The parley horn sounded shortly after noon.
One long note came from the forest, followed by two shorter calls. It carried across the open fields between Ormund’s hidden army and Honeyholt’s walls, clear enough that every sentry stopped what he was doing to listen.
The Hightower host had made no further attempt to move south after Dravvaxx burned its vanguard. For two days, the forest had remained quiet except for scattered patrols and the occasional wagon glimpsed through gaps in the trees.
Now Ormund wished to speak.
I stood on Honeyholt’s northern wall with the torn edge of Dravvaxx’s wing visible beyond the outer ditch. The dragonkeepers had cleaned the wound, coated it with what salves they dared use, and warned me that he could still fly but should not be forced into another violent descent unless necessity demanded it. Dravvaxx disliked their attention and had nearly bitten one of them when pain overcame patience.
Black Rat watched the forest beside me. Grey Worm stood near enough to translate, though neither man needed language to understand the meaning of the white cloth emerging from beneath the trees.
A dozen riders came first.
Ormund Hightower rode at their centre beneath a plain white banner. Ser Jon Roxton rode near him, dark-armoured and straight-backed, his sword still belted but secured by a strip of cloth to show it would not be drawn casually. Behind them came a covered wagon drawn by two tired horses.
The wagon troubled me more than the riders.
"What does he have in there?" Landrey asked.
"I do not know."
Black Rat spoke quietly in High Valyrian. Grey Worm translated. "He says it is something Ormund expects to carry more weight than words."
That seemed likely.
The terms of parley were arranged quickly. Ormund would come halfway across the open ground between the forest and Honeyholt. I would meet him with an equal number. Both sides would remain within sight of their own forces. No archers would advance. No dragon would move closer unless the parley was broken.
I chose Landrey, Grey Worm, six Unsullied, and six Dread Legion veterans. Black Rat remained in command of the army. Dick objected to my going personally, then objected more loudly when I told him he would remain behind to ensure no company mistook the meeting for permission to advance.
"Ormund has already hidden ballistas in wagons," he said. "Now he brings another wagon under peace cloth, and you intend to stand in front of it."
"I intend to stay far enough away that anything hidden inside cannot surprise me cleanly."
"That is an encouragingly narrow standard."
"If the parley fails, you hold the lines and follow Black Rat’s command."
Dick looked toward the distant riders. "You have a habit of giving me work when you choose danger."
"You are good at work and unpleasant company during danger."
"That is the first honest compliment you have given me."
I left before he found another objection.
Dravvaxx remained near Honeyholt, head raised, silver eyes following me as I rode out. His unease moved faintly through our bond. I had ordered him to stay, but dragons did not understand why a rider would approach enemies without wings or fire close enough to answer.
Ormund halted where the fields flattened between us. The wagon stopped behind his escort.
I brought my horse to a stand several paces away and dismounted. Ormund did the same. He wore armour beneath a green cloak, though the polish had faded during the days beneath the forest. He looked older than he had outside Oldtown. His beard had grown unevenly, and exhaustion sat beneath his eyes, but there was nothing broken in his posture.
He had lost perhaps a fifth of his host at Honeyholt, another two thousand men on the southern road, and the freedom to move openly beneath the sky.
He still carried himself like a man negotiating from strength.
"Prince Othorion," he said, bowing with formal restraint. "I thank you for respecting the parley."
"Lord Ormund. You asked to speak, and I came."
His gaze moved briefly toward Honeyholt, then to the dark bulk of Dravvaxx beyond the walls. "Your dragon has made the road difficult."
"You made the road necessary."
"I could say the same of your presence in the Reach."
"You could. It would not improve your position."
Ormund accepted that without visible irritation. "Then we need not spend time defending decisions already paid for in blood. My army cannot remain in the forest indefinitely. Yours cannot advance into it without suffering greatly. You have stopped my road to Oldtown, but you have not destroyed my host."
"That is true."
"And if you persist in starving us, I will eventually be forced to attack. You may defeat me. You may also lose thousands doing it, and Vhagar or Sunfyre may arrive before the matter is decided."
His reference to the dragons was deliberate. Perhaps they were coming. Perhaps he merely needed me to fear that they might.
"What do you propose?" I asked.
Ormund looked toward Ser Jon Roxton. The knight dismounted. He walked to the wagon and pulled back the canvas covering its bed. The smell reached us before I understood what I was seeing.
It was not overpowering at that distance, but it did not need to be. The body had lain in the forest for days. Cloth had been wrapped around much of it, though not enough to hide the pale hair darkened by dirt, the torn riding leathers, or the shape of a young woman whose fall had broken more than bone.
Baela. My chest tightened until breathing required thought. For a week, I had told myself she was dead. I had seen Moondancer’s body. I had found blood beside the saddle and Baela’s leather caught on thorns. Every reasonable conclusion had led here.
