Little Angel and Little Devil

On the eve of Maekar’s coronation, the royal family gather in a warm dressing chamber within Maegor’s Holdfast to be fitted for the ceremony and sit for preliminary sketches for the official coronation painting. They are all dressed in rich black, red, and gold, with each outfit reflecting their rank and character, whilst Maekar’s severe crown makes plain that their lives are about to change.

Though the moment begins with solemnity, it quickly descends into affectionate chaos. Aerion starts the teasing, followed by Daella, Rhae, Daeron, Egg, and even Aemon, all making jests about how they are now meant to address their father. Maekar tries repeatedly to restore order, but the family’s humour keeps breaking through.

When the painters arrive to capture likenesses, posture, and colour-notes for the future painting, the sitting proves no easier. Egg fidgets, the siblings continue to mock one another, and the poor painter is driven nearly to despair. Matters grow worse when someone lets out an ill-timed fart, sending much of the family into barely suppressed laughter, and again when one of the black pearls on Daella’s sleeve rolls beneath Maekar’s chair.

For all the absurdity, the scene reveals a deeper warmth beneath the mockery. Maekar, stern and sharp-tongued as ever, has chosen to keep all his children close around him rather than apart, and they understand the meaning of that, even if none of them would say it aloud. By the end of the ordeal, the painter has what he needs, the crown is set aside, and the family disperse with one last round of teasing. The passage closes on a rare, fleeting sign of feeling from Maekar, not softness exactly, but something close enough to matter.

That night, beneath the shelter of the weirwood’s roots, Aerion and Alysane rest beside a small fire, keeping only enough warmth to fend off the cold. Exhausted from the day’s journey, Alysane soon drifts to sleep beneath their cloaks.

Aerion watches her quietly, his usual hardness giving way to something softer and more intimate. He brushes a loose strand of hair from her face, holds her close, and kisses her forehead before settling beside her for the night. Beneath the ancient tree, with the fire burning low and the red leaves whispering above them, they fall asleep together in a rare moment of peace and tenderness.

For a little while, whilst the room stood only half-occupied, she walked its length and let her eyes fall upon the paintings that lined the walls. Dragons, battles, kings with pale hair and proud faces, women with crowns and strange beauty, and here and there older scenes yet, Valyria before the Doom, if the servants’ arrangement of grandeur could be trusted.

She had paused before one large painting of three mounted figures against a smoking sky when a voice came from behind her.

“Aegon and his sisters.”

Aemon.

She turned. “Maester Aemon.”

There was a moment in which they only looked at one another. Time had altered them both, though not enough to make either wholly strange to the other.

Aemon came to stand beside her, his gaze lifting to the painting. “Aegon the Conqueror. Visenya. Rhaenys.”

Aemon and Berena stand side by side in the warmth of the Red Keep, speaking lightly of paintings, weather, and the strangeness of King’s Landing, yet beneath the ease of their words runs a current far more dangerous. Time has changed them, but not enough to dull what lingers between them, a quiet longing, carefully buried, never confessed, and no less fierce for its silence. In every look, every restrained smile, every moment of shared understanding, there is the sense of something waiting to catch fire, a feeling both of them hide, even from themselves.

Bryna is brought before the Targaryens after supper to tell a northern tale in one of the smaller royal chambers. Though dressed in an uncomfortable court gown she clearly hates, she stands before the hearth and recounts a dark story from beyond the Wall, of two lovers who venture north in search of an ancient heart tree, only to be warned by the Children of the Forest that the dead are coming.

From there, her tale turns grim. She speaks of the dead who cannot be stopped by ordinary steel, of white shadows with pale swords, and of a greater power above them all, the king of winter, who comes with storm and raises the dead to his will. Bryna warns that the true war to come is not one of kings and castles, but a war between the living and the dead, and that if the dead prevail, nothing of the world men fight over will remain.

Her words leave the chamber deeply unsettled. The princesses are shaken, Kiera clings to Daeron, Egg grows thoughtful, and even Maekar and Bloodraven listen with grave attention. Rodrik watches the room and realises the tale has struck far deeper than anyone expected. Daeron tries to lighten the mood, but the laughter does not truly come, and the silence that follows makes plain that Bryna’s story has left its mark.

"Wind worried at his cloak and stirred his silver-gold hair, whilst he gazed out across the grey water as if the thing he sought might still be waiting somewhere upon the horizon. But his thoughts were not upon the sea. They were back in Winterfell, in the chamber where he had passed his last night with Alysane. He remembered her in his bed, naked in his arms, the warmth of her pressed close against him as he held her through the dark and would not let go. He had held her still when dawn came stealing grey through the shutters, as if he could deny the morning by refusing to loose his embrace. Yet morning had come all the same, cruel as any foe. Their farewell kiss had near killed him. He had not wanted it to end, and when at last it did, it felt like some sharp hand had closed round his heart and wrenched. The sea lay cold before him now, but it was not the cold he felt. It was her absence."

Aerion dreams of Summerhall not as it was, but as dreams make it , brighter, softer, almost too beautiful to bear. Sunlight pours through glass walls, fountains gleam, and the gardens bloom beneath spring skies.

Yet among the southern flowers grow winter roses.

And in that impossible place, he sees a little boy, silver-gold hair, eyes of purple touched with grey, a child made of dragonfire and winter. He runs laughing through the hall, singing softly to himself, until at last he stops, looks at Aerion, and says:

“Bye, father.”

Then the dream rots.

The light dies.

The roses wither.

And the child turns to stone and breaks apart before Aerion can reach him.

A vision of longing, loss, and grief for something he never had, yet cannot forget.

she led him out beneath a northern sky

alive with green and silver fire,

and though he had seen wonders enough

to fill a lifetime,

none were like this.

not the heavens above him,

and not the girl beside him.

so beneath ruined stone

and ghost-lit stars,

he held her close

and for a little while,

even the cold forgot them.

Fifty chapters in, and somehow this story has become far more than I ever imagined when I first began writing it.

The Dragon and The Winter Rose started as a story about Aerion 'Brightflame' Targaryen and Alysane Stark, but somewhere along the way it became something larger.

Summary:

He was born of dragonfire. She was shaped by winter.

Prince Aerion Brightflame is led north by the promise of a winter rose, into a land of old gods, buried secrets, and cold that remembers. There he finds not only the woman at the heart of his fate, but also stirs a power far older than thrones, something the realm has forgotten, but the North never truly lost.

This is where the song begins with ice, with fire, and with the first bond that will one day echo in Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark.

Writing 50 chapters of this has been such a journey, and it means so much to me that people have read, followed, and loved this story along the way.

Read: [The Dragon and The Winter Rose]