The hour of the bat had come on swift wings that evening, and if Dyana hadn't been sneaking glances at the play of light over the hard planes of Prince Aemond's face during the Targaryen family dinner, she would have missed the coming of sunset entirely. Her walk out of the Holdfast, across the courtyard, and down the narrow entryway to the servants' apartments below the kitchens was chased by the steady falling of night—she had quickened her step in her hard-tack slippers, trying and failing not to feel like she was being chased. It was a lonelier and more tiresome journey than the arguably more physically arduous one she had taken earlier that evening with laden trays of food in tow.

Malla was awake before a stubby lit candle when Dyana finally shoved her iron key into their shared quarters and crept through the door. "How was it?" came the young girl's voice immediately upon seeing her blonde friend.

Dyana rolled her eyes and removed the linen bonnet—nicer than her usual scrap of cloth, and dyed a precious cerulean—from its place over her neat braid. She smiled impishly at Malla and began tugging at the front laces of her outerdress. "How do you think it went? As expected the Targaryens turned their noses up at the roast and instead picked an unlucky runner boy to breathe fire at and cook alive. Ate him right up they did, just like their dragons would have done. I always knew something was off about that family."

Malla cackled at Dyana's dry sarcasm. "Oh really? And what color were the King's scales?"

Finally divested and breathing easy, Dyana collapsed onto her cot and began working at the ties of her shoes. Kitchen work had hardened her to being on her feet, but she still wasn't used to the amount of walking she had completed that day. A dull throb at her heel told her that her worn slippers might have been reaching the end of their shelf life. She dreaded the trip into the merchant's row of Kings Landing she would have to make soon to replace them. "Red and black, obviously. How were things after I left?"

Malla shrugged. The girl had let down her own braids for a change and her downy curls were coiled tight around her head in a small, obsidian halo. In the low candlelight her eyes were twinkling black as she gave a noncommittal gesture with a small hand. "Oh, it was fine. Vira took over your post by the spit and didn't even burn a single quail. I'm starting to think that her ladies' training back in Meereen has conferred her every skill possible."

Dyana was inclined to agree. She reached forward to snuff the candle on the small stool between them with licked fingers but otherwise answered as the blackness descended on the chamber. "Which reminds me," Dyana started, voice quieter now in deference to the shadows. It was an old wives' tale, to not speak to loudly in the dark—Dyana was too practical to suspect that the shadows could take form and steal her voice, but she respected the merry tradition of hushing her tones all the same. "How is your reading going with her? I had heard from Miranda that Vira was teaching you how."

Malla sighed and shifted in her bed furs. Dyana could no longer see the girl's expression but knew keenly that she was pouting. "I'm not enjoying it. I truly don't see how anyone gets anything out of reading. We aren't scholars or priests! I don't want to read The Seven Pointed Star anyway. It's boring."

Dyana settled to her own flat pillow and decided to leave her tight braid in for the night. It would be the problem of the morning, which she knew she'd regret. "It's important you learn how, Malla-bird. You don't want to be a Crown kitchen girl forever, and there's more money to be made in taverns. The nicer ones require servers to do sums and scribe."

"It feels impossible," Malla confessed. "I can't keep the letters from twisting and turning around each other. Vira gets upset when I can't make the sounds she says the letters make, but I'm trying, I swear it! I even do my lines each evening like I promised." Dyana heard the girl smack her bedding with frustrated hands. "But stop deflecting—I want you to tell me about supper. I've only ever caught glimpses of the Targaryens and this evening you got close enough to touch them. What are they like?"

Dyana turned towards the wall and tried to banish the memory of a cold violet eye cutting to hers when she had encroached upon the diner's space. Another memory surfaced in its wake, this time of Miranda's words just before she had finished mopping up the private dining hall.

"I know Malla will ask you about them," Miranda had confided in a whisper. The older girl's hand had been gentle on Dyana's arm, but her words held a vein of steel that made Dyana pause. "You're to give her a song, do you understand? The Keep has ears and whatever you tell her will make it back to the family."

Dyana had nodded gravely and avoided Miranda's insistent, pleading expression. She didn't know what had made her friend speak with such urgency, but whatever it was, she didn't want to find out. "I'll be discrete, Miranda, don't worry," she had assured her. The unspoken assurance had hung in the air between them: I won't tell anyone about the King.

Dyana measured her words before directing them to Malla. "They're very poised. The King regal, the Queen beautiful, and their children polite. Other than the fact that they wear more jewels than a Lyseni coffer just to attend a family meal they're more or less like every other family."