Reason had not prepared me for the sight. Ser Jon Roxton stood beside the wagon without looking down. His face was controlled, but he did not appear pleased by the duty. That was the only small mercy in the field.
Baela’s body had been cleaned only enough to make recognition possible. The forest had not been kind. Neither had the fall. One side of her face was bruised beyond natural colour, and her skin had begun to grey where death and time had taken hold. Her hair lay tangled around her shoulders. There were no chains, no mocking marks, no mutilation performed after death.
Ormund had not dishonoured the corpse. He had simply brought it as coin.
I heard Rhaenys’s voice in memory: If she is found dead, I want her brought home.
The promise sat inside me with the weight of an oath. Ormund watched my face carefully. "Princess Baela was found beneath the trees near her dragon. She did not survive the fall."
I forced my attention away from the wagon. "I can see that."
"My men recovered her before your scouts reached the site. I kept her body from being despoiled."
"You kept it because you believed it would become useful."
His expression did not change. "The dead remain useful to the living whether we admit it or not."
Landrey shifted beside me. The Unsullied remained still, though I sensed the anger among the Dread Legion veterans behind them.
I kept my voice measured. "State your terms."
"Safe passage for my army to Oldtown. My men leave the forest with their weapons, banners, wounded, and remaining stores. Your dragons do not attack. Your host does not pursue. In return, Princess Baela’s body is delivered to you intact, and the road between us closes without another battle."
Simple. Cruel. Effective, if I allowed grief to command strategy.
Ormund had understood exactly what he held. Baela was Daemon’s daughter, Rhaenys and Corlys’s granddaughter, Jace’s betrothed, and part of the family whose crown we defended. Returning her body mattered. It mattered to Rhaenys, to Rhaenyra, to Daemon, to Jace, and to me.
But Ormund wanted more than a withdrawal. He wanted his army restored to Oldtown’s walls. If I agreed, thousands of armed men would escape the trap we had forced around them. Oldtown would become vastly harder to take. The Hightower cause would recover from Honeyholt, and Baela’s corpse would have purchased them a fortress.
I looked at her again.
Martyn and Garth Fossoway were children held as hostages, yet fed and treated with dignity. Corlys had been murdered for power. Moondancer had been killed because Baela disobeyed an order and flew low enough for hidden machines to strike.
Now Ormund asked me to place the future of the campaign against the body of a girl I had failed to protect. He had chosen the weapon well.
"No," I said.
The word did not rise. It did not need to. Ormund’s eyes narrowed slightly. "You refuse to recover a princess of your own house."
"I refuse to purchase her body with the lives your army will take once it reaches Oldtown."
"Her grandmother asked that she be brought home, I assume."
The accuracy was meant to wound. I did not give him the satisfaction of seeing it clearly. "Rhaenys asked me to bring Baela home. She did not ask me to release thousands of enemies so they could hide behind city walls and kill more of her family."
Ormund glanced toward the wagon. "You speak of the girl as though duty should make her disposable."
"No. You are the one treating her as an object to be exchanged."
"I preserved her."
"You withheld her."
"As leverage, yes. We are at war, Prince Othorion. You burned two thousand men on the southern road and now object because I use what means remain to save those still alive."
"You did not bring her body here from kindness. If you wished to honour the dead, you could have returned her under the same peace banner without demanding passage."
"And you could allow my host to withdraw without forcing another slaughter."
"I offered your cause peace before war began. Rhaenyra offered Aegon honour, Aemond lawful judgement, and Daeron a place beside her. Oldtown refused because your belief could not tolerate a woman ruling. You marched on Honeyholt, lost men at its walls, hid beneath the forest, killed Baela’s dragon, and tried to move south after I allowed your first withdrawal without burning your host."
Ormund’s expression hardened at last. "Allowed?"
"Yes. I watched you leave Honeyholt when I could have attacked the retreating columns. I chose restraint. You used that restraint to prepare another escape and now bring a dead girl into a field as payment for repeating it."
Ser Jon Roxton looked down then. Only briefly. Ormund did not.
"What is your counteroffer?" he asked.
"Surrender."
A faint sound moved among the Hightower knights behind him. I continued before pride could turn it into laughter.
"Your men leave the forest by companies. They lay down arms, surrender the hidden ballistas and wagons, and submit to the queen’s peace. Officers are recorded. Those who swear not to take arms again until formally exchanged may return to their homes after review. Others will be held under guard. Your wounded receive treatment. Your common soldiers will not be slaughtered. Baela’s body is returned, and your army survives without reaching Oldtown."
Ormund stared at me. "You ask a Hightower host to surrender to foreign soldiers and freed slaves."
"I ask men trapped in a forest, short of supply and unable to move under daylight, to choose life over a battle they are increasingly unlikely to win."
"My army still outnumbers yours."
"Then attack."
The field seemed to tighten around the challenge.
