him, thumb tracing the smooth curve of the ring on his finger. "Then what would you argue?"
Simon lifted his eyes, glancing once toward Maekar before they came to rest again on Baelor. "The office requires more than skill. A sword alone doesn't make a man fit to lead the Kingsguard."
Baelor shifted in his chair, favoring one side without meaning to as a fresh spike of pain rolled through his skull. "Ser Duncan is more than a sword."
"I know that, Your Grace," Simon said it easily, reasonably, the way he said most things that cut. "Which is why this isn't so simple a matter. Some men have worn the white far longer. Men with decades of service behind them." He paused, a page crinkling beneath his finger. "Do you not imagine they'll wonder why they were passed over? Why years of service should weigh less than a man who, for all his virtue, hasn't worn the cloak nearly so long?"
Baelor had known this argument was coming. Knowing it did nothing to soften the sound of it. "Ser Duncan has stood at my side for eight years." His fingers pressed flat against the table's edge. "Eight years of service to this crown. Eight years proving what he is."
He glanced toward Willem before turning the whole of his attention back to Simon. "He is not some boy being handed a white cloak because his face is familiar to me." The words came out sharper than he'd intended, and he heard it land in the silence that followed.
Ser Willem cleared his throat and stepped away from the wall, boots scraping faintly against stone. "Ser Duncan's years may be fewer than some. He is one of the most honorable men I have known in my life." He let that settle before continuing. "I've fought beside knights who wore white a good deal longer than he has. Not all of them were fit to lead."
Simon tilted his head. "No one doubts your opinion of him, Ser Willem."
"It is not an opinion. It is what I've seen with my own eyes. Ser Duncan is a natural leader, and that is rarer than men like to admit."
Baelor nearly gave Willem a nod for it, caught himself before it showed, and turned instead to Jacke. "And you, Ser? What do you make of him?"
"Your Grace?"
"You've trained half the knights in this realm who've ever taken up a sword for the crown. What is your judgment of Ser Duncan?"
Jacke considered the question before he answered it, the way he considered most things. "He's a good man to have at your side. He listens before he acts. He doesn't chase glory where there's none to be had. Men follow him because they trust him—not because they're told to."
Some of the tension eased from Baelor's shoulders.
"But there are things worth weighing."
It returned just as quickly as it had gone.
"Ser Donnel has worn the white a long while now. Some lords would find his appointment the easier one to understand."
"Easier doesn't mean better." Maekar's voice cut in flat and hard.
"No, Your Grace, it doesn't." Jacke's eyes moved to the papers spread across the table, though he didn't seem to be reading them. "But a Lord Commander isn't only a commander of knights. He's a symbol to the realm. Some will look to Ser Duncan's age before they look to his deeds."
The words settled heavier in the room than Baelor had expected them to. Simon had said nothing through the exchange, content to let it build on its own, and Baelor could feel the shape of the argument taking form around him, the same way he felt a storm long before the first rain fell.
"I have never known Ser Duncan to lack for respect in this court."
"No, Your Grace. I don't think he lacks it now. But respect within these walls isn't always the same as acceptance beyond them. A Lord Commander is seen as much as he's followed. Some will look first to how few years he's worn the cloak before they look to what he's done in them."
Simon took a slow sip of wine before he spoke again, the corner of his mouth wet when he lowered the cup. "The concern was never whether Ser Duncan can lead."
Baelor turned to him fully. "Then what is it?"
"How others will perceive the choice." Simon met his eyes without flinching from them. "He is young. He has served fewer years than the men who stand beside him. And for all he's earned, some will remember where he began."
Baelor felt Maekar's boot press against his own beneath the table before he realized how tightly his fingers had curled around the arm of his chair. He made himself loosen them. "Where he began?"
"Where some may believe he began. I don't dispute what Ser Duncan has earned since."
"And yet you find it necessary to remind this room of what he was."
Simon folded his hands atop the table. "I remind this room of what others, outside it, are likely to remember."
