Dumbledoor

The decision to return was easy. The actual returning was not.

You had imagined, in the hazy golden hours on your island, that flying back to Dragonstone would feel like coming home. That the sight of those familiar black cliffs rising from the sea would fill you with warmth, with relief, with the bone deep comfort of returning to the only place you had ever belonged. But as the morning wore on and the sun climbed higher and the endless blue of the ocean stretched beneath you in every direction, you discovered that your stomach had twisted itself into knots that had nothing to do with hunger.

The flight itself was different now. You had changed in the days you spent on your little island, changed in ways that were still settling into your body like stones finding their place in a stream bed. Your muscles had learned the rhythm of Moonfyre's wings, the way she rose and fell on the currents, the subtle shift of her weight that preceded a bank or a dive. Your hands rested firm but relaxed against her scales, no longer the desperate white knuckled grip of a girl terrified of falling. Your legs settled easily against the warm curve of her neck. Your body moved with hers now instead of merely clinging to her, a harmony you had not expected and still did not fully understand.

You did not know what you would find when you arrived. You did not know if Marta would be furious or relieved, if Valarr would be angry or heartbroken or simply gone, if the villagers would stare at you the way they always had or if they would look at you differently now that you were returning on the back of a dragon. You did not know if you were ready to face any of it. But you had to try. You owed Marta that much. You owed yourself that much.

The sun stood high and white by the time Dragonstone appeared on the horizon. At first it was only a smudge of grey against the blue, a shadow that slowly sharpened into the jagged cliffs and towering peaks you knew so intimately you could have drawn them in your sleep. The Dragonmont rose above it all, its summit lost in its perpetual shroud of mist and smoke, and the castle clung to the mountainside like something ancient and patient, its dark towers reaching toward the sky.

Your heart clenched at the sight. You had never thought of Dragonstone as beautiful before. It was too harsh for beauty, too grey, too full of wind and salt and the constant gnawing cold that seeped into your bones and never quite left. But seeing it now, after days away, you felt something complicated move through your chest. Something that might have been love or might have been grief or might have been both at once. It was your home.

Moonfyre sensed the shift in your mood. She turned her head slightly, one golden eye fixing on you with a questioning look, and you reached forward to pat her scales.

"I'm alright," you said, though the wind tore the words away before they reached your own ears. "Just nervous."

She made a low sound, a rumble that vibrated through her body and into yours, and some of the tension in your shoulders loosened. She was with you. Whatever waited below, however the village and the castle and the people in them reacted to your return, she would be with you. You were not alone anymore. You would never be alone again.

As you drew closer, details began to resolve themselves from the grey expanse of the island. The familiar curve of the eastern cliffs, where you had gathered bitter herbs a thousand times. The village itself, a huddle of stone roofs clustered against the mountainside, looking smaller and more fragile than you remembered. The castle above it, its walls dark and imposing, its banners snapping in the constant wind. And the caves, the network of tunnels and chambers that honeycombed the Dragonmont, where you had found a wounded dragon shivering in the darkness and everything you believed about yourself had been proven true.

You had planned to fly directly to those caves. That was the strategy you had worked out in your head during the long hours over the water. Land in the familiar darkness of the eastern tunnels, out of sight, where you could dismount and gather yourself and decide what to do next. You did not want to announce your return to the entire island. Not yet. You needed time to think, to prepare, to figure out what you were going to say to Marta and Valarr and anyone else who asked where you had been.

But plans, as you were learning, had a way of crumbling the moment they touched reality.

Moonfyre flew over the island, her shadow racing across grey cliffs and green slopes and the huddled grey roofs of the village below. And the people saw her.

At first, it was only a few faces turning upward. A few hands pointing at the sky. You saw them from above, tiny figures frozen in place, their mouths opening in sounds you could not hear. Then more faces turned, and more, and the pointing hands became waving arms, and the open mouths became screams that drifted up to you on the wind, faint but unmistakable.

Dragon. Dragon. Dragon.

The word spread through the village like fire catching in dry grass. You could see it happening, the ripple of movement as people dropped their baskets and their fishing nets and their tools and ran. Some ran toward the castle, seeking the shelter of its ancient walls. Some ran toward their homes, snatching up children and pulling them inside. Some simply stood frozen, staring up at the sky with faces bleached white by terror, their bodies rigid with disbelief.

The screaming grew louder as Moonfyre flew lower. You could make out individual voices now, high and thin and desperate, crying out to gods and guards and anyone who might save them from the monster blotting out the sun. You saw a woman grab her child and fling herself through a doorway. You saw an old man collapse to his knees, his hands raised in prayer or surrender. You saw a knot of fishermen scrambling to shove their boat back into the water, as if the sea could protect them from a creature that ruled the sky.

"Moonfyre," you said, your voice taut with a worry you were trying very hard not to feel. "Fly higher. Faster. We need to reach the caves."

But Moonfyre did not seem to hear you. She had gone rigid beneath your hands, every muscle in her vast body drawn tight. Her head swept from side to side, her golden eyes darting across the chaos below, and you could feel the change in her through the scales beneath your palms. She was agitated. Disturbed. The screams were reaching her, and they were doing something to her you had not anticipated and did not know how to control.

You had never seen Moonfyre around other people before. You had only ever known her in the cave and on your island, in darkness and in solitude, with no company but yours. You had assumed she would be calm. You had assumed she would follow your lead, that she would trust you to keep her safe. But the screams were waking something in her. You could feel it in the way her muscles bunched and tightened, in the way her breathing grew faster and harsher, in the way a low and threatening growl began to build deep in her chest.

"It's alright," you said, fighting to keep your voice steady even as your heart began to hammer against your ribs. "It's alright, sweet girl. They're scared, that's all. They've never seen a dragon. They don't know you're good. Just keep flying. We're almost there."

The growl deepened. You felt it vibrating through her entire body, a resonant and terrible sound that was nothing like the gentle purring she made when you curled together on the beach. This was a warning. A threat. The sound of a predator who felt cornered, who felt threatened, who was trying to decide between flight and fight.

You tightened your grip on her scales, your mind spinning. This was bad. This was so much worse than you had prepared for. You had been so focused on your own return, on what you would say and do and feel when you saw Marta and Valarr and the village again, that you had not paused to consider how the village would react to seeing a dragon for the first time in seventy years. Of course they were screaming. Of course they were panicking. To them, dragons were monsters from old stories, creatures of fire and blood and ruin. They did not know Moonfyre. They did not know that she was gentle and affectionate and liked to have the ridge behind her eye scratched. They did not know she brought you roasted goats and curled around you while you slept. They saw only the teeth and the claws and the wings that blocked out the sun.

And Moonfyre did not know them. She did not understand that their screams came from fear, not from aggression. She did not grasp that they were running away from her, not toward her. All she knew was noise and motion and a hundred pairs of eyes fixed on her, and every ancient instinct in her body was screaming at her to defend herself.

"Moonfyre, please," you said, leaning forward, pressing your face against the warmth of her scales. "Please, just get us to the caves. I can see them. We're almost there. Just a little farther."

She let out a sound that was half growl and half shriek, a piercing cry that echoed off the cliffs and made the screams from below double in intensity. You saw people throwing themselves to the ground, covering their heads with their arms, waiting for the fire they were certain was coming. But Moonfyre did not breathe fire. She just kept flying, her wings beating harder and faster, her body trembling with the effort of restraint.

The cave entrance appeared ahead of you, a dark slash in the grey face of the Dragonmont. It looked so small from the air, so inconsequential, just a shadow among shadows. But you knew it intimately. You had walked through that opening a thousand times, had trailed your fingers along its rough walls, had felt the temperature shift as you descended from the cold salt wind into the warm and motionless dark of the tunnels. It was your place. Your secret. The place where everything had changed.

Moonfyre dove. The descent was faster than anything you had experienced before. Her wings folded back, her body streamlined, the wind screaming past your ears with a sound like tearing silk. You held on with everything you had, your fingers buried in her scales, your legs clamped around her neck, your face pressed into her spine. The cave entrance rushed up to meet you, growing larger and larger, and for one terrifying instant you were certain she was going to crash into the cliff face, that you were both going to die in a shatter of stone and bone and torn wing membrane.

But at the last possible moment, she spread her wings and slowed. Her body tilted. Her claws reached out and caught the lip of the cave entrance. She landed hard, the impact jarring through your whole body like a physical blow, and then she was inside, folding herself into the darkness of the tunnel with a speed that spoke of desperation. She scrambled deeper, away from the entrance, away from the light, away from the screams that still rang outside.

You slid from her back the moment she stopped moving. Your legs buckled when you hit the stone, and you had to catch yourself against the wall, your heart slamming, your whole body shuddering with the aftermath of adrenaline. The cave was dark and warm and blessedly familiar, the walls rough beneath your palms, the air thick with the smell of sulfur and old rock. You could hear Moonfyre's breathing, harsh and ragged, and you could see her in the dim glow filtering from the entrance. Her pale scales gleamed. Her golden eyes were wild and unfocused.

She was not calm. She was anything but calm. She paced the chamber like a caged thing, her claws scraping against the stone, her tail lashing with a violence that made the air whistle. Her wings were half spread, the membranes quivering, and her head hung low, her jaws parted, that terrible growl still rumbling in her chest. Every few seconds she would whip toward the cave entrance and let out a hiss, a sharp and warning sound that lifted the hair on the back of your neck.

"Moonfyre." You kept your voice low and steady, the same voice you had used when you first found her, wounded and terrified and ready to snap your head off at the neck. "Moonfyre, it's alright now. We're safe. We're in the cave. No one is going to hurt you."

She did not seem to hear you. Her eyes remained fixed on the entrance, her body coiled and ready, braced to strike at anything that came through. The screams from outside were fainter now, muffled by the stone, but you could still hear them. And so could she. Every distant cry made her flinch, made her snarl, made her pace faster and harder.

You approached her slowly, carefully, your hands raised, your movements deliberate and unthreatening. You had done this before. You had done it a hundred times in those early days, when she was still wild and wounded and did not trust the sound of your voice or the smell of your skin. You knew how to move, how to speak, how to make yourself small and harmless. But this was different. This was not a wounded dragon too weak to fight. This was a strong and healthy dragon, terrified and agitated and not understanding what was happening around her.

"It's only noise," you said, taking another step closer. "Just noise, Moonfyre. It can't hurt you. The people out there, they're more afraid of you than you are of them. They've never seen a dragon before. They don't understand. But I understand. I know you. I know you would never hurt anyone."

She swung toward you suddenly, her head whipping around, her golden eyes locking onto your face. And for one suspended, heart stopping moment, you saw something in those eyes that was not affection or recognition or trust. You saw the wildness. The ancient, primal instinct that lived in the marrow of every dragon. The part of her that was not your companion, not your friend, but a predator. A force of nature. A creature of fire and blood and terrible, beautiful power.

Then she blinked. The wildness receded. And she was Moonfyre again, your Moonfyre, the dragon who cuddled with you on the sand and brought you roasted goats and purred like a kitten when you found the right spot behind her jaw.

She made a small, questioning chirp and lowered her head, pressing her snout against your chest. You wrapped your arms around her and held on, your hands stroking her warm scales, your voice a steady and soothing murmur in the darkness.

"I know," you whispered. "I know, sweet girl. That was frightening. That was so frightening. But we're safe now. We're safe. The cave is safe. You've always been safe here."

She chirped again, softer this time, and you felt the tension begin to drain from her body. The growl faded from her chest. Her wings folded slowly back against her sides. She was still agitated, you could feel it in the twitch of her tail and the way her ears kept flicking toward the entrance. But she was calming. She was coming back to herself, and to you.

You stayed like that for a long time. Your arms around her neck. Your face pressed to the warm curve of her scales. Breathing slow and steady until her breathing slowed to match yours. The screams from outside faded into silence, replaced by the distant crash of the sea and the whisper of wind through the tunnels. The cave was warm and dark and quiet. You were together. And that was enough. That had to be enough.

"Those people out there," you said at last, your voice still soft, your hands still moving over her scales in slow and rhythmic strokes, "they've never seen anything like you. They grew up on stories about dragons. Terrible stories. Stories about fire and death and the Dance. They don't know that dragons can be gentle. They don't know that dragons can love. They only know what the old tales told them."

Moonfyre made a low sound, almost sorrowful, and you held her tighter.

"But they're going to learn. They're going to learn that you're not a monster. They're going to learn that you're my friend, my family, my..." You stopped, swallowing against the thickness in your throat. "My everything. And if they can't accept that, if they can't accept you, then we'll leave. We'll go back to our island. Or we'll find another one. Or we'll just keep flying until we find a place where we can be together without anyone screaming and running away. You and me. Just like I promised."

She rumbled, a low and contented sound, and her tail curled around you, drawing you closer against the warmth of her body. You leaned into her, letting that heat seep through your worn cloak and into your cold and weary bones.

—

The morning had been quiet. On Dragonstone, quiet was a rare and fragile gift, one that Baelor had learned to appreciate in the long years since he had inherited the title and the burden that came with it. He had risen early, as he always did, and had spent the first hours of the day bent over the endless correspondence that poured in from every corner of the realm. Letters from King's Landing, letters from the Free Cities, letters from lords and ladies and merchants and anyone else who believed they had a claim on his attention. His quill moved methodically across the parchment, leaving neat lines of black ink in its wake, but his mind was only half engaged with the work. The other half was elsewhere, circling endlessly around the same dark thoughts, the way a tongue keeps returning to a broken tooth.

Valarr had not spoken to him since their argument in the great hall. Not a word. Not a glance. His son had thrown himself into the search for the girl with a desperation that had long since crossed the border into obsession. He spent every waking hour combing the cliffs and the caves and the shoreline, refusing food, refusing rest, refusing to accept the reality that everyone else had already resigned themselves to. The girl was dead. She had fallen from the cliffs in the darkness, or thrown herself from them in despair, or simply slipped and been swept out to sea. The details did not matter. What mattered was that she was gone, and Valarr was destroying himself trying to locate a ghost.

Baelor had tried to be patient. He had given his son space to grieve, time to come to terms with the loss in his own way. But the days kept slipping past, and the king's summons grew sharper with every raven that arrived from the capital, and Valarr was no closer to acceptance than he had been the morning they found her cloak tangled on the rocks. If anything, he was worse now. His eyes had gone hollow, dark pits in a face grown gaunt and grey. His movements were jerky and erratic, the motions of a man who had not slept in a week, who had not eaten in days, who was running on nothing but sorrow and a stubborn, desperate hope that refused to die.

It could not continue. Baelor knew that with the cold certainty that had guided his entire life. Sooner or later, he would have to intervene. He would have to drag his son back from the cliffs, force food and sleep upon him, make him accept the brutal truth of what had happened. He would have to play the villain again. The cold and practical father who valued duty above love. The man who had offered a village girl silver to disappear and had driven her, however unintentionally, to her death.

The thought made his stomach turn, but he forced it down. He had made his choices. He would live with them, and he would carry the weight of her death on his conscience until the day he died. That was what it meant to be a prince. You made the hard decisions so others did not have to. You bore the guilt so they could sleep peacefully. That was the burden he had been born to shoulder, and he would shoulder it, no matter how heavily it pressed down on him.

Jena had joined him for tea, as she often did in the late morning hours. She sat across from him at the small table by the window, her hands wrapped around a cup of chamomile, her dark hair pulled back in a simple braid that trailed over one shoulder. She was a quiet woman, Jena, possessed of a stillness that Baelor had always found deeply comforting. She did not fill the silence with idle chatter the way so many at court seemed compelled to do. She simply sat with him, her presence a steady anchor in the storm of his thoughts.

"You're thinking about him again," she said without looking up from her tea. It was not a question.

Baelor sighed and set down his quill. "I am always thinking about him. He is my son."

"He is our son." Jena's voice remained gentle, but there was a thread of reproach woven through it. "And he is suffering. He has been suffering for days, and you have done nothing but watch him tear himself apart."

"What would you have me do?" Baelor rubbed at his temples, feeling the familiar ache of exhaustion building behind his eyes. "I have tried speaking with him. I have tried reasoning with him. I have tried giving him space and silence. Nothing reaches him. He will not listen to me. He will not even look at me."

"Can you truly blame him?" Jena set down her cup with a soft click, her dark eyes rising to meet his. "You offered that girl coin to leave him. You told her about the betrothal before he had the chance to explain it himself. You..."

"I am aware of what I did." Baelor's voice came out sharper than he intended, and he softened it with deliberate effort. "I am aware. And I would do it again, if circumstances demanded it. It was the correct decision. For him, for the realm, for everyone involved."

Jena was silent for a long moment. Then she said, very quietly, "Was it? For him, I mean. Was it truly the correct decision for him?"

Before Baelor could summon a response, the screaming began.

It started faint and far away, barely audible beneath the constant crash of the waves against the cliffs. Baelor frowned, his head lifting, his hand moving instinctively toward the sword that was not at his hip because he was in his private chambers and had not anticipated needing it. Jena looked up as well, her brow furrowing, her teacup frozen halfway to her lips.

"What is that?" she asked.

Baelor rose and crossed to the window. The screams were growing louder now, more distinct, and he could pick out other sounds tangled among them. Shouts. Running footsteps. The clatter of something heavy falling. His heart began to beat faster, his body responding with the automatic readiness of a man who had fought in battles and knew the particular timbre of panic when he heard it.

"I do not know," he said, throwing open the shutters. "Stay here."

He stepped out onto the balcony, and the noise hit him like a physical force. People were screaming in the village below, their voices carrying up the mountainside in overlapping waves of terror. He could see them running, tiny figures scattering like ants from a disturbed nest. And then Baelor looked up to where they were pointing, and the blood in his veins turned to ice.

A dragon. There was a dragon in the sky above Dragonstone.

For one impossible, suspended moment, his mind refused to process what his eyes were reporting. It was a trick of the light. A peculiar cloud formation. An unusually large bird of a species he had never encountered. It was anything other than what it so clearly, undeniably was. Because dragons were dead. Dragons had been dead for seventy years, since the last of them had withered and perished in the Dragonpit at King's Landing, since the Dance had scoured the skies clean and left behind nothing but ashes and old songs. Dragons were dead, and had been dead for the entirety of his life, and the thing circling above his castle could not possibly be what his eyes insisted it was.

But it was. It was a dragon, pale and shimmering, its scales catching the morning sunlight and scattering it like scattered gemstones. It was smaller than the old books had led him to imagine a dragon of its apparent youth should be, with vast wings that stretched wide, but still bigger then two grown war horses combined. It flew low over the island, its shadow racing across grey cliffs and green slopes and the dark walls of the castle itself, and it was beautiful and terrible and utterly, incontrovertibly real.

"Gods," Baelor breathed. The word left his lips as a prayer and a curse and a cry of pure disbelief all at once.

Jena appeared at his side, her face drained of color, her hand gripping the balcony railing with a force that turned her knuckles bone white. She had followed him despite his order to stay inside. Of course she had. Jena had never been the sort of woman who remained where she was told when there was danger to be faced.

"Baelor," she said, and her voice was remarkably steady. Steadier than his own. Jena had always been the calm presence in a crisis. "That is a dragon."

"I know."

"A living dragon. Flying above our castle."

"I know."

"The girl-." Jena's voice fractured on the word."

"I know." Baelor turned from the balcony, his mind already shifting, already abandoning shock in favor of action. "I know."

He strode back into the chamber with quick, decisive steps, the decades of training and experience asserting control. There would be time for disbelief later. There would be time for guilt and regret and the crushing weight of realization later. Right now, there was a dragon on his island and his people were panicking, and he needed to act.

The door burst open before he reached it. A guard stumbled through, his face flushed and shining with sweat, his breath tearing in and out of his chest in ragged gasps.

"My prince," he said, his voice scraped raw. "My prince, there is..."

"A dragon," Baelor finished for him. "I have seen it. Where is it now?"

"The caves, my prince. It was observed entering the eastern tunnels. It..." Ser Raymund stopped and swallowed hard, the scar that bisected his face pulling tight. "It bore a rider, my prince. We saw someone on its back. A figure, small, clinging to its neck. They entered the caves together."

A rider. Baelor's heart, which had been hammering with the cold rhythm of duty and command, gave a single violent stutter. A rider. Someone had mounted that creature. Someone had tamed a dragon that had been dead for seventy years, had climbed onto its back and flown it across the sea and into the tunnels of Dragonstone.

The girl. It had to be the girl. The mad girl with the imaginary dragon that was not imaginary at all.

"Assemble the knights," Baelor ordered, his voice cutting through the tension like a blade. "And the horses. We ride for the eastern caves at once."

"Yes, my prince."

"No one is to move against the dragon without my direct command. No one attacks it. No one provokes it. No one approaches it without my explicit permission. If it breathes fire, if it assaults anyone, if it so much as looks at one of my men in a manner that suggests hostility..." He paused, his jaw tightening until he could feel the ache in his teeth. "Then we will do what we must. But not before. Not until I give the word. Is that understood?"

"Yes, my prince." Ser Raymund hesitated, and something flickered across his scarred face. Some emotion Baelor could not quite identify. "My prince, there is something else."

"What is it?"

"The young prince. Prince Valarr." Ser Raymund's voice flattened into careful neutrality, the tone of a man delivering news he knew would not be well received. "He was in the village when the dragon was sighted. He saw it. He took a horse from the stables and rode out immediately. Alone. He was observed heading toward the eastern caves."

The ice that had been threading through Baelor's veins since he first stepped onto the balcony crystallized into something sharp and jagged. "Alone," Baelor repeated. The word came out flat and dangerous.

"Yes, my prince. He would not wait. He simply took the horse and rode. By the time anyone thought to restrain him, he was already gone."

Baelor closed his eyes. For one brief moment, he allowed himself to feel the full immensity of the situation. The dragon. The girl. His son riding toward both of them with grief and desperation and gods only knew what else driving his heels into the horse's flanks. Then he opened his eyes again, and his face was hard and set, the face of a man who had made terrible decisions his entire life and would make them again now.

"Then we ride faster," he said. "Get the horses. Get the knights. We leave immediately. And Ser Raymund?"

"My prince?"

"Pray to whatever gods you keep that we are not too late."

—

You had almost managed to calm her down. Almost.

Moonfyre's growling had subsided to a low, uneasy rumble, the kind of sound that still vibrated through your bones and set your teeth on edge but no longer promised immediate violence. Her muscles remained rigid beneath her pale scales, hard as carved stone, but she was no longer coiled to strike. Her tail had stopped its furious lashing and now only twitched occasionally, the spaded tip flicking back and forth with the irritable rhythm of a cat who had been interrupted mid nap and was not pleased about it. Her golden eyes stayed fixed on the cave entrance, watchful and wary, but the wild, panicked edge had receded. She was listening to you now, her great head tilted slightly toward the sound of your voice, her breathing gradually slowing to match the deliberate, steady rhythm you were setting for her. Every few seconds she would huff, a sharp exhale through her nostrils that sent small grey puffs of smoke spiraling toward the distant ceiling, but she was no longer baring her teeth. She was no longer kindling that terrible, deadly glow at the back of her throat.

"That's it," you murmured, your hand moving along the warm scales of her jaw in the rhythm you had learned she preferred. Slow and even, tracing from the sensitive ridge behind her eye down to the corner of her mouth and back again. "That's it, sweet girl. We're safe now. It's only noise out there. Only frightened people making frightened sounds. They can't hurt you. I won't let anyone hurt you. You know that, don't you? You know I would never let anyone hurt you."

She made a small, questioning chirp, a sound so soft and incongruous that it still startled you every time. This creature who could level a village, who could turn stone to slag with a single breath, chirping like a hatchling asking for reassurance. You pressed your forehead against her snout and let the heat of her scales seep into your skin. For just a moment, you closed your eyes.

Then you heard the footsteps. Your eyes snapped open. Moonfyre's head lifted with a sharp, sudden motion, her body going rigid beneath your hands. The growl surged back into her chest before you could draw breath to stop it. Her wings half spread, the pale membranes catching the dim light of the cave and glowing faintly, and you saw the fire kindle once more at the back of her throat. Someone was running, the footsteps frantic and uneven, making no attempt at stealth. Someone who was thinking of nothing but reaching this chamber as fast as humanly possible.

Valarr burst into the cavern. He looked like a corpse given motion. Eyes so red rimmed and shadowed they appeared bruised. Dark circles that looked more like wounds than exhaustion. His hair was a wild snarl, his clothes rumpled and stained with days of wear, and there was a half healed cut across his forehead that had scabbed over but not closed. He looked like he had not slept in days. He looked like he had not eaten in days. He looked like a man who had been running on nothing but grief and stubborn, irrational hope and had burned through both of them down to the dregs.

