Summerhall burned without her.

Not with dragonflame, not with the great conflagrations his ancestors had commanded, but with a dull, suffocating emptiness that crept into every corridor, every chamber, every breath Aerion Targaryen took. The hearths were lit, the servants moved in their endless silent procession, his brothers' voices echoed somewhere in the courtyard and yet the world had lost all color. The very stones of the castle seemed to sigh, as though they too mourned the absence of their lady.

She had been gone three days.

Three days since Y/N had ridden for King's Landing with her escort, off to visit her family, off to leave him behind in this grey mockery of a palace. Three days since the sun had last shone, or so it felt. Three days since Aerion had last tasted peace, last drawn a full breath, last felt his heart beat with anything other than the dull, persistent ache of longing.

He stood at the window of their chambers, his chambers now, though he refused to think of them that way, staring out at the rolling hills of the Reach with an expression of such profound tragedy that any who saw it might have thought the realm had fallen. His doublet was carelessly fastened, half untied at the collar, as though he could not summon the will to dress himself properly. A goblet of wine sat untouched on the table beside him, which was perhaps the most alarming sign of all, for Aerion Brightflame had never been known to refuse wine.

His boots were still unlaced. His rings, the gold and onyx band she had given him on their wedding night, the small ruby she had pressed into his palm with a smirk and a command to wear it always so everyone knows you belong to me, sat in a small dish by the bed. He could not bear to put them on. Could not bear to look at them without her there to see them on his fingers.

He had not slept. Not truly. He would lie in their bed, in the hollow where her body should have been, and press his face into her pillow, breathing in the fading scent of her, something floral, something sharp, something that was simply her. He had forbidden the servants from changing the linens. When the maid had come that morning with fresh sheets, he had snarled at her so fiercely that she had dropped the bundle and fled, and Aerion had spent the next hour smoothing out the rumpled side of the bed where Y/N had last slept, arranging the pillows exactly as she liked them, preserving the shrine of her absence.

He was being dramatic. He knew this. He did not care.

"My prince," came a hesitant voice from the doorway. A serving girl, young and pale with fear, her hands clasped so tightly before her that her knuckles had gone white. "Your father requests your presence at the midday meal."

Aerion did not turn. His voice, when it came, was distant, thrumming with barely suppressed anguish. "Tell him I am indisposed."

"My prince, he was most insistent—"

"Tell him," Aerion's head snapped toward her, violet eyes blazing with such sudden ferocity that the girl took a stumbling step backward, "that my wife—my heart—has been torn from my breast and carted off to that stinking city, and I will not sit at a table pretending to enjoy the company of men who still have their wives beside them while mine languishes in absence. Tell him that I am in mourning. Tell him that the light has gone out of Summerhall. Tell him—" His voice cracked, and for a moment he looked less like a dragon prince and more like a man utterly undone. "Tell him that I cannot."

The girl fled. He heard her footsteps echoing down the corridor, a panicked staccato, and he almost felt a flicker of satisfaction. Let them all know. Let them all see what her absence had done to him.

He turned back to the window, pressing his palm flat against the glass. His breath fogged the pane, and for a moment he fancied he could trace her name in the condensation. Y/N. He traced it once, twice, a third time, watching the letters blur and fade, and something in his chest constricted so painfully that he had to brace himself against the window frame.

Gods, but he missed her.

He missed the sound of her voice, sharp and commanding, telling him his hair was a mess and to sit still while she fixed it. He missed the way she would sprawl across their bed as though she owned it, as though she owned him, with that imperious tilt to her chin and her feet bare and her hair spilling everywhere. He missed the fire in her eyes when she was displeased, which was often, and the way she would make him work for her smile, which was everything. He missed the weight of her hand on his arm when they walked together, the possessive curl of her fingers.

He missed her in the morning, when he woke and reached for her and found only cold sheets. He missed her at night, when the candles burned low and the quiet of their chambers became unbearable. He missed her at meals, when he looked to the seat beside him and saw it empty, and his stomach turned at the sight of food he could not share with her. He missed her in the training yard, where he had no one to impress with his prowess, no one to roll her eyes at his boasting and call him a preening fool in that tone that meant she loved him. He missed her in his blood, in his bones, in the very marrow of him.

She was perfection. She was the sun around which his entire wretched existence orbited.

When she walked, flowers bloomed. He had seen it himself, well, perhaps not seen, but he knew. The grass grew greener in her footsteps, the air itself became sweeter, the very sky seemed to brighten. Birds sang when she passed. The clouds parted. The Seven themselves must have looked down upon her and marveled at their creation. She was a vision of grace and gentleness, his lady wife, his dragonness, his beautiful, beautiful—

"Brother."

Aemon's voice cut through his reverie like a blade. Aerion did not bother to hide his scowl as the younger prince entered the chamber without knocking, as was his irritating habit. Aemon was ten, small and serious, and he looked at Aerion with the particular expression of a child who had long since grown accustomed to his elder brother's eccentricities.

"What," Aerion said flatly. He did not move from the window.

Aemon leaned against the doorframe, crossing his arms in a gesture that was far too old for his years. "The servants are saying you've refused to eat for two days."

"I am not hungry."

"You're always hungry. I've seen you eat an entire pheasant by yourself."

