Chapter Text
Summerhall, 207 AC
Summerhall rose out of the rolling hills like a dragon curled around its hoard. White stone walls gleaming under the late-afternoon sun, towers crowned with scarlet and black banners that snapped in the warm wind. The air smelled of pine resin, blooming wildflowers, and the faint, musky tang of the kennels that sprawled along the eastern curtain wall.
Elayne had walked the last six leagues on blistered feet. Her boots - old, cracked, stolen from her father’s shed the night she left - were caked in dust from the Stormlands roads. The bow across her back was yew, unstrung, with only three arrows left in the quiver. At her hip hung the long hunting knife her mother had pressed into her hand before the gods took her. Nothing else. No horse. No hound. No letter sealed with some lord’s wax promising she was worth the bread she would eat.
She had nothing left to lose.
Her father’s last words still rang in her ears like a whip-crack. ”Useless fucking bitch. Should’ve drowned you in the rain barrel the day you dropped between your mother’s legs instead of the son I was owed.”
She had taken the knife, the bow, the clothes on her back, and walked out of Storm’s End’s shadow before dawn. Four weeks on the road. Sleeping in ditches. Eating what she could snare or beg. The world had never been gentle; she had learned to bite back.
The hills around Summerhall were softer than the jagged coast she had left behind. Grass rolled like a green sea, stirred by wind instead of tide. Somewhere to her right, a shepherd’s dog barked, sharp and insistent. Elayne tilted her head, listening - not to the noise, but to the space between it. The pause. The answer. Two more dogs, different throats, different tempers.
Good lungs, she thought. Poor discipline.
She wondered what sort of kennels a Targaryen prince kept. Silk cushions for lapdogs? Or lean, scarred beasts that knew the taste of boar and blood?
Prince Maekar. The name had followed her down the road like a rumor with teeth. Fourth son of the king. Hard-eyed. Hard-handed. Quick to anger and quicker with his tongue, if the whispers were true. A man who did not smile often and trusted even less.
Good, she thought. Smiling men were worse.
A kestrel circled high above, its cry thin and piercing. Elayne shaded her eyes and watched it ride the thermals. Freedom looked small from a distance. Fragile. One well-placed arrow and it would tumble, bones snapping on stone.
She flexed her fingers instead of reaching for the bow.
Master of hounds. The words still felt strange in her mouth, like rich food she had no business tasting. She had heard the posting by chance in a roadside tavern. Some steward complaining that Summerhall needed a new master, that the last one had drunk himself into an early grave or fled after angering the prince. The details had shifted with every telling. The pay, however, had remained steady in each version.
Silver enough to eat every day. A roof that did not leak. A place where skill might matter more than the shape of her birth.
Waters. The bastard name of the Crownlands. It sat ill on her shoulders. In the Stormlands she had been called worse things tho. Her father had refused to give her even that thin courtesy. “You’re no daughter of mine,” he would spit when the ale ran low. “Just proof your mother spread her legs too easy.”
Elayne had stopped crying about it when she was six.
A fly buzzed near her ear. She swatted it away and kept walking.
If they turned her away at the gates, she would not beg. She had begged enough in her life. If they laughed, she would laugh louder. If they asked what made her think she could command a prince’s hounds, she would tell them the truth.
Because dogs make sense.
Dogs bit when they were mistreated. They snarled when cornered. They were loyal to the hand that fed them and wary of the one that struck.
Men were less honest creaturs.
As she crested the final rise, Summerhall revealed itself fully. The castle was not as vast as King’s Landing - she had glimpsed its distant sprawl only once, years ago - but it bore the unmistakable stamp of old Valyria in its pale stone and dragon-carved lintels. Beauty with a memory of fire and for a heartbeat, doubt slithered into her gut.
What if they asked about her father? What if they demanded proof of birth, of training, of anything she did not possess? What if the prince himself stood there, sharp-eyed and merciless, and decided she looked too small, too thin, too female?
Elayne spat into the dust.
“Then he can choke on it,” she muttered to the wind.
Her stomach growled in protest at the bravado. She had eaten nothing since last night but half a heel of hard bread and a handful of blackberries that stained her fingers purple. Hunger made fools bold.
Still she squared her shoulders.
She had stitched up a hound’s torn flank with shaking hands while her father shouted that she’d let the beast die. Slept through storms that rattled the world apart. If Prince Maekar thought to frighten her with a glare and a curse, he would have to try harder.
The road dipped, then widened, flattening into packed earth before the outer gate. Guards stood posted in black and red, helmets gleaming. From within the walls came the distant chorus of barking - deep-chested, eager, alive.
Elayne’s lips curved, chin high, grey eyes steady beneath the wild tangle of her dark hair. Freckles stood out sharp across her nose and cheeks from days under the sun. Her tunic was patched at the elbows, breeches worn thin at the knees, but her back was straight as a spear.
She did not look like she belonged.
She still walked like she did.
The groundskeeper, a thickset man named Serwyn with a belly like a beer barrel and a face like week-old porridge, looked her up and down and snorted as soon as she stopped before him.
“Fuck off, girl. The Prince has called for a master of hounds, not some scrawny hedge-bitch with a toy bow. We’ve got twelve proper men already, lords’ huntsmen, some with their own packs, letters of recommendation thick as your arm. You’ve got nothing but dirt on your boots and tits under that rag. Turn around before I have the guards toss you in the ditch.”
Elayne tilted her head, considering him as if he were a horse she meant to buy. “I’ve seen what happens when something bigger thinks it owns the smaller thing. Sometimes the smaller thing bites. You really wanna try me?“
A few of the guards snorted before quickly schooling their faces.