And he had a sword in his hand. The blade caught the faint light and glittered, and his knuckles were bone white around the hilt, and his mismatched eyes were fixed on Moonfyre with an expression of absolute, primal terror.

"Y/N!" His voice tore on your name. "Y/N, get away from it! Get away!"

Moonfyre roared. The sound hit you like a physical blow, reverberating through the stone and your bones and the very air in your lungs. She lunged forward, placing her body between you and the threat, her vast wings spreading wide enough to brush both walls of the chamber. Her jaws opened, and you saw the fire blooming at the back of her throat.

"STOP!" You threw yourself in front of her, your arms spread wide, your heart beating so hard you could feel it in your teeth. "Moonfyre, stop! Don't!"

Valarr had frozen mid stride. His sword was still raised, his chest heaving, his face a mask of terror and disbelief. He stared at Moonfyre as if the world had cracked open beneath his feet, and you watched the realization strike him like a physical force. She was real. The dragon was real. Everything you had told him, everything you had tried so hard to make him believe, was standing in front of him with teeth like daggers and eyes like molten gold.

"Valarr." Your voice cut through the growling and the pounding of your heart, sharp as a blade. "Drop the sword. Right now. Drop it and kick it away."

He did not move. His eyes stayed fixed on Moonfyre, wide and glassy with shock.

"Valarr!" you shouted. "She thinks you're going to hurt me. She is scared and she is furious and if you do not drop that sword in the next three seconds she will incinerate you where you stand. Do you understand me? Look at her teeth. Look at the fire in her throat. You cannot fight her. You cannot protect me from her. The only thing keeping you alive right now is the fact that my body is between you and her. So drop. The. Sword."

Something in your voice reached him. He blinked, his eyes finally moving from the dragon to your face, and for a long, suspended moment he simply stared at you as if you were a ghost.

"Y/N," he breathed. "You're alive. We found your cloak on the rocks, there was blood on the stones, I thought..."

"The sword, Valarr!"

He looked down at his hand as if noticing the blade for the first time. Slowly, with the jerky movements of a man in shock, he lowered it to the stone floor. He straightened, his hands raised, and kicked the weapon away into the shadows where it clattered against the wall and lay still.

"I'm not going to hurt her," he said, his voice shaking. He was speaking to Moonfyre now, his eyes fixed somewhere near her feet rather than meeting her gaze. "I would never hurt her. I'm sorry. I thought she was in danger. I thought you had taken her, I thought you were..."

Moonfyre growled again, low and threatening, a sound like boulders grinding together deep underground. You turned back to her and pressed both hands against her snout, forcing her to focus on you.

"Hey," you said, your voice softening. "Hey. Look at me. Look at me, sweet girl. He is not a threat. He is an idiot, but he is not a threat. I need you to stay here while I go talk to him. Can you do that? Can you let me handle the idiot?"

She huffed, a warm blast of air that stirred your hair, and you chose to read it as agreement. You pressed a kiss to her snout and then turned and walked toward Valarr.

He was trembling. His hands were still raised, still shaking, and his eyes were fixed on your face with an intensity that made your chest ache. He looked at you like you were a miracle. Like you were something he had been praying to see and had never expected to find.

You stopped a few feet away from him. Close enough to touch. Not touching. You opened your mouth to say something, though you had no idea what, but before you could form a single syllable he closed the distance and pulled you into his arms.

It was desperate. Crushing. His arms wrapped around you so tightly that you could barely draw breath, one hand fisting in the back of your dress, the other pressed flat against your spine like he was trying to feel your heartbeat through your skin. His face buried itself in your hair, and you felt his tears hot and wet against your neck, felt the way his entire body was shuddering against yours.

"You're alive," he choked out. "You're alive. We searched everywhere, we couldn't find you, I thought you fell, I thought you drowned, I thought you were dead..."

And maybe it was the shock of seeing him. Or the adrenaline still surging through your veins from the flight and the screams and the near disaster of his arrival. Or maybe it was the fact that you had spent days alone on an island with nothing but a dragon for company and you had done a great deal of thinking, a great deal of feeling, a great deal of sitting with your grief and your anger and your hurt. Maybe it was all of those things at once. But instead of melting into his embrace, instead of weeping with relief and telling him everything was forgiven, you felt something hard and hot and furious rise up in your chest.

Your hands, which had been hanging limp at your sides, came up to his chest. And you pushed. It was not a hard push. Just enough to create a few inches of space between you. Just enough to look him in the eye. His arms loosened reluctantly, his hands sliding to your shoulders, and he gazed down at you with those red rimmed, desperate, hopeful eyes, and you felt the anger surge up your throat like bile.

"Don't," you said. Your voice came out rough and scraped raw. "Don't you dare hold me like that. Don't you dare cry on my shoulder as though you are the one who has been wronged."

He flinched. Actually flinched, as if you had struck him across the face. His hands dropped from your shoulders, hovering uncertainly in the air between you. His mouth opened, but no sound came out.

"Y/N," he managed at last, his voice barely above a whisper. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I should have believed you. I should have..."

"Oh, you're sorry." The words came out bitter and cutting, sharp edged as broken glass. You stepped back, putting more distance between you, and his hands fell to his sides like dead things. "You're sorry. Well, that fixes everything, doesn't it? the whole time, the entire time, you were looking at me like I was a child telling stories about fairies. And now you're sorry."

"I was wrong." His voice cracked down the middle. "I was so wrong, and I know that now, and I..."

"You know that now." You laughed, and it was an ugly sound, hollow and humorless. "You know that now because you saw her with your own eyes. You know that now because the evidence is standing twenty feet away from you, breathing fire and very nearly ending your life. Tell me, Valarr. If she hadn't come back, if I had stayed on that island forever, would you have gone to your grave believing I was mad? Would you have told your children about the crazy village girl you once humored, the one who thought she had a dragon?"

"No." He shook his head violently, his tangled hair falling into his eyes. "No, I would never. I didn't think you were crazy. I thought you were lonely. I thought you needed something to believe in, and I didn't want to take that away from you. I thought I was being..."

"Kind." You spat the word like poison. "You thought you were being kind. Do you have any idea what that felt like? Do you have any idea what it is like to pour your heart out to someone, to share the most precious thing in your life with them, and to watch them nod and smile and ask polite questions while behind their eyes they are thinking poor thing, she really believes it, how terribly sad?"

Valarr's face crumpled. "That's not what I thought. I never thought..."

"I stood in front of your father," you continued, your voice shaking now, "and he offered me silver to disappear. Silver. Like I was a stain on his floor. Like I was a problem to be solved and discarded. And I refused it. Do you know why I refused it?" You did not wait for him to answer. "Because I believed what we had was worth more than silver. Because I believed you loved me. But you didn't, did you? You pitied me. There is a difference. There is a very great difference."

"That's not true." His voice was hoarse and raw, scraped down to nothing. "That's not. I love you, Y/N. I have loved you since the moment I met you in the market, when you told me I was terrifying in a different way and made me laugh for the first time in weeks. I love the way you talk too much when you're nervous. I love the way you embroider flowers on your cloak even though you think they're ugly. I love the way you care about everything and everyone, the goats and the herbs and the old women in the village and the dragons that everyone else was certain were dead. I love you. Not some sad, broken version of you I invented in my head. You. The real you. The you who is standing in front of me right now, furious and beautiful and so alive it makes my chest ache."

He reached for you then, his hands coming up to cup your face with a gentleness that seemed impossible after the violence of the last few minutes. His thumbs brushed across your cheekbones, catching tears you had not realized you were shedding, and his eyes searched yours with a desperation that made your breath catch.

"I was wrong," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "I was so wrong about so many things. I should have believed you from the beginning. I should have trusted you when you told me she was real. I should have told you about Kiera the moment I knew how I felt about you instead of hiding it like a coward. I should have done a hundred things differently, and I did none of them, and you got hurt because of it. You got hurt, and you ran, and I thought you died. I thought you died believing I pitied you. I thought you died thinking you meant nothing to me. And I have been living in hell for three days, Y/N. Three days of believing the woman I love was dead at the bottom of the sea, and it was my fault."

His voice broke on the final word, and a tear slipped down his cheek, trailing over his thumb where it rested against your skin.

"Don't," you whispered, but your voice had lost its sharp edge. "Don't you dare cry. You don't get to cry. I am the one who was wronged. I am the one who gets to be angry."

"Then be angry." His thumbs traced the curve of your cheekbones, feather light and trembling. "Be as furious as you need to be. Shout at me. Strike me. Tell me everything I did wrong. I will stand here and accept all of it. I will accept anything you throw at me, as long as you are here to throw it. As long as you are alive."

"I am angry." Your voice wobbled dangerously. "I am so angry, Valarr. I am angry about the dragon, and I am angry about Kiera, and I am angry that you let me find out from your father instead of from you."

"I know." His voice was barely audible now.

"No, you don't know. Not yet. Not until I've said it all." You pulled back from him, your hands still twisted in the front of his tunic, your eyes burning into his. "Do you know how humiliating that was? Standing in that room while your father told me you were promised to someone else as if it was nothing? As if I was nothing? I had to hear it from him, Valarr. From a stranger who looked at me like I was dirt on his boot. Not from you. Not from the man who claimed to love me. You let me walk into that room completely unprepared. You let me be blindsided and humiliated, and you weren't even there to see it."

"I know." His face was ashen. "I know, and I hate myself for it. I should have told you myself. I should have told you the first time I kissed you. The first time I realized I was falling in love with you. But I was a coward. I was so terrified of losing you that I did the one thing guaranteed to make it happen."

"You kept me in the dark." Your fingers twisted tighter in the fabric of his tunic, your knuckles pressing against his chest. "You let me believe there was a future for us. You let me hope and plan and dream, and all the while there was a girl in Tyrosh with your ring on her finger. You were never going to be mine. You were never going to choose me."

"That is not true."

"Isn't it?"

"No." His voice was fierce suddenly, his hands tightening on your face. "It isn't true. I did choose you. I chose you when I told my father I would not marry her. I chose you when I told him I would abdicate. I chose you when I said I would give up the throne, the crown, my birthright, everything I had ever been raised to value, if it meant I could be with you. He said yes, Y/N. He said if I found you alive, I could marry you. Not Kiera. Not some political alliance. You."

You stared at him. The words hung in the air between you, heavy and solid and impossible.

"You abdicated?"

"I told him I didn't want it. Any of it. Not if it meant losing you." His eyes burned into yours, fierce and desperate and blazing with a sincerity that made your heart stutter. "He was furious. We shouted at each other for an hour. He told me I was throwing away my future, my birthright, everything I had ever been raised to be. And I told him I didn't care. I told him none of it mattered without you. I told him I would rather be a farmer or a fisherman or a beggar on the streets of King's Landing, as long as I had you by my side."

"Valarr." Your voice came out as a whisper. "You cannot simply abdicate. You are the heir's heir. The future of the realm depends on..."

"The future of the realm can hang itself." His voice cracked, but his gaze did not waver. "I don't care about the realm. I care about you. I have spent my entire life doing what was expected of me, being what everyone else wanted me to be, and the only time I have ever felt like myself was when I was with you. You are the only real thing in my life. Everything else is politics and duty and masks."

"That isn't fair." You pulled back further, shaking your head. "You cannot put that on me. You cannot make me responsible for your entire sense of self. That isn't love. That is..."

"I know what it is." His voice was steady now, steadier than it had been since he entered the cave. "It is love. Messy and desperate and probably unhealthy, and I don't care. I am not asking you to fix me, Y/N. I am not asking you to be my salvation. I am telling you that you showed me what it felt like to be seen, and I am never going to stop being grateful for that, whether you take me back or not."

You stared at him. The anger was still there, hot and hard and stubborn, but it was fading now, slowly and reluctantly, replaced by something else. Something that had been there all along, buried beneath the hurt and the betrayal, waiting to be found again.

A long silence stretched between them. Moonfyre made a soft sound behind you, and you realized you had been standing with your back to her this whole time, trusting her not to attack while your attention was elsewhere. You turned to look at her and found her watching you with those golden eyes, her head tilted, her tail twitching with what might have been impatience or might have been curiosity.

"Your father is probably on his way here right now," you said, turning back to Valarr. "With knights. With swords. With orders to kill her if she so much as looks at anyone the wrong way."

"Probably."

"And what are you going to do when he arrives? Stand between her and his men? Fight your own family?"

"If I have to." His voice was quiet but absolutely certain. "I will not let anyone hurt her. I will not let anyone hurt you. Not my father. Not the Kingsguard. Not anyone."

"You're an idiot," you said at last. Your voice came out thick and unsteady.

"I know."

"A complete and utter fool."

"I know."

"You broke my heart, Valarr. You shattered it into a thousand pieces, and I had to fly across the sea on a dragon's back to put it back together. Do you understand that? Do you understand what you did to me?"

His face went pale. "I..."

"I'm not finished." You reached up and pressed two fingers to his lips, silencing him. "You hurt me. And I am still angry. And I am going to be angry for a while, probably. You're going to have to be patient with me. You're going to have to prove to me that you mean what you say. Every day. For a long time. Do you understand?"

He nodded, his lips moving against your fingers.

"And if you ever lie to me again," you continued, "if you ever keep a secret from me again, if you ever look at me with pity instead of trust, I will leave. I will get on my dragon and fly away and I will never come back. I mean that, Valarr. I will not give you a third chance."

"I understand." He said the words against your fingers, his breath warm on your skin. "No more secrets. No more lies. No more pity. Ever. I swear it on my life."

You held his gaze for a long moment, searching his face for any sign of hesitation, any flicker of doubt. You found none.

"Alright," you said quietly, and you lowered your fingers from his lips.

He blinked. "Alright?"

"Alright. I'm willing to try. But you're going to have to earn back my trust. Every day. For a long time. Possibly years."

A sound escaped him, something between a laugh and a sob. "I can do years. I can do decades. I can do the rest of my life."

"It might take that long."

"Then I'll spend the rest of my life earning it." He pressed his forehead against yours, his breath warm on your lips. "Every day. Every moment. I'll prove to you that you made the right choice. I'll prove to you that I'm worthy of the chance you're giving me."

"You'd better," you murmured, and then you pulled him down and kissed him.

It was not a gentle kiss. It was fierce and desperate and full of all the grief and fear and love that had been building between you for days. His arms wrapped around you, pulling you against him with that same crushing desperation, and your hands fisted in his tunic, and you held onto each other like the world was ending and this was the only thing that mattered.

When you finally broke apart, you were both breathing hard. His forehead rested against yours, and his hands were still cupping your face, and he was looking at you with an expression of such pure, unguarded joy that it made your heart clench.

"I love you," he said. "I love you, Y/N. I should have said it a thousand times before, and I'll say it a thousand times now to make up for every time I didn't. I love you. I love you. I love you."

Behind you, Moonfyre made a sound. A soft, questioning chirp that was so incongruous with her size. You turned to look at her and found her watching you with those golden eyes, her head tilted, her tail twitching. She did not look angry anymore. She did not look threatened. She looked curious, and perhaps slightly disgruntled that your attention was focused on someone other than her.

"It's okay, sweet girl," you said, reaching one hand toward her. "He's with me. He's mine. Just like you're mine. And I know you two got off to a terrible start, but I'm hoping you can learn to tolerate each other. Because I'm not giving up either of you."

Moonfyre huffed, a puff of smoke escaping her nostrils, and then she lowered her head back down to rest on her front claws. Her golden eyes stayed fixed on Valarr, still watchful, still wary, but the killing fury had faded. She was willing to give him a chance.

Valarr let out a shaky breath. "Is she going to let me live?"

"For now. But I'd stay on her good side if I were you. She's very protective."

"I noticed." He looked at Moonfyre, then back at you, and a smile spread across his face. The first real smile you had seen from him since he burst into the chamber. It made him look younger, lighter, like the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders. "She's magnificent. Terrifying, but magnificent. Just like her rider."

"Flattery won't save you if she decides she doesn't like you."

Moonfyre blinked at him slowly, her golden eyes unreadable. Then she made a sound, a low rumbling that was not quite a growl and not quite a purr, and closed her eyes, apparently deciding he was not interesting enough to warrant her continued attention.

"I think that went well," Valarr said. "All things considered."

You laughed, and the sound surprised you. Bright and warm and full of a joy you had not felt in days. "She'll come around. She just needs time. Like me."

"Time." Valarr turned back to you, his hand finding yours and lacing your fingers together. "Time, I have. All the time in the world."

You heard them before you saw them, the thunder of hooves on rock, the metallic jangle of tack and armor, the low, urgent murmur of many voices trying to speak quietly and failing utterly. They were outside the cave now, assembling in the narrow ravine that led to the entrance, and the sound of them echoed through the tunnels like water rushing through a gorge, building and building until it reached you in the deep chamber where you stood with Valarr's hand still laced in yours and Moonfyre's warmth still pressed against your back like a living furnace.

Then Baelor's voice cut through the noise, sharp with a fear he was trying very hard to conceal and not quite succeeding.

"Valarr! Valarr, can you hear me? Are you in there?"

Valarr tensed beside you, every muscle going rigid. His hand tightened around yours with a force that would have been painful if you hadn't been so grateful for the anchor of it, and you felt him draw breath to answer, felt the relief flooding through him at the sound of his father's voice. You squeezed his fingers before he could speak.

"Wait," you whispered.

He looked at you, his brow furrowing, the question already forming on his lips. "What is it? He's worried. He thinks I'm dead."

"I know." You pulled your hand free of his, gently, but with purpose and turned to face Moonfyre. She had lifted her head again at the sound of the voices, her golden eyes fixed on the tunnel that led to the entrance with an intensity that made your stomach clench. Her body had gone rigid with that same tension you had worked so hard to calm, every scale and sinew coiled tight as a spring. The growl was not back yet, but you could feel it waiting just beneath the surface, a tremor in her chest that vibrated through the stone floor. "But if you call him in here, he won't come alone. You know he won't. He'll bring his knights. He'll bring their swords. And she just barely accepted you. After hours of work and two near-death experiences. She won't accept a dozen armed men."

Valarr's face shifted as understanding took hold, the relief draining away and leaving something harder in its place. "You're right. You're right, of course." He turned toward the tunnel, squared his shoulders, and raised his voice. "Father! I'm in here. I'm alive and I'm unharmed. But you need to stay where you are. Do not bring the knights inside."

A pause. The kind of pause that stretches out like a held breath. Then Baelor's voice came again, closer this time, he must have dismounted and walked to the very mouth of the cave, close enough that you could hear the edge of an echo. "Valarr, thank the gods. Is the girl with you? Is she safe?"

You stiffened at the word. The girl. Even now, even after everything he couldn't be bothered to use your name. Valarr shot you an apologetic look, the kind that said I know, I'm sorry, he's like this, and called back, "She's here. She's safe. But Father, listen to me carefully. The dragon is also here, and she is very protective. She nearly killed me when I came in carrying a sword, and the only reason I'm still breathing is because Y/N here talked her down. If you bring armed men into this cave, there will be blood, and it will not be hers. Do you understand?"

Another pause. Longer this time. You could almost hear the calculations running behind it, the prince's mind turning over the tactical realities of the situation and finding them wanting. When Baelor spoke again, his voice had shifted the sharp edge of command giving way to something more measured, more careful. The voice of a man who understood that he was not in control of this situation and was intelligent enough to accept it.

"What do you propose?"

Valarr looked at you. You took a breath and stepped forward, your hand finding the warm scales of her shoulder and resting there, drawing courage from the contact.

"Prince Baelor," you called out. Your voice was steadier than you expected it to be, given the circumstances. Given that you were addressing the man who had tried to buy your disappearance with a pouch of silver. "Moonfyre does not like crowds. She does not like humans in general, if I'm being honest. She barely tolerates your son, and it took me the better part of an afternoon to convince her not to turn him into ash. If you want to come inside, you will come alone. No knights. No weapons. No sudden movements. No raised voices. If you can accept those terms, you may enter. If you cannot, then you will wait outside until I decide otherwise."

The silence that followed was so complete you could hear the wind whistling through the ravine outside, the distant cry of seabirds, the soft whisper of Moonfyre's breathing. You imagined Baelor standing at the cave mouth, his scarred face unreadable, his mind turning over the unprecedented reality of being given conditions by a village girl and her dragon. Being given orders. Being told to wait.

Then he said, "Very well. I will come alone. Ser Raymund, you have command until I return. No one follows me inside. No one acts without my direct order. No one so much as draws a blade, no matter what you hear. Is that understood?"

A murmur of assent, reluctant and nervous, the sound of men who did not like what was happening but knew better than to argue with that tone. Then the sound of a sword belt being unbuckled, leather sliding through metal, the distinctive clank of a blade being set down on stone. Footsteps, slow and deliberate, echoing through the tunnel. One man. Alone.

You stroked Moonfyre's jaw, feeling the heat of her beneath your palm, the vibration of that barely-suppressed growl. "He's coming alone, sweet girl. Just one man. No weapons. Just like the other one. Can you be calm for me? Can you trust me one more time?"

She huffed, a warm breath that stirred your hair and smelled faintly of smoke and something older, something that made you think of the heart of a mountain. Her great golden eye fixed on the tunnel entrance, the pupil contracting and expanding as she tracked the sound of footsteps. But she did not growl. She did not kindle the fire at the back of her throat. She simply watched, and waited, and trusted you.

Baelor emerged from the darkness of the tunnel and stopped dead at the edge of the chamber. He looked different than the last time you had seen him, his eyes were fixed on Moonfyre with an expression that stopped the breath in your throat.

Wonder. Pure, unguarded, absolute wonder.

He stared at her the way a scholar might stare at a lost text thought destroyed centuries ago, the way a septon might stare at a miracle he had prayed for but never expected to witness, the way a man who had grown up on stories of dragons and had accepted long ago that they were only stories might stare at proof that the stories had been true all along. The stories had been true, and she was magnificent. His lips parted slightly, as if he wanted to speak and had forgotten how. His hands, which had been clenched into fists at his sides, slowly uncurled, the fingers spreading wide in an unconscious gesture of surrender or reverence or both.

Valarr cleared his throat, the sound startling in the quiet. "Father. Are you alright?"

Baelor blinked, visibly shaking himself out of his trance with the effort of a man surfacing from deep water. He looked at Valarr, then at you, then back at Moonfyre. When he spoke, his voice was rough with something that might have been awe, or might have been the beginning of tears.

"She's real. The dragon is real."

"She's real," you confirmed. Your voice came out flatter than you intended, edged with something you didn't bother to disguise. "She has been real this entire time. Her name is Moonfyre. Not that anyone believed me when I told you all." The bitterness crept in despite your best efforts, old and familiar and impossible to fully suppress. "Not that anyone thought I was worth listening to."

Baelor's eyes met yours. He held your gaze for a long moment, and you saw something shift in his expression, a crack in the armor, a crumbling of some internal wall.

"My lady," he said, and the words came out heavy, weighted with something that sounded almost like humility. "It appears that I owe you a great many apologies. And I suspect we all owe you a great deal more than that."

You had not been expecting that. You had been steeling yourself for anger. For demands. For the cold, dismissive authority he had wielded so easily in his hall, the assumption that everything and everyone existed to serve the interests of House Targaryen. You had prepared yourself for a confrontation, for the need to plant your feet and defend Moonfyre and yourself against a man who had already tried to remove you from his son's life, who had looked at you and seen nothing but an obstacle to be cleared. You had not prepared for an apology. You had not prepared for the way his voice caught on the word, or the way his shoulders had dropped, almost imperceptibly, as if setting down a burden he had been carrying for a very long time.

"An apology," you repeated, your voice carefully neutral. Not accepting. Not rejecting. Just waiting.

"Several, in fact." Baelor took a step closer slow and deliberate and stopped when Moonfyre's tail twitched warningly against the stone, a rattle of scales that echoed through the chamber. He raised his hands slightly, palms out, a gesture of peace that looked almost strange on a man like him. A man built for command, not for supplication. "I misjudged you. Profoundly. And my failure to see it—my arrogance, my blindness—very nearly cost my son his life and this family something more precious than I can put into words."

He turned back to Moonfyre, and the wonder returned to his face, softening the hard lines of his scars, making him look younger and older all at once. "A dragon. A living dragon. In the caves of Dragonstone. After seventy years of emptiness and silence." His voice cracked on the final word, splintering like old wood. "Do you understand what this means? Do you understand what you have done?"

You stiffened. The old fear rose up in your chest, sharp and immediate and viscerally familiar, the fear that had been with you since you first decided to return to the island instead of fleeing across the Narrow Sea. The fear of being separated from Moonfyre. The fear of her being taken away locked up in some pit like the dragons of old, turned into a weapon, reduced to a symbol for a house that had forgotten how to love the creatures it claimed to revere. Your hand tightened on her scales, the edges pressing into your palm.

