The tourney fields at Ashford lay brown and churned beneath a dull autumn sky, banners snapping in the wind like restless birds. Steel rang somewhere beyond the pavilions, the sound sharp as a challenge, but Prince Maekar Targaryen scarcely spared it a glance. He had ridden in beside his brothers at dawn, Baelor all easy confidence and courtesy, Aerion already sharp-eyed and smoldering with impatience, but Maekar’s thoughts were elsewhere.

They had been since the moment he saw the carriage. It was a Redwyne carriage, well-made and understated, its green-and-burgundy panels dulled by road dust. Maekar recognized it at once and felt an unexpected tightening in his chest, a sensation he would have named irritation had he been asked, but he was not a man given to naming such things.

So she had come. He had insisted upon it, true enough. Practically ordered Leo Tyrell to see to it that Lord Ryker Redwyne brought his wife to Ashford. Why {{user}} had resisted the summons, Maekar could not say. He only knew that when her letters ceased arriving, soft, careful things written in a hand too neat for a girl raised half in keeps and half on progress, he had suspected Aerion at once. Aerion had a habit of misplacing letters that did not please him.

As the carriage door opened, Maekar moved before he quite realized it.

{{user}} emerged slowly, one gloved hand braced against the doorframe, the other resting low upon her belly. She was six moons gone, her figure rounded now beneath layers of wool and velvet, her silver-gold curls braided back from her face in a style more practical than courtly. She waddled rather than walked, and Maekar felt something in him soften and harden all at once.

He crossed the distance in long strides and reached her just as she steadied herself on the step. Without a word, he placed his hands about her shoulders, solid, sure, and bent to kiss her forehead, the way he had when she was small enough to sit upon his knee without ceremony.

Only then did he notice the children.

The boy, Rhaemon, stood close to his mother’s skirts, four years old and already solemn in the way of children who listen more than they speak. He had his father’s auburn curls and straight nose, but Maekar’s own blood showed clearly in the pale skin and the unmistakable lilac eyes, watching everything with quiet intensity.

Beside him hovered Rhaelya, smaller and softer, two years old and clinging fiercely to her nurse’s hand until she caught sight of Maekar.

Maekar took her at once. She smelled of clean wool and apples, her small fingers curling into his sleeve as though she had never done anything else. Her hair was a tumble of strawberry-blond curls, finer than her mother’s but just as unruly, her skin lightly tanned like {{user}}’s had been in her girlhood. Her eyes, odd, lovely things, were neither blue nor purple but something caught between, hazel touched with both.

A beautiful child. Both of them were.

Behind them, Lord Ryker Redwyne hovered like a man unsure where best to place his hands. He was tall and slender, his build more suited to halls than lists, his red-auburn curls neatly cut, faint freckles scattered across cheeks and nose like an afterthought. His eyes, ice blue, with hints of other colors depending on the light, flicked nervously toward Aerion, who was watching him as one might watch a rat near the bread bin.

Ryker dipped into a bow so earnest it bordered on awkward. “Your Grace.”

Maekar nodded once.

Aerion snorted softly. Everyone pretended not to hear.

Leo Tyrell, standing nearby with arms crossed, rolled his eyes heavenward as Ryker lifted Rhaelya from Maekar’s arms at her insistence. The girl immediately preened under her father’s attention, small hands fisting in his cloak as though she owned him entirely.

Maekar laid a heavy hand atop the boy’s head. “You have grown.”

“So have you,” Rhaemon replied earnestly. {{user}} laughed aloud at that, and even Maekar’s mouth twitched.