Aerion turned, finally, and the full force of his tragic countenance fell upon his little brother. His eyes were red rimmed, his pale skin even paler than usual, his jaw shadowed with the barest hint of stubble he had not bothered to shave away. "My appetite has departed with my wife. How can I be expected to eat when she is not here to grace the table with her presence? When I must look upon your face instead of hers? When every bite I take is ash in my mouth because she is not beside me to share it?"

Aemon's expression did not change. "She's been gone three days."

"Three centuries." Aerion pressed the back of his hand to his forehead in a gesture that would have been comical if he were not entirely sincere. "Three eternities. I have aged a thousand years in her absence. Look at me, Aemon. Look at what has become of me."

He did look. Aerion was, objectively, still the same sharp featured, silver haired prince he had always been, perhaps slightly more disheveled than usual but otherwise unchanged. Aemon seemed to reach this conclusion as well, because his eyebrow arched with the precision of a courtier twice his age.

"You look the same."

"I am wasted," Aerion insisted. "I am a hollow shell. A ghost haunting these halls. Without her, I am nothing. Less than nothing. I am—" He paused, searching for a word sufficiently dramatic. "—diminished."

Aemon sighed. It was a heavy sound for such a small boy. "Father is concerned."

"Father can concern himself with his own marriage." Aerion finally moved from the window, but only to throw himself into a chair with all the despair of a tragedy hero in his final act. He let his head fall back, staring at the ceiling, one arm draped across his eyes. "You do not understand. None of you understand. You have never loved."

"I'm ten."

"Age is no barrier to understanding true love. I knew I loved Y/N from the moment she threw a candlestick at my head during our first meeting. It was a magnificent throw. She has such strength in her wrist, such precision, such—" He let out a shuddering breath. "Such perfection."

Aemon, who had been present for that first meeting and had witnessed Y/N hurl a candlestick at Aerion's head because he had made some comment about her family that was, in retrospect, deeply offensive, said nothing.

"Do you know what she said to me, the night before she left?" Aerion asked, his voice going soft and distant. He did not wait for an answer. "She said, 'Don't be a fool while I'm gone.' And I said, 'I am always a fool for you, my love.' And she—" His voice cracked. "She laughed. She laughed, Aemon. The most beautiful sound in all the Seven Kingdoms. And then she kissed me, here—" He touched his lips "—and she said, 'I know.'"

He was quiet for a moment, lost in the memory. Then he surged up from the chair, suddenly animated, pacing the chamber with wild, restless energy.

"Her hair," he said, "do you remember her hair? The way it catches the light? and when the sun hits it just so, it glows, Aemon. It glows like embers. And her eyes—gods, her eyes—they are like nothing else in this world, and when she is angry they darken, and when she laughs they lighten, and when she looks at me—"

"She usually looks at you like you're about to do something stupid," Aemon observed.

"With love," Aerion corrected fiercely. "She looks at me with love. The love of a woman who has chosen me, who has bound herself to me, who has—" He stopped mid pace, a thought striking him with such force that he went pale. "What if she decides to stay longer? What if her family convinces her that King's Landing is more pleasant than Summerhall? What if she—what if she forgets me?"

"That seems unlikely."

"You don't know! You don't know the power of her family's influence. Her mother, that woman—she never approved of me. She said I was—" He lowered his voice to a pompous imitation. "—'volatile and overly dramatic.' As though those are insults."

"They might be."

"They are virtues," Aerion declared. "I am a Targaryen. Volatility is in my blood. And yet her mother looks at me as though I am a stain upon her daughter's gown. What if she spends this fortnight whispering in Y/N's ear? What if she convinces her to—to—"

He could not say it. Could not even form the word leave.

He sank back into the chair, all the manic energy draining out of him. His hands gripped the armrests so tightly his knuckles went white. "If she does not return to me, I shall burn something. I don't know what. Something important. Something that will make them all regret taking her from me."

"She's visiting her family, Aerion. No one took her."

"They took her from me." His voice cracked again, raw and honest in a way he rarely allowed anyone to see. "They took her from me and I am here alone, in this cold place, without her warmth. Do you know what it is to share a bed with someone for a year and then have it empty? Do you know what it is to reach for someone in the night and find only a pillow? Do you know—"

He stopped. Swallowed. Looked away.

Aemon, to his credit, did not mock him. The little boy crossed the room and stood beside his brother's chair, and after a moment, he placed a small hand on Aerion's arm.

"She'll come back," Aemon said quietly. "She likes Summerhall better than King's Landing. She told me so. She said—" He paused, clearly debating whether to share what he had been told. Then: "She said the food is better here and her mother gives her headaches."

"She said that?"

"She said the roast lamb here is better than anything in the Red Keep. She said—" Aemon's voice dropped to a whisper. "—she said she married you for your family's kitchens."

"She did not."

"She did. I was there." Aemon's expression was solemn. "She said it to Mother when she thought you couldn't hear. She said, 'At least the food is good, even if my husband is a madman.'"

Aerion pressed a hand to his chest, overcome. "She adores me."

"She said you were a madman."

"A term of endearment." He was smiling now, a real smile, the first in three days. "She calls me a madman because she finds my passion invigorating. She finds my intensity—my focus—she finds it romantic. I know she does. She told me once that I loved her more fiercely than any man had ever loved anything, and that she—that she—" His voice caught. "She said she would not have it any other way."

He looked toward the window again, but this time his expression was softer, almost hopeful. "Do you think she misses me?"

Aemon considered the question with the gravity of a maester pondering a philosophical treatise. Finally, he said: "She said you were annoying before you left. But she also packed your favorite doublet. The blue one. She told the maid to make sure it was clean for you while she was gone."

