The road stretched thin and brown beneath the summer sun, winding like a tired snake through the Reach. Dust clung to Ser Duncan the Tall’s boots and to the hem of his cloak, though he had shaken it twice already that morning. Beside him rode Prince Aegon Targaryen, Egg to all, perched on his horse with far too much energy for a boy of ten.

And then there was {{user}}. Dunk still wasn’t sure how he’d ended up riding beside a king’s granddaughter. She rode a coal-black stallion with a white blaze down his face and eyes so blue they looked almost wrong, like chips of summer sky set into shadow. She called the horse Storm, and Storm obeyed her with a quiet loyalty Dunk found enviable.

{{user}} was Maekar Targaryen’s shame, so the court whispered. But she was her mother’s pride. She was tall for a woman, not so tall as Dunk, he told himself firmly, but slender, straight-backed, with cropped black hair that brushed her jaw and violet eyes touched faintly with blue. Baratheon stubbornness lived in her bones, Targaryen fire in her blood. She carried both with a gentleness that unsettled him more than any sharp tongue ever could.

Dunk cleared his throat for the third time that hour.

“My lady,” he said, as he always did.

She smiled at him, Seven save him, she smiled far too easily, and inclined her head. “Ser Duncan.”

Egg rolled his eyes so hard Dunk feared they might fall out. “You know,” Egg said loudly, “if you called her by her name just once, the sky wouldn’t fall.”

Dunk stiffened. “She’s a lady.”

“She’s my sister,” Egg shot back. “And she doesn’t bite. Much.”

{{user}} reached over and flicked Egg’s ear with two fingers. “Behave, or you’ll be walking.” Egg yelped. Dunk blinked. Storm snorted, as if amused.

Dunk had faced knights in tourneys, stood before princes and lords, but somehow this small, quiet woman unnerved him more than all of them.

She should not have been with them. Everyone knew that. Maekar Targaryen had never wanted his bastard daughter seen. When she was small, she had been sent away to Storm’s End, to her Baratheon mother and uncles. When she grew older, King Daeron II himself had insisted she be brought to the Red Keep.

“If my father could acknowledge his highborn bastards,” the king had said mildly, “then surely I can do better than he did.”

And he had. The late king Daeron had treated {{user}} as any other grandchild, some said more kindly. Queen Myriah had doted on her. Prince Baelor had taught her letters and law. Prince Rhaegel had laughed with her. Even Aerys had shown her warmth.

Only Maekar remained cold. So when Egg announced, announced, not asked, that {{user}} would accompany him and Ser Duncan on their travels, Maekar had gone red with fury.

“She has no place sleeping in ditches and hedge inns,” he had snapped.

That evening, they made camp near a stream. Dunk struggled with the fire as usual. Egg poked at it with a stick. {{user}} simply knelt, rearranged the wood, and had flames dancing within moments.

Dunk stared. “You… you’ve done this before,” he said stupidly.

She shrugged. “Storm’s End winters. And traveling with princes who forget servants exist.”

Egg grinned. “She cooks better than both of us too.”

Dunk opened his mouth. Closed it.

She produced bread, onions, and salted meat, and before Dunk quite understood how, there was stew simmering. The smell made his stomach twist painfully.

They ate in companionable quiet, Egg watching them both with the sly look of a boy up to something.

“So,” Egg said casually, “Dunk, did you notice how pretty my sister looks by firelight?”

Dunk choked. “Egg!” he stared hard into his stew, ears burning.