Serwyn’s cheeks flushed. “You cheeky little-”
“I’ve tracked boar through Blackwater bogs in pitch dark with nothing but a knife and a prayer,” she went on, voice calm as still water. “I’ve survived twenty years of my father trying to beat the girl out of me and failing.” Her smile sharpened. “So if your twelve fancy cunts with silk leashes and pretty letters think they can tame the prince’s pack, let them try. But I’m not leaving until I’ve had my chance.”
“Enough.” The voice cut through the yard like a mace through bone.
Prince Maekar Targaryen stood twenty paces away, arms crossed over his thick chest, the late sun catching the silver-gold strands in his square-cut beard and the pale hair that fell to his shoulders. The pox scars on his cheeks stood out stark against weathered skin.
He wore no armor, just a black leather jerkin studded with silver, breeches tucked into tall boots and a heavy black cloak trimmed with ermine thrown back over one shoulder.
He did not look like a man who suffered fools.
Behind him, the other prospects waited in a loose knot: twelve men, some mounted, some leading fine hounds on braided leather leashes. Cloaks embroidered. Boots polished. Dogs sleek and well bred.
They stared at her like she was something the stable boys had failed to sweep away.
Maekar strode forward. His boots struck the cobbles with the finality of a verdict.
He stopped in front of her. Towering. Broad as a warhorse. Solid as stone.
He looked her over once. Slow, thorough, assessing. Not leering. Measuring.
The patched tunic. The callused hands. The old bow, well-kept despite its age. The knife at her hip, worn smooth at the hilt from use, not decoration.
“You’ve got balls, girl,” he said bluntly. “Or at least the balls to pretend you do.”
Elayne held his gaze. His eyes were not soft violet like court ladies whispered of Targaryens. They were winter bruises. Cold and watchful.
“I’ve had worse than words from men bigger than you, Your Grace,” she replied. “And I’ve given worse back.”
For a heartbeat, silence
Then a rough, surprised snort tore from him, quick and unpolished. “Seven fucking hells,” he muttered. “You’ve got a mouth on you too.”
“So I’ve been told.”
His mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. But something close.
He glanced at Serwyn who was still sputtering indignantly.
“Let her in.”
“Your Grace, the others—”
“I said let her in, you fat fuck.”
The yard went still.
Maekar did not raise his voice. He did not need to.
“I don’t give a shit if she rode in on a three legged mule or crawled here on all fours,” he spat. “The kennels are full of half wild beasts that tore the last master’s arm off when he got too old to remind them who’s master. If she can do what the rest of these perfumed cunts can’t, then she stays. If she can’t, she goes. Simple as that.”
He turned back to her. Stepped closer. Close enough that she could see the faint lines at the corners of his eyes. The scar at his jaw she suspected had not come from pox. Close enough to smell leather, steel, and woodsmoke clinging to him.
“What’s your name, girl?”
“Elayne, if it pleases Your Grace. Elayne Waters. No house. No lord.”
“Waters,” he repeated. His gaze sharpened. “Crownlands bastard name. You don’t sound like you’re from there.”
“Stormlands,” she said. “Left four weeks ago. My father decided the world would be better without me in it. I disagreed.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. He did not offer sympathy. He did not offer pity.
Good.
Instead, he studied her a moment longer, as if placing something he recognized but did not wish to name.
“You run from him?”
“I walked,” she said evenly. “Running implies fear.”
The corner of his mouth twitched again.
Behind him, one of the polished huntsmen scoffed under his breath. “This is a farce.”
Maekar did not turn.
“Is it?” he asked lazily.
The man swallowed. “No, Your Grace.”
Maekar’s eyes never left hers.
“Tomorrow at first light,” he said. “You’ll have one chance. Same as the rest. I’ll be watching. If you can make those fucking monsters obey, the position is yours. If not..” His shoulders rolled in a careless shrug. “You can walk back to Storm’s End or whatever hole you crawled out of. I don’t give a shit either way.”
Elayne dipped her head - not a curtsey. Not submission. A simple acknowledgment. “Thank you, Your Grace.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” he growled. “Most of them will be gone by noon on the morrow with their cocks tucked between their legs. Now fuck off to the servants’ hall and get some food before you fall over. You look like a stiff wind would snap you in half.”
Her brow lifted. “I bend,” she said lightly. “I don’t snap.”
That made him pause. Only for a fraction of a second. His gaze dropped, quick, assessing again, as if reevaluating bone and sinew beneath worn cloth. “See that you don’t” he muttered.
He turned sharply, barking orders at a groom about saddles and feed, already dismissed from the moment.
But Elayne had caught it. The way his scarred knuckles had tightened when she spoke of her cruel father.
The way he had not once looked at her like she was a jest.
The way he had measured her as one fighter measures another.
Not kindly. But honestly.
As she moved toward the servants’ quarters, she felt the eyes of the other prospects burning into her back.
One of them muttered, “she’ll be gone by sunrise”
Elayne did not turn around. “Then I’d best make good use of the sunset,” she called over her shoulder.
Inside the walls, the barking grew louder. Wilder. A clash of dominance and challenge.
Her pulse answered. The world had never been kind.
But for the first time in twenty years, someone with power had looked at her, not as a mistake, not as a disappointment, not as something to be beaten into shape, but as a tool that might prove sharp enough.
And Prince Maekar Targaryen, fourth son of the king, widower, father of six, soldier carved from iron and old grief, had just sworn at her like she was one of his own men.
Elayne’s lips curved in the lengthening shadows.
Let the others bring silk leashes and wax-sealed letters.
She would bring teeth.