"She is not a thing to be used," you said, and your voice came out sharper than you intended, honed by months of fear and loneliness and desperate love. "She is not a weapon. She is not a political tool. She is not a symbol for your house or a prop for your restoration. She is my friend. My family. The only family I have ever truly had. And I will not—I will not—let anyone take her from me. I don't care who you are. I don't care what throne you sit on. I will burn that throne to ash before I let you use her."

Baelor turned back to you, and something in his expression softened further—not the condescending softness of an adult humoring a child, but something gentler, something almost sorrowful. "No one is going to take her from you, my lady. I give you my word on that, and I do not give my word lightly. I suspect anyone who tried would find themselves facing both a very angry dragon and my son, and I am not eager to lose either of those confrontations. Nor would I wish to."

"He's right." Valarr moved to stand beside you, his hand finding yours again, his fingers interlacing with yours in a grip that was steady and sure. "No one is taking her from you. No one is taking you from here. You're safe. Both of you. I swear it on everything I am."

"Then what did you mean?" You looked at Baelor, your eyes narrowing, the fear still coiled in your chest like a serpent waiting to strike. "What does it mean? What do you think I have done?"

Baelor was quiet for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was slower, more deliberate, the voice of a man choosing his words with extreme care and measuring their weight before he let them fall.

"For seventy years, House Targaryen has been without dragons. Our power, our identity, our very reason for existing—it was all tied to them. When the last dragon died, something in us died with it. Something essential. We have been lesser ever since. Diminished. Clinging to a throne through nothing but tradition and politics and the fading memory of a greatness we could no longer claim and could never seem to reclaim." He paused, his eyes moving back to Moonfyre with that same stunned reverence. "You have returned that greatness to us. You found a wounded creature in the dark and you healed her. You showed her love when anyone else would have shown her a saddle, and she loved you in return. You did what none of us could do, what none of us even thought to try. And I suspect that says more about you—about your heart, your character, your worth—than it says about any of us."

You stared at him. The words were so unexpected, so far from what you had braced yourself to hear, that you did not know how to respond. You had prepared for a dozen different versions of this moment, and none of them had looked like this.

He drew a breath and continued, his voice growing steadier even as it grew quieter. "When I offered you coin to leave my son, I told myself I was protecting him. Protecting him from a mistake, from an entanglement beneath his station, from a girl who could bring him nothing but complications. And protecting you as well, or so I told myself, from future heartbreak when the world inevitably tore you apart." He shook his head slowly, the gesture heavy with self recrimination. "I was wrong. Not just about the dragon. About you. About what you are worth. About what you mean to him—and what he means to you." He glanced at Valarr, and something passed between father and son, something complicated and pained and long in the making. "My son abdicated for you. He stood in my hall, in front of my entire court, and told me he would give up everything—his title, his inheritance, his future, his place in this family—for the chance to be with you. And I thought he was being a fool. A romantic fool, throwing his life away for a village girl who had no family and no name and no value beyond what he had imagined in her."

"But she has a dragon," Valarr said quietly. His voice was calm, but there was steel beneath it, a blade wrapped in silk. "And now suddenly she has value. Now suddenly she matters. Now suddenly you're standing here apologizing and calling her 'my lady' and speaking of greatness."

"That is not what I meant."

"Isn't it?" Valarr's voice was hard now, the silk falling away. "If she had returned without Moonfyre, if she had come back alone with nothing but the truth, would you still be standing here apologizing? Would you still be calling her 'my lady' and speaking of returning greatness? Or would you be trying to find some other way to remove her?"

The silence that followed was brutal in its honesty. Baelor did not answer immediately, and his failure to do so was an answer in itself, a confession written in hesitation.

Then he said, very quietly, "I would like to think so. I would like to think that seeing you nearly destroy yourself with grief would have been enough. That hearing the truth from you—really hearing it, without my own prejudices in the way—would have been enough. But I cannot say for certain. I cannot stand here and claim a virtue I am not sure I possess. And that uncertainty is a failing I will have to live with. A failing I will have to work to overcome." He turned to you, meeting your eyes directly, and you saw something in his face that you had never expected to see there: vulnerability. "My son is right to be angry with me. And you are right to be angry with me as well. I treated you poorly. I treated you as something disposable, something to be swept aside and forgotten. I did not see you as a person. I did not give you even the basic dignity of using your name. I was wrong, and I am sorry. Truly sorry. Not because you have a dragon. Not because circumstances have changed. But because I failed, and you deserve better than what I gave you."

You looked at him for a long moment. At his scarred face and his windblown hair and the dust on his fine clothes. At the way his hands hung open at his sides, unthreatening, fingers slightly curled as if he were holding onto something invisible. At the way his eyes kept drifting back to Moonfyre not with greed or calculation or the cold assessment of a military asset, but with that same stunned wonder, the wonder of a boy who had grown up on stories of dragons and had never stopped mourning their loss.

"I don't trust you," you said bluntly. The words came out flat and unadorned, a simple statement of fact.

Baelor nodded slowly, accepting it. "I understand. I have given you no reason to trust me, and every reason not to. I would not expect you to forget what happened between us. But I hope—genuinely hope—that in time, I might earn your trust. Earn it the hard way, through actions rather than words. The way my son is earning it." He paused, glancing at Valarr with something that might have been pride or sorrow or both. "He is earning it, I take it? Given that he is still standing here, and the dragon has not eaten him?"

"The dragon came very close to eating him," you said, and despite everything you felt the corner of your mouth twitch, an almost-smile breaking through. "He walked in waving a sword around like an absolute idiot."

"It was a mistake," Valarr muttered, his ears going red. "I already admitted it was a mistake. I panicked. I thought you were dead and I was going to avenge you, and I wasn't thinking clearly."

"You could have died."

"But I didn't." He squeezed your hand, his thumb tracing a circle on your palm. "Because you stopped her. Because she listens to you. Because you're remarkable, and I am the luckiest fool who ever lived, and I am never going to stop being grateful for either of those facts."

Baelor watched this exchange with an expression that was difficult to parse, something between bemusement and approval and a kind of wistfulness, as if he were watching a language being spoken that he had never learned. Then he cleared his throat, the sound deliberate and slightly awkward.

"I realize this is a great deal to ask, given our history and how recently you've been through an ordeal. But I would like to discuss what happens next. With you, with the dragon, with my son. Not here, perhaps—not with half my household guard waiting outside and the entire village in a state of panic and my knees slowly giving out on this stone floor. But soon. When you are ready. When she is ready." He inclined his head toward Moonfyre, who had lowered her head slightly, still watching him with those unblinking golden eyes. "I would like to do this properly, if you'll permit it."

"Not today," you said, and your voice came out steadier than you felt. "Today I need to stay here with her. She's been through a lot. We both have. She was frightened, and she needs me, and I'm not going to leave her alone in the dark. But soon. I'll come to the castle when she's calm enough to be left, when I know she'll be alright without me for a few hours."

Baelor nodded immediately, no hesitation. "That is more than fair. More than I expected, honestly. Take whatever time you need." He hesitated, something flickering across his face, uncertainty, perhaps, or the effort of a proud man trying to learn humility in real time. Then he added, "For what it is worth, my lady, I am glad you are alive. Genuinely and without qualification. My son has been a ghost without you, a hollow thing going through the motions of living, and it was terrible to witness. I would not have wished that grief on him for anything. And I am... I am sorry that my actions contributed to it."

"Thank you," you said, because it seemed like the thing to say, even if you were not entirely sure you meant it, even if a part of you was still bracing for the other shoe to drop. It was a start, at least. Small and fragile and tentative, but a start.

Baelor turned to go, his footsteps slow and reluctant. But he paused at the edge of the chamber, where the tunnel opened into the darkness, and he looked back at Moonfyre one last time. That wonder crossed his face again, softening the hard edges, erasing the years and the scars and the weight of command until all that remained was a man standing in the presence of something he had believed lost forever.

"A dragon," he murmured, almost to himself, his voice barely above a whisper. "After all these years. After all this silence. A dragon in the caves of Dragonstone." He shook his head slowly, the gesture full of something that looked almost like prayer. "Welcome home, Moonfyre. Welcome home."

And then he was gone, his footsteps fading into the darkness of the tunnel, leaving the three of you alone in the warm glow of the lichen light. Moonfyre let out a long breath and lowered her head to rest on her foreclaws. Valarr pulled you closer, his arm coming around your shoulders. And for the first time in days, in months, in what felt like a lifetime, you allowed yourself to believe that everything might, somehow, be alright.

Then Valarr let out a breath that sounded like it had been trapped in his chest for days. He turned to you, and before you could speak, before you could even think, his arms were around you again. Not desperate this time. Not crushing. Just holding you, his face buried in your hair, his hands spread warm and steady against your back.

"Thank you," he murmured against your temple. "Thank you for that. For hearing him out. For giving him a chance when you had every right to turn him away."

You let yourself lean into him, just slightly, your cheek pressing against the rumpled fabric of his tunic. "I didn't do it for him."

"I know. You did it for me." His arms tightened. "You didn't have to. After everything I did, after everything he did, you could have told us both to go to hell and flown away on your dragon. I wouldn't have blamed you. No one would have blamed you."

"I considered it," you admitted. "When you burst in here waving a sword around like a character from a bad ballad, I very seriously considered it."

He laughed, a soft huff of air against your hair. "I really did make a spectacular first impression on her, didn't I? Charging in with a blade drawn, shouting at the top of my lungs. She's never going to forget that. I'm going to be the idiot with the sword for the rest of her very long life."

"Probably." You pulled back just enough to look up at him, and the expression on his face made your breath catch. He was looking at you with such naked adoration, such desperate, disbelieving gratitude, that it was almost painful to witness. "But she didn't kill you. That's a good sign. She only kills people she really doesn't like."

"Then I'll take it as a compliment." He cupped your face in his hands, his thumbs brushing across your cheekbones with that same impossible gentleness. "I meant what I said before. What I told my father. You are the most remarkable person I have ever met. You tamed a dragon with kindness. You came back here even though you were terrified, even though you had no idea what was waiting for you. And you gave me a second chance when I deserved nothing but your contempt."

"You're right," you said, and you felt your lips twitch. "You didn't deserve it. Neither did your father."

"No. We didn't." His voice was utterly sincere. "What you gave us in this cave today is far more than either of us earned. Far more than I ever could have hoped for. And I want you to know that I understand that. I understand how much it cost you to stand there and listen to him. I understand how much it cost you to let me hold you after what I did. And I am not going to forget it. Not ever."

He leaned down and pressed his lips to your forehead, soft and lingering, like a promise. Then your cheek. Then the corner of your mouth. Each kiss was deliberate, reverent, as if he was trying to communicate through touch what words could not quite capture.

"I love you," he said against your skin. "I know I keep saying it, and I know words aren't enough to fix what I broke. But I'm going to keep saying it anyway. Every day. Until you're sick of hearing it. Until you believe it as completely as I do."

You reached up and covered his hands with your own, holding them against your face. "I believe you. I'm still angry, and I don't trust your father as far as I could throw him, and if you ever lie to me again I will feed you to Moonfyre myself. But I believe you."

"That's all I ask." He kissed you properly then, soft and slow and full of a tenderness that made your chest ache. When he pulled back, his eyes were bright. "More than I deserve. Far more."

You pulled back from Valarr's embrace, though his hand stayed laced with yours, his thumb tracing slow circles across your knuckles. The warmth of the moment still lingered in your chest, but the thought that had been nagging at the edges of your mind since you first saw Dragonstone rising from the sea finally pushed its way to the forefront.

"I need to go to the village." The words came out before you'd fully formed the thought. "I need to see Marta. She probably thinks I'm dead. She probably thinks I fell off the cliffs or got swept out to sea or—"

"Y/N." He caught your hand, his fingers warm and steady, and you stopped, your breath coming too fast. "I know. We'll go. But first—" He glanced at Moonfyre, who had lifted her head and was watching you with those golden eyes, her tail twitching. "You need to tell her where you're going. Otherwise she might follow you, and I don't think the village is ready for that."

He was right. Of course he was right. You turned back to Moonfyre, her scales shimmered in the dim light, pale and beautiful, and her eyes met yours with an intelligence that still took your breath away.

"Hey, sweet girl." You approached her slowly, your hand outstretched, and she lowered her head to press her snout into your palm. The gesture was so familiar now, so automatic, that it made your chest ache. "I have to go. Just for a little while."

She made a sound, a low, questioning rumble, and her tail curled around your legs like she was trying to anchor you in place.

"I know. I know, I don't want to leave you either. But there's someone I need to see. Someone important." You stroked the ridge of her eye, the way she liked, and felt her lean into your touch. Moonfyre blinked at you slowly. Her tail tightened around your legs, just for a moment, and then released. She made another sound, this one lower, more grudging—the dragon equivalent of a sigh.

"I'll come back," you promised. "I'll always come back. You know that, don't you? After everything we've been through, you have to know that."

She huffed, a puff of warm air that stirred your hair and smelled of sulfur and something sweet. Then, slowly, deliberately, she lowered herself back down onto the stone floor, her head coming to rest on her front claws, her eyes still fixed on you. It was surrender. Reluctant, begrudging, but surrender all the same.

"Rest," you told her, pressing a kiss to her snout. "You've had a long day. We both have. Rest, and I'll be back before you know it."

She rumbled, and her eyes slid half-closed. Not quite trusting, not quite relaxed, but willing to let you go. You felt a lump rise in your throat as you pulled away, your hand lingering on her scales until the last possible moment.

Valarr was waiting for you at the entrance to the chamber, his expression soft. "She really does love you."

"I know." You wiped at your eyes with the back of your hand. "I love her too. That's why this is so hard."

"Leaving her?"

"Leaving her alone. She's been alone so much. I don't want her to think I'm abandoning her."

Valarr was quiet for a moment. Then he reached out and took your hand, his fingers lacing through yours. "She knows you're coming back. She trusts you. You've proven that to her a hundred times over."

You nodded, swallowing the lump in your throat. "Let's go. Before I change my mind."

The walk down from the caves was strange. Familiar and unfamiliar all at once. The path was the same one you had walked a thousand times, the rocks worn smooth by your feet, the wild onions growing in the gully, the Dragon's Tooth looming above you like a sentinel. But everything felt different now. The air was sharper. The colors were brighter. You had flown across the sea on a dragon's back. You had slept on a beach under the stars. You had come back to find your world turned inside out, and now you were walking down a path you'd known your whole life, holding hands with a prince, on your way to apologize to the woman who had raised you for disappearing without a word.

"I took care of her," Valarr said quietly, as if he could hear your thoughts. "While you were gone. Marta, I mean."

You looked at him sharply. "What?"

"After we found your cloak. After we thought..." He trailed off, his jaw tightening. "I went to see her. To tell her what had happened. She was—" He paused, searching for the right word. "She was not well. The news hit her hard. She couldn't stop shaking. She kept saying your name, over and over, like she was trying to call you back."

Your throat tightened. "Valarr..."

"I stayed with her. That first night. I didn't know what else to do. She made me tea, even though her hands were shaking so badly she could barely hold the kettle. We sat in her cottage and we waited. She told me stories about you. About when you were little. About the time you fell in the river chasing butterflies, and she had to pull you out. About the time you tried to adopt a stray cat and it scratched you so badly she thought you'd need stitches. About the way you always talked to the goats like they could understand you." He smiled, a small, sad smile. "She loves you so much, Y/N. It's like watching the sun love the moon. She talked about you like you were the only good thing she'd ever done."

You couldn't speak. Your eyes were burning, and your throat was so tight you could barely breathe.

"I made sure she ate," Valarr continued. "I made sure she had firewood. I sent someone to check on her every day while I was out searching for you. I know it wasn't—I know I couldn't replace you. No one could. But I couldn't just leave her alone. Not when I knew how much you loved her."

"You did all that?" Your voice came out as a whisper.

"Of course I did." He looked at you, his mismatched eyes earnest and steady. "She's your family. That makes her my family too. Or it will, if you'll have me."

You didn't know what to say. You had spent so many hours being angry at him, holding onto your hurt like a shield, and now here he was, telling you he had taken care of your mother while you were gone. He had sat with her in the dark and listened to her stories and made sure she ate. He had done the things you should have been there to do.

"Thank you," you managed. "I don't—thank you."

"You don't have to thank me." He squeezed your hand. "Just don't disappear again. I don't think either of us could survive it a second time."

You walked the rest of the way in silence. The village appeared below you, huddled against the mountainside, its grey roofs and narrow streets looking smaller and more fragile than you remembered. There were people moving around down there, going about their business, but the atmosphere was different. Tense. You could see clusters of villagers gathered in the square, talking in low voices, their heads bent together. You could see guards on the outskirts, more than usual, their armor glinting in the afternoon sun. Word of the dragon had spread. Everyone was on edge.

You didn't care about any of them. Your eyes were fixed on the cottage at the edge of the village, the smallest and shabbiest of them all, with its worn wooden door and its overgrown herb garden and its chimney that always smoked when the wind blew from the east. Home. It was still standing. It was still there.

You let go of Valarr's hand and started walking faster. Your legs were tired, your body aching from the flight and the confrontation and the long, emotional day, but you didn't care. You broke into a jog, then a run, your boots slapping against the packed earth of the path, your heart pounding in your chest. The cottage grew closer and closer, and you could see the light burning in the window, could see the thin wisp of smoke curling from the chimney. She was home. She was home, and you were almost there.

You burst through the door without knocking.

Marta was sitting at the table, her gnarled hands wrapped around a cup of tea, her grey hair escaping from its braid in wisps that the wind had tugged free. She looked up when the door slammed open, and her sharp old eyes went wide with shock.

For a moment, no one moved. No one spoke. The only sound was the crackle of the fire in the hearth and the distant cry of gulls outside. Then Marta set down her cup with a clatter and rose to her feet.

"You stupid girl."

Her voice was rough, scraped raw by worry and sleepless nights, and there were tears streaming down her weathered cheeks. She crossed the room in three quick strides, faster than you had ever seen her move, and then her arms were around you, pulling you against her with a strength that belied her age. She smelled of woodsmoke and chamomile and the sharp, herbal scent of the poultices she made for the villagers. She smelled like home.

"You stupid, reckless, foolish girl," she said, her voice muffled against your hair. "You gave me a heart attack. A heart attack, do you hear me? At my age, that's practically a death sentence. I've been worried sick for days. Days! I thought you were dead. I thought you'd fallen off the cliffs. I thought I'd lost you."

"I'm sorry." The words came out choked, barely audible. You were crying now, tears streaming down your face, soaking into the rough fabric of Marta's shawl. "I'm sorry, Marta. I didn't mean to scare you. I didn't mean to leave. I just—"

"And then I hear you're alive." Marta pulled back just enough to look at your face, her hands cupping your cheeks, her thumbs brushing away your tears with a gentleness that made your chest ache. "Do you know how I found out? Not from you. Not from a message. I heard the screaming. The whole village was screaming, and I went outside, and there was a dragon. A dragon, Y/N. Flying over my house. And I thought—I thought, that's her. That's my girl. She's gone and done something impossible again."

"I was going to tell you. I was coming to tell you right now."

"A dragon." Marta shook her head slowly, her eyes still wide with disbelief. "All those times you told me about Moonfyre. All those times I nodded and smiled and thought you had an imaginary friend. And she was real. She was real the whole time."

"She was real." Your voice cracked. "I tried to tell you. I tried to tell everyone. But no one believed me."

"I know." Marta's face crumpled, and fresh tears spilled down her cheeks. "I know, child. And I'm sorry. I should have believed you. You've never been a liar. You've never been one for tall tales. I should have known you were telling the truth."

You couldn't speak. You just held onto her, your face pressed into her shoulder, your body shaking with sobs you hadn't realized you'd been holding back. All the fear and the grief and the loneliness of the past days came pouring out of you, and Marta held you through it, her gnarled hands rubbing slow circles on your back, her voice a low, soothing murmur in your ear.

"Shh," she said. "Shh, child. I've got you. You're home now. You're home."

"I left without telling you." The words came out muffled against her shawl. "I just went to the cave, and I was so sad, and I fell asleep, and when I woke up Moonfyre was there, and she took me away, and I didn't even think—I didn't even say goodbye—"

"You came back." Marta's voice was firm. "That's what matters. You came back."

"I was so scared you'd hate me."

"Hate you?" Marta pulled back again, her hands still cupping your face, her eyes fierce despite the tears. "Y/N, I could never hate you. You're my daughter. Not by blood, maybe, but in every way that counts. I raised you from a squalling infant. I taught you to walk, to talk, to gather herbs and milk goats and stand up for yourself. I have loved you every day of your life, and I will love you every day of mine. Nothing you could do would ever change that. Do you understand?"

You nodded, your throat too tight to speak.

"Good." Marta released your face and pulled you into another hug, this one gentler, longer. "Now. You said you flew on a dragon. A dragon, Y/N. You could have fallen. You could have slipped right off her back and fallen into the sea. Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?"

"She wouldn't let me fall." You pulled back, wiping at your eyes with your sleeve. "She's careful with me. She's never let me get hurt."

"Never let you—" Marta shook her head, a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob escaping her. "Only you, child. Only you would tame a dragon and then talk about her like she's a particularly large horse."

"She's not a horse. She's much smarter than a horse."

"I'm glad you're home, child. I'm glad you're safe. And I'm glad you brought the prince. Even if he does hover."

"I don't hover," Valarr protested weakly.

"You hover," Marta and you said in unison, and then you looked at each other and laughed. It was a watery, unsteady laugh, but it was real, and it felt like the first real laugh you'd had in days.

"Come here, Prince." Marta beckoned him over, and when he was close enough, she reached up and patted his cheek with her gnarled hand. "You took care of her mother while she was gone. That's not nothing. I don't know what you did to upset her before she left, and I'm sure you deserved it, but you've earned a second chance in my book. Don't waste it."

"I won't." Valarr's voice was quiet but steady. "I swear it."

She was already moving toward the hearth, her gnarled hands reaching for the kettle. "Sit down. Both of you. I'm making tea, and then you're going to tell me everything. Every single thing. Starting from the beginning."

You sat at Marta's table with a cup of tea warming your hands, the familiar smell of chamomile and honey filling your lungs, and for the first time in days you felt something close to safe. The fire crackled in the hearth, Marta was bustling around the kitchen muttering about how thin you'd gotten, and Valarr was sitting across from you, his chair tilted back against the wall, his mismatched eyes watching you with a quiet intensity that made your stomach flutter.

But the warmth of the tea couldn't mask the fact that you were absolutely disgusting.

You'd been wearing the same clothes for three days. Your dress was stiff with dried seawater and dragon sweat and probably a dozen other things you didn't want to think about. Your hair was a wild, tangled nest, matted with salt and sand and the faint, lingering smell of Moonfyre's sulfurous breath. There was dirt under your fingernails, a scrape on your elbow you didn't remember getting, and what might have been goat grease smeared across your collar. You looked, in short, like you'd been dragged backward through the Dragonmont and then set on fire.

"I need a bath," you announced, setting down your cup. "Marta, is the washtub still—"

"In the back, where it always is." Marta didn't look up from the pot she was stirring. "There's water heating over the fire. I put it on as soon as I heard the screaming start. Figured if you were alive, you'd need it."

You blinked. "You put water on to heat before you even knew I was coming back?"

"I hoped you were coming back." Marta's voice was gruff, but you caught the tremor in it. "I've been heating water every day. Just in case."

Your throat tightened, and you had to look away. "I'll go wash up, then."

You rose from the table, your legs still shaky, your body aching in places you hadn't known existed. Flying was hard work. Flying while terrified was even harder. You'd been running on adrenaline and stubbornness for so long that the exhaustion had become background noise, something you'd learned to ignore. But now, in the warmth of Marta's kitchen, with the fire crackling and the tea settling in your stomach, it was catching up to you.

At the door to the back room, you paused and turned. Valarr was still sitting at the table, still watching you. He looked as tired as you felt, his hollow cheeks and dark circled eyes a testament to the days he'd spent searching for you. His tunic was rumpled beyond saving, his hair was a wild mess, and there was a smear of dirt across his forehead where he'd wiped his brow at some point.

"You should go home," you said. "Get some rest. Wash up. Your mother's probably waiting for you."

Valarr didn't move. "I'm not leaving."

"Valarr, I'm just taking a bath. I'll be fine."

"I'm not leaving," he repeated, and there was something in his voice that hadn't been there before. Something harder. Something that sounded almost like steel.

