Chapter Text
Chapter 24: A Quiet Flame
A fortnight had bled effortlessly into a moon.
The initial, overwhelming vertigo of the capital had slowly begun to recede, replaced by the rhythmic, demanding cadence of a life completely bound to the Iron Throne. Leyton had integrated herself further into the intricate machinery of the court with a sharp, calculated precision that left more than a few veteran courtiers quietly stunned.
Her mornings were spent at the side of Queen Myriah Martell, learning the complex, subtle diplomacy of the Queen’s Court, where wars were often averted with a single, sharp look over embroidery, and alliances were forged in the quiet cadence of whispered gossip. Her middays were entirely different, spent beneath the bright, open sky, riding spirited horses alongside Baelor and his sons, her hair coming loose from its pins as she raced them across the grassy expanses of the kingswood. Walking the gardens and having tea woth Kiera. And her nights, her nights belonged entirely to Baelor.
The moon had not passed quietly, not with the relentless velocity of their lives, but it had moved steadily enough that Leyton had finally begun to notice the small, traitorous changes.
The subtle ones. The kind of physical shifts that crept in slowly, almost entirely unannounced, until they were suddenly, terrifyingly impossible to ignore.
At first, she had said absolutely nothing to anyone. She had forcefully told herself it was a mere coincidence. She rationalized that her body was simply adjusting to the sudden reality of marriage, to the radical change in climate, and to the constant, suffocating pull of duties and royal expectations now resting heavily upon her shoulders.
But then, one moon passed. Then another. And still, nothing.
There was no blood. Not a single drop since the day she had stood before the High Septon. Not since the breathtaking night she had become his wife in truth behind the white linen sheet.
It was not just the absence of her monthly flow. Her body felt foreign. Distinctly different.
Her breasts were remarkably tender, aching enough that even the casual brush of her finest silk undergarments made her pause and catch her breath in the morning. There was a strange, localized heaviness resting low in her belly, it was not a sharp pain, not quite, but it was an undeniable, ever-present weight.
And then there were the cravings. Gods, the frantic, baffling cravings.
They struck her at the absolute strangest, most ungodly hours of the night. She would crave honeyed figs in the dead of a freezing night, demanding them with a fierce intensity that defied reason. She would want heavily salted fish at the first crack of dawn. Once, much to the absolute horror and confusion of the royal kitchens, she had demanded a bowl of sweet cream and heavily roasted onions mashed together, only to take two small bites, wrinkle her nose in profound disgust, and decide she wanted absolutely none of it
And Baelor, Baelor was currently suffering for her shifting humors in ways entirely unrelated to the midnight demands of the pantry.
Because if her appetite for strange, disjointed meals had grown exponentially, her physical appetite for her husband had grown into something downright voracious.
There had been one particular incident that had safely guaranteed the whispers would follow them for months.
It had occurred during a formal session of the Small Council. A Small Council meeting.
Leyton had sent a royal page to the chamber doors with a summons for the prince. The written note had been exceptionally polite, remarkably urgent, and entirely, frustratingly vague. Baelor, fearing some manner of security threat or a sudden illness regarding her family, had immediately excused himself from the table, much to the mild confusion, and rapidly growing amusement, of the King and Lord Bloodraven.
Exactly thirty minutes later, the Prince of Dragonstone had returned to the council table.
He was visibly disheveled. His ebony hair was completely wild, his high leather collar was unbuttoned, his chest was slightly flushed, and he was very much lacking the stoic, military composure he had possessed when he left the room.
King Daeron II Targaryen had slowly looked up from his ledger. One silver brow rose to a spectacular height. The monarch said absolutely nothing to his eldest son. But the look alone had been more than enough to communicate a lifetime of parental understanding.
That had been the exact moment Leyton decided she could no longer live in the quiet agony of doubt. She needed to know. For absolute certainty.
And so, shunning the Queen's ladies and the gossiping septas, she went directly to the one person in the entire Red Keep she deemed most qualified to give an unvarnished, clinical assessment of the situation.
Prince Maekar Targaryen looked at his new goodsister across his private solar as though she had completely lost her mind.
“Why in the name of the Seven did you come to me with this, Leyton?”
Leyton folded her hands neatly and placidly before her skirts, her expression an unreadable mask of Hightower stone. “Because you have six of them, Prince Maekar. Your wife has biological experience I currently require.”
Maekar blinked. Once. Twice. Then, letting out a sharp, rough huff of a breath through his nose, his severe features relaxed a fraction. “Fair point.”
He studied her for a long, quiet moment, his sharp eyes moving over her face more seriously now. “It sounds precisely as though you are with child,” he admitted, his blunt voice dropping. “But you will still need a maester to properly confirm the quickening.”
Leyton hesitated, a sudden, rare vulnerability cracking through her armor. She took a half-step closer, her voice dropping into a much quieter, tentative register. “How... how do they check for such a thing?”
Maekar’s stern mouth twitched faintly with a rare, highly guarded trace of humor.
“I am entirely certain you have had Baelor’s fingers inside of you before this morning,” he said plainly, completely unbothered by the lack of courtly euphemisms. “The maester's examination is similar. He checks the neck of the womb.”
Leyton blinked, the reality of the words hitting her. “Oh.” A long, stunned pause passed over her. "Ah.”
***
Later that very afternoon, the truth was permanently confirmed.
The Grand Maester was exceptionally thorough but remarkably unkindled by malice, his physical examination brief, professional, and entirely clinical. Maekar remained in the far corner of the chamber the entire time, having turned his back deliberately away from the bed, his massive arms crossed tightly over his chest as though he were guarding the sanctity of the space rather than observing the mechanics of it.
When the old man finally stepped away, the verdict was simple. Clear. Unarguable.