"And Prince Aegon?" Malla pressed.

Dyana's stomach turned at the thought of him. "No, he wasn't there. Prince Daeron wasn't either."

"It's no matter," Malla dismissed breezily, "the second Prince is much more handsome anyhow. I've heard from Jynna that he wears his hair long like a maiden—almost like one of those heroes in the songs."

"He isn't a song," Dyana said before she could tamp down the words. She hurried to amend her statement and bleed out the frisson of fear that had caused her to speak in the first place. "He's just a man. Unsettling, maybe, but that tracks for a warrior prince."

"But he's no warrior! I haven't seen him compete in any tourneys," Malla protested.

Dyana settled deeper into her bed furs and closed her eyes. "If not a warrior then what will he be? The Princess Rhaenyra will inherit the throne and no doubt awful Aegon will get the next biggest asset, whatever it is. The third child more or less has to carve his own path, and let me tell you, the man carries himself like a blade."

Malla snorted. Her voice was becoming quieter, a blessing, and soon she would be fast asleep. "People can't be knives, Dyana, that's silly."

Dyana shuddered. She knew better.

Robert came to them the next morning per usual, tea in hand this time. Dyana reached for it eagerly when she opened the chamber door to meet him.

"You look like you haven't slept," the man greeted her as he passed her the lukewarm pot. Judging by the comforting heat seeping through it into Dyana's palms it had been off the fire for quite a while now.

"Looks like you haven't either," she responded in turn. Robert's eyes were red-rimmed and slight shadows were clinging in hollows under his eyes. He tilted his head in agreement.

Unlike the morning before she didn't pull him inside and he turned to leave, calling over his shoulder as he went, "You'll be with Miranda again today. Cook already knows."

Dyana had a suspicion that might be the case. Her performance at the dinner table the night prior had been clumsy but serviceable, and for all she knew, it would take quite a bit of time for the steward to procure a new serving girl for the open position given the vicious whispers about Prince Aegon. Dyana liked her job, for the most part, and so she couldn't complain that she had been fingered for the role in the meanwhile.

Malla, by contrast, had slept like a babe and was energetic over their shared tea. The girl was still young and had romantic notions about knights and princes still; Dyana couldn't blame her, for she too harbored a crush on such ideas when she was of that age. What young girl didn't have dreams of a handsome, princely knight sweeping her off her feet? Disturbed as she was that her thoughts kept straying to him, Dyana privately mused that Prince Aemond was more likely to sweep a girl at the knees with his broadsword sooner than to take her into his arms, if his rigidity and brutal bearing were of any indication.

Miranda was the next to shower Dyana with questions that morning. Dyana had followed her into the steward's solar after a quick breakfast, and though she'd never tell Cook, it was a relief to be in the cool upstairs sitting room rather than the sweltering kitchen. What did you tell Malla? Are you sure? Do you understand how serious this is?

"Yes, Miranda," Dyana had snapped. "I told you I would be discrete. Why is this such concern to you?"

Miranda had hummed and set about straightening her own corsetry after she finished helping Dyana with her laces. "I just need to know that you're trustworthy, that's all. It's rough business being so close to the Crown and I need you to understand that."

Dyana's temper flared. "Trust me? How long have you known me? I don't understand why you're being like this. I wouldn't tell anyone about the King. I don't have anyone to tell, neither."

"It's not just the King!" Miranda snapped. "Malla and I won't be the only ones asking you questions about the Targaryens and you need to practice your answers. Anything that leaves your lips will ultimately be traced back to me since I gave the steward the go-ahead to tap you for this position. The royal family is…in turmoil, for lack of better way to put it. Many parties would love for a loose-jawed serving girl to yap away tiny nuggets of information they can piece together into something sinister."

Dyana considered this. Another thought came to her. "Is that why you're the one sent to the Holdfast to do the evening serving? Is it because you're so good at keeping secrets?"

Miranda looked slightly stunned. She regathered herself quickly. "Is that what you think?" she hedged.

"It's just curious…no one can quite figure out why you seem to be so cozy with the royal family. Even Prince Aegon has left you alone. Why did you take Laera with you that night, by the way? Don't you usually tend to the cups by yourself?" Dyana had a hard time keeping the suspicion from her voice and felt a bit embarrassed at how distrustful her tone came off, but she pressed on. "I would have never thought laying tables and filling carafes was such fertile ground for sneaking."

Miranda turned away from Dyana and gestured for her to follow. It wasn't quite a dismissal, but Dyana's eyes narrowed when Miranda didn't offer a straight answer. "It's nonsense," she had dismissed. Dyana wasn't sure if she believed her. "I'm quite plain, you know. Prince Aegon has never looked at me once."