You frowned. "What are you talking about?"

He rose from his chair, crossing the room to stand in front of you. Up close, you could see the exhaustion in his face, the red rims around his mismatched eyes, the way his jaw was set with a determination that seemed almost out of place in Marta's cozy kitchen.

"You're the first dragonrider in seventy years," he said quietly. "Do you understand what that means? Not for House Targaryen, not for the realm. For you. For your safety."

"I have a dragon. I think my safety is pretty well handled."

"Your dragon is in the caves. You're here." He stepped closer, his voice dropping even lower. "The whole island saw you fly in. The whole island knows what you are now. Word is going to spread—it's probably already spreading. Merchants in the harbor, fishermen heading out to sea, ravens flying to every corner of the Seven Kingdoms. By tomorrow, everyone is going to know that a girl from Dragonstone tamed a living dragon."

"Valarr—"

"And most people will be awed. Most people will be grateful. But some people won't." His hand found yours, his fingers lacing through your cold ones. "Some people will see you as a threat. Some people will see you as a weapon to be stolen. And some people are just stupid enough to think that if they get rid of you, the dragon will be up for grabs."

You stared at him. "You think someone in the village is going to attack me while I'm taking a bath?"

"I think I'm not taking any chances." His grip on your hand tightened. "I spent three days thinking you were dead, Y/N. Three days of believing I'd lost you forever. I'm not going to let something happen to you now because I was too careless to stand guard while you washed your hair."

"That's ridiculous."

"Maybe. I don't care."

"You can't just stand outside the door while I bathe. That's—" You felt your cheeks flush. "That's not appropriate."

"Then I'll wait in the front room. With Marta." He tilted his head, his eyes searching your face. "But I'm not leaving this cottage tonight. Not unless you really want me to. And even then, I'd probably just camp outside the door."

You wanted to argue. You wanted to tell him he was being absurd, that you'd survived a dragon and a flight across the sea and a confrontation with his father, and you could certainly survive a bath without a prince hovering nearby. But there was something in his expression a tightness around his eyes, a tension in his jaw that made you stop. He wasn't just being protective. He was scared. Genuinely, deeply scared. Three days of thinking you were dead had done something to him, carved a wound that hadn't started to heal until he'd burst into that cave and seen you alive.

"Fine," you said, and his shoulders sagged with visible relief. "But you're not allowed to loom. Marta doesn't like looming."

"I don't loom."

"You definitely loom."

"I have never loomed in my life."

"You're looming right now."

Marta's voice cut through from the kitchen. "He's looming. I can feel it from here."

Valarr looked offended. "I'm standing perfectly normally."

"You're standing like a guardsman outside a treasury," you told him, and despite everything, you felt the corner of your mouth twitch upward. "Relax. I'm just getting clean."

His expression softened, the hard edges smoothing away. "Go take your bath. I'll be here when you're done."

You nodded, pulling your hand free from his, and slipped into the back room. The washtub was there, just as Marta had promised, already filled with steaming water. A bar of rough soap sat on the edge, and a clean towel was draped over a stool nearby. You peeled off your filthy clothes, wincing at the soreness in your muscles, and lowered yourself into the water.

It was glorious. The heat seeped into your aching body, loosening the knots in your shoulders and the tension in your spine. You closed your eyes and let yourself sink deeper, the water rising up to your chin, and for a long moment you just breathed. The steam filled your lungs, warm and clean, chasing away the last traces of salt and smoke.

You could hear Valarr's voice from the other room, low and steady, and Marta's answering chuckle. You couldn't make out the words, but the tone was companionable, familiar. Like they'd been doing this for years instead of days. You thought about what he'd said, that he'd taken care of her while you were gone, that he'd sat with her and listened to her stories and made sure she ate. You thought about the way he'd looked at you when he said it, like it was the most natural thing in the world, like taking care of your family was just something he did.

You thought about a lot of things. And when you finally emerged from the bath, clean and warm and wrapped in Marta's towel, you found Valarr exactly where he'd promised to be. Sitting at the table, a cup of tea in his hands, not looming. Waiting.

"Better?" he asked.

"Better," you said, and you meant it.

Later that night Valarr had settled into a chair by the door, his sword propped against the wall within easy reach, his long legs stretched out before him. He'd insisted on taking the first watch, even though Marta had told him repeatedly that no one in the village was going to attack her home.

"Old habits," he'd said, and Marta had snorted and told him he wasn't old enough to have habits.

Now the fire had burned down to embers, and the cottage was quiet except for Marta's soft snoring from the back room and the distant whisper of the sea. You were curled on your pallet, wrapped in the same worn blanket you'd used since childhood, your body heavy with exhaustion. Valarr's silhouette was just visible in the dim orange glow, his head tipped back against the wall, his breathing slow and even. You thought he might have fallen asleep sitting up, and the thought made something warm bloom in your chest.

You were just drifting off, your mind going soft and hazy at the edges, when the screaming started.

It was distant at first, muffled by the cottage walls, but it grew quickly voices raised in panic, the sound of doors slamming, a woman's high-pitched shriek cutting through the night. You were on your feet before you were fully awake, your heart hammering, your hand reaching instinctively for a weapon that wasn't there. Valarr was already up, his sword in his hand, his body positioned between you and the door.

"What is that?" you breathed.

"Stay here." His voice was sharp, alert. "I'll check—"

But you were already moving, because you knew. You didn't know how you knew, but you did. There was a feeling in your chest, a pull, a warmth that had nothing to do with the fire. It was the same feeling you'd had in the cave, when Moonfyre had come back to you. The same feeling you'd had on the island, when she'd returned with a goat and dropped it at your feet. A thread of connection, invisible but unbreakable, tugging at the space behind your ribs.

You threw open the door and ran outside.

The village was in chaos. People were spilling out of their homes in various states of undress, clutching children and makeshift weapons, a broom, a fishing gaff, a cast iron pan. Some were running toward the source of the commotion, others away from it. Lanterns bobbed in the darkness like fireflies, their flickering light casting wild shadows across the cobblestones. And in the center of it all, in the narrow lane between Marta's cottage and the baker's house, was Moonfyre.

She was enormous in the confined space, her pale scales reflecting the lantern light and scattering it like jewels. Her wings were folded tight against her body, her head low to the ground, her tail curled around her haunches. She wasn't growling. She wasn't snarling. She was just... there. Crouched in the lane like a cat that had decided to nap in an inconvenient doorway, her golden eyes scanning the crowd with an expression that was more wary than aggressive.

But the villagers didn't know that. They saw teeth. They saw claws. They saw fire flickering at the back of her throat, because of course she was nervous, of course she was agitated, there were people everywhere and they were screaming and waving things at her, and she didn't understand.

"It's the dragon!"

"She's come to burn us!"

"Get the children inside!"

"Someone get a spear!"

"No!" You threw yourself between Moonfyre and the crowd, your arms spread wide, your voice cutting through the chaos with a force that surprised even you. "Stop! Everyone stop! She's not going to hurt you!"

The crowd faltered. Faces turned toward you, faces you recognized, faces you'd known your whole life. Old Tom the fisherman, his gaff still raised. The baker's wife, clutching her rolling pin. The blacksmith, bare chested and holding a hammer. Neighbors. People who had known you since you were a child, who had called you the Silver Lark and humored your stories about dragons.

"Y/N?" The baker's wife lowered her rolling pin, her round face pale with shock. "Y/N, is that you? We thought you were dead!"

"I'm not dead." You kept your arms spread, your voice steady even though your heart was pounding. "I'm fine. She's not going to hurt anyone. She's just—she's scared, and she doesn't like crowds, and she came looking for me. That's all. She came looking for me."

Moonfyre made a sound behind you a low, plaintive chirp that was so at odds with her size that several villagers actually flinched backward. You turned to look at her, and she was watching you with those golden eyes, her head low, her tail twitching nervously. She looked... anxious. Not aggressive. Not threatening. Just anxious. Like a child who had woken from a nightmare and gone looking for their mother.

"Oh, sweet girl," you murmured, and you stepped toward her, your hand outstretched. "What are you doing here? You were supposed to stay in the cave."

She chirped again and pushed her snout into your palm, her warm scales pressing against your skin. You felt the tension in her, the fine tremor running through her body, and you understood. She had been alone. She had been alone, and she hadn't wanted to be, and so she had come to find you. It didn't matter that she'd been fine sleeping alone in the caves for months before you'd ridden her. Something had changed. The bond between you had deepened, solidified, become something more than it was before. She didn't want to be apart from you. Not tonight. Maybe not ever again.

"It's alright," you said softly, stroking her snout. "It's alright. I'm here. You found me."

Behind you, the villagers were still frozen, still watching with wide eyes and white knuckles. You turned to face them, one hand still pressed against Moonfyre's scales.

"She's not a monster," you said, and your voice carried in the night air. "She's my friend. She's not here to attack you. She's here because she wanted to be near me."

"Near you?" Old Tom's voice was incredulous. "That thing is the size of my boat!"

"She's not a thing. Her name is Moonfyre." You looked at him steadily. "And she's going to sleep outside my house tonight, and she's not going to bother anyone. Is that going to be a problem?"

A long silence. The villagers exchanged glances, fear and uncertainty warring on their faces. But no one raised their weapon. No one shouted. No one lunged forward to attack.

Finally, the baker's wife let out a long breath and tucked her rolling pin under her arm. "Well, if she eats my chickens, you're paying for them."

A startled laugh escaped you. "I will. I promise."

Slowly, reluctantly, the crowd began to disperse. Some people went back to their homes, casting nervous glances over their shoulders. Others lingered at a safe distance, watching with a mixture of terror and fascination. But the immediate danger was over. No one was screaming anymore. No one was threatening violence. Moonfyre had stopped trembling, her breathing evening out as she pressed closer to you.

"Alright, sweet girl," you murmured, stroking her scales. "If you're going to stay, you need to settle down. Can you do that? Can you lie down and be quiet?"

She made a soft, rumbling sound and, very slowly, lowered herself onto the ground beside Marta's cottage. There wasn't much space the lane was narrow, and she was far too large for it but she managed to curl herself into a crescent shape, her tail wrapping around the side of the house, her head coming to rest near the front door. Her wing spread slightly, creating a sheltered space against the cottage wall, and she looked up at you with an expression that was almost hopeful.

"You want me to sleep out here with you," you said. It wasn't a question.

She blinked at you slowly, and her tail twitched, and you knew that was exactly what she wanted. She had flown across the island to find you. She had braved the screaming and the lanterns and the crowd of strangers. And all she wanted was to curl up beside you and feel you close, to know that you were safe and near and not going anywhere.

"Alright," you said, and you pressed a kiss to her snout. "Alright. Give me a minute."

You slipped back inside the cottage. Marta was standing in the doorway, her shawl wrapped around her shoulders, her expression caught somewhere between terror and wonder. Valarr was right behind her, his sword still in his hand, his face pale.

"She came looking for me," you said, and you couldn't quite keep the amazement from your voice. "She didn't want to be alone."

"I gathered that." Marta shook her head slowly. "Only you, child. Only you would have a dragon showing up at your doorstep like a stray cat."

"She's not a cat."

"No, cats are smaller and less likely to set the roof on fire." But her voice was warm, and there was something almost like pride in her eyes. "Go on, then. If she needs you, she needs you."

You turned to Valarr. He was still holding his sword, still tense, but the panic had faded from his face. He was looking at you with an expression you couldn't quite read.

"She's anxious," you said. "Something's changed. I don't know what, but she doesn't want to be alone. She wants me nearby. I have to stay with her."

"I know." He sheathed his sword and stepped toward you. "I'm coming with you."

"Valarr—"

"I told you. I'm not leaving you tonight." His voice was quiet but firm. "If that means sleeping outside under a dragon's wing, then that's what I'm doing."

"She might not let you. She barely tolerates you."

"Then I'll ask her nicely."

You stared at him for a moment, at his tired eyes and his set jaw and the stubborn determination in every line of his body. Then you shook your head, a reluctant smile tugging at your lips. "You're ridiculous."

"I've been told."

You went back outside, Valarr following close behind. Moonfyre's head came up when she saw him, a low rumble starting in her chest, but you pressed your hand against her scales before it could grow into a growl.

"He's with me," you told her. "He's staying. I know you don't like him much, but I do. So you need to be nice. Can you do that? Can you let him stay?"

Moonfyre looked at Valarr for a long moment. Her golden eyes were unblinking, assessing. Valarr stood very still, his hands at his sides, his posture open and unthreatening. He didn't reach for his sword. He didn't flinch. He just waited.

Then, slowly, Moonfyre let out a huff and lowered her head back to the ground. Her wing lifted, just slightly, creating a space against the cottage wall. An invitation. Or at least, not a refusal.

"I think that's a yes," Valarr said quietly.

"I think it's a 'fine, but I'm watching you.'"

"That too."

For a long moment, you just sat there, your back against the wall, Moonfyre's wing sheltering you, Valarr warm and solid at your side. Above you, the stars were scattered across the sky like seeds of light. The village was quiet again, the panic faded, the only sound the distant crash of waves and the slow, steady rhythm of Moonfyre's breathing.

"She came all the way here," you said quietly. "She flew across the island because she didn't want to sleep alone."

"She loves you." Valarr's voice was soft. "You saved her life. You're her person."

"I think... I think something changed. When I rode her. When we flew together." You paused, trying to find the right words. "Before, she was fine being apart from me. She'd stay in the cave and I'd go home and we'd see each other the next day. But now..." You looked at Moonfyre, at her golden eyes reflecting the starlight. "Now she doesn't want to be apart. Like the bond got stronger. Like she needs to know I'm close."

"That makes sense." Valarr shifted beside you, his arm brushing yours. "The old stories say that when a dragon bonds with a rider, it's for life. It's not just friendship. Like a bonding of the soul. Something that changes both of you. I read that when dragonriding women gave birth their dragons also screamed and roared in pain along with them."

You turned your head to look at him. "You read about dragons?"

"I read about a lot of things. Especially recently." A small smile flickered across his tired face. "I am a Targaryen, reading about dragons is a requirement."

Something warm bloomed in your chest, and you leaned into him, letting your head rest against his shoulder. He was solid and warm and steady, and he smelled of woodsmoke and leather and something clean that you couldn't name. His arm came up to wrap around you, pulling you closer, and you felt him press a kiss to the top of your head.

"Sleep," he murmured. "I'll be here. She'll be here. Nothing's going to happen."

And for the first time in days, you let yourself relax completely. Moonfyre's wing was warm above you, her breathing a steady rhythm beneath the sound of the waves. Valarr's arm was around you, his heartbeat steady against your ear. You were safe. You were loved. You were home.

—

To His Grace, King Daeron II Targaryen, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, Protector of the Realm,

Father,

I write to you with news that I scarcely know how to put into words, though I have rehearsed this letter a dozen times in my head and discarded each version as inadequate. Perhaps the simplest way is best: a dragon has returned to House Targaryen.

Not a skull. Not an egg turned to stone. A living dragon, pale as sea foam with a purple undertone that catches the light like dusk on the water. She is young and she is healthy and whole and utterly, breathtakingly real. I have seen her with my own eyes. I have stood in the same chamber as her and felt the heat of her breath. This is not a rumor, not a peasant's fancy, not a clever mummer's trick. This is truth.

She was found in the eastern caves of the Dragonmont, where she had hidden herself away after sustaining a wing injury. How she came to be there—whether she hatched from some long-dormant egg or migrated from some place beyond our knowledge—I cannot say. What matters is that she was found, and healed, and claimed.

And here, Father, is where the story becomes something stranger than any maester's account.

She was found by a girl. A village girl, no older than sixteen, a bastard of Dragonstone with no family name and no prospects beyond the goats she tended for the old woman who raised her, she bears our look, though which of our kin planted that seed, I cannot say and she does not know. She came to me when I first arrived on the island, seeking an audience at the petitions. She told me there was a dragon in the caves. She told me she had been feeding it, healing it, that it had let her touch its scales and sleep beside its warmth.

I did not believe her.

I will sit with that shame for the rest of my life, Father. I looked at this girl—earnest and hopeful and wearing a cloak that was more patches than original fabric—and I saw only what I expected to see. A lonely child with an imaginary friend. A bastard reaching for something to make herself feel special. I humored her. I smiled, and I nodded, and I told her she could keep her dragon as a gift from the crown, because I thought I was being kind. I thought I was being generous to a girl who was not quite right in the head.

She was telling the truth. All of it. Every word.

Her name is Y/N. She lives with an old healer woman named Marta who took her in as an infant and she saved a dragon's life through nothing more than stubbornness and kindness, because she could not walk away from something that was hurting, even when it tried to bite her head off.

I know what you must be thinking. A common girl. A bastard. This is not how dragons are supposed to return to us. They are supposed to be claimed by princes and princesses, by trueborn children of our line, by people who will use them to restore our house to its former glory.

But the dragon chose her, Father. The bond between them is as real as any in the old histories. Perhaps more so. She did not claim the dragon through blood or fire or conquest. She claimed it through love.

I am not so foolish as to think this will not complicate things. A dragon bonded to a common girl, a bastard with no name and no title, is not what any of us would have chosen. There will be those who say she cannot be trusted with such power. There will be those who say the dragon should be taken from her, by force if necessary, and bonded to someone more suitable.

I am writing to tell you, as plainly as I can, that I will not allow that to happen.

Not only because it would be wrong—though it would be. Not only because the dragon would likely kill anyone who tried—though she would. But because I have seen this girl, and I have spoken with her, and I believe with all my heart that she is the best thing that could have happened to this dragon and to our house. She does not want power. She does not want gold or titles or lands. She is more noble than half the lords I have met at court, and she has nothing to her name but a worn cloak and a dragon who loves her.

My son has fallen in love with her.

I did not encourage it. At first, I did everything in my power to discourage it. I reminded him of his betrothal to Kiera of Tyrosh. I told him, in terms that left no room for ambiguity, that a prince of the blood could not throw away his future for a village girl with an imaginary dragon.

The dragon, as it turns out, was not imaginary.

Valarr has made his choice, Father, and I have made mine. I have given my consent for him to marry her. I know this is not what we planned. I know the alliance with Tyrosh was carefully negotiated, and Kiera's family will be insulted, and there will be political consequences that I will spend the next several years managing. But I am asking you—as your son, as your heir, as the man who has spent his entire life doing what was expected of him—to trust me on this.

A dragon is worth more then any coin or fleet the tyroshi can give us.

And her children will be Targaryens.Do you see it, Father? The path forward? Valarr's children— trueborn children, born of his marriage to this girl—will carry our name and our blood and, if the gods are good, the bond with this dragon. A dragon who will, in time, produce more dragons. Eggs, perhaps, if the old stories are true and dragons can shift their sex as need requires. Or perhaps there are more out there, hidden in the caves of the Dragonmont, waiting to be found. But even if Moonfyre is the only one, she is a start. She is hope. She is the first living proof in Seventy years that our house is not finished, that the fire has not gone out, that the blood of Old Valyria still carries its ancient power.

I will write to the Archon of Tyrosh myself. I will explain the situation and offer what recompense I can. Perhaps we can salvage the alliance by betrothing Kiera to Matarys instead—he is younger than Valarr, true, but not by so many years that the match would be unseemly. He is charming and handsome and will make a good husband to someone, even if that someone was originally promised to his brother. It is not a perfect solution, but it is something. A branch to catch us before we fall entirely.

I know you will have questions. I know you will have concerns. I will answer them all when I return to King's Landing, which I expect will be sooner than originally planned now that the situation here has grown so complicated. But for now, Father, I am asking you to sit with this news and consider it carefully before you respond. The dragon has chosen her rider. The rider has chosen my son. And I have chosen to stand with them, however messy and inconvenient that choice may be.

You had no idea how long you had been flying. Time had become a strange, slippery thing, measured only in the beat of Moonfyre's wings and the burning ache in your thighs and the way the stars wheeled overhead like they were dancing just for you. The terror had not faded, not really. It had settled into something you could carry, a low hum of fear that lived in your chest alongside the wonder, because how could anyone be truly calm when they were clinging to the back of a dragon with nothing but their own trembling fingers to keep them from falling into the endless dark sea below?

The wind was pushing against you, pulling at your hair, stealing your breath every time you tried to take a full one. Your eyes were streaming from the cold and the speed and the salt spray that occasionally kicked up from the waves far beneath you, and you had long since given up trying to wipe them clear. You just squinted, your cheek pressed against Moonfyre's warm scales, and watched the world blur past in shades of silver and black and the deep, impossible blue of the night sea. Every now and then you caught a glimpse of something below, a whitecap on a wave, the dark shape of a rocky outcropping, once the distant glow of what might have been a ship's lantern far to the south. But mostly there was nothing. Just water and sky and the steady, powerful rhythm of the dragon carrying you away from everything you had ever known.

Your hands hurt. That was the thing you kept coming back to, the mundane, ridiculous detail that anchored you to reality when the wonder of it all threatened to sweep you away entirely. Your fingers were cramping from gripping Moonfyre's scales so tightly, the ridges of her spine digging into your palms, your knuckles white and aching. You had tried shifting your grip a few times, loosening one hand at a time to shake out the stiffness, but every time you did, a gust of wind would catch you or Moonfyre would adjust her course with a subtle tilt of her wings, and you would grab on again with renewed desperation, your heart leaping into your throat. You were not going to fall. You were not going to fall. You repeated it like a prayer, like a spell, like if you said it enough times it would become true.

Moonfyre did not seem concerned about the possibility of you falling. She flew with a steady, purposeful grace, her wings beating in a rhythm that felt as natural as breathing, her body warm and solid beneath you. Every now and then she would turn her head, just slightly, and you would catch a glimpse of one golden eye looking back at you, checking, perhaps, to make sure you were still there. You always were. You always would be. Where else would you go, clinging to the back of a dragon a thousand feet above the sea?

Moonfyre banked slightly to the left, and you grabbed her scales with renewed panic, your knuckles screaming in protest. The sea tilted beneath you, a vast expanse of darkness that suddenly felt much closer than it had a moment before, and you squeezed your eyes shut and pressed your face into her spine and waited for the world to right itself again.

The stars began to fade. You noticed it slowly, the way the black of the sky softened to a deep, bruised purple, then to grey, then to something that was almost blue. The horizon ahead of you began to glow, a thin line of gold and pink that spread like a promise across the edge of the world, and you watched it with aching eyes and a heart that was too full to speak. You had seen sunrises before, of course. You had seen them from the cliffs of Dragonstone, from the window of Marta's cottage, from the deck of a fishing boat on the rare mornings when old Tom let you come along. But you had never seen a sunrise like this. You had never seen the sun rise from above the clouds, from the back of a dragon, with the whole world spread out beneath you like a gift you had never asked for and never deserved.

The light grew stronger, painting the sea in shades of rose and gold, and you could see the water clearly now, endless and empty and beautiful. There was nothing out here. No ships, no islands, no signs of land at all. Just the sea and the sky and the dragon carrying you toward a horizon that never seemed to get any closer.

And then, just as the sun crested the edge of the world and the sky exploded into color, you saw it.

A speck of green in all that blue. Small at first, so small you thought you might be imagining it, a trick of the light or a wishful thought given shape by exhaustion. But it grew as you flew toward it, resolving from a blur into a shape, from a shape into an island. A small island, perhaps no larger than Dragonstone itself, but greener than anything you had ever seen. The cliffs of your home were grey and jagged, bare rock and sparse grass and the constant, unforgiving wind. This island was different. This island was lush and verdant, its slopes covered in trees that looked almost tropical from this distance, its beaches pale and soft and utterly untouched.

Moonfyre began to descend.

Your stomach dropped along with her, a sickening lurch that made you grab her scales so hard your fingers went numb. The island rushed up to meet you, the green slopes and pale beaches growing larger and larger, and you could see now that there was a waterfall on the far side of the island, a thin ribbon of silver that cascaded down the rocks and disappeared into the trees. You could see birds wheeling in the sky below you, startled by the dragon's approach, their cries lost in the rush of wind. You could see flowers, actual flowers, splashes of color against all that green, red and yellow and purple and white.

Moonfyre landed hard on the beach, her claws digging into the pale sand, her wings folding against her body with a final, decisive snap. The impact jarred through your entire body, rattling your teeth and nearly dislodging you from her back, but you held on, your legs shaking, your arms trembling, your whole body one long ache from your shoulders to your ankles.

For a long moment, you didn't move. You couldn't move. You just sat there, slumped against Moonfyre's neck, your face pressed into her warm scales, breathing. Just breathing. The air was different here, warmer than Dragonstone, sweeter, carrying the scent of flowers and earth and something else, something green and alive that you had no name for. The sun was warm on your back, truly warm, not the pale, grudging warmth of the Dragonstone sun but a real, honest heat that seeped through your worn cloak and into your cold bones.