Aerion closed his eyes, overwhelmed. "She does miss me."

"Maybe."

"She does. She packed my doublet. She thinks of me, even when she is away. She carries me in her heart, as I carry her in mine. We are bound, Aemon. Bound by something greater than marriage, greater than duty, greater than—" He opened his eyes, seized by a sudden thought. "I should write to her."

"You said you wouldn't. You said you wanted her to come to you first, to prove that she—" Aemon paused, clearly trying to remember the exact phrasing. "—'yearns for you as desperately as you yearn for her.'"

"I changed my mind." Aerion was already moving, crossing to the writing desk that sat by the window, the desk where Y/N usually sat when she wrote her letters, where her inkpot still sat and her quill still lay, where he could see the faint scratch marks she had left in the wood from pressing too hard when she was angry about something. He dropped into the chair—her chair—and pulled a sheet of parchment toward him.

His hand trembled as he dipped the quill. He had so much to say. So much. How could he possibly contain it all in a single letter? How could he capture the depth of his longing, the breadth of his devotion, the way the world had dimmed without her in it?

He began to write.

My love, my life, my dragonness—

He paused, reading the words. Too small. Too insufficient. He crumpled the parchment and threw it aside.

To the most beautiful woman in all the Seven Kingdoms, without whom I am nothing but a shadow, a ghost, a man already dead—

Too dramatic? No. No such thing. But perhaps she would roll her eyes, and he loved when she rolled her eyes. He loved the way she looked at him when he was being too much, because even then, even when she was exasperated, there was something in her gaze that said I see you, I have you, you are mine.

He wrote again.

Y/N—

I am dying. Not the slow death of age or illness, but the swift death of absence. My heart has stopped beating. My lungs have stopped drawing air. I exist only as a vessel of longing, a monument to my own foolishness for ever allowing you to leave my sight.

The sun has not shone since you departed. I have looked for it. I have searched the sky each morning, hoping to see it, and each morning I find only grey. The flowers in the garden have wilted. The birds have stopped singing. The very stones of Summerhall have grown cold, as though the castle itself knows that its lady is gone.

I have not eaten. I have not slept. I have not done anything but think of you, dream of you, ache for you. Your pillow still smells of your hair. I lie in your place in the bed and pretend you are beside me. I speak to you in the empty chambers, and sometimes, sometimes I can almost hear you answering.

Do not stay away too long. I fear I shall not survive it.

Come back to me.

Come back to me.

Come back to me.

Your devoted husband,

Aerion

He read it over three times, making small adjustments, crossing out a word here, adding a flourish there. Then, seized by a final impulse, he turned the parchment sideways and drew a small dragon at the bottom, breathing a heart shaped flame. Y/N had once told him his drawings were terrible. He had been offended. He was a Targaryen. Dragons were in his blood. The fact that his dragons looked more like deformed lizards with wings was entirely irrelevant.

He folded the letter carefully, pressed his seal into wax—his personal seal, the three-headed dragon encircled by flames—and held it to his lips for a moment before setting it aside to be sent.

"There," he said, satisfied. "Now she will know. Now she will understand the depth of my suffering, and she will return to me, and everything will be right again."

Aemon, who had watched the entire process with the expression of a child who had long since learned not to question his brother's peculiarities, picked up one of the crumpled attempts from the floor. He smoothed it out, read it, and looked at Aerion with an arched eyebrow.

"You wrote 'my dragonness' with two n's."

"It is spelled with two n's."

"It is not."

"It is when I spell it. She is not a dragoness, like some common beast. She is my dragonness. The extra n signifies—" He waved a hand vaguely. "—grandeur. Magnificence. The ineffable quality of her being."

Aemon stared at him for a long moment. Then, with the particular weariness of a child who has long since given up trying to understand his brother, he said: "Father wants to know if you'll be joining us for the rest of the week, or if you intend to waste away in here until Y/N returns."

"I shall waste away," Aerion declared, settling deeper into her chair, pulling her shawl, which had been left draped over the back, around his shoulders. It smelled of her. He breathed in deeply. "Let them bury me in my wedding cloak. Let them say: here lies Aerion Targaryen, who loved too much and too well. Who could not survive the absence of his beloved. Whose heart, like his ancestor's before him, turned to ash without the fire of his—"

Aemon, ten years old and already possessed of more sense than his elder brother, crossed his arms. “Y/N threw a book at your head the morning before she left.”

“It was a love note.”

“It was a history of House Targaryen. She threw it because you said her new gown made her look ‘pleasantly round.’”

Aerion clutched his chest. “And I was wrong. She is not pleasantly round. She is exquisitely formed. Perfect in every proportion. A goddess descended from the heavens to grace unworthy me with her—”

“She also called you a ‘silver haired fool’ and said she hoped the journey to King’s Landing took twice as long as usual so she might have some peace.”

The words landed, but they did not land as Aemon intended. Aerion’s eyes went soft, dreamy, a smile curving his lips for the first time in three days.

“She was teasing,” he breathed. “She does that. She teases me because she loves me. Her wit is so sharp, so brilliant—do you know how fortunate I am to be married to a woman of such intellect? When she calls me a fool, it is affection. When she throws things, it is passion. When she—”

“She broke your nose last moon.”

“A light passion.” Aerion touched his nose fondly. “It was an accident. She was aiming for the vase.”

