Laenor was surprised to find Rhaenyra and the children already gone when he returned from his ship with Qarl. He was quickly filled in on the events of the night by multiple furious lords, for it seemed that everyone was looking for him. Though they had planned on a grand diversion, what could be grander, Laenor supposed, than a stolen dragon, a lost eye, and an attempt at murder by the Queen? It seemed as though the princess and her uncle had departed with haste, and Laenor ran to the dragon pit to be sure. Indeed, both Syrax and Caraxes were gone.
They waited an afternoon to ensure that no one could suspect the princess or her uncle for killing him in the time before they left Driftmark with the children. Laenor made sure to embrace his mother. He argued with a random lord – for he could not bring himself to be anything but loving toward his father – as well as several knights, and then Qarl bribed the guards to take an early break.
Then they carried in the body they had acquired off the shore and dressed it in Laenor's clothes and armor. They set it to burn upon the hearth until it all parts of it were charred enough to disguise the decay, before they fled into the night on a rowboat they'd left hidden on the other side of the island to meet a larger ship.
"I shall miss your hair," says his lover over the wind, breaking the lord out of his reverie. "Truly," says Qarl, stepping toward him. "You made such a pretty blond."
"I should hope you still love me," replies Laenor, "for I left my wife and children to warm your bed."
"I love you, Laenor Velaryon," says the knight as he presses his lips to Laenor's, running his hands over the lord's newly bald head. "I have loved you many years and I shall love you all my life. Besides," he adds with a smirk: "It doesn't hurt that you have gold."
Indeed, Rhaenyra left them a small fortune, just as she'd promised. Laenor had worried she'd forgotten in her haste, but he found the burried gold in the sand beside the rowboat. She had likely planned ahead. Laenor wept when he found it, both at her thoughtfulness for remembering and for what he found inside the chest: there was more gold there than he could have asked for, and on top of the coins he found three brown locks of hair – one from each one of his sons. He feels Rhaenyra did this with a purpose. For though he could not bid the boys farewell, both Jace and Luke shall remember her cutting their hair in the days before his death. Perhaps, he thinks, they shall know, if not now, then when they're older. And perhaps they shall forgive.
Laenor fingers the locks now, for he will keep them on him always. He holds his love beside the bow as the ship carries him toward his future.