You were alive. You were on an island somewhere in the middle of the sea. You had flown here on the back of a dragon.

You started to laugh. It was a weak, breathless sound, more of a wheeze really, but it was laughter all the same. You laughed until your sides ached, until tears were streaming down your cheeks, until you couldn't tell if you were laughing or crying or both. Moonfyre rumbled beneath you, a questioning sound, and you patted her scales with a hand that was still shaking.

"I'm fine," you managed, your voice hoarse. "I'm fine. I just flew. On a dragon. Across the sea. And now I'm on an island. A beautiful island. A completely unknown island. And I have no idea where we are or how to get back or what we're going to eat or—"

Moonfyre shifted beneath you, her body lowering, and you took the hint. You slid off her back with all the grace of a sack of potatoes, your legs buckling the moment they hit the sand. You fell to your knees, then to your hands, then flat on your face, and you lay there for a moment, just feeling the warmth of the sand beneath you, the solid, unmoving ground, the blessed stillness of a world that was no longer tilting and swaying and threatening to drop you into the sea.

You heard Moonfyre move behind you, the soft crunch of her claws in the sand, the rustle of her wings as she stretched them wide. You turned your head just enough to look at her, and she was magnificent, her pale scales catching the morning light and shimmering with that faint purple undertone you loved so much. Her golden eyes were fixed on you, patient and warm, and she made a sound that was almost a purr.

"Where are we?" you asked her, pushing yourself up to sit. Your legs were still shaking, your hands still aching, but the world had stopped spinning and you could think again, more or less. "Why did you bring me here?"

Moonfyre blinked at you slowly, and then, without any warning at all, she launched herself into the air.

You stared, your mouth hanging open, as she rose above the beach, her wings beating hard, her body climbing higher and higher. She circled once, twice, and then she turned and flew back out over the sea, the same direction you had come from, her pale form growing smaller and smaller until she was nothing but a speck against the endless blue, she was gone.

You sat in the sand, staring at the empty sky, and waited for her to come back. She didn't.

The silence was overwhelming. On Dragonstone, there was always noise, the crash of the sea against the rocks, the cry of gulls, the distant shouts of fishermen, the bleating of Marta's goats. Here, there was nothing but the gentle whisper of the waves on the shore and the rustle of wind through the trees. It should have been peaceful. It was peaceful. It was also deeply, profoundly unsettling.

You pulled your knees up to your chest and wrapped your arms around them, your eyes still fixed on the horizon. She would come back. She had to come back. She had brought you here for a reason, and that reason was not to abandon you on a deserted island in the middle of nowhere. She was your dragon. You had saved her life. You had named her. You had kissed her on the snout. You had a bond. A connection. A thing that dragons and riders were supposed to have.

She would come back.

Any minute now.

You waited. The sun climbed higher, warm and golden, and you shrugged off your cloak and laid it on the sand beside you. The beach was beautiful, really beautiful, the sand pale and soft, the water clear and blue and nothing like the churning grey sea around Dragonstone. If you were going to be abandoned on a deserted island, you thought, this was probably the best possible deserted island to be abandoned on. That was something. That was almost comforting.

She would come back.

You waited some more. Your stomach growled, a loud, insistent sound that reminded you that you had not eaten since the bread and cheese you had shared with Marta what felt like a lifetime ago. You had been so focused on the cave, on the empty chamber, on the cold stone and the ashes and the bone deep grief of believing you had imagined the only thing that had ever been truly yours. You had not thought to bring food. You had not thought to bring anything. You had just walked into the darkness and curled up on the cold stone and waited to disappear.

And then she had come back. And she had taken you here. And now she was gone again.

"I'm not crazy," you said aloud, and your voice sounded strange in the silence, too loud and too small at the same time. "I didn't imagine her. She's real. She carried me here. I'm sitting on a beach on an island I've never seen before, and I got here on the back of a dragon. That happened. That's real. I'm not imagining this."

You paused, considering.

"Unless I'm imagining all of this. Unless I'm still in the cave, lying on the cold stone, dreaming that I'm on a beautiful island with warm sand and clear water and a dragon who might or might not come back. That would be very like me, wouldn't it? To dream something wonderful and then wake up alone in the dark."

You pinched yourself, hard, on the soft skin of your inner arm. It hurt. It throbbed for several seconds after you let go. You were not dreaming. Probably. You had heard that people who were dreaming could pinch themselves and feel it, if they believed hard enough that they would feel it. But you didn't feel like you were dreaming. You felt awake. Tired and hungry and sore and a little bit scared, but awake.

"I'm not on Dragonstone anymore," you said, continuing your argument with yourself because there was no one else to argue with. "I've never seen this place before. I didn't know it existed. I couldn't have imagined it, because I didn't know what to imagine. I didn't know there were islands like this, with trees like that and sand like this and water that color. So I must be here. Really here. Which means Moonfyre is real. Which means I'm not crazy. Which means Valarr was wrong and I was right and everyone who ever looked at me with pity in their eyes can go jump in the sea."

You felt better after saying that. Not a lot better, but a little. Enough to uncurl from your tight ball and stretch your legs out in front of you and actually look at the island instead of just staring at the horizon waiting for a dragon who might or might not return.

It really was beautiful. The beach curved in a gentle crescent, bordered by trees that looked like nothing you had ever seen on Dragonstone. They were tall and slender, with smooth grey bark and broad green leaves that rustled softly in the warm breeze. Beyond them, the island rose into low hills covered in more trees and what looked like flowering bushes, splashes of color that stood out against all that green. The waterfall you had seen from the air was visible now, a thin white ribbon against the dark rock of a small cliff face, and you could hear it if you listened carefully, a distant, musical sound beneath the whisper of the waves.

You should explore. You knew you should explore. You should find fresh water, and shelter, and something to eat. You should figure out if the island had any dangers, wild animals or poisonous plants or anything else that might kill a girl who had survived a dragon only to be taken out by a berry. You should be practical and resourceful and brave, the way Marta had raised you to be.

Instead, you sat in the sand and watched the waves and waited for your dragon to come back.

A crow landed on the sand about ten feet away from you.

You blinked at it. It was a large crow, larger than the one you had rescued from the cliffs, with glossy black feathers and bright, intelligent eyes. It tilted its head at you, regarding you with an expression that was almost curious, and you tilted your head back at it, because it seemed like the polite thing to do.

"Hello," you said.

The crow cawed. It was not a friendly sound. It was more of a statement, a declaration of presence, a this is my island and who are you kind of sound. You had heard crows make that sound before, on Dragonstone, when they were defending their territory from other crows.

"I'm Y/N," you said, because you had already established that you were talking to yourself and talking to a crow was only slightly stranger. "I came here on a dragon. She left, but I think she's coming back. I hope she's coming back. If she doesn't come back, I suppose I live here now. Is that alright with you?"

The crow stared at you. Its black eyes were unreadable, but there was something in its posture that suggested it was thinking, weighing, considering. You had never been looked at like that by a bird before. It was unsettling. It was also, in a strange way, comforting. At least something on this island acknowledged your existence.

"I saved a crow once," you offered. "On Dragonstone. Its wing was broken. I found it on the cliffs and I took it home and I fixed it. Marta helped. She knows a lot about healing. We fed it scraps and kept it warm and when its wing was healed, I let it go. It flew away, just like that, without looking back. I was sad, but I understood. It had bigger things waiting for it. A sky. A flock. A life that was bigger than my cottage."

The crow took a hop closer. Then another. You held very still, barely breathing, as it approached. It stopped about three feet away, its head tilted, its black eyes fixed on your face.

"I don't have any food," you said apologetically. "I didn't exactly plan for this trip. I was just going to the cave to be sad, and then there was a dragon, and now I'm here. It's been a very strange day. Night. Whatever. I've lost track of time."

The crow made a softer sound, almost a chuckle, and you could have sworn it was laughing at you. It hopped a little closer, then stopped, its head turning toward the sea. You followed its gaze, and your heart leaped into your throat.

There was a shape on the horizon. A familiar shape, growing larger by the second. Wings, pale and shimmering, catching the sunlight and scattering it like jewels.

Moonfyre.

You scrambled to your feet, your legs shaking, your heart pounding, your eyes fixed on the dragon as she grew closer and closer. The crow took off with an indignant caw, wheeling into the sky and disappearing into the trees, but you barely noticed. All your attention was on Moonfyre, on the graceful sweep of her wings, on the way the sun caught her scales and made them glow, on the dark shape she was carrying in her claws.

She landed on the beach with a heavy thud, sand spraying out from beneath her feet, and dropped her burden onto the pale shore in front of you. It landed with a wet, heavy sound, and you stared at it, trying to make sense of what you were seeing.

It was a goat. Or what had once been a goat. It was charred and smoking, its fur burned away in patches, its flesh cooked through in some places and blackened in others. The smell hit you a moment later, rich and savory and so delicious that your mouth watered despite the strangeness of the situation. It was the smell of roasted meat, real meat, the kind of meat you had only ever tasted in tiny portions, scraps from the butcher's stall or the occasional gift from a grateful patient of Marta's.

Moonfyre nudged the goat toward you with her snout, her golden eyes bright and expectant. She made a sound, a soft, encouraging rumble, and nudged it again, pushing it closer to your feet.

You stared at her. You stared at the goat. You stared back at her.

"You brought me food," you said slowly. "You flew all the way back to Dragonstone, or wherever you found a goat, and you caught it, and you cooked it, and you brought it here. For me."

Moonfyre rumbled again, and this time there was no mistaking the pride in the sound. She sat back on her haunches, her chest puffed out slightly, her golden eyes watching you with an expression that could only be described as smug satisfaction. She looked like a cat who had just deposited a mouse on its owner's pillow and was waiting to be praised for its hunting prowess.

You laughed. It started small, a surprised huff of air, and then it grew, bubbling up from your chest until you were doubled over, your hands on your knees, tears streaming down your face. You laughed until your sides ached, until you couldn't breathe, until Moonfyre started to look concerned and nudged you gently with her snout.

"You ridiculous creature," you gasped, straightening up and wiping your eyes. "You ridiculous, wonderful, absurd creature. You brought me a goat. You roasted it with your fire and you carried it across the sea and you dropped it at my feet like a cat bringing home a bird."

Moonfyre made a sound that was definitely pleased, and nudged the goat again, pushing it even closer to you. The message was clear. Eat. You're hungry. I brought you food.

You knelt in the sand beside the charred goat, and up close it was both more and less appetizing than it had seemed from a distance. The fire had done its work unevenly, some parts were perfectly cooked, the meat tender and falling off the bone, while others were blackened to ash or still pink and raw in the center. But it was food. It was real, fresh meat, and your stomach was growling so loudly now that you were pretty sure Moonfyre could hear it.

You reached out and tore off a piece from what looked like the most cooked section. It was hot, almost too hot to hold, and you juggled it between your fingers for a moment before bringing it to your mouth. The first bite was so good you almost cried. It was rich and savory and slightly smoky, with a depth of flavor you had never experienced before. The meat was tender, falling apart on your tongue, and there was fat that had crisped up from the fire and added a crunch that made your eyes roll back in your head.

"This is the best thing I've ever eaten," you said around a mouthful of goat. "This is better than anything I've ever had. This is better than Marta's cooking. Don't tell her I said that."

Moonfyre rumbled contentedly and settled onto the sand beside you, her great body curling around you in a familiar crescent, her tail sweeping out to encircle your little eating area. Her warmth seeped into your back, and you leaned against her, eating your roasted goat on a beautiful beach with your dragon wrapped around you, and you thought that maybe, just maybe, everything was going to be alright.

You ate until you couldn't eat anymore, until your stomach was full and round and slightly aching in the best possible way. There was still so much goat left, more than you could eat in days, and you looked at it with a kind of wondering gratitude. Moonfyre had brought you food. She had flown across the sea, hunted, cooked, and delivered a meal to you because you were hungry and she knew it. She had taken care of you the way you had taken care of her, all those weeks in the cave, bringing her rabbits and fish and the occasional sheep.

"Is this what it's going to be like?" you asked her, wiping your greasy hands on your already stained cloak. "You bring me food, I eat it, we sit on a beautiful beach and watch the waves? Because I could get used to this. I could very easily get used to this."

Moonfyre blinked at you slowly, and her tail curled tighter around you, pulling you closer against her warm side. The sun was high now, warm and golden, and the beach was peaceful and quiet, and you were full of good food and safe in the curve of your dragon's body. Your eyes began to droop. The exhaustion of the night, the flight, the terror and the wonder and the waiting, all of it crashed over you at once, a wave of tiredness so profound you couldn't fight it even if you wanted to.

You leaned your head back against Moonfyre's scales and closed your eyes.

"Thank you," you murmured, already half asleep. "For coming back. For the goat. For everything."

Moonfyre's only response was a deep, rumbling purr that vibrated through your bones and followed you down into sleep.

—

The sun had been up for hours, but Valarr hadn't noticed. Time had become something that happened to other people, people who weren't tearing apart the eastern cliffs with their bare hands, people who weren't running through the village shouting a name that no one answered, people who weren't slowly coming apart at the seams with every passing moment that she remained gone.

He had barely slept, his dreams full of her hair and eyes and the sound of her voice saying you already lost me over and over until he woke with her name on his lips and tears on his face. He had laid there in the grey dawn light, staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out what to do. How to fix this. How to make her understand that he would give up everything, everything, if she would just let him.

He had gone to the village first thing, before anyone could stop him. He had walked the familiar path with his heart in his throat, rehearsing what he would say. That he had told his father. That he had chosen her. That the betrothal didn't matter, the throne didn't matter, none of it mattered except her. That he was sorry, so sorry, for not telling her sooner, for letting her find out from his father instead of from him, for every moment he had let her believe she was alone in this.

The cottage had been quiet when he arrived. Too quiet. Marta was in the yard, her gnarled hands wrapped around a cup of tea, her old face pale and drawn in a way that made his stomach drop before she even spoke.

"She's gone," Marta had said, and her voice was rough, scraped raw by worry. "She didn't come home last night. I thought she was with you. I thought—" She had stopped, her mouth trembling, and Valarr had felt the world tilt beneath his feet.

"She's not with me," he had said, and the words had come out strange, distant, like someone else was speaking them. "She's not—when did you last see her?"

Marta had told him. Evening, after she had returned from the castle. She had been quiet, Marta said, too quiet, the kind of quiet that meant she was hurting and didn't want anyone to see. She had eaten a little supper, helped with the evening chores, and then she had said she was going for a walk.

He had run. He had run from the cottage to the village, shouting her name, asking everyone he passed if they had seen her. The fishermen shaking their heads, the baker's wife clutching her apron and looking frightened, the children staring at him with wide eyes as he tore past them. No one had seen her. No one had seen her since yesterday afternoon, when the guards had come to take her to the castle.

The caves. She had gone to the caves. He had known it with a certainty that settled into his bones like ice. She had gone back to the empty chamber, back to the cold stone and the ashes and the darkness, because she had nowhere else to go. Because he had failed her. Because his father had offered her silver to disappear, and she had refused it, and then she had disappeared anyway.

He had run to the eastern tunnels, his lungs burning, his legs screaming, the path that had become so familiar over the past weeks blurring beneath his feet. He had plunged into the darkness without a torch, his hands outstretched, his voice echoing off the walls as he called her name again and again and again. The chamber had been empty. Of course it had been empty. There was nothing there but cold stone and old ashes and the ghost of a girl who had loved a dragon that wasn't real.

He had searched anyway. He had searched every corner, every crevice, every shadowed hollow where she might have curled up to sleep. He had run his hands over the stone, looking for any sign that she had been there, a scrap of fabric, a strand of hair, anything. There was nothing. She had been there, he was sure of it, he could feel her presence lingering in the cold air like a memory, but she was gone now. She was gone, and he didn't know where.

That was when the panic had truly set in.

He had returned to the castle in a state of barely controlled desperation and had done something he had never done before. He had pulled rank. He had gathered every guard who wasn't on essential duty, every knight who owed his family fealty, every able-bodied servant who could be spared, and he had ordered them to search. His voice had been sharp and commanding, the voice of a prince who expected to be obeyed, and they had obeyed, scattering across the island in search parties, combing the cliffs and the beaches and the village and the caves.

That had been hours ago. Hours of waiting, of pacing, of sending runners back and forth with increasingly frantic messages. Hours of watching the sun climb higher and higher while his heart sank lower and lower. Hours of his father standing in the corner of the great hall, silent and grim, watching his son unravel with an expression that Valarr couldn't read and didn't care to.

The first reports came back negative. No sign of her in the village. No sign of her in the western caves. No sign of her on the northern cliffs. Each report was a blow, a stone dropped into the pit of his stomach, and he absorbed them all with a calm that felt like the eye of a storm, still and quiet on the surface while everything inside him was screaming.

And then Ser Raymund returned. Valarr saw him coming across the yard, his scarred face set in an expression that made Valarr's blood run cold before the man even opened his mouth. He was carrying something. A bundle of wool, stained and torn, clutched in his gauntleted hands like it was something precious and terrible all at once.

"We found this, my prince." Ser Raymund's voice was rough, carefully controlled. "On the rocks below the eastern cliffs. Near the entrance to the caves."

Valarr took the bundle. His hands were shaking, though he didn't remember them starting. The fabric was familiar, painfully familiar, the worn wool of her cloak, the one she always wore, the one she had been embroidering with flowers. The one with the bluebell she had stitched while he watched, her tongue poking out in concentration, her eyes escaping him when he told her she was cute. The fabric was torn, caught on something sharp, and there were dark stains on it that might have been mud or might have been something he couldn't let himself think about.

"The tide was coming in," Ser Raymund continued, and his voice was gentler now, the voice of a man who had delivered bad news before and hated it every time. "The rocks there are treacherous, my prince. If she fell in the dark..."

"No." Valarr's voice was flat. Empty. "No."

"We found no other sign of her, but the sea—"

"No." Louder this time, sharper. He clutched the cloak to his chest, his fingers digging into the worn wool. "She's not dead. She's not. She wouldn't—she promised me. She promised she wouldn't go back to the caves alone. She promised."

Ser Raymund said nothing. There was nothing to say. The evidence was in Valarr's hands, torn and stained, and the sea was vast and hungry and had never cared about promises.

"Search again." Valarr's voice was rising now, cracking at the edges. "Search the water. Search the cliffs. Search everywhere. She's out there somewhere, she has to be, she wouldn't just—she wouldn't leave me. She wouldn't."

"My prince—"

"That's an order!" He was shouting now, his voice echoing off the stone walls of the yard, and he didn't care. He didn't care that servants were stopping to stare, that guards were exchanging uncomfortable glances, that his father was watching from the doorway with an expression that was slowly hardening into something Valarr recognized. "Search the shoreline. Search the caves again. Search the—"

"That's enough."

His father's voice cut through his like a blade, sharp and cold and final. Baelor stepped out of the doorway, his face set in lines of grim authority, and behind him came four guards, their expressions carefully blank, their hands on their swords.

"Valarr." Baelor's voice was quieter now, but no less firm. "You need to come inside."

"No." Valarr backed away, still clutching the cloak. "No, I'm not leaving. I'm not stopping. She's out there, Father. She's out there somewhere, and I have to find her. I have to—"

"Ser Raymund." Baelor didn't look at the knight. His eyes were fixed on his son. "Take him inside."

The guards moved forward. Valarr saw them coming and something inside him snapped.

"Don't touch me!" He stumbled backward, his hand going to his sword, though he had no intention of drawing it, though he didn't even know what he was doing anymore. "Don't—I'm your prince, I order you to keep searching, I order you—"

The guards hesitated, looking to Baelor for guidance. Baelor's jaw tightened.

"Restrain him."

They moved as one, trained and efficient, and Valarr fought them. He fought them like a wild thing, kicking and twisting and shouting, the cloak still clutched in one hand, his sword still sheathed because even in his madness he couldn't bring himself to draw steel on his father's men. But there were four of them and one of him, and he was exhausted and grief-stricken and not thinking clearly, and they had him pinned and disarmed before he could do more than bruise his own pride.

"Let me go!" His voice cracked, raw and desperate. "Let me go, I have to find her, I have to—"

"Inside." Baelor's voice was iron. "Now."

They dragged him into the great hall, still struggling, still shouting, and the heavy doors slammed shut behind them with a sound like a tomb closing. The guards released him only when Baelor gave the signal, and Valarr stumbled forward, catching himself on the edge of the long table, his chest heaving, his eyes wild.

The hall was empty except for the two of them. Baelor had dismissed everyone else, the guards, the servants, the knights who had been hovering in the corners waiting for orders. It was just father and son, standing in the cold grey light, with the torn cloak on the floor between them like an accusation.

"She's dead." Baelor's voice was quiet, but it carried in the empty hall. "You know she's dead. The cliffs, the tide, the dark—you know what happened. You just can't accept it."

"She's not dead." Valarr's voice was raw, scraped clean of everything but denial. "She's not. I would know. I would feel it. She's out there somewhere, and you're wasting time, you're keeping me here while she's—"

"While she's what?" Baelor's voice sharpened. "While she's drowned? While her body is washing out to sea? While there's nothing left to find but a torn cloak and a few strands of hair on the rocks?"

Valarr flinched like his father had struck him. "Don't. Don't say that."

"It's the truth." Baelor stepped closer, his face hard, his eyes blazing with a fire that Valarr had rarely seen. "It's the truth, and you need to hear it. She's gone, Valarr. She's gone, and you are still here, and you have duties and responsibilities and a future that doesn't disappear just because you're in pain."

"A future?" Valarr laughed, and it was an ugly sound, broken and bitter. "What future? The one where I marry a woman I don't love and sit on a throne I don't want and spend the rest of my life wondering what might have been? That future?"

"The future you were born to." Baelor's voice was rising now, matching his son's. "The future I have spent your entire life preparing you for. The future you would throw away for a girl you met in a fishing village, a girl who—"

"Don't." Valarr's voice was dangerous now, low and shaking. "Don't you dare speak of her like that. Don't you dare reduce her to nothing, to some village girl who didn't matter. She mattered. She mattered more than anything. More than the throne, more than the betrothal, more than you."

"You think I don't understand?" He stepped forward, his hands clenched at his sides. "You think I've never loved someone I couldn't have? You think I don't know what it is to want something so badly you can't breathe, and to know that you can never, ever have it?"

Valarr stared at him. "What are you talking about?"

Baelor's jaw tightened, and for a moment, just a moment, something flickered in his eyes. Something old and buried and painful. Then it was gone, smoothed away by years of discipline and duty.

"I'm talking about you," he said, and his voice was hard again. "I'm talking about my son, who is standing in the great hall of his ancestors, weeping over a dead girl and throwing away everything his family has built for two hundred years. I'm talking about the heir's heir, who would let a dynasty crumble because he can't control his own heart."

"You don't get to do that." Valarr's voice shook. "You don't get to make this about duty and dynasty and all the things you care about more than people. You did this. You sent her away. You offered her silver to disappear, and when she wouldn't take it, you let her walk out of this castle alone and heartbroken, and now she's gone. She's gone because of you."

Baelor recoiled. "That's not fair."

"Isn't it?" Valarr stepped forward, his grief transmuting into something hotter, something that burned. "You told her about Kiera. You made her feel like she was nothing, like she was a problem to be solved with a pouch of silver. You took the one good thing I had, the one person who made me feel like I wasn't just a title and a duty and a future I never asked for, and you crushed her. You crushed her, and she ran, and now she's dead. So don't tell me about duty. Don't tell me about responsibility. You killed her. You killed her, and I will never forgive you."

Baelor's face went grey. For a long moment, he said nothing, just stood there with his son's words hanging between them like a blade. When he spoke again, his voice was quiet, rough.

"You think I don't know what I did?" He looked away, toward the window, toward the grey sea and the grey sky. "You think I don't lie awake at night, wondering if I could have done something different? If I should have let you have her, let you be happy, let the dynasty and the alliances and everything else burn?"

He turned back to Valarr, and his eyes were bright, too bright.

"But I couldn't. I couldn't, because I am the heir to the Iron Throne, and you are my heir, and we do not have the luxury of following our hearts. We have duties. We have responsibilities. We have millions of people who depend on us to make the hard choices, the choices that keep the realm stable and the peace intact. That is what it means to be a prince. That is what it means to be a king. And if you can't accept that, if you can't put the realm before your own heart, then you are not fit to wear the crown."

"Good." Valarr's voice was flat. Empty. "Because I don't want it. I abdicate. I renounce my claim. Let Matarys have it. Let someone else carry the weight. I'm done."