The candles along the windows guttered in a draft that found its way beneath the shutters, flames bending low before straightening again. Baelor watched them settle and thought of every year he'd heard men speak of Duncan's size before his skill. His birth before his loyalty. What he lacked before what he'd earned through the plain, unglamorous work of it. He had thought, once, that the white cloak might finally silence that. He was beginning to understand he'd been wrong to hope for it.
"Eight years of service to this crown should carry more weight than the place a man started from."
"It does," Simon answered, quick enough that it sounded almost sincere. "That is precisely why we are having this conversation."
Baelor's jaw tightened as he studied him. Every word out of the man's mouth was careful, reasonable, never quite enough to be called an accusation and never quite enough to be challenged as one either. He was beginning, at last, to understand the exact shade of anger his brother reserved for this man.
"I have heard your concerns." His voice carried quietly but firmly acrossthe chamber. "All of it will be weighed, and I will have my answer on the morn."
Simon opened his mouth to press further. Baelor didn't give him the chance.
"And when I give it, it will be final." He held the man's gaze a moment longer, then let it go, rubbing slowly at his temple as the ache behind his eyes surged and settled. "That will be all for today."
The last exchange came fast—Egg's blade darting in low, Duncan turning it aside with a twist of his wrist, the ring of steel loud enough that two stable boys paused at the fence to watch. Egg pressed again, overeager, and Duncan caught the strike on his crossguard and shoved, sending the boy stumbling back a step into the churned dirt.
"Yield," Duncan said, though he was already lowering his sword.
Egg didn't yield so much as collapse forward, hands braced on his knees, chest heaving. "You could let me win. Just once."
"I could." Duncan wiped his blade on a scrap of cloth and sheathed it. "Wouldn't do you any favors."
"Neither does losing every time."
"Losing's the favor." He reached down and hauled Egg upright by the back of his jerkin. "You'll thank me for it when some lord's second son tries to gut you, and you already know what it feels like to have your feet swept out from under you."
Egg grinned, sweat cutting clean tracks through the dust on his face, and dropped onto the low stone wall that ringed the yard. The new sword—Maekar's gift, a slim, well-balanced thing with a dragon's head worked into the pommel—lay across his knees while he caught his breath. Duncan sat beside him, closer to the shade than the sun, and let his shoulders fall for the first time since morning.
The yard had thinned out. Most of the household knights had drifted off toward the armory or the kitchens, chasing the smell of bread that carried faintly on the wind, and the clang of steel that had filled the space an hour ago had dulled to one lone squire drilling forms against a post. A groom led a gray mare past the far fence, murmuring something low and rhythmic to settle her. Somewhere beyond the wall, a dog barked twice and gave up.
Duncan let his head fall back, eyes closing against the sun. His arm still hummed from the last several exchanges, and beneath that, quieter, sat the same knot that had been sitting in his chest since the council doors closed that morning.
"You're doing that thing," Egg said.
"What thing?"
"The thing where you go somewhere else in your head and forget I'm here." Egg nudged him with an elbow, not ungently. He'd grown again these past months—Duncan could feel it now, chest height instead of shoulder, though the boy hadn't yet grown into the width of himself. "You've been doing it all morning. Even during the third bout, when I nearly had you."
"You did not nearly have me."
"I nearly had you," Egg said it with easy confidence, fully believing it, which was half the reason Duncan let him keep believing it. "Is it the council?"
Duncan didn't answer right away. He picked at a groove worn into the stone beneath him, old and smooth from years of men sitting in this exact spot, watching this exact yard.
"You know Baelor is choosing you," Egg said.
"Baelor will choose who he sees fit." The words came out worn, like he'd said them to himself a dozen times already that day. Likely he had. "Someone who'll protect the crown before anything else. Might not be me."
"Aye, that someone is you."
Duncan shook his head, feeling the heat climb into his face despite himself. "There are others who've worn the white longer. Donnel's been here since before you were born. Roland too. Men with houses behind them, names that mean something in half the kingdoms."