Aemon stared at him for a long moment. Then, with the particular weariness of a child who has long since given up trying to understand his brother, he said: "She's going to be back in a fortnight, Aerion. Try not to die of heartbreak before then."

The door closed.

Aerion sat in silence for a long moment, wrapped in his wife's shawl, surrounded by her scent, her things, her absence. He picked up the letter he had written, unfolded it, read it again. The words stared back at him, inadequate as they were, but they would have to do. They would have to carry the weight of everything he could not say.

He thought of Y/N. Of the way she would wrinkle her nose when she was displeased. Of the way she would snap her fingers at servants and nobles alike, expecting obedience and receiving it because she was his wife, because she was his, because she was terrifying and magnificent and the most beautiful creature to ever draw breath. He thought of the way she would push his hair back from his face when he was brooding, the way she would kiss his forehead and tell him to stop being so much, the way she would say it like it was not a criticism but a compliment, like his excess was something she treasured rather than tolerated.

He thought of the way she had looked at him on their wedding night, with something like wonder in her eyes, as though she could not quite believe that this ridiculous, passionate, infuriating man belonged to her. He thought of the way she had said his name—Aerion—as though it was a secret only she knew. He thought of the way she had fallen asleep in his arms, her breathing soft and even, her hand curled against his chest like she was holding onto him even in sleep.

He missed her. Gods, he missed her.

He lifted the letter to his lips, pressed a kiss to the folded parchment, and set it carefully on the desk to be sent with the morning's ravens.

"Come back soon, my dragonness," he murmured to the empty room, to the lingering scent of her on her shawl, to the hollow space beside him in the bed. "The flowers are wilting without you. The sun has forgotten how to shine. And I—I am nothing without you. Nothing at all."

He pulled the shawl tighter, closed his eyes, and pretended, for just a moment, that she was there.

Meanwhile, in King's Landing:

You sat in your family's solar, feet propped on an embroidered cushion, a plate of honeyed figs balanced on your stomach, and a look of supreme contentment on your face. You were sprawled across a chaise in a manner that would have horrified your septa, one hand trailing lazily through a bowl of grapes you had commandeered from the kitchens, the other holding a cup of wine that you had refilled three times already.

Your mother, seated across from you with the rigid posture of a woman who had spent her entire life cultivating proper manners, watched you with the particular resignation of a parent who had long since given up trying to impose decorum.

"Must you sprawl like that?" your mother asked, not for the first time.

"I am comfortable," you said, not moving. "You should try it. Loosen your stays. Unlace your boots. Live a little."

"I am a lady of the court. I do not 'live a little.'"

You snorted. "Your loss."

You bit into a fig with relish, letting the honeyed sweetness coat your tongue. The figs in King's Landing were good, better than Summerhall's if you were being honest, though you would never admit it. The wine was passable, and your mother's servants were efficient and unobtrusive, and for the first time in months you were not being followed around by a silver haired shadow who watched you with the intensity of a dragon guarding its hoard.

You loved Aerion. You did. Fiercely. But the man was exhausting.

He looked at you like you were the sun and the moon and the stars all rolled into one. He followed you from room to room like a devoted puppy, except puppies did not usually compose epic poetry about the curve of your neck. He touched you constantly, your hand, your hair, your waist, as though he needed the physical reassurance that you were still there, still real, still his. He was dramatic and possessive and utterly, completely mad, and you would not have him any other way.

But seven hells, a fortnight without him was a vacation.

"You have been here three days," your mother observed, breaking into your thoughts. "Should you not be writing to your husband?"

You popped another fig into your mouth. "I will."

"When?"

"When I feel like it." You stretched, languid and comfortable, your arms reaching above your head in a gesture that made your mother wince at the impropriety. "He is probably moping around Summerhall writing me letters. He gets dramatic when I am gone."

"And that does not concern you?"

You considered the question. You thought of Aerion, beautiful, mad, your Aerion, pacing your shared chambers, composing florid verses about your eyes, refusing to eat, driving his family to distraction with his theatrical suffering. You thought of the letter that would inevitably arrive in a day or two, covered in his cramped, urgent handwriting, filled with declarations of undying devotion and descriptions of his agony in your absence.

A slow, pleased smile spread across your face. "He will survive. He always does. Besides, it is good for him. It reminds him what it is like without me."

"Y/N." Your mother's voice was sharp. "You are a terror."

"I know." Your smile sharpened, affectionate and wicked all at once. "He loves it."

You thought of the way Aerion had looked at you before you left, his violet eyes wide and tragic, his hands gripping yours as though you were being led to the executioner's block rather than a carriage. Do not go, he had said, and he had meant it, had meant it with every fiber of his being, had meant it so fiercely that you had almost, almost considered staying. Do not leave me. I cannot breathe without you.

You had kissed him, soft and quick, and told him to be good, and then you had climbed into the carriage and watched him grow smaller and smaller in the window until he was just a silver haired speck in the distance, and you had felt not guilt, exactly. Not guilt. But something that might have been tenderness, if tenderness was the sort of thing you admitted to.

You missed him. You did. You missed the warmth of him beside you at night, the ridiculous things he said that made you laugh despite yourself, the way he looked at you like you had hung the moon. You missed the weight of his arm around your waist, the sound of his voice calling your name, the way he would press kisses to your shoulder in the morning when he thought you were still asleep.

But you also enjoyed the silence. The absence of constant, overwhelming Aerion. The ability to eat a meal without being stared at. The chance to sleep without someone wrapping around you like a starfish.

