Who Should Be Hand of the King?

King's Landing.

It was July, and the heat was unbearable.

Waves rolled against Blackwater Bay, but they couldn't wash away the midsummer heat.

The Red Keep, Sacred Wood Forest.

The Weirwood tree towered overhead, its lush red canopy spreading like a giant umbrella over the knotted ground, where roots pushed above the earth.

Rhaenyra stood beneath it, her palm pressed against the pale trunk.

Her expression was calm. She sensed nothing unusual.

"Your Grace, you sent for me."

Daeron came through the back gate, his eyes clear and bright.

"You don't have to call me Your Grace in private."

Rhaenyra let go of the rough Weirwood tree and turned with a faint smile.

Daeron thought for a moment, then smiled. "Brother."

Of all his brothers, he was the gentlest and most accommodating.

He wasn't given to scheming and liked to follow in his brothers' footsteps.

Rhaenyra chose a thick root to sit on and patted the spot beside her. "I wanted to discuss the Serpentine Isles with you."

"They're hardly a pleasant place."

Daeron sat beside her, considering the matter seriously.

"That's precisely why we need to be cautious."

Rhaenyra grew serious and proposed, "I want to appoint you Governor of the Summer Sea and Minister of the Serpentine Isles."

The pirates of the Three Daughters had been all but wiped out. The remnants couldn't stir up much trouble.

But tens of thousands of women, children, and slaves remained on the Serpentine Isles, where they had already built the beginnings of three city-states.

If they abandoned the islands, they would become a threat again in the future.

They needed a reliable person, someone wise and patient, to govern them.

Daeron hesitated, then said tactfully, "Brother, the continent of Sothoryos is too desolate."

"I'm not asking you to live on the