Chapter Text
Jace had but one memory of his mother’s husband.
He had been four. He knew that because Vermax had hatched but Aunt Laena had not arrived in Runestone yet.
Uncle Jon and Aunt Phoebe had been visiting from Gulltown and his uncle had gifted him a fine wooden toy sword. He still had it. It was masterfully crafted to resemble a true blade and painted beautifully to resemble Lamentation. Jace had been determined to show it to his mother immediately, only barely noting the Maester’s quiet comment about “Lady Rhea’s visitor”. He remembered the adults exchange looks over his head with pursed expressions Jace now knew to be a mix of concern and wrath. They’d bent forward to whisper urgently to the Maester.
It had been all he needed to escape.
He didn’t actually remember the face of the man his mother had been roaring at when he’d burst into her solar. He had blurry images of a tall figure with pale hair and intense dark purple eyes turning sharply to glare down at him with a grip on a sword hilt. They’d both frozen staring at each other.
The Lady Rhea had been quick to drag her husband’s attention back to her though when she’d thrown a purplewood carving of the Warrior at the man’s head, calling him a “pathetic worm of a boy who cared little and less about a man's duty”. The man had ducked, breaking their linked gaze and Aunt Phoebe had arrived, picking up Jace and taking him far from the room.
The glimpse was all he had.
Her husband left with no word to him, all remaining goodwill between his mother and the man exhausted. Mother had forbidden him from returning to her home and lands.
Jace remembered his mother’s stormy attitude more clearly than the man's face.
His mother was a woman of action and when brooding or furious she would go on a ride through their lands. Hunting and camping as she did. She’d taken him this time, showing him the wonders of their land and riding along the shore until the storm within her settled. Those days spent with his mother exploring and laughing had far outshone a man Jace did not know. It was only long after when Baela and Rhaena were toddling around Runestone and Aunt Laena had begun to smile that Jace realized that the man in his memory was his father.
He’d genuinely thought he had been born fatherless when he was younger. His mother had liked to joke that he was sired by the Gods after she’d prayed for an heir. Jace had been told over and over when he was younger how much he resembled her and heard how relieved everyone was that "Lady Rhea" had finally blessed with an heir. It made sense to a young child who barely understood what a father was.
There were signs though.
Vermax was the most obvious the proof of the man’s existence. Born from a cradle egg tucked beside him in an unrepeated fit of paternal responsibility. His beloved temperamental dragon had truly made him stand out from the other Valemen and his cousins. The dragon inevitably drew attention to Jace’s features that were undeniably Valryian.
Although his dark curls were entirely his mother’s and the shape to his face, his eyes gave him away. At first glance they appeared a dark brown disguised as black, but if one paid close enough attention and the light hit correctly, they glimmered a deep purple. Eyes his sister’s shared, Baela’s nearly identical to his own while Rhaena’s were a shade lighter, a lovely amethyst.
His frame was growing slender, lacking the same breadth of cousin Gerold or shorter solid build of his mother or Aunt Phoebe. He was going to be tall his mother had started to comment when he’d hit her height at eleven and not stopped growing, giving his curls an affectionate ruffle and her lips twisting into a crooked smile that made her brown eyes sparkle. Gerold meanwhile would clasp his shoulders and beamed at him after every growth spurt, calling him a “proper Royce man”.
It had comforted Jace at first until he heard the soft mutterings of his name on his fifteenth name day.
His stomach had fully curdled when Ser Eldric made a comment about how pleased Lady Rhea must be to have her son resemble his father so well during his long absence. A little bronze dragon to match her own title, Ser Eldric had japed. Unseating the arrogant man during the joust had only done so much to settle Jace, though he relished the startled expression visible in the part of his helm even as the man flew from his horse.
Then there were the other more unnatural traits that hinted at his true ancestry. There was an undeniable glow of sorts that those bonded with dragons possessed.
