This time? Dany shuts up. And more than that, she listens.

She listens to the smartest person on the ship tell her that she’s the center of these assassins, and she doesn’t jump to the assumption that she’s just being told what she needs to hear for the plan to work. She suddenly feels like it. Like she— small, stubborn, pining, feckless, hopeful— might be the anchor that these four girls need to not be washed away. Even after all her failures, all her best intentions, all her running… that if she is strong for these huntresses of empire, that she can safeguard them from the storm.

She listens as Bella, this new Bella, this Bella that was always hidden under propriety and lace, apologizes. And she needed that apology. And she didn’t know how much she needed that apology. It drives through her like a thunderbolt. It cleaves her apart.

And all she can do is to cling tighter to both of them, no, to the three of them, to Beljani who looked after Bella, to Beljani who deserves to be here, and she hugs indiscriminately. She hugs like someone who was starved of hugs growing up in a big, empty, echoing palace. And she cries like the Alephus and the Peneus are rushing through her, her uncle’s waters, roaring and sweeping away everything, the petty jealousy, the fear of losing, the fear of being judged, the slap on the cheek and the stolen kisses and everything that tried to keep them apart, drowned in the deluge of tears that burst from her.

But she stays strong, and she stays as tall as she can, and she holds Bella up and buries the tears in her hair, and she pulls Beautiful and Beljani closer, until every heartbeat shakes through the four of them, four rods bound together and not easily broken.

I love you, she says, in every way but words. Let her body say it. I love you, Beautiful, for seeing me with your violet eyes and finding the right word, the right action, the right moment. I love you, Beljani, for being a good girl and taking such good care of Bella. I love you, Bella, despite everything, because I can’t help it, because you’re the most beautiful girl in the galaxy and you were with me when we were wild and alone, and nothing you can do can hurt more than the fear of losing you.

I love you, I love you, I love you.

And even if love is our enemy, we must love all the more[1].

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[1]: [i]The Aesthetes,[/i] author unknown.