King’s Landing appeared beneath Dravvaxx near sunset on the third day after leaving the Shadow Tower.
The return took longer than the journey north. There had been no reason to drive Dravvaxx as hard once the immediate threat disappeared, and I refused to exhaust him merely because I wanted my own bed. We stopped twice for proper rest, hunted along the edge of the Neck, and spent one night near Harrenhal before continuing south.
The farther we travelled from the Wall, the easier Dravvaxx became.
I noticed it before we crossed the Neck. The tension that had remained beneath his scales for more than a week gradually disappeared. His wings loosened during flight, he stopped turning his head towards every distant movement, and by the time the Riverlands stretched beneath us he had returned to the dragon I knew.
Whatever had unsettled him near the Wall remained there. I still had no explanation for it.
There were no White Walkers marching south. At least, I did not believe there were. Hilvi had given a perfectly human reason for bringing seventy thousand people towards the Shadow Tower, and Magnar’s army had confirmed it by following her west rather than descending upon the Wall. Their civil war required no ancient monsters to explain it. Men had always been capable of creating horrors without supernatural assistance.
Nearly two centuries separated this age from the events I remembered surrounding the Others. History had changed around me, but I was not prepared to assume it had changed that much because a dragon disliked the northern forest.
I would remember it. That was enough.
King’s Landing announced our arrival long before Dravvaxx reached the outer fields. Dragonkeepers sounded horns as his shape appeared over Blackwater Bay. Men cleared the landing ground, horses were led away, and by the time we descended I could see a familiar collection of people waiting beyond the marked boundary.
Rhaenyra stood at the front. All our children seemed to have decided that greeting me required their presence, although Maelor had clearly been brought outside before understanding what was happening. He stood beside Aemma with one hand wrapped around hers and the other raised against the wind created by Dravvaxx’s descent.
Luke and Rhaena waited together.
Jace stood beside Sara, whose pregnancy remained invisible beneath her clothing to anyone who did not know of it. Rhaegar, Aerion, and Viserys stood behind them, each attempting to appear less eager than the others.
Dravvaxx landed heavily. Dust and grass spread outward beneath his wings before settling around us. He folded them with a tired rumble and lowered his body enough for me to dismount.
I had barely reached the ground when Maelor escaped Aemma’s hand and ran towards me. One of the dragonkeepers nearly stopped him before recognising that Dravvaxx knew the boy. I caught Maelor beneath the arms and lifted him.
"You were gone for a very long time," he informed me with the seriousness of a child delivering formal criticism.
"It was less than two weeks."
"That is a long time."
"At your age, perhaps."
He looked past me towards Dravvaxx. "Did he eat the wildlings?"
"Not all of them."
Maelor appeared disappointed by the dragon’s lack of ambition. Rhaenyra approached while the others followed more slowly. She waited until I placed Maelor down before putting both hands against my face, examining me as though she expected some injury concealed beneath the journey.
"You said there had been no further battle in your last raven."
"There was not."
"That does not prevent you from finding another way to return wounded."
"I made a deliberate effort to disappoint you."
She kissed me before answering, long enough that our children began finding other places to look. When she stepped back, the relief in her expression mattered more than anything she might have said.
"You missed three arguments about Luke’s wedding, two council disputes over western reparations, and a discussion concerning whether Sara should remain in King’s Landing during the later months of her pregnancy."
"I regret missing exactly one of those."
Sara smiled. "I assume the pregnancy."
"The western reparations were a close second."
Jace shook his head. "Mother told us you would return believing you had escaped administrative work."
"She knows me too well."
Luke embraced me next. "I was beginning to think I would have to send Arrax north and drag you back before the ceremony."
"Your confidence in Arrax is admirable. Dravvaxx might object to the method."
"I would have asked politely first."
Rhaena stood beside him, amusement showing openly. "He has been counting how many days remained before he was allowed to become worried."
"I was not counting."
"You asked me every morning."
"That was because the number kept changing."
Their argument continued as we began walking towards the Red Keep. I had missed this. Not the subject. I cared very little whether Luke admitted counting the days. I had missed the sound of family disagreement that carried no fear beneath it.
The Small Council met the following morning.
Rhaenyra allowed me one night before requiring a formal report, which was generous by royal standards and considerably less generous by the standards of a man who had spent days sleeping beneath the Wall.
Lyman Beesbury attended as Master of Coin, seated beside Tyland and Vaeron. Grand Maester Orwyle had prepared copies of the reports sent from the Shadow Tower, while maps of the Wall and western valleys covered most of the table.
Jace attended as heir. Luke was permitted to remain because his wedding did not excuse him from learning how the realm was governed.
I gave the account from beginning to end. Hilvi’s assault had already begun when Dravvaxx reached the Shadow Tower. Hundreds of wildlings were scaling the Wall, while mammoths and a giant battered the gate. Dravvaxx destroyed the assault concentrated beneath the Wall and burned approximately ten thousand fighters before the remainder broke.
The number caused silence despite everyone having already read it in the ravens. Numbers carried different weight when spoken by the man who had watched them die.
I continued with Hilvi’s explanation. She was not fleeing some mythical horror awakening in the frozen north. Her people were retreating from a civil war against Magnar, a rival king who had gathered more than one hundred thousand followers and ruled through violence severe enough to turn cannibalism into part of his reputation.
Hilvi requested my help defeating him. I refused. When I finished explaining the subsequent days at the Wall and Magnar’s fifty-thousand-man pursuit, no councillor objected.
Tyland was the first to speak. "Had you agreed, what would victory have required after Magnar’s death? A dragon might destroy his army, but someone would then have to determine which free folk followed Hilvi, which refused her, and what happened when the next chief declared himself king."