You would go back. Of course you would go back. You would go back in a fortnight, and you would find him in your chambers, pale and dramatic and probably unshaven, with a stack of desperate letters on the desk and your shawl wrapped around his shoulders like a security blanket, and you would kiss him, and he would weep, and you would call him a fool, and he would agree, and everything would be exactly as it should be.

But for now, you were going to enjoy your figs.

Your mother sighed, the sound of a woman who had long since accepted her daughter's nature. "Your father wants to host a dinner tomorrow night. Several of the courtiers have asked about you."

You wrinkled your nose. "I do not want to see courtiers. I came here to escape."

"You came here to visit your family."

"I came here to eat your figs and sleep in a bed that does not contain a five foot man who radiates heat like a furnace and twitches in his sleep." You reached for another fig. "The family is a bonus."

Your mother's lips pressed together in a thin line. "You have responsibilities. Appearances to maintain. You cannot simply"

"I can," you interrupted, "and I will. I am the wife of Aerion Targaryen. If I want to spend a fortnight eating figs and ignoring courtiers, I shall. Who is going to stop me? My husband?" You laughed, bright and sharp. "He would thank me for resting. He would probably compose an ode to my repose. Behold my dragonness, who reclines in splendor, her beauty outshining the very sun itself." You pitched your voice into a ridiculous imitation of Aerion's dramatic cadence. "See how her fingers curl around a fig, how her lips part to receive it, how the heavens themselves weep with envy at her grace."

Your mother stared at you.

You grinned. "I am going to write that down. He will love it. He will probably frame it."

"You are both utterly mad."

"Perhaps." You settled back against the chaise, closing your eyes, a smile still playing at your lips. "But we are mad together. That is the important part."

You did not write to him that day. Or the next. On the third day, a letter arrived from Summerhall, sealed with red wax and Aerion's personal sigil, and you read it in bed with a cup of tea, laughing aloud at the extravagant declarations of suffering and the tiny dragon breathing a heart shaped flame in the corner.

You folded it carefully and tucked it beneath your pillow, where you could feel it when you slept.

On the fourth day, you wrote back. Your letter was two lines long:

Do not starve. I will be back when I am back.

Y/N

--

From Prince Maekar Targaryen, Summerhall, to His Good-Daughter Y/N Targaryen, King's Landing

To Y/N, Princess of House Targaryen, Lady of Summerhall,

I hope this letter finds you well and that your visit with your family has been pleasant. I trust the capital agrees with you and that you are enjoying the comforts of your mother's home.

I write to you now with a request that I offer with as much dignity as I can muster, which is to say: please come home.

I am begging you.

Your husband has been moping through the halls of this castle for a week now and I cannot endure another day of it. When you are here, Aerion is a terror. He picks fights with his brothers. He argues with the household knights. He sets things on fire when he is bored. He is loud and obnoxious and he drives me to drink. These are his good qualities. These are the qualities I have, over the course of his life, learned to tolerate, even to expect. They are the qualities that have prepared me for the indignities of fatherhood.

But this?

He has not argued with anyone in six days. He has not set anything on fire. He has not even raised his voice. Instead, he drifts through the corridors like a ghost wrapped in your shawl. He sits by the window in your chambers and stares at the horizon for hours. He refused to attend meals for three days, and when I finally forced him to appear, he sat in your chair and pushed food around his plate with the expression of a man who had lost his will to live.

It is unbearable.

I have seen Aerion angry. I have seen Aerion cruel. I have seen Aerion so drunk that he tried to challenge a horse to single combat. I have seen him at his worst, Y/N, and I have weathered it all with the stoicism of a father who knows what his son is. But I have never seen him like this. I have never seen him sad. I did not know he was capable of it. I thought the emotion was foreign to him, that he was built for fury and passion and nothing in between.

I was wrong. He is capable of sadness. He is capable of a deep, theatrical, utterly pathetic sadness that is somehow ten times more irritating than his usual behavior because at least when he is terrorizing the castle I can yell at him. What am I supposed to do when he looks at me with those violet eyes and asks if I think you still love him? What am I supposed to say when he tells me that the birds have stopped singing because you took the music with you? What am I supposed to do when my son, who once tried to drink fire, begins to cry because he found a hair ribbon of yours under the bed and it still smells like you?

I am not equipped for this.

I had to watch Aerion sit in the rain for an hour because he said the sky was crying with him.

The sky was not crying with him. It was raining. It rains at Summerhall. It rains often. This is a normal occurrence that has never before prompted my son to stand in the courtyard with his arms outstretched like a man awaiting divine intervention.

The servants are talking. The household knights are uncomfortable. Your brother in law Daeron has taken to hiding in the library, and I cannot blame him.

I need you to come back. I need you to come back soon. I need you to restore my son to his natural state of being an insufferable, arrogant, occasionally violent menace because I have discovered that I prefer that Aerion to the alternative. I prefer being terrorized to being mourned. I prefer the chaos to the silence. I prefer the Aerion who makes me want to lock him in his chambers to the Aerion who makes me want to hold him and tell him everything will be alright, because I am a warrior, Y/N, I am a prince of House Targaryen, I have fought in battles and seen men die and I do not know how to comfort my own son.

I am not asking. I am begging. Come back. End this. Save us all.