"Miranda, if you don't hush your lies I'll pinch you."

Miranda laughed and led Dyana out of the steward's work chamber and back towards the kitchen. After that—Maegor's Holdfast.

The Holdfast was sun-soaked and warmer than Dyana had imaged it to be—for all of the dragons it housed, she had expected it to be dark and cold. The halls were narrower and the vaulted ceilings slightly lower, but no less grand than the rest of the Keep; a craftsman had taken extra care in the carvings in this part, most likely handsomely paid to do so. The tapestries were the finest Dyana had laid eyes on, and members of the Kingsguard, stationed intermittently around every corner turned, watched she and Miranda with such rapt attention that Dyana felt slightly self-conscious in the wake of their unwavering stare. "Will it be much longer?" Dyana asked Miranda. Her arms were starting to ache with the weight of the laden serving tray.

Miranda gave a gracious nod toward a knight wearing a sapphire blue crest at his chestplate—they obviously recognized each other, and he bid the two women pass into the high door he stood post against. The door opened into a stately private solar and the windows were merrily open, morning air flitting briefly into the space to stir at the gauzy curtains. "Not much longer at all!" Miranda laughed. With a flourish she deposited her own tray atop the narrow square table in the middle of the room. "This will be easier than last night, I promise."

Dyana perched her own tray beside Miranda's and left it covered. If the food was to be set directly to the table, what need was she here? "What's expected of me?" she asked.

Miranda swept towards the high windows and began feeling at a length of fine curtain, her narrow shoulders bunching in a graceful shrug. She looked at her companion over one shoulder with a saucy grin and said, "To look pretty and available, really."

Dyana laughed at the false insinuation and began creeping her way towards the fireplace. "Something tells me the Targaryens have no want for serving wenches when they can have highborn lasses at their whim," she responded. Even as the words left her mouth she knew they were partly false; Prince Aegon certainly hadn't cared for such privileges, had he?

Miranda dropped the curtain and her expression fell. Dyana found her companion's sudden melancholy curious but didn't pry. Moments later Miranda continued as if the blonde hadn't said anything at all. "The Targaryens never come at the same time each day. Sometimes they'll leave me waiting for hours and the tea gets cold before they can drink it. The first time it happened I was nervous I'd be punished for an oversight but they sipped at it like it was still warm. Strange, isn't it?"

Dyana cocked her head and considered her friend. "Cook always pushes that meals should be served hot. Do their preferences differ?" Dyana had eaten many a meal lukewarm or cold—if she were a royal, she mused to herself, she'd never take food any less than scalding. The idea that the Targaryens, a family of dragons, didn't mind cold food made her smile.

Miranda laughed easily and dropped casually into one of the chairs at the breakfast table—and Dyana gawked at her. Such a liberty could be punished with a whipping, but her friend did it with such authority that she could have looked like she belonged there, if it weren't for her servants' bonnet and plain dress. It was a small mercy they were alone in the room. "Nope. They like their food like everyone does, I imagine. The second Prince and the Princess haven't been very picky as of late, however."

Dyana came closer to the table but didn't dare sit, instead reaching to grasp the back of one fine chair. There she hovered while she asked, "Who will be joining us today?" She had the expectation the entire Targaryen brood would be there, but the table they set was too narrow and had too few place sittings—just who were they serving? Just the King and Queen?

The memory of the King's glazed eye and ashen face beneath the ornate gold half-mask came to her quickly. No, not the King—

"Princess Helaena and Prince Aemond, of course," Miranda answered. She plucked the silver lid from one of the rectangular dishes and motioned with her free hand at the assortment of cut fruits and miniature pastries inside. "They're Helaena's favorite."

The mention of the second prince unsettled Dyana. The notion that he was dangerous in any capacity was slightly silly, she decided; the prince was inbred and spoilt and probably had hands softer than a babe's, not used to hard work or discomfort. Anything she had found the night before about his unsettling stare was most likely her own shallow prejudice rising to the surface at the sight of his ugly scar. Yes, Dyana thought fiercely, there's nothing to be afraid of. But then again, wouldn't she have thought the same for his brother before the terrible rumors began circling the Keep? Hadn't she, just the evening before, so convincingly told Malla that the second prince was to be a warrior and held himself tight like a lance?