Baelor stared at him. "You don't mean that."

"I mean every word." Valarr's hands were shaking, but his voice was steady. "I told you before, and I'll tell you again. I choose her. I choose her over the throne, over the betrothal, over everything. And if she's dead—" His voice cracked, but he forced himself to continue. "If she's dead, then none of it matters anyway. I won't be king. I won't marry Kiera. I won't do any of it. I'll go back to the village and I'll help Marta with her goats and I'll spend the rest of my life mourning the only person who ever made me feel alive."

The silence that followed was absolute. Baelor stood motionless, his face a mask of conflicting emotions, grief and anger and something that might have been despair. When he spoke again, his voice was barely a whisper.

"You would really do that. You would really throw away everything, for a dead girl."

"She's not dead." The words came out fierce, defiant, even though Valarr could feel the doubt creeping in at the edges. "She's not. I would know. I would feel it. She's out there somewhere, and I'm going to find her."

"Valarr—"

"I'm going to find her," he repeated, and his voice broke on her name. "I'm going to find her, and I'm going to marry her, and I don't care what I have to give up to do it. I don't care about the throne or the betrothal or anything else. I only care about her. I only ever cared about her."

Baelor was quiet for a long, long moment. His face was pale, his shoulders slumped, and he looked older than Valarr had ever seen him. Older and tireder and utterly, completely defeated.

"If she's alive," Baelor said slowly, each word dragged out of him like a confession, "and if you find her... then you can marry her."

Valarr's breath caught. "What?"

"I said you can marry her." Baelor's voice was heavy, exhausted. "If she's alive. If you find her. If she'll still have you after everything that's happened. Then I will break the betrothal to Kiera. I will accept the political consequences. I will let you marry your village girl, and I will figure out the succession later." He met his son's eyes, and there was something in them that might have been grief or might have been love or might have been both. "Is that what you want? Is that enough? Will you revoke your abdication if I give you this?"

Valarr stared at his father. His heart was pounding, hope and fear and disbelief warring in his chest. "You mean it. You actually mean it."

"I mean it." Baelor's voice was bitter, but sincere. "I have lost enough today. I will not lose my son as well. If this is what it takes to keep you, to bring you back from whatever edge you're standing on, then yes. I mean it. Find her. Marry her. And come home."

Valarr's knees buckled. He caught himself on the table, his breath coming in short, sharp gasps, his eyes burning with tears he refused to shed. She was out there. She had to be out there. And now, if he found her, he could have her. Really have her. Not in secret, not in shame, but openly, legally, with his father's blessing.

"I'll find her," he said, and his voice was raw but determined. "I'll find her, Father. I swear it. I'll find her and I'll bring her home and I'll marry her, and I'll never let anyone hurt her again."

Baelor nodded slowly, his face old and tired and full of something that might have been regret."If she's gone... if she's really gone... you have to accept it. You have to come back. You have to live. Do you understand me?"

Valarr looked at his father, at the fear and love and exhaustion in his eyes, and he nodded slowly.

"I understand," he said. "But she's not gone. I would know. I would feel it. She's out there somewhere. And I'm going to find her."

—

You woke to the sound of waves. A hushed, rhythmic conversation between water and sand, each retreat leaving behind a brief, shimmering silence before the next whisper rolled in. The sun pressed warm against your closed eyelids, filtering gold and green through the broad, unfamiliar leaves of the trees that fringed your little beach, and for one long, suspended moment, you drifted in the space between sleeping and waking, untethered from place and time and identity.

Then you felt the warmth against your back. The vast, slow rise and fall of something enormous breathing behind you. The particular weight of a tail draped possessively across your hip. And it all came rushing back, you were still here. You were still on the island. You were still with your dragon.

The relief that moved through you was so profound it was almost indistinguishable from grief. You turned your head slowly, careful not to disturb her, and found Moonfyre's great golden eye already open, already watching you. The pupil contracted slightly in the morning light, a vertical slit of darkness in a sea of molten gold, and the expression in that eye—a creature who could bite a horse in half, who could reduce a village to ash and ember with a single exhalation—was impossibly, devastatingly fond.

Her scales shimmered where the sun caught them, pale white shot through with that amethyst undertone you had adored since the moment she first pushed her way into your world. Her wing remained curved over you like a canopy, sheltering you from the salt breeze that rustled through the strange broad-leafed trees, and beneath you, the sand had molded itself to the shape of your bodies, warm and yielding.

"Good morning," you whispered, your voice scraping out of you like something unused to being heard.

Moonfyre made a sound in response, her snout descended, massive and lethal and capable of incinerating anything it pointed at, and nudged against your cheek with a gentleness so precise it stole the breath from your lungs. It was the gesture of a creature who had learned, somehow, that you were breakable. That you required a different kind of care than her own armored, fireproof self.

Your eyes stung. You blinked hard, once, twice, and reached up to scratch behind the ridge of her eye, the spot you had discovered she loved. Her purr deepened immediately into something that was almost a groan of pleasure, her eye sliding half-closed, her wing tightening around you to draw you more firmly against the great warm wall of her side. The sheer domesticity of it made something in your chest crack open and bloom.

"You're ridiculous," you told her, though there was no edge to it, no sting. "You're a terror of the skies. A legend made flesh. Entire armies would flee at the sight of you." Your voice caught, just slightly. "And all you want is cuddles."

Moonfyre opened her eye again, fixed you with a look that communicated with perfect, crystalline clarity: And what of it? Then she closed it once more and settled more heavily against the sand, radiating the unmistakable intention of a creature who had no plans to move anytime soon. You found that you didn't either. The sand was soft and warm beneath you, the dragon was soft and warm beside you, and the world was very far away.

But your stomach had no patience for transcendent moments.

It growled, loud and insistent and deeply unromantic, dragging you back into your body with all its inconvenient, mortal needs. The goat. You sat up, dislodging Moonfyre's wing with an apologetic pat to her scales, and scanned the beach until you spotted the remains of your meal from the night before. It lay a little distance down the shore, looking considerably less miraculous in the unforgiving light of morning. The meat was cold now, the fat congealed into waxy white rivulets, and a constellation of flies had gathered around the blackened edges, their droning a thin, irritable counterpoint to the whisper of the waves.

You approached it with the particular reluctance of someone who had been spoiled by a dragon's freshly fire-roasted offering. Moonfyre made a soft, interrogative sound as you crouched beside the carcass, and you looked back at her with a grimace that you could feel all the way to your eyebrows.

"I don't suppose," you said, hating how plaintive your voice sounded, "you could warm it up? Just a little? A very small, very contained breath of fire?"

She blinked at you with the slow, deliberate patience of a creature who had already gone significantly out of her way to provide you with cooked food and was now being asked to reheat leftovers. There was judgment in those golden eyes. You were certain of it. You want me, the winged death, the scourge of the skies, to breathe fire on your breakfast because you're too refined for cold goat?

"I'm not too refined," you protested, though you absolutely, undeniably were. "I've eaten cold meat before. Plenty of times. In various circumstances. It's simply a matter of preference."

Moonfyre snorted, a delicate plume of smoke escaping her nostrils and dissipating on the morning breeze, and you interpreted that as a definitive no.

Fine. Cold goat it was. You tore off a piece that looked the least compromised by its overnight exposure to the elements and ate it quickly, mechanically, trying not to dwell on the texture. The meat was still good beneath the chill but it was a shadow of last night's feast. Nothing could replicate that meal, eaten in a state of such profound exhaustion and wonder that it had transcended mere sustenance. You had been starving and overwhelmed and trembling with the sheer impossibility of a dragon bringing you a cooked offering, and hunger, you were learning, was the most powerful spice in the world.

When you had eaten enough to quiet your stomach's complaints, you walked down to the water's edge to wash your hands and face. The sea here was breathtakingly clear, the color of pale turquoise glass, and you could see straight down through the water to the sandy bottom, where small silver fish wove between the rocks in darting, synchronized patterns. You knelt at the edge of the surf, cupping the water in your hands and splashing it onto your face. The salt stung your sunburned cheeks, sharp and bracing, startling you fully into wakefulness.

When you looked down at your reflection in the still surface of a tidal pool, you barely recognized the face that stared back.

Your hair was a wild with salt and sand, knotted into shapes that would take hours of patient work to untangle. Your lips were chapped. There was a smear of ash across your forehead.

But your eyes were different. Brighter than they had been in weeks, in months, in maybe your whole life. There was a light in them that you had almost forgotten existed, a wild and blazing thing that had been buried under months of whispers and pitying looks and the slow, grinding erosion of being told, over and over, that the thing you knew to be true was nothing but a delusion. You were not crazy, and you had never been more certain of anything in your existence.

When you turned back toward the beach, Moonfyre was standing. She had risen while you were at the water's edge, her great body unfurling from the sand with the liquid grace of something that belonged equally to earth and sky. Her wings were stretched wide, the pale membrane catching the morning light and glowing faintly at the edges, and her golden eyes were fixed on the vast blue expanse above. She looked at you, then at the ridge of her back, then at you again.

The message required no translation. Get on. We're flying.

"Okay," you said, and you were proud of how steady your voice emerged. "Okay. Let's fly."

Climbing onto her back was easier this time, still not graceful, but easier. Your body had begun to learn the geography of her: where to place your hands, how to find purchase on the ridges of her spine, the precise angle at which to settle your weight between her shoulders so that you wouldn't slide. Moonfyre held herself perfectly still while you arranged yourself, a mountain of patience and warm scales, and when you finally gripped the ridge before you and pressed your knees against her sides, she made a low, questioning sound.

Ready?

"Ready," you said, and the world fell away.

The first seconds were still terrifying. There was no circumventing that particular truth. The ground dropped out from beneath you with a violence that defied the smoothness of Moonfyre's motion, and your stomach stayed behind on the sand for a long, lurching moment before catching up. The wind hit your face like a physical blow, flattening your hair back, tearing tears from the corners of your eyes. Your hands clenched white-knuckled on her scales, your thighs clamped against her back, and for a heartbeat you were nothing but a collection of desperate, clinging instincts.

Then Moonfyre leveled out, her wings catching the currents, her body found its rhythm and you discovered that you could lift your head from where you had pressed it against her spine. You could open your eyes, which you hadn't realized you'd squeezed shut. You could look.

Oh.

You could see the waterfall you had spotted from the air during your desperate flight, a silver ribbon that cascaded down the black volcanic face of the island's central peak and disappeared into a mist of rainbows before emerging again as a river that wound its way to the sea. Beyond it, a hidden valley cupped between two ridges, filled with flowering trees that looked from this height like clouds of pink and white drifting just above the ground. The northern shore gave way to cliffs, black and sheer, against which the sea threw itself in explosions of white foam that you could hear even from this distance, a distant, rhythmic thunder.

The sky was so vast it seemed to have no edges. You felt, suddenly and vertiginously, that you could tip forward and fall into it and never, ever stop falling.

You laughed. The sound was torn from your mouth and flung away by the wind before you could hear it, but you felt it in your chest, bright and wild and ferocious, a joy so sharp it was almost indistinguishable from pain. You were flying. You were actually, truly flying. On a dragon. Over the sea. And the world, which had been so small and cruel and suffocating for so long, had opened up into this, this infinity of light and wind and motion, this impossible gift.

Hours passed. Or perhaps minutes. Time behaved strangely in the sky, stretching and compressing in ways that had nothing to do with the movement of the sun and everything to do with the rhythm of wings. You flew until your thighs ached from gripping, until your hands cramped from holding, until your face was windburned raw and your hair was a disaster beyond all hope of redemption. And you loved every single second of it. You loved the wildness of it, the impossibility, the way the world looked from above—small and beautiful and full of mysteries waiting to be uncovered.

When Moonfyre finally began her descent back toward the beach, spiraling down in wide, lazy circles that made your stomach swoop with each rotation, you felt a pang of genuine loss. You didn't want to land. You wanted to stay up here forever, suspended between sea and sky, a creature of the air with no past and no future and nothing but the endless blue.

But your body had other ideas. Just like last time when you slid off her back onto the familiar pale sand, your legs buckled immediately. They felt like water, like seaweed, like something that had forgotten entirely how to perform the basic function of holding you upright. You stumbled forward, caught yourself on your hands, and then before you could think better of it, you pushed yourself back up and threw your arms around her neck, pressing your windburned face into her warm scales.

"That," you breathed, "was the most incredible thing I have ever experienced. You are the most incredible dragon in the history of dragons. You are magnificent. You are perfect. You are—"

Moonfyre rumbled, a deep and deeply satisfied sound, and her tail came around to curl against your back in that familiar, grounding embrace. She was warm and solid beneath your cheek, her scales smooth as polished stone, and you held onto her as if you might never let go. As if you could, through sheer force of grip, anchor yourself permanently to this moment, this improbable, impossible life.

The rest of the day passed in a blur of discovery, each hour revealing some new wonder of your strange, uncharted home.

You found the fruit trees you had seen from the air, following a narrow deer trail through the forest until you emerged into a grove so beautiful it stopped you in your tracks. The trees were tall and silver-barked, their broad leaves forming a canopy that dappled the sunlight into coins of gold, and from their branches hung hundreds of the luminous fruit you had spotted from above. You plucked one carefully, turning it in your hands—it was roughly the size of your fist, its skin smooth and slightly warm to the touch, glowing from within like a paper lantern—and when you bit into it, the taste was so extraordinary that you actually laughed out loud. Sweet and bright and complicated, honey and sunshine and something floral you couldn't name, the flesh yielding and juicy against your tongue.

Moonfyre, who had followed you into the grove with the patient, slightly exasperated air of an adult humoring a child's treasure hunt, sniffed at the fruit when you offered it. Her nostrils flared. She drew her head back and fixed you with a look of polite but absolute disgust.

You're eating that? Voluntarily?

"It's delicious," you told her, taking another bite to prove your point. Juice ran down your chin. "You don't know what you're missing."

She snorted, a dismissive puff of smoke, and turned away to investigate something more interesting at the edge of the grove. Probably a goat.

You found a stream, the same water that fed the waterfall, running clear and cold over a bed of smooth black stones. You knelt beside it and drank straight from the source, the water so pure and cold it made your teeth ache in the best possible way. You washed the salt and sand from your hair as best you could, working your fingers through the worst of the tangles, and the sensation of being clean, even just marginally cleaner than before, was so exquisite that you almost cried.

You found a cave set into the base of the cliffs on the eastern shore, not deep and dark like the ones on Dragonstone but shallow and warm, its sandy floor soft beneath your bare feet and its walls glittering with veins of something that might have been gold. It would make a good shelter if the weather turned, you thought. A good place to store things, to build something like a home. The thought startled you—home, you were thinking about home, about staying here, about building something permanent on this island that had appeared in your path like a miracle—but it didn't frighten you the way it should have. It felt, instead, like the most natural thing in the world.

As the sun began its slow descent toward the western horizon, painting the sky in watercolor washes of coral and amber and bruised violet, you made your way back to the beach. Moonfyre had disappeared a while earlier, launching herself toward the sea with a purposeful drive of her wings, and you knew without question that she would return with another offering. She was your hunter now, your provider, your fierce and improbable caretaker.

You settled onto the sand, your back against a smooth piece of driftwood, and watched the sun sink toward the edge of the world. The sky was so beautiful it almost hurt to look at, every shade of fire and rose and deepening indigo bleeding into the endless blue of the sea. And for the first time since you had arrived on this island, for the first time since you had fled Dragonstone in the darkness with tears streaming down your face and your heart shattering in your chest, you let yourself think about what you had left behind.

About Marta.

The guilt came immediately, heavy and cold, settling into your stomach like a stone swallowed by accident. Marta would be worried by now. No, more than worried. She would be frantic, pacing the cramped confines of your little cottage with her knotted hands twisting in her apron, her sharp old eyes scanning the path that wound down from the hills. She had raised you from infancy. She had fed you and clothed you and held you through nightmares and defended you against the whispers of the village children. She had loved you with a fierce, uncomplicated love that asked for nothing in return, and you had repaid her by vanishing into the night without a word of explanation.

You should go back. You knew you should go back. Not forever but at least for long enough to tell Marta you were alive. To explain, as best you could, what had happened. To say a proper goodbye, if that was what needed to happen. She deserved better than that life, you would take her with you if she agreed.

And Valarr. Your hand moved to the pendant at your throat without your conscious permission, your fingers finding the familiar shape of it. You hadn't taken it off. You had thought about it, in the dark hours before sleep, but you hadn't been able to bring yourself to unclasp it. Even now, even after everything, it still felt like a piece of you. Like a promise you hadn't quite broken yet.

Valarr, who had kissed you in the meadow with the sunset gilding his dark hair and a tenderness in his hands that had made you feel, for the first time in your life, like something precious. Valarr, who had held you in the suffocating dark and whispered that you weren't alone, that you weren't crazy, that he believed you. Valarr, who had kept the truth of his betrothal from you—the castle, the duty, the woman who was not you—because he was afraid of losing you, and in doing so had lost you anyway.

Valarr, who had looked at you at the end with pity in his eyes.

That was the part that stayed with you, sharp as a splinter that had worked its way too deep to remove. Not the betrothal. Not even the lie. But that loo, the same look everyone else had ever given you. Poor girl. Poor sad, mad girl, inventing dragons because she has nothing else.

You weren't ready to think about Valarr. You weren't ready to untangle that knot of love and fury and hurt and longing. The wound was still too fresh, still weeping beneath the careful bandage of distance and distraction.

So you pushed the thoughts away and focused on the sunset instead. The sky had deepened to violet, the first stars beginning to emerge in the east, and on the horizon, a dark shape was growing larger by the moment. Moonfyre, returning.

She landed beside you with her usual heavy grace, the sand shivering beneath the impact, and deposited her offering at your feet. Another goat or something goat-adjacent, some local variant with slightly longer ears and a sleeker coat, already cooked. And this time, you noticed, the cooking was more even. The meat was tender rather than charred, the skin crisped to a perfect golden brown rather than blackened to ash. She was learning, refining her technique, figuring out exactly how much fire was required to produce a meal that wouldn't make you grimace. A dragon, perfecting her culinary abilities for your sake.

The thought did something complicated to your heart. You ate until you were full and curled up against Moonfyre's warm side. Her wing came down around you like a canopy, blocking the cool night breeze, and her tail curled around your waist with that particular, possessive tenderness you had come to recognize as affection.

"Goodnight," you whispered, your cheek pressed to the smooth warmth of her scales. "Thank you. For today. For everything."

She rumbled, the sound resonating through her body and into yours, deep and content and full of something that might have been love. And you closed your eyes and let the steady rhythm of her breathing carry you down into sleep, into dreams that were not dark and not empty but filled with the wild, impossible joy of flight.

—

The dream started gently, the way the best dreams do, the ones that feel like memories because they are.

You were a child again, small and skinny and perpetually scraped-kneed, with that wild tangle of hair that Marta was always threatening to cut if you didn't sit still long enough for her to braid it properly. You could feel the sun on your face, warm and golden, the kind of sun that only existed in childhood memories, before you learned that the world was mostly grey and cold and full of things that could hurt you. The grass beneath your bare feet was soft and cool, tickling your toes, and the air smelled of wild onions and sea salt and the faint, familiar scent of Marta's herb garden drifting up from the cottage below.

You were in the meadow beneath the Dragon's Tooth, the one where the ghost-flowers grew thickest in the shadows of the rocks, their pale petals glowing faintly even in the daylight. You had spent so many hours here as a child, chasing butterflies and collecting flowers for Marta's tinctures and lying on your back in the grass, staring up at the grey sky and dreaming of places you would never see. It was your secret kingdom, this meadow, the one place in the world that felt like it belonged to you and you alone.

And Marta was there. Of course she was. She was always there, in your memories, a constant presence like the sea or the sky or the beating of your own heart. She sat on a flat rock near the edge of the meadow, her gnarled hands busy with a basket of herbs, her sharp old eyes watching you with that familiar mixture of fondness and exasperation that you had seen a thousand times. She was younger in this memory, her hair more brown than grey, the lines on her face less deeply carved, but she was still Marta, still your Marta, the only mother you had ever known.

"Don't go too far," she called, and her voice carried across the meadow, rough and warm and full of a love she had never quite learned to put into words. "And don't touch the ghost-flowers. They'll give you a rash that'll itch for a week, and I'm not wasting my good salve on foolishness."

"I know, Marta," you called back, and your voice was high and bright, a child's voice, untouched by grief or doubt or the weight of knowing that the world was not as kind as you wanted it to be. You were chasing butterflies, their wings flashing blue and gold in the sunlight, and you were happy. So completely, uncomplicatedly happy. The kind of happy that only exists when you're young enough to believe that happiness is something that can last.

The butterflies led you in dizzying circles around the meadow, their wings catching the light and scattering it like jewels. You ran after them with your arms outstretched, your laughter ringing out across the hillside, and every time you got close enough to touch one, it would flutter just out of reach, leading you farther and farther from where Marta sat with her basket of herbs. You didn't notice how far you had wandered. You didn't notice how the light had begun to change, the warm gold fading to something cooler, greyer.

And then the crow attacked. It came from nowhere and everywhere at once, a blur of black feathers and sharp claws and furious, cawing rage. One moment you were reaching for a butterfly, your fingers outstretched, your face bright with wonder, and the next moment the world was nothing but darkness and pain. The crow's claws raked across your cheek, sharp and hot, and you screamed a high, thin sound that was more surprise than pain, at first. You stumbled backward, your hands flying up to protect your face, but the crow was relentless, diving at you again and again, its beak jabbing at your fingers, its wings beating against your head.

"Stop!" you cried, your voice breaking. "Stop it, please, stop—"

Your foot caught on something, a stone or a root or just the uneven ground, and you felt yourself falling. The world tilted, the grey sky and the green grass and the black crow all blurring together into a smear of color and motion. You reached out, trying to catch yourself, but there was nothing to grab onto, nothing but empty air and the sickening sensation of the ground disappearing beneath you.

You fell.

And fell.

And kept falling.

The meadow was gone. Marta was gone. The crow was gone. There was only darkness, cold and absolute, pressing in on you from all sides. You couldn't see anything, couldn't hear anything but the rush of wind past your ears and the pounding of your own heart. You tried to scream, but the darkness swallowed the sound, swallowed everything, left you alone and terrified and falling through nothing.

Time stretched and warped. You didn't know how long you fell. It could have been seconds or hours or years. There was only the darkness and the wind and the terrible, gut-wrenching certainty that you would never stop falling, that this was all there was now, an endless descent into nothing.

And then you hit the ground.

The impact drove the breath from your lungs, sent shockwaves of pain through your entire body. But it wasn't ground, not really. It was stone, cold and smooth and unforgiving, the kind of stone that had been worn down by centuries of footsteps. You lay there for what felt like a very long time, gasping, trying to remember how to breathe, your cheek pressed against the cold floor, your fingers splayed out against the smooth surface. The stone was real. Solid. You could feel it beneath you, grounding you, anchoring you to something after the endless, terrifying fall.

Slowly, painfully, you pushed yourself up. You were in a corridor. A long, narrow corridor lined with doors on either side, all of them closed, all of them identical. The walls were grey stone, ancient and imposing, and the only light came from torches set in iron brackets along the walls, their flames flickering and casting dancing shadows that seemed to move and shift when you weren't looking directly at them. The air was heavy, stifling, thick with the smell of smoke and something else, something sharp and medicinal that caught in the back of your throat and made your eyes water.

You didn't recognize this place. But you were here. And you couldn't leave. You stood slowly, your legs shaking, your arms wrapped around yourself. The corridor stretched out before you in both directions, identical and endless, and you had no idea which way to go. The doors on either side were all the same, dark wood banded with iron, their handles gleaming dully in the torchlight. You could try one, you thought. You could open one of the doors and see what was behind it. But the thought filled you with a cold, creeping dread that you couldn't explain. You didn't want to know what was behind those doors. You didn't want to be here at all. And then you heard it.

Coughing.

It was faint at first, so faint you thought you might be imagining it. Just a sound at the very edge of hearing, a wet, hacking sound that made your stomach clench. You held your breath, listening, and the sound came again, louder this time, closer. It was coming from somewhere down the corridor, from behind one of the closed doors, and it was a terrible sound, the kind of cough that came from deep in the chest, from lungs that were drowning in something they couldn't clear.

You started walking toward it. You didn't want to. Every instinct you had was screaming at you to turn around, to run in the opposite direction, to get away from that sound and whatever was making it. But your feet moved anyway, carrying you down the corridor, past door after door after door. The coughing grew louder with every step, more desperate, more agonizing. Between the coughing fits, you could hear someone gasping for breath, could hear a thin, high sound that might have been a whimper of pain or might have been a word you couldn't quite make out.