Your good-father,

Maekar Targaryen

P.S. He has taken to sleeping with your shawl. He wears it around his shoulders like a cloak. I saw him walking through the garden at dawn with it wrapped around him, speaking to your favorite rose bush as though it might answer. I am not making this up. I wish I were making this up.

P.P.S. If you tell anyone about this letter, I will deny everything. I will claim it was forged. I will have you removed from the succession. I will do something dramatic and irreversible. Do not test me on this.

Letter the Second: From Prince Maekar Targaryen, Summerhall, to His Good-Daughter Y/N Targaryen, King's Landing

Y/N,

It has been three days since my last letter. I am writing again because the situation has deteriorated.

Aerion has begun composing poetry aloud. I do not mean that he is writing it down. I mean that he stands in the great hall, in the courtyard, in the corridors, and recites verses about your eyes and your hair and the way you walk. His voice carries. There is nowhere in this castle that is safe from declarations of his undying love for you and his profound suffering in your absence.

The servants are requesting transfers. Two of the kitchen maids asked to be reassigned to the Dornish border. The stable master has offered to take a pay cut if it means being sent to literally any other holding. I am running out of places to put people who do not want to hear my son describe the precise shade of your eyes for the fifth time in a single afternoon.

This morning, he cornered me in the armory to ask whether I thought you would be pleased with the poem he composed about your laugh. He read it to me. It was forty lines long. It described your laugh as a "silver bell that shatters the darkness" and "a melody that would make the Seven themselves weep with envy." I have heard you laugh. It is not a silver bell. It is a sharp, wicked sound that usually precedes someone being verbally eviscerated. I say this with affection. You are a good match for my son. But your laugh does not shatter darkness. It shatters egos.

I told him it was beautiful. What else was I supposed to say? He had tears in his eyes, Y/N. Actual tears. My son, who once laughed when I broke my arm falling from a horse, was on the verge of weeping because I might not appreciate his poetry about your laugh. I told him it was the finest poem I had ever heard. I told him you would cherish it. I told him I would personally ensure it was delivered to you with the next raven. He thanked me. He thanked me with such sincerity that I felt something twist in my chest, and I realized that I would rather have him set something on fire than look at me like that again.

Please come home.

Your good father,

Maekar Targaryen

P.S. He is now composing a poem about your hands. I overheard him telling Aemon that your fingers are "delicate as rose petals" and that he dreams of them every night. I do not know how Aemon tolerates this. I do not know how any of us tolerate this.

Letter the Third: From Prince Daeron Targaryen, Summerhall, to His Good-Sister Y/N Targaryen, King's Landing

Y/N,

Father does not know I am writing this. He has forbidden any of us from contacting you because he says it is "beneath the dignity of House Targaryen" to beg, which is ironic because he has sent you three letters already.

Do not tell him I wrote to you. He will be angry. But I cannot stay silent any longer.

I am hiding in the library. I have been hiding in the library for four days. I bring food with me in the mornings and I do not emerge until nightfall. The measters have stopped questioning it. They simply leave a candle for me and pretend I am not there. I am becoming friends with the dust. I am starting to understand the appeal of being a maester. Anything is better than being in the same room as Aerion right now.

He is unbearable. You know how he is when you are here. He is loud and arrogant and he follows you around like a dragon with a favorite treasure. It is annoying, yes. It is irritating. He picks fights with me for no reason. He calls me a drunkard. He says I have the personality of a wet scroll. He once challenged me to a duel because I suggested he might want to visit a brothel. These are the things I complain about when you are here. These are the things I tell Father I cannot tolerate.

I was wrong. I was so wrong. I would take a hundred duels. I would take a thousand. I would let him call me a drunkard every day for the rest of my life if it meant he would stop looking at me like that.

He does not pick fights anymore. He does not call me boring. He does not challenge me to duels. Instead, he finds me. He finds me wherever I am hiding, and he sits beside me, and he asks me questions. Questions, Y/N. He wants to know about my day. He wants to know what I am drinking. He wants to know if I am happy. He has never asked me if I am happy. I did not think he knew the word.

Yesterday, he put his hand on my shoulder. He has never touched me voluntarily in his entire life unless it was to shove me. He put his hand on my shoulder and he said, "Daeron, do you think she misses me?" And his voice was so small, Y/N. I did not know his voice could be small. His voice is always loud. His voice is always demanding. His voice is the sound of something about to be set on fire. But yesterday, his voice was small, and I did not know what to do, so I lied. I told him of course you missed him. I told him you probably thought about him every day. I told him you would be back soon.

He smiled. He smiled, Y/N. It was not his normal smile, which is sharp and cruel and usually means someone is about to be humiliated. It was a real smile. A soft smile. A smile that made him look like he was not a menace to society but just a man who missed his wife. It was the most unsettling thing I have ever seen.

I want my brother back. I want the brother who calls me boring and challenges me to duels and sets things on fire. I want the brother who makes me want to throw things at his head. I do not want this brother. This brother makes me feel things. This brother makes me want to help him. This brother makes me want to be kind to him, and I do not know how to be kind to Aerion. I do not know how to be kind to someone who has spent our entire lives making kindness feel like a trap.

Please come back. I am begging you. Come back and restore him to his natural state so I can go back to hating him in peace.

Your good-brother,

Daeron Targaryen

ᴛʜᴇ ꜱᴜᴍᴍᴇʀ ʏᴏᴜ ɢᴀᴠᴇ ʜɪᴍ ᴀ ꜰʟᴏᴡᴇʀ ᴄʀᴏᴡɴ

When Aerion was eight years old, he wanted nothing more than to be alone.