Egg groaned, low in his throat, and kicked at a loose pebble hard enough to send it skittering across the yard. "Yes, they've been here longer. But you're missing the one thing that puts you leagues above the lot of them."
"Go on, then."
"You started as a hedge knight," Egg said, as if it settled something, chin lifted, the way he did when he'd worked out an argument on his own and wanted credit for it. "No family behind you to shape you into all that court business, no name to open doors before you'd earned the right to walk through them. You saw how those noble men treated you at Ashford, Ser. Half of them wouldn't spit on you if you were on fire, and you still fought harder than any of them for what was right. Not for coin. Not to climb. Because it was right." He turned, and something in his face had gone earnest in a way that made Duncan want to look elsewhere. "You've always been that. My uncle sees it. He admires it more than you know. This realm needs a good man standing over the king—the best man, if you want the truth of it. And that's you."
Duncan opened his mouth. Nothing came out.
He looked at his hands instead, at the calluses worn into them from years of a sword's grip, and found he had no answer prepared for a boy of seventeen looking at him like that. His face had gone hot enough that he was certain Egg could see it, and there was nothing to be done about that either.
"And you think I'm the best man," he managed finally, because it seemed safer than saying anything about court, or Baelor, or the ache that had settled somewhere beneath his ribs the moment Egg started speaking.
"I know it." Egg beamed at him, unguarded, the way only Egg still could. "Everyone knows it. Well." He considered. "Everyone but you, it seems."
Duncan huffed and looked out across the yard rather than at the boy beside him. The squire at the post had given up on his forms and was now simply leaning against it, catching his breath in the heat. A cart rattled somewhere past the gate, wheels loud against the cobbles.
"It isn't so simple as being the better man," he said, after a while. "Simon made that plain enough this morning, I'd wager, even if I wasn't there to hear it."
"How'd you know that?"
"Because I know Simon." Duncan rubbed a hand down his face. "And because Baelor came out of that meeting tight-jawed, the kind of quiet that meant he'd swallowed something bitter and had no intention of spitting it out."
Egg snorted despite himself, then caught it, pressing his knuckles briefly to his mouth. "He didn't say much to me. Just asked after you. Whether you'd eaten."
"Had I?"
"I told him you'd forget to if I didn't remind you, which is true, so I don't feel poorly about the lie."
Duncan shook his head, and for a moment something in his chest loosened, just slightly, at the thought of Baelor pausing in the middle of whatever weighed on him to ask after something so small. It didn't last. The knot pulled tight again just as fast, dragging his thoughts back toward the council chamber, toward men who'd worn the white a decade longer than he had, toward every argument Simon might make and every one of them he couldn't fully counter, because some of it was true. He hadn't been born to this. He'd slept in ditches more nights than he could count before Baelor had ever looked at him.
"I don't know that I want it," he said, finally, and it surprised him as much as it seemed to surprise Egg, who went still beside him.
"You don't want to be Lord Commander?"
Duncan exhaled, long and slow. "I do want it. Gods help me, I want it more than I've wanted most things. That's what troubles me." He turned the thought over before he let it out any further, uncertain how much of it he meant to say aloud until it was already leaving him. "A man ought to want the crown's good above his own. And I do, I'd like to think. But there's a part of it that isn't about the crown at all. It's wanting to be the one standing closest. Wanting it to be decided, once and for all, that it's meant to be me and no other." He shook his head. "That's not humility talking. That's wantin something for myself."
Egg was quiet a moment, turning the new sword over in his lap, thumb tracing along the flat of the blade. "Is that so wicked a thing to want?"
"I don't know." Duncan looked up at the sky, watching a hawk soaring near the tower. "Feels it, some days."
"You'd guard him well. Better than Donnel, better than Roland, better than any of them, and that's not me being kind because I like you. It's true." Egg bumped his shoulder against Duncan's arm. "You worry after him like it's your own head that aches. I've seen you do it. Half the time you know he's hurting before he says a word of it."