She was with child. The dragon's next generation was growing.
Maekar turned back around once the maester had gathered his chains and departed the solar. “Well,” he said, his deep voice carrying that same trademark dry, cynical tone. “Congratulations, Princess.”
A brief, heavy beat passed before a faint smirk tugged at his lips. “Let us just pray to the Mother that it is a girl. There are entirely too many boys running rampant in this family.”
Leyton’s small hand rose instinctively, resting flat and protective over the velvet of her stomach. Her sharp expression softened remarkably. “Will he be alright with that?” she asked quietly, her dark eyes looking up at her brother-in-law. “Baelor? Will he be disappointed if it is not a son?”
Maekar didn’t hesitate for a single second.
“Baelor has desperately wanted a daughter since the very day I was born,” he said, a genuine warmth briefly breaking through his gruff exterior. “The exact moment he realized he was cursed to be the eldest of four sons.”
He shook his head slightly with a faint chuckle. “He has always wanted something small and gentle that he can dote upon without having to train them for a shield-wall. He will love his boys, of course, he already does, but a girl?” Maekar sighed. “He will be entirely insufferable with joy. He will give her the moon if she asks for it.”
Leyton let out a soft, trembling breath, the heavy knot in her chest loosening. “Thank you, Maekar.”
That night, she went to his private chambers. Not driven by a sudden surge of physical want, and not seeking comfort from the political storms of the day, but for something far, far more important.
The solar was wonderfully quiet when she pushed open the door.
Baelor Targaryen sat leaning over his heavy mahogany desk, parchment and maps of the crownlands spread wide before him, the faint, flickering glow of the beeswax candles casting long, dramatic shadows across his sharp, military features.
He did not look up immediately, his quill scratching against the paper. “My princess.”
“My prince,” Leyton said softly, her voice cutting through the silence.
That specific, gentle tone got his attention instantly. His warm eyes lifted to hers, studying the quiet intensity of her posture for a long, calculating moment. He set his quill down.
“Either I have done something terribly wrong today,” Baelor said, a small, teasing smile playing on his lips, “or you have.”
Leyton stepped closer to the desk, her skirts whispering against the stone floor. “We both did, in truth.”
That earned a faint, confused furrow of his brow. She did not offer a verbal explanation. Not yet.
Instead, she reached out and took his large, calloused right hand in her own. She guided it slowly across the space between them, placing his massive palm gently, deliberately, against the flat surface of her stomach.
Baelor stilled completely. His entire body went rigidly quiet beneath her touch. His breath caught in his throat as his mind processed the heat of her belly.
“Oh.”
Leyton nodded her head, a small, watery smile touching her lips. “Yeah.”
Silence stretched beautifully between them in the candlelight. It was not heavy, and it was not plagued by uncertainty. It was just entirely full.
“Is that the reason you borrowed Maekar from his duties this afternoon?” he asked after a long moment, his violet eyes glancing up to meet hers.
A faint, beautiful flush rose to her cheeks. “I was entirely too awkward to ask your mother about the symptoms, and so..."
Baelor’s lips twitched with an immense, bubbling amusement. “You asked my brother. The single most severe, terrifying man in the Red Keep, who happens to have six children.”
Leyton’s protective expression shifted immediately into defensiveness. “I am sorry, I did not mean to offend decorum–”
“Daor, jorrāelagon, daor skoros nyke meant, iksā sȳz, ñuha dāria, muña hen ñuha riña,” Baelor interrupted smoothly, his voice dropping into a thick, reverent Valyrian purr.
She blinked down at him, her classical education failing her. “I got about three of those words, Baelor.”
His large hand tightened slightly, possessively over her fingers, pressing them deeper into her stomach. “My love,” he translated softly, his eyes shining with an emotion so fierce it stolen her breath away. “My queen. Mother of my child.”
Her breath caught sharply. “You are... you are not angry? It is so soon.”
Baelor’s dark brow lifted faintly in amusement as he rose from his chair, towering over her only to wrap his arms securely around her waist. “I do believe,” he murmured against her lips, “that it takes two to forge a dragon.”
The lingering tension left her body all at once. Relief, warm, thick, and immediate, flooded her veins. She leaned forward into his bulk, pressing her lips to his. It was a soft, certain, and profoundly grateful kiss. And Baelor returned it just as easily, his hands holding her as if she were the most precious treasure in the world.
Outside the heavy oak chamber doors, footsteps approached down the stone corridor.
King Daeron II Targaryen and Queen Myriah Martell had been walking with a distinct purpose, a matter of statecraft to discuss with the heir, something that could not easily wait for the morning light.
Daeron reached out his hand, his fingers hovering just shy of the brass door latch. He paused.
From within the private chamber, a distinct sound drifted through the wood. It was not a conversation. It was not words of politics. It was something far more intimate, breathless, and telling.
The King stopped. He slowly withdrew his hand from the latch.
Myriah looked sideways at her husband, her dark eyes glittering with a profound, knowing amusement. He looked back at her, a silent understanding passing between the monarchs.
A quiet beat passed. Then, without uttering a single word, the King and Queen turned on their heels. And they walked away into the dark corridor, leaving the future to itself.
Inside the room, the world had narrowed beautifully once more. Lips clashing, slowly, passionately together. Baelors tounge worshiping her on his desk.
Pulling her into him and on him. Holding his shoulders, nipping his neck. Who can blame Leyton, it's not everyday you get to ride a dragon.
It did not narrow to political urgency, and it did not narrow to the chaos of the court. It narrowed to something infinitely quieter. Something completely steady. Something miraculous and growing.
It was a fire burning not just between them, but within her very flesh.
And for the very first time since little Ormund had been taken from her arms by the road, the cold emptiness in Leyton's chest did not feel quite so vast.