This suited Aerion just fine. He’d long since decided that his own company was usually more engaging than anyone else’s. He’d found a hollow formed by ancient roots along the riverbank that made a perfect seat above the water, and he’d been sitting there in very satisfactory silence for the better part of an hour when he heard footsteps in the grass behind him.

He refused to turn. If he pretended not to hear, perhaps it would go away.

It did not go away. Something small and sure settled beside him on the root; dark hair, eyes the color of the twilight sky. You stared at the river as though it were the sole reason you were here.

Reluctantly, he glanced at you. His cousin, sitting with flowers in your lap, weaving yellow and white petals into something neither of you would forget.

“I’m fishing,” he said, both explaining and trying to send you away.

“I know,” you replied cheerfully

“You can’t talk. You’ll scare the fish.”

“I’ll be quiet,” you promised, and were.

He expected you to grow bored and leave. You did not. You sat beside him, hands busy among the blooms, silent yet somehow comforting. You simply existed there, and after a while Aerion discovered that your quiet was not the same as solitude but was far from unwelcome.

“What are you making,” he asked at last.

“A crown,” you said, holding up a nearly finished wreath of stems and blossoms.

“For whom.”

You smiled softly. “For you.”

“I don’t want a flower crown.”

You looked at him with the absolute sincerity of someone stating a fact. “You’re such a pretty prince. Pretty princes should have flower crowns.”

He opened his mouth to argue and found no words. He faced the water again.

You placed the crown upon his head. He let you, marveling at the brush of petals against his temple.

The two of you were silent again until his fishing line abruptly tightened. He had the fish, silver and thrashing, lifted out of the water in a bright arc. Beside him, you made a sound of pure delight, a laugh that startled birds from the nearby reeds, your hands coming together, your whole face alight.

Something happened in his chest that he had no name for and would not have for years yet. All Aerion knew was that he wanted to hear you laugh like that for the rest of his life.

He was eight years old and he had no idea what to do with that, so he said nothing and looked back at the fish and pretended he had not felt it.

The flower crown stayed on his head for the rest of the afternoon. When you finally stood to go you smiled at him in a way that suggested you had noticed.

ᴛʜᴇ ꜱᴜᴍᴍᴇʀ ʏᴏᴜ ʀᴇᴀᴅ ᴛᴏ ʜɪᴍ

At twelve, he lost a sparring match in the training yard and he could not bear it.

The contest had drawn an audience, every face a witness to his disgrace. He’d been bested by a Lannister boy two years his senior; broad-shouldered, swift, merciless. He stormed away with his jaw clenched so tight his teeth ached, and without thinking, strode straight to your door.

He knocked. You opened it at once, a book clasped in your hand, and saw the fury stamped across his face. Without a word you stepped back to let him in.

Your rooms were bright even at this hour, large windows letting in the last of the evening light. The air smelled of fresh flowers, vanilla, and the candles burning low on the sill. Everything was in its place, your things arranged in a manner reflecting someone who liked the world around her to be still. Aerion stood in the center of it, the heat of anger coiling in his chest.

“Would you like to talk about what troubles you?”

He poured out the story of his defeat, his voice crackling with frustration. You listened without interruption, your eyes calm and steady.

“He was better today,” you observed quietly.

“I know that.”

“You’ll learn. Then you’ll be better.”

“People were watching.”

“They were,” you agreed.

“They’ll remember.”

“Some of them.” You turned a page. “When you’ve beaten everyone, they’ll remember that too. People remember what’s in front of them.”

He looked at you. There was something so entirely unconcerned about you, as though you had already seen the end of this particular story and found it satisfactory.

“You’re not going to tell me it doesn’t matter,” he said.

“No,” you said softly. “It matters to you. That is enough.”

He sank onto the edge of your bed. The rage was leaving him slowly the way it always did in your presence, not extinguished but banked.

After a while you shifted and patted the space beside you without looking up. He told himself he was only doing it because he was tired. Then somehow he was lying down with his head in your lap, your fingers moving through his hair, your voice when you read aloud low and even. The words washed over him without sticking. The tension in his shoulders let go one by one.

He was asleep within minutes, your hand the last thing he felt and the first thing he missed upon waking, though he would never have admitted it.

After that he spent every evening he could near you, sitting quietly while you read.

ᴛʜᴇ ꜱᴜᴍᴍᴇʀ ʜɪꜱ ᴍᴏᴛʜᴇʀ ᴘᴀꜱꜱᴇᴅ

Several summers later his mother died.

They lit the funeral pyre in the morning. Aerion refused to cry. Condolences filled every corridor of the castle, and he found them unbearable, every careful word useless and hollow. He fled to the river.

He hadn’t visited the root-seat in years. The tree had grown, its roots spreading wider above the bank. The water flowed the same, indifferent and steady. He settled into the hollow and tried to ignore the grief pressing at his ribs.

He didn’t hear you. You came without a sound and sat beside him, looking at the water without suggestion or attempt to soothe. You simply were. Your presence undoing something in him that had been carefully held together all day.

The tears came silently. He did not move to stop them or hide them. Your hand found his on the root between you and covered it, your palm warm against his cold skin. You said nothing. In that silence he felt understood in a way no one else could manage.

The two of you stayed until his tears dried and the light shifted. He looked at your profile bathed in the afternoon glow, steady and faithful in your quiet vigil. When you finally turned and met his gaze, your eyes were red-rimmed, violet to violet. You reached out and touched his cheek gently before pressing your lips there.

