GOT: P Chapter 38

Morning came slow over Sunspear. The sun lifted over the sea, light spilling across the walls and roofs until the city looked sun-soaked and heavy with heat. The gulls were already at it, loud and useless birds. Down at the docks, fishermen argued over nothing important. A cart tipped somewhere. Normal noise. Normal day.

Except it wasn’t.

Velmir sat on the watchtower’s edge, wings folded, eyes scanning the streets. From up here, the city looked calm. But he saw the difference in how people moved. Heads tilted back, eyes darting toward the sky, waiting.

They remembered last night. The flame, the sound, the shadow that crossed their roofs. His shadow.

He ruffled his wings, irritated. He hadn’t meant to cause this much noise. He just answered her call, like always. But now every brat in Sunspear wanted to glimpse the “firebird.” Great.

Below, servants carried buckets of water through the courtyard, too careful not to look up. Guards whispered when they thought no one heard.

Velmir didn’t need to listen to know what they said. Monsters don’t need words to read fear.

He turned his gaze toward the palace. He could feel her somewhere inside, Rhaenys, awake before dawn again. The bond between them wasn’t talk, more like pressure in his chest. Uneven, tired.

You wanted her safe. Instead, you made her a story.

He didn’t understand their politics. Well none of it mattered. What he understood was the way men stared too long. That wasn’t fear. That was the look of people measuring what they could gain or lose.

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Inside the palace, morning light slipped through the carved screens, catching on the edge of the table. The air was warm, still. A jug of wine sat untouched beside a stack of papers.

Doran Martell sat in his chair, one hand resting on his cane, listening more than speaking. Across from him stood Areo Hotah and two of his men.

Velmir perched outside the same window, wings tucked tight. From there, he could see everything- the prince’s still hands, the strain around his eyes.

“The city talks, my prince,” Areo Hotah said finally. “Dockhands, traders, even the guards at the gate. By dusk.....”

Doran didn’t look surprised. “Let them talk.”

One of the younger advisers shifted in place. “My prince, the tales grow with every mouth that tells them. Some say it was a dragon, others.......”

Doran raised a hand, cutting him off. “Let them. Better a tale than the truth.”

He reached for his cane but didn’t rise. The weight in his voice wasn’t anger, just the exhaustion of a man who’d seen patience undone in a single night.“Rumors are like sand, Ryon. Try to hold one, and it runs through your fingers all the same.”

Areo spoke again. “Even so, her name’s carried far already.”

Doran’s gaze went to the window, where sunlight broke across the sea. “A name like hers was never meant to stay buried.”

Silence followed. The others waited, unsure if that was resignation or warning.

Velmir tilted his head, studying the men inside. He didn’t understand what going through their mind, but he understood tone- Doran sounded like someone who’d already lost the argument and was too tired to pretend otherwise.

Finally, Doran spoke again, softer. “We do nothing for now.” He paused, the corner of his mouth turning thin. “…we’ll see who still remembers mercy.”

Areo gave a short nod. “As you command, my prince.”

The meeting ended there. The men filed out quietly, each carrying a little of that silence with them.

Velmir stayed where he was, eyes on Doran long after the others had gone. The prince hadn’t moved, just sat with one hand on his cane, staring at the horizon like a man waiting for a tide he couldn’t stop.

Velmir didn’t need to know the words to understand it. Whatever peace Dorne had was gone.

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By midmorning, Oberyn found Rhaenys on the balcony. The sea wind caught her hair and blew it across her face. She let it be.

“You’ve stirred the whole city,” Oberyn said, leaning on the rail beside her. “Half of Dorne’s talking already.”

Rhaenys kept her eyes on the courtyard below, where two boys were sparring with wooden spears. “Let them,” she said. “Better that than silence.”

He gave a short breath could’ve been a laugh, could’ve been a warning. “Talk turns quick. Today it’s wonder. Tomorrow it’s fear.”

“Then tomorrow can wait,” she said.

Oberyn watched her for a moment, long enough to see Elia in her face, and the emotion that hadn’t been there before. He pushed off the rail. “Your mother was gentler,” he said quietly, almost to himself, then turned and left.

Rhaenys didn’t move.

Velmir stood in the archway behind her, wings tucked close. He didn’t need their bond to know what she felt. Not pride neither fear rather just something hollow that burned slow and quiet.

He thought, in the simple way he could think, 

You’re winning, Rae. Everyone’s talking. Why doesn’t it feel like it?

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That night, Velmir lifted into the dark again.

Sunspear lay below him, roofs baked pale by day, now glowing under torchlight. The streets were narrow rivers of orange and shadow. Music drifted from the taverns, rough voices and laughter spilling out.

He glided low enough to see faces in the courtyards- men with wine, women leaning on doorframes and should say less.

“…swear by the Seven, I saw it myself, thing flew right over the harbor!”
“Fire? More like trick o’ the light. You been drinking again, Miro?”
“I drink, yes, but I ain’t blind.”
“Bah. No bird burns that long and lives. You dreamt it.”

Further down another street, two retired whores leaned over a basin.
“…said the princess come home, Princess Elia’s girl. Looks just like her.”
“Then she’ll bring trouble same as the last lot did.”
“Best not say that too loud.”
“Who’s listening? ”

A drunk man near the tavern door spat into the sand.
“Princess or witch, don’t matter. Long as she keeps that beast o’ hers out the market. Scared my mule half to death.”
Laughter followed, rough and tired.

Velmir banked upward, circling once above the square. From up here, the sounds blurred together. It all sounded the same: restless.

He turned his gaze toward the palace. The upper windows burned with torchlight. Rhaenys’s still shone. Doran’s did not.

The wind off the desert met him there, warm and dry. It carried a thousand voices he didn’t understand, but the meaning was clear enough.

This is how it begins, he thought.

He caught the wind, folded his wings, and slipped back into the dark.