The sound was familiar. That was the worst part. You had never heard this person before, you were sure of it, and yet the cough, the gasp, the whimper, they all felt like something you knew. Like a name that was sitting on the tip of your tongue, refusing to be spoken.

The corridor seemed to stretch on forever, the doors blurring past you, the coughing growing louder and more desperate with every step. The smoke was thicker here, stinging your eyes, making it hard to breathe. You could feel the heat now, radiating from somewhere ahead, and the smell of burning wood and cloth and something else, something that smelled like meat left too long over a fire. Your eyes were streaming, your throat was raw, but you kept walking. You couldn't stop and you reached the door.

It was larger than the others, made of dark wood that gleamed with age and polish, banded with iron that had been worked into intricate patterns, dragons, you realized, their bodies coiling and twisting around each other in an endless dance. The door loomed over you, imposing and important, the coughing was coming from inside. Loud and wet and agonizing, each spasm followed by a desperate, gasping breath. You could hear the person choking on something they couldn't get out, could hear the way their breath rattled in their chest, wet and wrong. They were dying. You didn't know how you knew, but you knew. Whoever was behind this door was dying, and they were dying alone.

You reached for the handle. The iron was hot against your palm, almost burning, but you gripped it anyway, your fingers wrapping around the metal, your heart pounding so hard you could feel it in your throat. The coughing continued, worse now, mixed with a sound that was almost a scream, a high, thin wail of pain that made your blood run cold. You pulled.

The door swung open and you fell.

The corridor disappeared. The coughing disappeared. The smoke and the heat and the door and the dragons carved into the iron—all of it vanished, swallowed by the same endless darkness that had claimed you before. You were falling again and you hit the ground hard.

But this time, when you looked up, you were somewhere else entirely. Somewhere you recognized, even though you had never been there before.

The throne room. It was vast, cavernous, so huge that the ceiling was lost in shadows, so huge that your footsteps would echo for seconds after you took them. The walls were stone, grey and ancient, and the light came from high windows, tall and arched, their glass stained in shades of red and gold and deep, royal purple.

And in the center of the room, rising like a mountain of blades, was the Iron Throne. You had heard stories about it all your life. Everyone had. The thousand swords of Aegon's enemies, melted and forged into a seat of power, a monument to conquest and fire and blood. But the stories hadn't prepared you for the reality of it. It was huge, impossibly huge, a jagged, twisted mass of metal that seemed to reach toward the ceiling like a grasping hand. The swords caught the light from the windows and glittered like frozen fire, their edges still sharp after three hundred years, their points aimed outward like a warning. It was beautiful. It was terrible. It was the most frightening thing you had ever seen.

And there was someone sitting on it, a woman.

You couldn't see her face. The light from the windows was behind her, casting her in silhouette, turning her into a shape of shadow and light. She sat tall and straight, her hands resting on the arms of the throne, her posture radiating a quiet, absolute authority. She wore a crown, you thought, or maybe it was just the way the light caught her hair, turning it into a halo of silver and gold. She was looking at you. You couldn't see her eyes, but you could feel her gaze, heavy and assessing, pressing down on you like a physical weight.

You wanted to speak. You wanted to ask who she was, what this place was, why you were here. You opened your mouth, but before you could form the words, a sound filled the throne room that drove every thought from your head.

You got to your feet slowly, your eyes fixed on the woman, and you started walking toward the throne. You had to get closer. You had to see her properly. The throne room seemed to stretch on forever, the windows always just out of reach, and then you looked down, and there were dragons at your feet.

You stopped so suddenly you nearly fell. They were everywhere, swarming around your ankles, tiny and perfect and impossibly alive. Five of them, no bigger than kittens, their scales every color you could imagine, red like rubies, gold like sunlight, green like the forest in spring, blue like the deep sea, silver like your the moon. They chirped and squeaked, their little wings fluttering, their tiny claws scratching at your legs as they tried to climb up. They wanted your attention. All of them, at once, demanding to be seen, to be held, to be loved.

You didn't know what to do. You stood frozen, staring down at them, your heart pounding, your mind blank. They were so small. So fragile. So utterly dependent on you, even though you had no idea who they were or where they had come from or why they were here. One of them, the silver one, managed to scramble up your leg and into the palm of your hand, its tiny claws pricking your skin, its warm little body curling against your fingers. It looked up at you with eyes that were gold and green and ancient and new all at once, and your heart cracked open.

"Where did you come from?" you whispered, but the words came out strange, echoing, like you were speaking from very far away.

The baby dragon chirped and nuzzled against your thumb, and you felt tears prick at your eyes. You didn't understand. You didn't understand any of this. The throne room, the woman on the Iron Throne, the dragons in the sky, these tiny creatures at your feet, none of it made sense. But it felt important. It felt like a message you were supposed to understand, a glimpse of something that was waiting for you, somewhere in the future, if you could only find your way to it.

You tried to step around the baby dragons, tried to keep walking toward the throne, toward the woman, but they were everywhere, underfoot, demanding, and you stumbled, your foot catching on one of them—the red one, its scales bright as blood—and you fell.

You were drowning. The water closed over your head, cold and dark and absolute. It filled your mouth, your nose, your lungs, choking you, stealing the breath from your body before you could even think to hold it. You thrashed, your arms flailing, your legs kicking, but there was nothing to grab onto, nothing but water and darkness and the terrible, crushing weight of the deep pressing down on you from all sides. You couldn't see. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. There was only the water and the cold and the slow, creeping certainty that this was it, this was how you died, alone and afraid and so very far from everything you had ever loved.

And then a hand closed around your arm and pulled.

You broke the surface gasping, choking, water streaming from your mouth and nose, your lungs burning as they filled with air. The hand was still there, gripping your arm, strong and sure and unyielding, pulling you toward the shore. You were too weak to fight, too weak to do anything but let yourself be dragged through the water, your body limp and shivering and utterly spent.

When you reached the shallows, you collapsed onto the muddy bank, your cheek pressed against the wet earth, your chest heaving as you tried to remember how to breathe. The hand released your arm, and you heard a voice, rough and familiar, cutting through the roaring in your ears.

"I've got you, child. I've got you. You're alright."

Marta.

You were small again. A child. Your arms were thin and your legs were short and you were shivering so hard your teeth chattered. You remembered this. You remembered the cold of the river, the terror of the current pulling you under, the way Marta's voice had cut through the roaring in your ears and given you something to hold onto. You had been ten years old, chasing butterflies along the riverbank, not watching where you were going. The bank had given way beneath your feet, and you had fallen in, and the current had grabbed you and pulled you under before you could even scream.

Marta had saved you. She had waded into the water without hesitation, her old body moving faster than you had ever seen it move, and she had grabbed you and pulled you out and carried you home. She had wrapped you in every blanket she owned and made you drink hot tea with honey and sat beside you all night, her hand on your forehead, her voice a constant, soothing murmur in the darkness.

"I'm sorry," you tried to say, but the words came out wrong, garbled and weak, lost in the chattering of your teeth. "I'm sorry, Marta. I'm sorry."

She couldn't hear you. This was a memory, just a memory, and you were watching it from outside yourself, standing on the riverbank as Marta gathered your small, shivering body into her arms and carried you up the path toward the cottage. You followed behind her, your feet making no sound on the muddy ground, your voice echoing in the dream-space.

"I'm sorry I left," you whispered, and the words felt heavy, important, like something you had been needing to say for a very long time. "I'm sorry I disappeared without telling you. I'm sorry I made you worry. I didn't mean to. I never meant to hurt you. You're the only mother I've ever known, and I left you without a word, and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Marta reached the cottage and pushed open the door with her shoulder, carrying your small, dripping body inside. You followed her across the threshold, and then you weren't in the cottage anymore.

You were in a different room. It was darker than Marta's cottage, colder, the walls made of grey stone instead of worn wood. There was a single window, high up, letting in a thin, grey light that did little to illuminate the space. The air smelled of dust and old stone and something else, something faint and familiar that you couldn't quite name. You were standing behind a door, not the door to Marta's cottage but a different door, heavy and wooden and slightly ajar. Through the gap, you could see a man.

He was taller then you, with long pale hair that fell straight and smooth past his shoulders. It was beautiful hair. He was facing away from you, his features hidden in shadow, and no matter how hard you tried, no matter how much you strained your eyes, you couldn't make out his face. It was like trying to see through fog, like trying to remember a dream that was already fading upon waking.

He was holding something in his arms. A bundle of cloth, pale and soft, that he cradled against his chest with a gentleness that seemed at odds with his imposing presence. He held it like it was preciou. A blanket. And in the blanket, a child.

A baby. Small and new, with a wisp of hair on its tiny head, so fine it was almost invisible. The man was looking down at it, and even though you couldn't see his face, you could feel the weight of his gaze, the intensity of it, the way he was drinking in every detail of that tiny face like he was trying to memorize it forever.

"I did not expect this," he said, and his voice was low and rough, rougher than you had expected, touched with something that might have been wonder or might have been grief or might have been both. He spoke slowly, carefully, like each word cost him something. "Three moons. I have only had her for three moons. And already..."

He stopped. His hand came up, large and strong, and touched the baby's cheek with a tenderness that made your chest ache. The baby stirred, made a small sound, and he went very still, waiting until she settled again before he continued.

"Already she has carved herself into my heart," he said quietly. "I did not think... I did not know it was possible to love something so quickly. So completely. She is nothing. She is a scrap of a thing, barely larger than my two hands together, and yet she has undone me. She has remade me. She has become the center of everything, and I do not know how to let her go."

A woman's voice answered him, soft and warm, coming from somewhere you couldn't see. "Then keep her. Your plans will still work. She doesn't have to change anything. You can find another way."

He shook his head slowly, his hair swaying with the motion. "I cannot. You know I cannot. The life I lead, the things I must do... she would not be safe with me. She would be a target, a weakness, a thing that could be used against me. And I cannot afford weakness. Not now. Not with what is coming."

"She deserves to be loved," the woman said, and there was something in her voice, a gentle reproach, a sadness that spoke of long familiarity with this argument. "And you love her. I can see it. Anyone can see it. You hold her like she is the most precious thing in the world."

"Because she is." His voice cracked on the words. "and that is precisely why I cannot keep her. If I let myself love her, if I let myself become the father she deserves... I will become weak. I will change. I will hesitate when I should act, falter when I should be strong. I will put her before everything else, before duty and honor and the fate of the realm itself. And I cannot afford to do that. Not now. Not with everything that hangs in the balance."

He was quiet for a moment, still looking down at the baby, his thumb tracing slow circles on her tiny cheek. When he spoke again, his voice was barely a whisper.

"She has a greater destiny than I can give her. I have dreamed it. She will be something I cannot be, something I was never meant to be. And I... I am not meant to be part of it. I am meant to set her on the path and then step aside. That is my role. That is all I am meant to be. The one who lets her go so she can become what she was born to become."

The woman was silent for a long moment. Then she said, very softly, "You will regret this. For the rest of your life, you will regret this."

"I know." His voice was heavy with grief, with a sorrow so deep it seemed to fill the whole room.

You wanted to push the door open. You wanted to see his face, to understand who he was, why he felt so familiar, why the sight of him holding that baby made your chest ache with a longing you couldn't name. You reached for the door, your hand outstretched, your fingers brushing against the rough wood. If you could just open it, just a little more, just enough to see—

A hand closed around your arm and pulled you back and then you woke.

The beach was quiet. The stars were still overhead, scattered across the sky like seeds of light, and the moon hung low and silver over the water, casting a pale glow across the sand. Moonfyre was still curled around you, her wing sheltering you, her warmth seeping into your bones, her breathing slow and steady and deep. The pendant was warm against your chest, the two dragons and their ruby heart, and your cheeks were wet. You had been crying in your sleep.

You lay there for a long moment, staring up at the stars, your heart pounding, the fragments of the dream still clinging to you like cobwebs. The corridor, the coughing, the woman on the Iron Throne. The dragons in the sky, Moonfyre and the blue one and the five tiny ones at your feet. The river, Marta's hands pulling you out, her voice cutting through the water. The man with the silver hair and the baby in his arms, the baby he loved but couldn't keep.

She has a greater destiny. I am meant to set her on the path and then step aside.

You pressed your hand to your chest, over your heart, and felt the pendant warm against your palm. You didn't know if the dream was real. You didn't know if it was a vision, a memory, or just the random firing of a sleeping mind. But it felt real. It felt true. It felt like a piece of a puzzle you had been trying to solve your whole life, clicking into place.

And Marta. Marta, who had pulled you from the river and carried you home and raised you with nothing but her own two hands and her endless, stubborn love. Marta, who was probably worried sick right now, pacing the cottage, wondering if you were dead or alive. Marta, who had given you everything when she had nothing to give.

You had to go back.

The thought crystallized in your mind, clear and certain. You had to go back to Dragonstone. Not forever, maybe. Not to stay. But to see Marta. To let her know you were alive. To thank her for everything she had given you, and to tell her that you loved her, that you would always love her, that she was the only mother you had ever known. And maybe, just maybe, to find out if there was anything left of the life you had left behind.

You looked up at Moonfyre. She blinked at you slowly, and you could see the stars reflected in her eyes, tiny points of light in all that gold.

"We have to go back," you whispered. "Just for a little while. Just to say goodbye. And then... then we can come back here. Or go somewhere else. Anywhere. Everywhere. Just you and me."

Moonfyre made a sound, a low, rumbling purr that vibrated through your bones. Her wing tightened around you, pulling you closer, and you knew that she understood. She would take you wherever you needed to go. She would follow you to the ends of the earth.

The King’s arrival had turned Winterfell on its head.

Trumpets, banners, gold—so much gold. The North had not seen such splendour since the end of the Targaryen dynasty, when Robert Baratheon had taken the throne. Now, it seemed half the realm had come marching behind Robert's royal party.

Gold and crimson, black and stag-marked—southern colours that gleamed far too bright against Winterfell’s muted tones. The northerners looked on, some with curiosity, some with cautious, and a few openly awed as they watched the southern procession wind its way through the gates like a river of colour cutting through snow.

At the head of it rode your father—Robert Baratheon himself—larger than life and twice as loud, his booming laughter rolling over the crowd like thunder. His beard was flecked with frost, his furs heavy and rich, his crown sitting askew in a careless way that had once been considered charming but now looked more like neglect.

You had heard endless stories of his youth—the warrior who had swung a warhammer like the gods themselves had forged it for his hands, the rebel who had taken a throne with fire in his blood and vengeance in his heart. Robert the Usurper. Robert the Conqueror. 

But the man who rode before you now was not that legend. His armour strained against the swell of his belly, his face ruddy from drinking. The warhammer had long been replaced by a wine cup and a whore on his lap, the crown he wore weighed by the weight of old victories he refused to let die.

You wondered if even he remembered what it had felt like—to be the man the songs still sang of. Now, he was simply a king grown soft, chasing the ghost of glory through the bottom of his goblet and whoring his way through the street of silk.

As for you, you rode among them, sitting tall despite the cold that seeped through your furs and southern silks. Your father had insisted you come north, and you had insisted on riding atop a horse rather than shut yourself away in the carriage with your mother and younger siblings. It had seemed a small act of defiance then, a gesture of freedom. Now, with the wind biting at your cheeks and Joffrey’s endless complaints filling the air, it felt more like punishment.

He had sneered the entire way north—at the chill, the people, the very land itself. “The dreary, filthy North,” he had called it more than once, his tone dripping with disdain. You had ignored him as best you could, your gaze fixed on the horizon, excited to see a different land from the one you grew up in.

You’d always imagined the North as a wasteland of ice and furs, cold and colourless. But when you finally crossed through Winterfell’s borders, the image shattered.

The ancient stronghold rose before you, proud and formidable, its grey stone walls streaked with frost and history. Smoke curled from the forges, filling the air with the scent of metal and fire. There was movement everywhere—men with weathered faces and proud eyes, women calling out to one another across the yard, and children with flushed cheeks laughing as they chased hounds through the snow-dusted courtyard. It wasn’t lifeless at all. It was rough yes, but nothing like the southerners tried to depict.

You drew your crimson cloak tighter around your shoulders, breath ghosting in the frigid air. The cold bit through your clothes, sharp against your delicate skin, and for a moment you thought you might curse your own stubbornness for refusing the carriage. Yet as the wind swept past you again, crisp and fresh, you realized you didn’t hate it as much as you’d expected to.

It was different from the damp, perfumed warmth of King’s Landing. There, beneath the scent of roses and incense, there was always something else—an undercurrent of rot that no amount of perfume could mask. The palace gleamed with splendour, but beyond its stone halls the small folk suffered, and their misery lingered in the air like smog. Even in the height of summer, the city smelled of decay.

You shivered again from the cold. The North was harsh, yes—but there was purity in that harshness, a raw honesty that stripped everything down to what it truly was.

“Gods, it stinks,” Joffrey muttered beside you as the royal party began to dismount, his nose wrinkling as though the very air offended him.

You fought the urge to roll your eyes. The journey north had nearly rid you of patience for his endless vanity, but you found that ignoring him was the best way to deal with him.

Instead, your gaze drifted to the family lined before the steps of the keep—the Starks of Winterfell. They stood proud and poised, and in perfect unity they bowed towards your father not letting you get a proper look at their faces.

Your father went forward first. For a moment, an uneasy hush fell over the courtyard, as they watched what the King would say. You watched your father approach ordering Lord Stark to stand, but soon after it was all laughter and heavy slaps on the back as he embraced Lord Stark. Your mother followed, cold as a blade at Robert’s side. 

One by one, the rest of the Starks straightened, rising from their bows as your gaze swept over them. There were three younger children—two boys and a girl with untamed, curious eyes that seemed to hold more mischief than fear. The smallest of the boys stood by his mother, his expression bright with childlike wonder, while the other, taller but still retaining his boyish excitement stood by his sister.

Beside them stood an older girl, her light auburn hair gleaming softly. She was beautiful, the kind of beauty that was more seen in the south. Her hands were clasped neatly before her, and her smile, though polite, carried a faint nervousness as her gaze flickered toward your brother. You didn’t miss the faint blush that coloured her cheeks.

But it was the eldest son who drew your eyes and held them.

Robb Stark.

Named after your father’s namesake.

He stood beside Lord Stark with a quiet confidence that needed no boasting to be felt. His hair was dark auburn, catching faint hints of red beneath the pale northern sun, and his stance was strong—broad-shouldered, proud.

He was handsome, though not in the soft, polished way of the southern courtiers you’d grown accustomed to seeing. He was well groomed, yes, but the rugged strength beneath that composure could not be hidden. His build spoke of long hours in the yard rather than idle ones in a hall, his bearing of discipline rather than indulgence.

His eyes caught you most of all—grey as a storm over the sea, sharp and intelligent. There was a steadiness to them, a kind of calm that unnerved you, because it was clear they missed nothing.

And they certainly didn’t miss the smirk your brother sent his sister’s way. Robb’s expression didn’t so much as flicker in response, though the faint tightening of his jaw told you he had noticed, the way his sister blushed in response.

Before you could look away, those grey eyes found yours—and for a heartbeat, the world seemed to still. 

You had never been one of those girls who giggled over handsome lords or whispered about courtly love behind lace fans. You had seen enough of men like that—vain, shallow creatures who mistook charm for worth. But something about Robb Stark was different. 

Heat crept up your neck before you could stop it, your cheeks warming despite the chill in the air. You fought the sudden, ridiculous urge to look away bashfully, to hide the small, traitorous smile tugging at your lips.

It was absurd, really—you didn’t even know him. 

For a long, unbroken moment, you didn’t move. It was as though the cold had rooted you in place, your pulse thudding softly in your ears. Then, without warning, Joffrey bumped into you from behind with a muttered curse, snapping the spell cleanly.

You blinked, startled, stepping aside as your brother straightened his cloak with a scoff, clearly annoyed at you. But when you looked back, Robb was already glancing away, his expression unreadable.

The feast that night was as loud and unruly as any your father had ever hosted—though the North’s version of merriment came with more ale and less flattery. The great hall of Winterfell was alive with sound: the crackle of hearth fires, the thunder of mugs striking tables, the low rumble of laughter spilling between bites of roasted meat. The air was thick with the scent of smoke and spice and the faint chill that crept in from the open doors each time a servant hurried through.

You sat near the head of the table, your place beside your mother. You didn’t have to look at her to know her jaw was tight, her patience thinning with each booming laugh from your father as he entertained the woman on his lap.

Robert was in high spirits, which was to say, he was halfway to drunk before the first course had finished. His laughter echoed down the hall, drowning out conversation, spilling more wine than he drank as he talked with Ned.

You kept your gaze low, pretending not to notice the way your mother’s fingers curled around her goblet, white-knuckled.

It wasn’t until your father slammed his mug down on the table that the laughter faltered. The sound reverberated through the hall like a hammer on iron, silencing even the musicians.

“Come, Ned!” he bellowed, a drunken grin on his face, his words slurred with good cheer. “You’ve given me your friendship, your sword, your counsel—but not your blood.”

A murmur rippled through the hall. Lord Stark blinked, confusion flickering across his usually steady face. “Your Grace?”

Robert gestured grandly down the length of the table, his cup sloshing in one hand as he waved toward you. “Your boy, Robb—and my eldest daughter!” he declared, his voice booming with the certainty of a man who had never considered refusal. “A match that will bind the North and the West! A son of Winterfell, a daughter of the Crown—what say you, Ned?”

A ripple of uneasy laughter passed through the hall. Some courtiers echoed it too quickly, hoping to placate the King, while others bowed their heads, unwilling to draw notice beneath Robert Baratheon’s good humour.

You froze, your hand tightening around the stem of your goblet as your father’s words sank in. Heat crept up your neck, though the hall suddenly felt very cold. You fought to keep your expression composed, the careful mask of royal composure your mother had drilled into you since childhood. But it was impossible not to feel the weight of every gaze turning toward you and Robb.

Across the table, Robb Stark looked up sharply. His storm-grey eyes found yours through the candlelight, steady but startled. There was no arrogance in his stare, no mockery—only quiet disbelief that mirrored your own.

Even your mother stilled beside you. Cersei’s hand froze on her cup, her knuckles whitening as she turned her gaze toward your father, fury flickering behind the mask of a queen’s poise.

“She’s still young,” your mother said tightly, clearly also not having expected this.

You were a woman grown, long past your first blood. Old enough to bear children, old enough for marriage. In truth, it was a miracle you hadn’t been married off earlier.

Robert waved her off with a booming laugh, already reaching for his cup again. “Old enough for betrothal!” he said, dismissive and delighted all at once. “Robb Stark and my eldest girl—the wolf and the lioness! Gods, they’ll make fine cubs, eh?”

Your pulse thundered in your ears as you stared at the table before you, unable to look at anyone. It was not the proposal itself that shook you—marriage had always been an eventuality, a matter of alliance rather than affection—but the suddenness of it, the way your life had been offered up like cow at an auction.

The hall erupted again — laughter, murmurs, wide eyes. Lord Stark looked caught entirely off guard, his calm composure faltering for perhaps the first time that evening. Your mother’s jaw, meanwhile, was set in stone, her fingers tight around her cup as if she meant to crush it.

Your father, oblivious—or perhaps uncaring—of the discomfort around him, only roared with laughter and turned to the young man in question. “What say you, boy?” Robert grinned at Robb, raising his cup. “A fine match, eh?”

Across the table, Robb Stark straightened, caught between the weight of his father’s silence and the King’s drunken insistence. For a heartbeat, his eyes flicked toward Lord Stark, as though seeking guidance. But Ned Stark’s face, though grave, gave nothing away.

Robb’s jaw set. Slowly, he inclined his head toward the King, his tone careful and measured. “Your Grace honours me,” he said evenly, the calm in his voice belying the tension in his shoulders. “But—”

He didn’t get the chance to finish.

“But nothing!” Robert boomed, slamming his cup down hard enough to spill wine across the table. “The girl’s comely, and from good stock. I’ll hear no objections!”

You wanted the floor to swallow you whole. You managed to lift your goblet, forcing a polite smile that didn’t reach your eyes, though your stomach twisted with humiliation. This wasn’t how you imagined meeting your future husband—announced like an offering at a feast, your worth reduced to bloodlines and the King’s drunken cheer.

When Robert finally turned his attention elsewhere, clapping Lord Stark on the back with enough force to rattle the tableware, you dared to look up again.

Robb was watching you. His gaze thoughtful rather than cold. 