He loved you.

Fully and without qualification, the knowing of it was so natural that it did not feel like revelation. It felt like looking down and seeing the ground beneath his feet had been there all along.

ᴛʜᴇ ꜱᴜᴍᴍᴇʀ ʜᴇ ᴅᴇꜰᴇɴᴅᴇᴅ ʏᴏᴜʀ ʜᴏɴᴏʀ

He was a young man now. His love had a shape. It was specific and permanent, so when the squire opened his mouth, Aerion heard it differently than he might have before.

The boy was speaking to another, low and laughing, with the entitlement of someone who had never had reason to watch his mouth. They were looking at you as you walked across the far end of the yard with your ladies. The squire was saying he’d asked his father to send a proposal. That a Targaryen princess would make a fine wife. Then, to the howling approval of the boys around him, detailing precisely and crudely what he’d heard about their reputation and what he intended to do about it. His mouth would cost him something today.

Before the laughter had died, Aerion had the boy’s wrist bent back until it cracked. “The hand,” he snarled, to the whimpering squire cradling his broken fingers. “Seemed appropriate. Since that was what you intended to offend her with.” He felt the rage in him want more, and gave it a little more, beating the boy before three sets of hands pulled him back.

He was confined to his chambers as punishment.

You came that evening, as you always came. Candlelight danced in your eyes as you examined his swollen knuckles, holding his hand gently in both of yours. You looked up.

“I heard what he said.”

He said nothing.

“You broke his hand, nose, and loosened his teeth.”

“I’m aware.”

Something softened in your expression.

“Were you jealous?” you asked.

He looked at you. At the slight curve of your mouth. Your hands still holding his.

“Of him? Never.” His eyes held yours. “But no one other than me will marry you.”

Without hesitation you leaned forward and kissed him. The world tilted beneath him. When you drew back you smiled as though you had been waiting for him all along.

“Thank you,” you whispered. “For defending my honor.”

“I love you,” he said.

You smiled. “I know.”

ᴛʜᴇ ꜱᴜᴍᴍᴇʀ ʜᴇ ꜰᴏᴜɢʜᴛ ꜰᴏʀ ʏᴏᴜ

You learned every quiet corner of the Red Keep. You stole kisses in the passage behind the sept before dawn, in the high gallery above the great hall after supper, in the old solar off the tower stairs where the door stuck unless you lifted the latch. There, in every secret alcove, he held you close, foreheads pressed together, whispering vows meant only for your ears.

Aerion wanted to marry you. The wanting was certain and had been there for years.

At last, he spoke plainly to his father and his uncle, pleading for your hand. Baelor was regretful in a way that was almost worse than the irritated scoff his father gave, as if the decision had been made somewhere above both of them and he was merely the one delivering it. Alliances mattered more than love. Aerion, prince though he was, could not bend duty to his heart.

That night, he found you in the moonlit gallery. You told him of your father’s plans — a tournament in your honor, champions from all the great houses that had submitted proposals, the victor to win your hand. It was already set in motion.

“None of them are worthy of you,” Aerion protested.

“You could take me,” you said.

He understood what you were offering. He felt desire cut through him, but set it aside.

“I will,” he vowed. “When you are my wife.”

Your lips curved in a smile both tender and triumphant. You rested your head against his shoulder and whispered nothing more. When you left, he remained in the dark, that promise etched into his bones. No one would take you away from him.

The morning of the tournament you took your seat on the dais with the rest of the royal family as the contenders were announced. Aerion was notably absent from the stands.

One by one the herald called names and men strode into the yard beneath a warm summer sky. The crowd was loud and restless. You watched with the polite attention the occasion required when you heard it.

Prince Aerion of House Targaryen.

Your heart hammered like it was going to burst out of your chest. Beside you, your father stiffened, his gaze locked on you. Across the dais, your uncle let out a long, slow sigh.

Aerion strode forward, clad in polished armor that caught the light in angry reflections. He did not spare the dais a glance; he did not falter.

When his first bout came, you watched him the way you had always watched him. You knew the difference between Aerion performing and Aerion in earnest. This was beyond earnest. He moved through his opponents with a grim demonstration of his deadly skill. In the fifth bout, his lance skewered his opponent’s horse through the neck. The beast collapsed. Aerion dismounted, sword drawn, and strode through the blood without looking down. The crowd erupted.

By the final bout the noise had reached a pitch that rattled the dais.

His favored rival, the same Lannister from all those years ago, carried himself with brazen arrogance, but Aerion’s relentless onslaught shattered that conceit in moments. He put him down when the opening came, his sword at the man’s throat. The yard went fully silent. The young lord yielded. Aerion stood over him, covered in blood and dust and sweat. He lowered his blade. His task was done.

He looked up at where you sat, your expression bright. He walked the yard’s length in firm strides, every eye upon him. Beneath you, the dais seemed to glow. He stopped beneath your seat and lifted his helm from his head.

“Will you have me?” he asked, his voice clear.

Your father beside you gave a slight nod of acceptance. The entire court watched with the collective stillness of people witnessing something that would be spoken of for a long time. You set it aside completely, leaned precariously over the edge, your lips meeting his in a kiss that was answer enough.

He was bloodied and tasted of iron. He kissed you back with both hands coming up to hold your face, careful despite everything.

There was nothing in your way after that.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​