"Exactly."
Vaeron looked over the western valleys marked upon the map. "The crown would also have been claiming authority over lands it neither governs nor understands. Once we chose Hilvi, every future dispute among the free folk could be presented as a royal concern."
Lyman Beesbury folded his hands upon the table. "Supporting her with soldiers would have required feeding those soldiers north of the Wall. We have only begun rebuilding the treasury after the civil war. I would prefer not to finance another one in a region from which the crown receives neither taxes nor allegiance."
"That was not the deciding reason," Rhaenyra said.
"No, Your Grace. It is merely another excellent reason."
Luke studied the map. "Magnar still has more than enough men to destroy Hilvi if he catches her."
"He does," I replied.
"And if he does, we simply allow it?"
"If their fighting remains north of the Wall, yes."
Luke did not look entirely comfortable with the answer. I had not expected him to.
"What Magnar does to his own followers may be monstrous," I continued. "That does not grant us the right to invade his lands whenever we dislike him. We have just ended a civil war here. I am not turning the Iron Throne into the judge of another conflict beyond its borders."
Jace nodded slowly. "If Magnar attacks the Wall, that changes."
"Completely. The Wall is the boundary. If he tries to cross, he is no longer merely fighting Hilvi. He is attacking the realm."
Tyland glanced towards the report. "And after watching Hilvi lose ten thousand men to one dragon, he chose to continue west."
"He had scouts close enough to see the battlefield. Whatever else Magnar may be, he understands what dragonfire does to a concentrated army."
Rhaenyra looked towards me. "You believe he will remain away?"
"I believe he will continue pursuing Hilvi for now. I left only after more than a week of reports confirming his direction. Cregan has reinforcements near the Wall, the Watch has additional stores, and Lord Commander Bolton knows to send several ravens if Magnar turns south."
No one demanded that I return. No one proposed sending Jace, Luke, or another dragon to intervene. The decision was entered into the royal record with remarkable simplicity: the Iron Throne would reinforce the Night’s Watch and defend the Wall, but the conflict between Hilvi and Magnar remained beyond royal jurisdiction unless either attempted to force passage into the Seven Kingdoms.
After everything required to end our own war, I appreciated a problem that could be answered with a boundary.
The council moved on. That surprised me more than it should have.
Lyman immediately raised the cost of maintaining extra northern stores. Tyland wanted authority to divert two supply ships once White Harbour confirmed the Shadow Tower no longer required urgent relief.
Vaeron had received another complaint from the Arbor concerning confiscated Redwyne property, and Orwyle possessed three letters from Oldtown describing disputes between Daeron’s household and the Citadel over land adjoining one of its newer towers.
Within half an hour, seventy thousand wildlings had become only one item among several. That was governance. Threats that seemed capable of consuming the world one day were replaced by grain accounts the next.
My attention returned to Luke’s wedding almost immediately afterwards.
Five weeks remained. The number had become four and a half by the time Rhaena discovered that several Velaryon captains had not been included among the royal guest lists because one clerk assumed their attendance was covered under Driftmark’s household allocation. Rhaenys disagreed. Strongly.
By sunset, another sixty places had appeared. Tyland complained that ships did not require seats merely because their captains possessed them. Rhaenys responded that the Master of Ships could explain that opinion directly to men who had broken the Redwyne blockade while he remained imprisoned in King’s Landing. Tyland found room in the accounts.
Luke continued arguing for restraint where he could. He wanted the ceremony to feel like a marriage rather than another gathering of the entire realm, but he had accepted that being the queen’s second son made privacy a limited resource.
Rhaena handled the preparations better than he did. She understood Driftmark’s expectations and possessed none of Luke’s reluctance to tell courtiers when their suggestions were unnecessary. The sea-silver cloth he had chosen before my departure appeared throughout the decorations, combined with black, red, and the pale blue-green associated with Velaryon halls.
I found them one afternoon reviewing the final procession order. Luke looked up when I entered. "You returned at the correct time. Rhaena believes the Velaryon delegation should enter before the Crownlands."
Rhaena did not look away from the list. "I believe the bride’s family should not be placed behind lords who are attending merely because their castles are nearby."
"That sounds reasonable."
Luke stared at me. "You were supposed to hear my argument."
"I have been married long enough to recognise when the available evidence already favours one side."
Rhaena smiled. "Your father has developed wisdom."
"No. He has developed self-preservation."
"Those qualities overlap more often than young men admit."
I left them continuing the discussion without needing me.
That evening, Rhaenyra and I ate privately. For once, no map of the Wall occupied the table. No letters described wildling armies or northern patrols. The only parchment nearby concerned Luke’s wedding and the arrangements for Sara’s household as her pregnancy advanced.
Rhaenyra watched me reading the guest list. "You have looked at the same page for several minutes."
"I am appreciating a problem in which the worst consequence is seating someone too near a man he dislikes."
"That can still produce bloodshed."
"Not if Lorent does his work properly."
She laughed and set down her cup. "You are glad to be home."
"Yes."
The answer required nothing more complicated.
Beyond the walls of the Red Keep, Hilvi and Magnar continued a civil war I had chosen not to make ours. The Night’s Watch remained vigilant. Cregan’s men watched the roads beneath the Wall, and Dravvaxx no longer stared north with unease.
Here, Luke was preparing to marry Rhaena. Sara carried our first grandchild. All seven of our children remained within reach of home, even if several spent their days flying far enough to test the meaning of the phrase.
For years, every plan had been shaped around survival. Now the future was being measured differently.
A wedding in five weeks. A child several months after that. For the first time in longer than I cared to remember, the dates ahead of us were things I wanted to arrive.