Duncan didn't answer that. He couldn't, not without saying more than he meant to, and the boy beside him was sharper than his years let on—had been since he was small enough to be tucked under Duncan's arm at the end of a day's ride. He'd learned, over the years, to watch what he let slip in front of Egg. It rarely worked as well as he hoped.
"You get a look," Egg said, softer now, testing the ground the way he did before he said something he wasn't certain would land well. "When you talk about him. Different than when you talk about anyone else."
"He's the king. Ought to look different, talking about a king."
"That's not what I mean, and you know it isn't."
Duncan said nothing. Overhead, the hawk folded its wings and dropped, vanishing behind the line of the tower. The mare across the yard stamped once, and the groom murmured something low to settle her again.
"I'm not going to push you on it," Egg said, after the silence had stretched long enough to answer for him anyway. "But I'm not blind either, Ser, whatever you'd like to believe. I've squired for you for eight years. I know the difference between how you stand guard and how you stand guard for him."
"Egg."
"I'm only saying." He held up both hands, the sword clattering slightly against the stone as he shifted it. "I think it'd do you good. Both of you, maybe. That's all I'll say on it."
Duncan let his head drop back against the wall, closing his eyes against the glare. His arm still ached faintly from the sparring, a clean, honest kind of hurt that was easier to sit with than the other thing—the thing that had lodged itself somewhere behind his ribs years ago and never fully worked its way loose. He thought of Baelor's hand finding the bedpost that morning, knuckles gone white, and the way he'd crossed the room before he'd even decided to, some instinct older than reason driving him there. He thought of the clasp at Baelor's throat, the roughness of his own hands against that fine skin, and how he'd made himself let go before he wanted to.
"It isn't so simple as that," he said, finally, eyes still closed. "Whatever you think you've puzzled out."
"Never said it was simple. Said it'd do you good."
"Those aren't the same thing."
"No," Egg agreed, and there was something almost gentle in it, older than his seventeen years for a moment before it dropped away again. "Suppose they're not."
They sat like that a while, the yard emptying further around them, the light shifting gold as the afternoon wore on. A pair of stableboys jogged past, arguing over whose turn it was to muck the far stalls, their voices fading toward the gate. The squire at the post had abandoned his forms altogether and sat now in the shade with a waterskin, legs stretched before him.
"D'you think he'll choose you?" Egg asked, at last, quieter than before.
Duncan opened his eyes, watching the hawk reappear over the tower, wings spread and still against the wind. "I think," he said slowly, "that Baelor will do what he believes is right for the realm. Whatever that costs him. Whatever it costs anyone." He paused. "I've never known him to choose otherwise."
"That wasn't what I asked."
"I know it wasn't."
Egg huffed, but let it be, kicking his heel lightly against the stone wall beneath them. "Well. For what it's worth—and I know it's not much, coming from me—I think he'll choose you. Not because you're the safest choice. Because you're the right one." He glanced sideways, something soft and hopeful in it that Duncan didn't have the heart to meet directly. "And I think, someday, he'll choose more than that too. If you'd only let him."
Duncan didn't answer. He reached out instead and cuffed the boy lightly on the back of the head, the way he had a hundred times over the years, and Egg laughed, ducking away from it, sword sliding off his knee to clatter against the stone. He caught it before it hit the ground, grinning up at Duncan with the same crooked warmth he'd carried since he was nine years old and half the size he was now.
"Go on," Duncan said, standing, offering a hand to pull him up. "Get that sword cleaned before Maekar sees dirt on his gift and skins the both of us."
"Aye, Ser." Egg took his hand and let himself be hauled upright, brushing dust from his trousers. He fell into step beside Duncan as they crossed the yard, the sun low enough now to throw their shadows long and thin across the packed dirt. "You'll think on what I said, though. Won't you?"
Duncan glanced sideways at him—at the boy who was nearly a man now, who'd grown up watching him more closely than he'd ever realized—and felt something in his chest ease, just slightly, despite everything still sitting unresolved beneath it.
"Aye," he said. "I'll think on it."
It was, he suspected, more of an answer than Egg had expected to get. It seemed to satisfy him all the same.