Despite Miranda's suggestion that they would be waiting a while, the door soon opened to let in the royals. Princess Helaena didn't come to her mother's solar with her handmaiden Alma that morning, but instead had one of her slender arms tucked into the crook of her middle brother's. In comparison to the princess's airy blue gown the prince's riding leathers were absolute, darkest black. They couldn't have been a more mismatched pair if they tried, unique familial coloring aside.

Miranda was saved from reprimand by the creak of the door hinges, and within moments she had leapt out of her stolen chair and was waiting beside Dyana with her hands smartly clasped behind her back. She slid a sly smile to Dyana and bumped the blonde servant with her elbow. "What they don't know won't hurt them," she breathed.

Dyana didn't bother to respond. Instead of rushing to set the table as her first instinct, she took Miranda's lead and stayed put by the fireplace.

The two young Targaryens made their way to the table quietly. They didn't acknowledge the presence of the two servants whatsoever, and if Princess Helaena's dark undereye splotches and shaking hands were any indication, something was upsetting her. A tremor ran through Dyana at the recollection—Princess Helaena was betrothed to her brother, Prince Aegon. Surely she would have heard the tale about what he did to Laera; sweet, favored Laera, who was to ascend to be the princess's handmaiden next after Alma. Perhaps they had been cordial, even friendly. The instinctive aversion Dyana felt toward the Targaryen incestuous marriage customs didn't dampen the sudden bite of pity she felt for the obviously grieving princess. She hadn't been this way at dinner the night before…could she have just found out now?

For long moments the only sound in the room was the princess's slight sniffling and the scrape of the chair as Prince Aemond pulled it out for her. With uncommon care he made sure she was seated and comfortable before claiming his own spot just across from her, one pale hand coming to unlatch the bottom clasp on his riding vest before sitting. His eye was on his hands as he shook out a cloth napkin and addressed Miranda. "My sister will have her tea now," he commanded.

At least, Dyana assumed he was addressing Miranda. The prince hadn't looked up once, and when he did, he did a subtle doubletake upon seeing her hovering on the sidelines. Dyana resisted the urge to shoot him a small, caught smile; he seemed to remember her from supper and didn't look at all pleased to see her there.

It became clear to Dyana that the prince doted on his older sister—while Miranda poured Princess Helaena tea, Prince Aemond set about fixing her a plate. His choices were odd; sugared plums, pastry, and a handful of nuts were strange breakfast fare but the princess mutely accepted them, a watery smile passed across the table to her brother in thanks. All the while, Miranda hovered at the princess's side and fixed her tea, her cutlery, even her napkin.

Very familiar, Dyana saw. Neither Targaryen made protest at Miranda's mothering, and this, more than anything else, made Dyana's distrustful curiosity about her friend deepen.

Eventually Miranda came back to stand sentinel next to Dyana. Dyana, sensing that their participation in breakfast was largely over, leaned closer to Miranda and tilted her face to whisper. "Is this all we're needed for?" she murmured.

Miranda didn't look at her directly, still holding the pretense that they weren't conversing, but the tilt of her chin canted down sent her answer straight into Dyana's upturned ear. "Largely. Sometimes there are other things, but it will be a quiet morning."

Dyana wondered how Miranda knew such a thing. Perhaps it was virtue of having spent so much time around the Targaryen children in the first place; it was likely she would know their behaviors much better than Dyana, who saw these people as effective strangers despite their realm-renowned names.

Breakfast was quiet and quick. The siblings at the table didn't seem to mind being watched as Dyana would have. They probably think us sentient furniture, she thought meanly. Prince Aemond's chilly demeanor came across softer in the golden glow of the morning and the careful, reverent way he regarded his sister made him seem gentler, more human. Dyana caught sight of the sibling's ankles locked together under the table in a quiet display of affection and she privately revisited her distaste for such easy physicality between the two siblings. Bored and sure they were being ignored, Dyana tilted her head slightly to Miranda's once more.

"With how they're carrying on, you would have thought these two were betrothed instead of the princess and awful Aegon," Dyana whispered.

Prince Aemond's voice sliced in front of what would have been Miranda's response and Dyana blanched—she hadn't thought herself to be that loud, and the Targaryens hadn't made any indication that they had heard the servants whispering before. "Why don't you come a bit closer to take a look, if you find us so strange?" he asked.

Dyana wanted the fine floor to open into a bottomless pit and swallow her entirely—first knocking into him physically at dinner, on his wrong side, and then gossiping about he and his sister right to his face over his breakfast. Dyana was surely headed for a whipping for her compounded carelessness and it made her voice small as she attempted to explain herself. "My Prince, I—"

"Come closer girl," he beckoned with a blank face. His breakfast was abandoned now and his hands were loose beside his plate. "Come on. Come here."