Ormund looked toward Honeyholt, where Rhaenyra’s banners flew over walls his men had failed to take. Dravvaxx stood beyond them, injured but alive. Thirteen thousand soldiers held the approaches. His own host remained beneath trees with diminishing food and hidden machines that had already spent their greatest surprise.
"You believe numbers no longer matter because you have a dragon," he said.
"Numbers matter. So do supplies, ground, discipline, morale, and the fact that every open road from your forest can be burned. If Vhagar arrives, the calculation changes. If Sunfyre arrives, it changes somewhat. Neither dragon is here now."
"You cannot know that."
"No. Neither can you know whether Daeron has already sworn to Rhaenyra and taken Tessarion out of your war."
The smallest pause followed. Ormund knew. Perhaps not the full details, but enough. Daeron’s choice had reached him somehow, and it hurt. I stepped closer, leaving enough distance to preserve the parley but little enough that my voice no longer needed to carry for the men behind us.
"You raised Daeron. He told me so. He respected you. He still chose to fly to his sister rather than let you make him burn people who had never wronged him. Consider what that says about the cause you ask these men to die for."
For the first time, Ormund’s composure cracked. Not greatly. A tightening around the eyes. A breath taken too sharply. Anger entering a face trained to call itself duty.
"Daeron is young," he said. "Youth often mistakes softness for virtue."
"Perhaps. Older men often mistake certainty for wisdom."
His gaze held mine. Neither of us moved.
Behind him, Baela lay beneath a partly drawn canvas while flies gathered in the warm air. The sight made every political word feel obscene, but that was why Ormund had brought her. He wanted the dead to make reason unbearable.
I would not let him.
"You have until tomorrow at noon," I said. "Send your answer under white banner. If you surrender, your men live, your wounded are treated, and Baela is taken home with honour. If you refuse, then come out and fight. Do not hide beneath trees until hunger does what courage would not."
Ormund’s jaw tightened. "And if I remain where I am?"
"Then the cordon closes. Your supplies fail. Your patrols die. Every attempted road south is burned. In time, your soldiers will choose surrender without asking whether their lord approves."
"You speak confidently for a man with only one dragon left."
"One is enough to stop a marching column. You have seen that."
"And not enough to enter the forest."
"That is why I am patient."
He looked toward Baela again. "You would leave her with us."
"For one more day, if that is what refusing your bargain requires."
"Her body is already decaying."
The words struck harder than any accusation of cowardice could have. I remembered Rhaenys touching Meleys’s face before flying for Driftmark. I remembered her asking that Baela be brought home. I remembered promising.
My answer came slowly, because I wanted Ormund to understand that the pain did not change it. "Then every hour she remains in your wagon is another hour House Hightower chooses to use a dead girl as a shield. That dishonour belongs to you, not me."
Ser Jon Roxton looked at Ormund. The movement was small, but it mattered. Ormund saw it too.
His face cooled. "You have given your answer."
"Yes."
"And I have heard your terms."
"Then decide whether your men will live."
He turned away. Ser Jon began replacing the canvas over Baela’s body.
"Leave it," I said.
The knight stopped. Ormund looked back. "You rejected the exchange."
"I did. That does not mean you need hide her face as though shame begins only when others can see it."
For a moment, I expected him to order the canvas closed out of spite. Instead, he gave Ser Jon a curt nod. The knight left Baela uncovered.
Ormund mounted. His escort formed around the wagon, and the parley began moving back toward the forest. I remained in the field until they had travelled halfway, watching the red apple dirt of the Reach take the wheels while Baela’s pale hair shifted faintly in the wind.
Landrey came beside me. "You made the right decision," he said.
"I know."
It did not feel right. It felt necessary. Those were not the same thing.
When we returned to Honeyholt, Black Rat met us beyond the gate. Dick stood beside him, face tense with the effort of pretending he had not spent the entire meeting expecting treachery.
"What did he offer?" Dick asked.
"Baela’s body for safe passage to Oldtown."
His expression changed. "And you refused."
"Yes."
He looked toward the forest, understanding the cost before I explained it. "Rhaenys will not forgive that easily."
"No."
"Daemon may not either."
"No."
Dick was silent for a moment. "Then I hope Ormund surrenders before you have to tell any of them that Baela remained in his hands because you chose the war over her burial."
"So do I."
The army remained in position.
No company advanced. No dragon took wing. The cordon continued tightening around the forest while the sun crossed westward. Ormund had until noon the next day to choose between submission and battle.
I stood on Honeyholt’s wall after dark and watched the trees.
Somewhere beneath them, Baela’s body lay under Hightower guard. Somewhere farther inside, thousands of men waited for Ormund’s answer. He could surrender and preserve his host. He could attack and spend it. He could wait for Aemond and Vhagar. He could attempt another hidden road.
I had refused the dead to protect the living.
By morning, I would learn how many living men Ormund was willing to sacrifice rather than accept the same bargain.