Jace had assumed it was a purely Valyrian trait given he only saw it mirrored in his sisters and Aunt Laena’s fine features. It wasn’t until one of Aunt Laena’s cousin Ser Daemion had visited that he’d learned otherwise. It was a dragon rider trait his aunt had gently corrected when he’d managed to explain himself. A sign of the magic in their bond and it would only grow as their bond grew.
Dragons were reflections of their riders’ hearts, Aunt Laena had said, and riders grew to mirror them in turn.
Jace could tolerate the traits if he focused on them tying him to his beloved sisters instead of the man who'd helped create him.
“A raven from King’s Landing, Lady Rhea,” Maester Rolyn announced as he entered the room and Jace looked up from his plate to see a small, sealed message clutched in his brown hands.
Mother looked up from her food to the Maester with a frown. They were breaking their fast as a family in his mother’s solar. It was an unspoken but enforced rule that the first meal was always shared with their closest kin and not to be interrupted for all except the most serious of situations. Maester Rolyn stepped forward, body strangely tense, not backing down or elaborating as he passed the message to Mother. Jace caught only a glimpse of a red seal’s edge before his mother went tense.
“Dismissed, Maester,” Mother said voice taut and sharper than she would have usually used.
It was a bad sign that Maester Rolyn simply left without complaint, firmly closing the door behind him. Mother broke the seal and began rapidly reading the message, eyes darting left and right. Jace felt his stomach clench as he watched his mother’s expression grow tense, then slack, and settling on furious before ending on something more neutral though her eyebrows remained furrowed.
When she looked up her gaze was grave and voice deliberately steady. “Children leave for a moment. I need to discuss something with Laena. I will call you later to speak."
“Rhea,” Aunt Laena said from the table opposite of Mother, hair still wrapped in her silken cover from bed, and expression tense and wary, her top lip sucked in slightly.
The word was enough to draw Rhaena from the collection of letters from her friends at Lady Jeyne’s court. She looked up round face crinkling with worry. Morning, wrapped around her neck, looked up as well, her small pink body knocking into Rhaena’s long white braids. The bells tinkled softly from her bronze hair clasps she’d decorated with this morning in anticipation of the visit from Uncle Jon and, more importantly, his daughter Maia. She had gifted the clasps on her last visit when the two had declared eternal friendship.
Baela had already been watching as Jace was and met his gaze with an obvious question. He shrugged slightly, uncertain and her eyes snapped back to his mother narrowing. Her new haircut that had accompanied her recent growth spurt normally made her look older than her age of two and ten. The tight white curls springing from her head in a small cloud distracted from the childish roundness that remained in her cheeks, but the scowl took him back to three-year-old Baela throwing a fit when she’d been told she couldn’t join Jace’s lessons with the men-at-arms.
“Baela,” Aunt Laena said, turning a stern gaze onto her daughter before she could speak. “Go with your sister and Jace. We will speak to you later.”
“Mother –” Baela started anyway, chin jutting out and shoulders drawing out.
Rhaena grabbed her sister’s hand where it had begun to clench and Baela scowled but one shared look made her nod and stand. The girls had already rounded the edge of the table before Jace moved. He was focused on the part of the broken seal closest to him.
There was a slender neck of a beast there.
A dragon’s head.
“Jace,” Mother said softly.
Jace got to his feet swallowing against a sudden knot in his throat and an intense unease that made him shaky. He followed the girls out though and they hesitated together outside the door.
“It can’t be anything too horrible or Muña would have told us immediately,” Rhaena said with a false confidence after a tense moment of silence. “She doesn’t let bad news linger.”
Jace wasn’t so sure.
Rhaena was right.
In a way.
It was almost good news.
The marriage of Lady Rhea Royce and Lord Daemon Targaryen would be annulled under the grounds of desertion by special exemption by King Viserys I Targaryen. His mother would finally be free of a shackle that had held her down since she was Jace’s age. But the King had also demanded that Lady Rhea and all her living descendants come to King’s Landing to confirm her issue and acceptance.
Along with her husband who’d also been summoned.
Aunt Laena would never leave Mother to face this (Daemon Targaryen) alone.
It meant that the three of them would soon be reunited with their long absent father.