Dyana did as he bid. Before she stepped away from the fireplace she felt Miranda pinch painfully at the back of her arm—whether in silent show of support or in imbittered reprimand she couldn't tell. Princess Helaena was strangely ignoring the proceedings and still picked at her sugared plums, mind lost to her own imaginings. "Prince Aemond, please pardon—" she tried again.

Again he cut her off, tone lower and more impatient. A muscle in his face beside his horrid eyepatch twitched with annoyance and his right hand spasmed into a fist before relaxing once more. "No, no. None of that." With an exaggerated motion, he gestured his left hand toward the seat to his left. "Come. Sit down, girl. It seems you have much to say this morning and I might just be in the mood to hear it. Here—take my left. You seem to favor it, don't you?" His left. His bad side.

Dyana swallowed hard. This was a game, she realized. The prince was playing with her, but for what end?

She descended into the seat that she hadn't dared drop into before, when it were just she and Miranda in the room.

The small square table suddenly looked leagues larger when she was actually sitting at it; paradoxically, Prince Aemond was now so close to her she felt smothered. He leant toward her, one elbow braced improprietously on the tabletop, his whole face turned to her so he could look her squarely in the eye. A small lock of pure white hair fell forward from behind his ear and brushed at his jaw as he addressed her. "Do you think this intimate?" he asked her. Shockingly, and with such speed Dyana didn't have time to pull away, the Prince darted out both of his legs under the table and trapped Dyana's ankles between the hard press of his own. Dyana's skirts bunched between the iron clasp of his calves and she nearly yelped in surprise, eyes wide as saucers and hands gripping the tabletop with a white-knuckled grip. The prince continued his hissing as if she hadn't reacted to his physical outburst at all. "Is this familiar? Does this feel romantic?" he squeezed his legs tighter and reached out to brush a long finger over one of her staining knuckles. "I don't give much thought these days to how my dear sister and I 'carry on'. Now that you're in her place under my hold, what do you have to say about it?"

Dyana's pounding heart, now surely lodged in her throat from the burning humiliation of the awful situation, strangled her reply. "I don't have anything to say my Prince, please, I am sorry," she babbled. She couldn't take the way he was looking at her now—amused, angry, curious. "I spoke out of turn, please."

Prince Aemond jerked his head towards his sister without looking away from Dyana. "Don't apologize to me. Apologize to her," he instructed.

Dyana gratefully looked away from the enraged prince and turned her chagrined attention to the princess. Perhaps Dyana's initial assessment of the princess as a fae-whimmed fickle sprite was false, for she was looking at the servant now with such harsh clarity in her pale violet eyes that it shamed the girl. Hurriedly, Dyana apologized, "I am sorry, my Princess. I spoke out of turn and I am appalled to have said such a thing in your presence." It was all she could manage—the prince still had her legs trapped between his own and the extended contact was making her head swim.

Princess Helaena reached out a steady head and patted at Dyana's hair, one finger sweeping under the lip of her blue bonnet in a curious swipe. The motion was so sickeningly familiar to how Cook touched her, and distantly, Dyana was horrified that the princess's manicured finger would go anywhere near the sweat beading at her hairline. "No need to apologize. You'll soon forgive my brother for his protectiveness," Helaena said.

"My sister is gentle," Prince Aemond growled. Dyana turned to look back at him. Despite his shins squeezing the life out of her own, he sat as still an easy as a statue. "She's gentle and she doesn't deserve to hear the whispers of the help, no matter what those whispers have to say. Do you understand?"

"Yes, my Prince," Dyana conceded. Her grip on the tabletop was beginning to loosen out of necessary fatigue, but between her trembling spine and aching legs, she hardly felt the relief of blood flow back to her digits when her clasp slackened.

His legs abruptly retracted from her own and he turned back to his plate just as fast. Just like that and his eye was off her, blessedly. "Good. Now sit here and keep my sister company. And you," the prince addressed Miranda, who was still shifting uneasily by the fireplace, "your services won't be needed for the rest of the morning. My guard will see you out."

Dyana didn't have time to whip around and see Miranda's expression at the abrupt dismissal she was given. With sharp footfalls and the creaking of the door hinges, Miranda retreated from the room and left Dyana alone with the Targaryen siblings.

Dyana didn't see it, but Miranda glared daggers at the back of her head for as long as it was in her sight.

A/N: Next up: we get some insight into Aemond's actions and the mystery of Miranda continues to darken.