Cantell's shout cracked across the forest like a snapped bowstring.
"Cantell, are you a seven-cursed fool?" Baelon hissed under his breath, never taking his eyes off the creature before him. "Who told you to summon the entire camp?"
He did not raise his voice. He didn't dare.
The white hart's change in posture had been the first warning, the subtle tightening beneath its hide, the tremor of muscle crouched for violence. A single wrong sound and the ancient stag might bolt… or charge.
Baelon's jaw clenched. He cursed his knight silently, then lifted his voice so every soldier, lord, and attendant could hear:
"No one is to strike! Anyone who raises a weapon against the white hart disobeys my command."
A prince's command carried weight, especially with the memory of yesterday's execution still fresh in every mind. None present wished to test whether Baelon would be as merciless as the father who raised him… or the father whose blood he bore.
Footsteps crashed through the brush.
"What is this noise? What's happened?"
King Viserys appeared at the edge of the clearing, breathless, leaning heavily upon two attendants. His cloak was stained with the stag he had killed earlier, Jason Lannister's golden spear still lodged in its carcass somewhere behind him.
"Your Grace, Prince Baelon," Otto Hightower said, stepping forward with crisp precision. "He… has encountered the white hart."
"The white hart?" Viserys's brows pinched sharply.
He shoved past Otto, past lords and ladies and startled guards. And then he stopped.
In the center of the clearing, washed in pale morning light, stood the great stag of legend, white as winter's first snowfall, its antlers spreading like a crowned helm wrought of old bone.
A creature older than rhymes and heraldry. A symbol of kingship in Westeros long before House Targaryen had ever dreamed of conquest.
And it stood before Baelon.
Why him? Why not me?
Viserys's heart faltered. The memory of his prophetic dream rose unbidden, an heir crowned beneath the roar of dragons… the omen at Baelon's birth… the way the dragons had cried out that day, as if hailing a chosen child.
"Do not interfere," Viserys commanded, his voice ringing through the trees. He straightened, breath coming hard but eyes fixed on the stag and the small boy before it. "Let Prince Baelon handle this."
"Your Grace-!" Jason Lannister blurted, horrified.
"Silence," Otto said sharply. "Obey your king."
Yet inside, Otto Hightower allowed himself a small, cold curl of satisfaction.
Baelon Targaryen was unmistakably Daemon's blood, quick, fierce, unpredictable. Worse, he was bound to Princess Rhaenyra by affection since infancy. If he lived to manhood, he would become her fiercest champion… a sword she had not asked for but could wield with ease.
One Daemon was trouble enough. A second Daemon, young, beloved, and touched by fortune, was a danger Otto could not ignore.
And now, the gods, or chance, had placed a perfect opportunity in his lap.
He schooled his face into dutiful neutrality.
In the clearing, the white hart pawed the earth, hooves cracking twigs beneath their weight. White mist curled from its nostrils in the cold morning air.
Baelon watched every twitch.
He understood.
Its patience was thinning. If pushed further, it would strike.
Slowly, deliberately, he stepped forward.
The stag did not flinch. All its unease was directed at the dozens of eyes watching, the ring of bodies hemming it in.
"Back away!" Baelon called, lifting one hand without turning. "All of you- give it space!"
"Back!" came Ser Cantell's echo. "Make room for the prince!"
The nobles obeyed like a tide pulling away from shore, retreating step by step. Branches snapped beneath boots. No one dared breathe too loudly.
As the crowd thinned, the hart's tension eased, its ears lifting.
Baelon let out a quiet breath.
"Easy now," he murmured. "I'm not here to harm you."
He drew closer, boots sinking into the leaf-strewn earth. Half a yard separated boy and beast. The stag dipped its head, studying him. Its dark eyes held a strange intelligence, a wary curiosity.
It hated men. It hated the smell of fire and steel. It loathed the reek of dragons.
Except… this child.
This one smelled different... sweet, so strange. A scent drawn from deep roots of the Kingswood, from old gods and older powers. A scent the hart had once sensed faintly upon another mortal, weak and fading…
But here, here it surged like pure sunlight.
It was that scent that had pulled the hart across the forest. That had drawn it toward this boy.
Baelon stretched out his hand, steady, unafraid, and touched the stag's leg.
Warmth surged into his palm, soft, dense fur over living strength.
"Seven…" he whispered. "You're softer than you look."
He pressed both hands against the creature's leg, nearly hugging it in innocent wonder.
Viserys watched from afar, awe carving deep lines across his features.
And underneath the awe… something like fear.
His dream, the dream of a prince who would unite the realm beneath a winged shadow… the omen at Baelon's birth… and now this. The white hart, symbol of kingship older than any dragonlord's crown, standing docile beneath the touch of Daemon's son.
Is this the gods' will?
His heart twisted.
Aemma… if you could see him now…
Baelon, oblivious to the storm of prophecy gathering behind him, encountered a far simpler problem.
He glanced up helplessly.
"Um… could someone help me? I can't reach its back."
His small arms could barely reach halfway.
"I will assist you, my prince."
Jason Lannister stepped forward immediately, moving with a reverence he seemed not to notice. He approached like a man nearing a sacred altar, hands spread in peace.
He lifted Baelon, light as a feather, and set him atop the stag's broad, powerful back.
At that very moment, the sun broke through the clouds. A lance of golden light speared the clearing, striking the silver-haired boy astride the white hart.
The forest held its breath.
A roar shattered the silence.
Tyraxes, fresh from burning Stonehelm's towers to smoking ruin, burst over the treetops, crimson wings cutting the morning sky. Embers trailed behind him like falling stars. His cry reverberated through the Kingswood, ancient and commanding.
Baelon turned his head slightly, the movement slow, instinctive. Not surprised, merely acknowledging the shadow that passed above.
Black-clad child.
Red dragon overhead.
Silver hair lit by dawn.
White hart beneath him, calm as still water.
The image struck every soul present like a hammer.
Jason Lannister collapsed to his knees. He did not remember choosing to kneel, one moment he was standing, the next the earth was beneath him and his head was bowed.
Others followed.
Nobles, soldiers, attendants, dropping one by one, the weight of the moment pressing them down as though the very air commanded it.
Until only two men remained standing.
Viserys Targaryen, King of the Seven Kingdoms.
And Otto Hightower, Hand of the King.
For a long heartbeat, neither moved. Light glinted off Viserys's crown, off Otto's cold green eyes.
Viserys swallowed hard. Emotion thickened his voice when he finally spoke.
"By the Dawn's grace…" Unknowingly, his words trembled, so fallen in a thought. "A prince blessed by the gods. My Baelon… the heir of my dream."
He had not meant to speak aloud, yet the words slipped from him all the same, raw and trembling.
Gasps rippled through the kneeling crowd.
Every word carried, hanging in the cold morning air.
"The Dawn-Chosen Prince!" someone cried.
"The future king!"
Voices swelled. A chant surged through the trees like a rising tide.
"The Dawn-Chosen Prince!"
"The Future King!"
Dozens of voices, then hundreds, lords and ladies who had doubted, who had whispered of succession in private halls, now shouting a single truth, hammered into their hearts by the sight before them.
And Baelon, small, solemn, and quiet, sat astride the white hart, dawn painting his hair gold, and Tyraxes circling in burning arcs overhead.
In that moment, he ceased to be merely a child of the Red Keep.
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A/N- If you're liking how the story starts, trust me, the best parts are only beginning.Baelon's journey gets far wilder in the next arc.
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