You wondered what he saw—a spoiled lion cub, soft from silk and wine? You wouldn’t have blamed him for thinking it. The Northerners were born of hard work and harder winters; you were born of gold and servants.  And yet, as his gaze lingered for a moment longer before turning away, you couldn’t help but hope that perhaps he saw something else too—something more than what your name and colours proclaimed.

As the feast wore on, the laughter grew louder as everyone grew drunker. You tried to endure it—to play your part, to smile when spoken to—but each passing moment made it harder to breathe.

Finally, when no one was looking, you rose from your seat and slipped away.

No one noticed. Your father was deep in his cups, his booming laughter echoing over the music, drowning out any thought of propriety. Your mother had vanished not long before—where, you neither knew nor cared. You only knew that you needed air.

The courtyard was quiet when you stepped into it, the torches guttering in the wind. Winterfell was different at night—vast and solemn. The cold crept beneath your cloak, but it was a welcome feeling compared to the suffocating heat of the feast hall. You drew the fabric tighter around your shoulders and breathed deeply, letting the icy air fill your lungs. For the first time all evening, you felt the weight in your chest begin to ease.

Your boots crunched softly against the packed snow as you wandered without aim, tracing the paths between torchlit walls. Somewhere overhead, a raven cawed, its cry carrying across the night before fading into the wind. You might have turned back then—returned to the warmth and noise, to the safety of your place beside your mother—had it not been for the sound that broke the stillness.

Steel striking wood.

You paused, listening. The sound came again—steady and rhythmic. Curiosity stirred, and you found yourself following it through the shadowed corridors and out into one of the training yards, half-shrouded in darkness.

There, beneath the pale light of the moon, was a young man. He moved with focus, each swing of his wooden practice sword fluid and measured, the sort of precision that spoke of years of learned discipline. He was focused, wholly absorbed in his task, his strikes landed with a steady rhythm against the straw dummy. He was breathing heavy, every breath came in soft, visible clouds, rising and vanishing into the cold air. Despite the chill, he wore only a simple tunic, the thin fabric clinging faintly to his skin with the sheen of exertion.

The soft sound of your steps must have given you away. He turned sharply, the sword rising instinctively in his hand, and you startled, taking an instinctive step back.

“Apologies,” you blurted, raising your hands slightly. “I didn’t mean to intrude. I was only taking a breath from the feast and seem to have lost my way.”

He blinked in surprise, eyes widening as recognition dawned. Even in the low light, you could see the resemblance to Robb Stark—the same sharp lines of the jaw, the same quiet intensity—but his hair was darker, brown like Lord Stark’s, and there was a softness to his gaze that Robb did not possess.

“No, it is I who should apologize, Your Grace,” he said quickly, lowering the sword. “I didn’t expect anyone to be out here.”

“There’s no need to apologize,” you replied, your tone gentle as you stepped closer. “I didn’t expect to find anyone either. I thought I was the only one hiding from the noise.” You hesitated, studying him for a moment. “In fact, I don’t recall seeing you there. I thought all of Lord Stark’s children were present.”

Something flickered across his face at that—an emotion you couldn’t quite place. His jaw tightened slightly, and his eyes dropped to the ground. “I… am not officially considered as such,” he said quietly. “Jon Snow is my name.”

Realization struck, sharp and unbidden. “You’re his bastard,” you said before you could stop yourself. The words slipped free like a breath, unthinking—and the moment they did, you saw the subtle hardening in his eyes, the stiffness in his shoulders.

“Apologies,” you said quickly, your voice softening. “I meant no offence.”

He exhaled through his nose, the tension in his shoulders easing only slightly. “No need, my lady. I’ve heard worse.”

Something in his tone—half resignation, half acceptance—made your chest tighten. 

“Still, it was rude of me to say it as such. It is not a child’s fault for the sins of their father,” you murmured, your voice soft against the quiet of the yard.

He blinked, as though the thought itself surprised him. The training sword in his hand lowered slightly, his fingers flexing around the hilt.

“Most highborn don’t bother to make excuses for bastards,” Jon said at last, the corner of his mouth twisting—not quite a smile, not quite a sneer. “They just pretend we don’t exist.”

You tilted your head, studying him in the dim light. “Pretending seems to be a southern pastime,” you said dryly. “One I’ve never been very good at.”

That earned you a flicker of amusement—brief, but genuine. The tension in his shoulders eased, his guardedness softening into something closer to curiosity.

“Why are you out here?” he asked after a moment, breaking the silence. “You should be inside—warm, with the rest of them.”

“Yes, I should,” you agreed bitterly, your breath ghosting in the cold. “I should be with everyone, watching my father drink himself into a stupor and insult my mother and his marriage every chance he gets.” You exhaled, a short, humourless laugh escaping you. “Or perhaps I should’ve stayed so I could be congratulated on my upcoming betrothal to your brother.”

Jon’s eyes widened in surprise. “Robb?”

You nodded once, your mouth twisting faintly. “Yes. The King saw it quite fit to announce the offer among everyone in attendance.”

Jon hesitated, his expression unreadable. “You don’t sound very happy about it,” he said finally.

You gave a quiet, mirthless laugh. “Would you be?”

When he didn’t reply, your shoulders lifted in a small shrug as you looked away. “I mean no insult to your brother for my bitterness, but when you’re offered like a broodmare, with no inclination or choice in the matter, I think anyone would find it hard to be happy.” The words left your lips without hesitation. “Sometimes I wish I was a bastard. At least then my father would have ignored me, the way he’s ignored the hundreds of other children he’s sired.”

You hesitated, your voice softening, though the bitterness beneath it remained. “You’re lucky Lord Stark is your father, Jon Snow. At least he seems to care for his children. My father only sees us as bargaining chips—useful when needed, forgotten when not.”

Jon’s grip tightened around the hilt of his training sword until the leather creaked. For a heartbeat, he seemed unsure of what to do with his hands. Then he set the blade aside, the tip sinking soundlessly into the snow.

“That’s… a harsh thing to wish for,” he said quietly. There was no judgment in his tone—only pity and sadness. 

You let out a dry, humourless laugh, your breath curling white in the cold. “Harsh, perhaps. But honest.”

Your gaze lifted toward the sky. The stars here seemed closer, brighter—so unlike the smog-veiled heavens of King’s Landing. “I used to think being royal meant freedom,” you murmured. “That power could buy choices. But I grew old enough to realize it only meant I was shackled to duty and expectation higher than most. And for a highborn lady, that will always mean being owned.”

Jon studied you for a moment, the way your voice softened around the edges of those words, as though you’d long since grown tired of speaking them aloud.

“I’ve often thought about what it might mean to be born properly a Stark,” he admitted quietly. “What it would be like to be seen. Properly. To belong somewhere.” His lips curved into a faint, self-mocking smile. “You want to be invisible, and I’d give anything not to be.”

For a long moment, neither of you spoke. The cold bit at your cheeks, but neither of you seemed to mind it. The silence was strangely comfortable—a bubble of calm in a world that demanded too much of both of you.

At last, you broke it. “It’s strange, isn’t it?” you said softly. “How both of us want what the other has. You’d give anything to be acknowledged, and I’d give anything to be forgotten.”

Jon’s lips curved faintly, but there was little amusement in it. “Seems the gods have a sense of humour,” he murmured.

“Or cruelty,” you countered, your gaze turning skyward again. “They give us everything we never asked for and keep what we want just out of reach.”

Jon followed your gaze, his expression thoughtful. “Perhaps they think it makes us stronger."

You huffed a quiet laugh, the sound soft in the cold air. “Then the gods have made philosophers of us both.”

Your laughter seemed to ease something in him. The stiffness in his shoulders melted away, and for the first time, the heaviness in his eyes lifted. When he looked at you again, there was no trace of wariness, only quiet understanding.

“You don’t talk like the other highborn ladies I’ve met,” he said finally.

You smiled faintly. “That’s because most of them are taught to be silent. They’re there to be admired, not heard.”

He tilted his head, considering you. “And you?”

“Oh, they tried to teach me the same,” you said, a touch of dry humour in your voice. “But I’m a shit listener.”

Jon blinked, startled at the sound of you cursing—and then, to your surprise, he barked out a laugh. A real laugh. You found yourself laughing along with him. 

When his laughter finally faded, he studied you again—longer this time, as though seeing something he hadn’t before. “You know,” he said quietly, “I think Robb might like you.”

Your smile faltered at that, the words cutting through the brief ease between you. The reminder of your betrothal fell heavy in the still air.

Jon seemed to realize it, because his tone softened. “Robb will be good to you,” he said gently. “He won’t see you as a thing to be bartered.”

You looked away, the flickering torchlight catching in your eyes. “Maybe not,” you murmured. “But that doesn’t change what I am. I’m a commodity—something to be given to strengthen the ties between the crown and the North.”

The words hung in the cold air like mist. You exhaled slowly, something between a sigh and a laugh escaping you. “You know,” you said, voice quieter now, “I don’t even know if I’ll be good for him. He looks to be a steady man, one born of duty and hard work. I am a daughter of duty, too, but of a different kind. We both know my southern softness would have no place among the strength you Northerners carry.”

Jon’s brows knit slightly as he studied you. For a moment, he seemed to weigh your words, the silence stretching between you before he finally spoke. “You sell yourself short, my lady. The North doesn’t measure strength by calloused hands or sword arms. We measure it by what a person endures.”

You blinked, surprised by the quiet conviction in his tone. The night air curled white from his breath, and for the first time you noticed how young he really was—a couple years younger than you, but already worn by truths older than his years.

“From what I can see,” he said, his gaze steady on yours, “you’d survive Winterfell just fine.”

The sincerity in his tone caught you off guard. For a moment, you couldn’t quite find your voice. You had expected pity, perhaps—politeness, or some attempt to comfort a princess who had never known real hardship. But there was none of that in his eyes. Only truth. Quiet, unwavering truth.

Something in your chest tightened, a strange ache blooming where defensiveness had lived for so long. You found yourself smiling faintly, though it didn’t quite reach your eyes. “You say that now,” you murmured. “You haven’t seen me try to walk on ice.”

Jon’s lips twitched, the ghost of amusement playing there. “The North has a way of humbling everyone. You’d learn.”

That made you laugh—soft and breathy in the chill, the sound a wisp of warmth in the frozen air. “Still,” you said after a moment, “your brother deserves a wife who belongs here. One who doesn’t flinch when the wind bites or stumble over snow. I’m afraid I’ll be more trouble than treasure.”

Jon studied you, the faintest edge of warmth in his eyes. “You might be surprised what the North considers treasure.”

When you finally spoke again, your voice was quieter, more certain. “You’re far too kind, Jon Snow.”

He gave a faint shrug, the corner of his mouth curving just slightly. “Only honest.”

You smiled then—truly smiled—and this time it reached your eyes. The tension you hadn’t realized you’d been carrying began to ease. “Then perhaps that’s why the gods sent me outside tonight,” you murmured. “To find a bit of honesty.”

Jon opened his mouth to reply, but before he could, a familiar voice broke through the night.

“Jon.”

Both of you turned. Robb stood a few paces away, his cloak clasped at the throat, the faint firelight spilling from the hall behind him. It caught the edge of his hair, gilding it copper in the dark, and cast a soft glow over the snow-dusted stones at his feet. His gaze shifted between you and Jon, pausing on you for a heartbeat longer than propriety allowed.

“Princess,” he said at last, his voice steady but gentler than before. “The King will start a hunt if he finds his daughter missing.”

You straightened, the quiet spell of the courtyard breaking as reality swept back in. “I didn’t mean to worry anyone,” you said softly. “I only needed air.”

Turning to Jon, you dipped your head politely. “It was nice to meet you, Jon.”

He inclined his head in return, that faint half-smile still ghosting his lips. “You as well, Princess.”

With a final, lingering smile, you turned and began the slow walk back toward the hall. “My lord,” you murmured in passing, offering Robb a polite nod as you brushed past him.

Robb hesitated, his mouth parting as if to speak, perhaps to offer his arm or escort you inside. But you were already moving, your crimson cloak trailing behind you like a flicker of fire in the cold.

He watched you go until you disappeared around the corner, the sound of your footsteps fading into the night. Only then did he turn his gaze back to his half brother.

Robb stepped closer, folding his arms across his chest, the faintest trace of a smirk tugging at his mouth. “You seem to have made quite the impression.”

Jon snorted, bending to retrieve his training sword from where it rested in the snow. “She made one on me first.”

Robb’s brow arched, his tone teasing but edged with curiosity. “Oh? And what’s your judgment then? She seems as prideful as the rest of the lions. You should’ve seen her when the king announced the offer of her hand—it was as if she’d just tasted bad wine.”

Jon shook his head, straightening. “She’s… not like that,” he said quietly, his voice carrying an unexpected defensiveness. “She’s kind, Robb.”

Robb’s smirk faltered in surprise.

Jon went on, his tone steady but earnest. “She knew nothing of the king’s plans. She was caught unawares—same as you. And still, she spoke kindly of you.” He hesitated, then added, “You know what she said? That you deserve better than her. That you should have a northern wife.”

Robb blinked, caught off guard. “She said that?” He frowned slightly, his tone softening as he considered it. “That’s… not what I expected,” he admitted after a moment, the sharp edge of his usual composure dulling. “Most highborn would rather choke than admit weakness.”

Jon huffed a quiet laugh, the sound low and almost bitter. “She hides it well enough,” he said. “But it’s there. She’s not proud, Robb—she’s trapped. There’s a difference.”

Robb’s frown deepened, though not from doubt. The words settled somewhere deep, unwelcome in how true they felt. “And she told you all this?” he asked finally.

“Not all,” Jon replied, leaning lightly on the training sword. His voice was steady, deliberate. “But enough to see she’s not like the others in her family. She’s weary of being used as a piece in her father’s game, and yet—she still spoke well of you. I think she would be a good match for you. Maybe better than you think.”

Robb’s head turned sharply at that, his brows lifting in disbelief. “Good for me?” he echoed, half a scoff, half a laugh that didn’t quite land. “Jon, she’s the King’s daughter. A lion in silk. I doubt she’s ever known a day’s true labour in her life. The North would swallow her whole.”

Jon’s lips twitched, the faintest hint of a smile, but his eyes stayed steady. “Maybe,” he allowed. “Or maybe she’d learn to thrive in it.”

Robb exhaled through his nose, running a gloved hand through his hair. The movement was restless, betraying more unease than he intended. “You’ve spoken to her once, Jon.”

“Aye,” Jon agreed, his tone even. “Once. And in that one talk, she showed more heart than half the court’s done in a lifetime. She looked at me—me, a bastard—and saw a person. You think someone with kindness like that wouldn’t make a good lady for Winterfell?”

Robb looked away, jaw tightening as he tried to process that. “I don’t even know what to say to her,” Robb admitted finally, his voice softer, almost reluctant.

Jon smirked faintly, leaning back on his sword. “Try starting with something that isn’t about her family’s reputation.”

That earned a quiet, reluctant laugh from Robb—low, almost self-deprecating. “Seven hells, you make it sound simple.”

“It is,” Jon said, his tone calm, almost knowing. “You’re just too proud to see it. Stop judging her by her name, and you might realize it too.”

Robb didn’t answer, but his silence said enough. His gaze lingered on the snow where your footprints still marked the ground, the faint imprints already fading beneath the falling flakes. 

By the next morning, Winterfell was alive with whispers.

Every corridor hummed with speculation, every corner seemed to hold a conversation half-hushed when you entered. Apparently, in you and Robb’s absence, another offer had been made—one that set the Great Hall aflame with rumour. A match between Sansa Stark and Prince Joffrey.

Now, the question that hung over every mouth and meal was simple: who would it be?

Would the King and Lord Stark bind their houses through you and Robb—the eldest daughter and the eldest son—or through their younger, more fitting pair?

No one knew which way the coin would fall.

As you made your way to the morning meal, the murmur of voices followed you like a shadow.

“A Lannister queen in the North?” one servant whispered, their words sharp in the cold air. “The wolves won’t stomach it.”

“Better the Sansa with the prince,” another replied. “Leave the lioness where she belongs.”

You kept your chin high, every inch the King’s daughter despite the sting of their words. The hem of your crimson cloak trailed behind you, its rich colour out of place among the muted greys and browns of Winterfell.

You had grown used to whispers in King’s Landing—court gossip was as common as breath but for some reason hearing the negative gossip about you here couldn’t help but sting. Still, you did what you always did, you kept your chin high and your steps even, even as the truth settled deep inside you. You were unwanted amongst the northerners.

At breakfast, your mother barely looked at you. The flicker of candlelight caught the hard gleam in her eyes. Her hands were perfectly still on the table, though you could see the faint strain in her knuckles—the only sign of the storm simmering beneath the surface.

It was clear both choices displeased her. Yet you couldn’t tell which she detested more: the idea of her daughter bound to the North, far from her control, or her son tied to a wolf’s daughter and forced to share his throne with the Starks.

Across the table, Jaime lounged with his usual easy poise, though his golden eyes flicked toward you, taking in the deep circles around your eyes. “You look as though you haven’t slept,” he murmured.

You forced a small smile, fingers curling around your cup. “Perhaps. I still haven’t gotten used to the northern chill,” You lied.

“Well,” Jaime drawled, tilting his head, “you’ll have to get used to it soon—if you are to become the new Lady Stark.”

His tone was light, teasing, but you could only muster a forced smile finding no amusement in the situation.

“Don’t tease her, Jaime,” came Tyrion’s voice from further down the table. He was already swirling wine in his cup, despite the early hour, his tone dry as ever. “I imagine it’s difficult to rest when your hand may be sold without so much as a whisper of choice in the matter.”

He lifted his eyes to you then, and for a fleeting moment, his usual mockery softened into something resembling sympathy. “My condolences, niece. The North is cold, but at least the Starks have honour—a rare currency in this family.”

Cersei’s head turned sharply, her voice cutting through the air like a blade. “Enough, Tyrion.”

Tyrion only raised his cup in mock salute, a faint smile curling his mouth. “Merely admiring our king’s fine sense of timing. Nothing warms the heart like watching a daughter offered off between wine and roast boar.”

Your mother’s glare could have frozen the sea, but Tyrion only smiled into his drink.

Marcella, ever the softest of your siblings, shot him a reproachful look. “Sansa seems sweet,” she spoke up softly, almost to herself. “I think she’d make a good queen.”

Joffrey scoffed, rolling his eyes. “She’s a northern savage,” he declared. “If it were up to me, I’d choose a proper southern lady—someone who knows how to behave at court. Still,” he added, smirking, “she is beautiful. A fine thing for our future heirs.”

A quiet scoff escaped you before you could stop it—sharp, disdainful. It cut through the your brother’s laughter like a blade.

Joffrey’s head snapped toward you, his expression hardening, but before he could speak, your mother’s voice filled the silence.

Cersei’s gaze flicked between her children, then landed on you, her voice deceptively soft. “It doesn’t matter what any of you think. The King will make his decision, and we will abide by it.”

Her eyes lingered on you just long enough for the meaning to sink in: you will abide by it.

You inclined your head slightly, every inch the dutiful daughter she demanded you be. But as you lifted your cup, the faint tremor in your hand betrayed the truth.

At that moment, the heavy doors opened, and Robert entered the hall. His steps were uneven, his crown was once again askew, and his cheeks were flushed still bleary from the night of wine and laughter. The sight of him was enough to sour the air.

Cersei’s mouth tightened, the barest flicker of disgust ghosting across her face before she rose in one graceful, practiced motion. “I will take my meal elsewhere,” she said, her voice like ice.

Without another glance, she swept from the room, her gown trailing behind her like a crimson wound, the sound of her heels echoing sharply against the stone until it faded into silence.

You didn’t blame her for her fury—how could you? Your father had humiliated her before half the realm for years, and now he was doing the same with you. But you couldn’t share her anger either.

You’d seen enough of King’s Landing to know that power was never clean, and marriage least of all. Every alliance was a transaction to gain more power. And yet… something about the North unsettled that certainty. There was no pretension here, no gleaming façade to hide behind. The people spoke plainly, worked until their hands were raw, lived and died by loyalty.

It was harsh—but it was honest.

And though you hated the lack of choice forced upon you, though you despised being bartered like coin, there was a small, treacherous part of you that wished your father would choose the match with Robb Stark.

When you slipped away later, wandering through the Godswood, the cold seemed to clear your thoughts. The stillness of the place—the way the wind whispered through the Weirwood branches, the sound of water lapping against ice—was almost kind.

You didn’t realize you weren’t alone until you heard the sharp snap of a branch. Your breath caught, a gasp escaping you as you turned, cloak swirling around your legs.

“Lady Y/N,” Robb greeted, stepping into view, his breath visible in the cold air. A small grey pup padded beside him, tail wagging hesitantly, its eyes bright with curiosity.

“Forgive me,” Robb said, pausing a few paces away. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

You exhaled slowly, the rush of surprise fading. “You didn’t,” you lied softly, though your heart was still racing.

You gave him a small polite smile, though it didn’t quite reach your eyes. The pup gave a soft whine and trotted toward you and you knelt to meet the little creature. “And who might this be?”

“Greywind,” Robb replied, a trace of pride threading through his voice. “A Direwolf pup—from the litter my siblings and I saved.”

You reached out your hand, letting the pup sniff your fingers before you gently scratched behind his ear. “Greywind,” you repeated fondly, your tone softening. “A noble name for such a handsome little one.”

The pup leaned into your touch, tail swishing through the snow, his small whines muffled by your gloved fingers. Robb watched in silence, something unreadable flickering in his eyes.

He hadn’t expected you to kneel in the snow without hesitation—your silks brushing against frost as though you didn’t care, your expression alight with genuine fondness. Greywind sniffed your hand again, ears perked, tail twitching in excitement before pressing his small head into your palm.

A quiet laugh escaped you then—soft, airy, real. The sound startled Robb more than he cared to admit.

“He’s beautiful,” you murmured, stroking the pup’s fur as he licked at your fingers. “So gentle. I thought Direwolves were meant to be fearsome.”

“They will be,” Robb said, and the corner of his mouth lifted into a faint smile. “He’s only a few moons old. But he’ll grow fast. Father says the bond between a Stark and his wolf runs deep—that they’re born to protect us.”

You looked up at him from where you knelt, your breath clouding in the cold air. The light caught in your eyes then, and something about the way you gazed at him—curious, open, wholly unafraid—made his words falter for just a moment. “That sounds like a rare gift,” you said softly. “The gods don’t give such bonds freely.”

The words lingered between you, carried by the quiet hush of the Godswood. Robb found himself wanting to say something—anything—to keep you speaking, to keep that faint warmth in your voice filling the cold space between you.

“My father says they were born for us,” he said at last, nodding toward Greywind. “To remind the Starks of who we are.”

“And who is that?” you asked, tilting your head slightly, genuine curiosity in your tone.

Robb hesitated, his breath misting in the air. “Honourable,” he said finally. “Loyal. Perhaps too much so.”

You smiled faintly, the expression small but sincere. “Those sound like virtues, my lord.”

“They can be the kind that get men killed,” he replied simply.

Your expression softened, your gaze thoughtful as it lingered on him.  “Then I suppose they’re also the kind that make sure your names are passed down through the history books,” you murmured.

He blinked, caught off guard by the quiet conviction in your voice. For a long moment, neither of you spoke. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable—it was something gentler, fragile and new. Robb was still watching you when you finally rose, brushing the frost from your skirts. Greywind gave a soft whine in protest as your hand left his fur, his small tail sweeping the snow.

“Well, Greywind,” you said, your tone light and warm as your gaze flicked between wolf and man. “It was lovely to meet you both.”

You turned to go, the snow crunching softly beneath your boots. Robb’s eyes followed the sweep of your cloak, deep crimson against the white—like fire cutting through frost. Something in him stirred before he could stop it.

“You don’t need to leave,” he said, his voice careful as if not to startle you away. “I didn’t mean to intrude. I often come to the Godswood to think.” He paused, his mouth twitching faintly. “I didn’t expect that you—or your family—might visit this place.”

You gave a soft huff of laughter, your breath curling white in the cold air. “I doubt my mother would step foot in this place unless the gods themselves demanded it.”

Robb’s lips twitched, amusement flickering there for a moment. “Aye,” he said. “I imagine the Old Gods wouldn’t care much for southern prayers.”

You glanced over your shoulder, the faintest trace of a smile tugging at your lips. “Or southern pride,” you added, voice light but tinged with truth.

Robb’s mouth curved faintly, but his eyes didn’t waver from you. “There’s much being said about us,” he finally brought up after a pause. “More than either of us asked for.”

“I noticed,” you murmured, your gaze lowering to the snow-dusted ground. “Apparently I’m the North’s next great insult—or its salvation, depending on who’s gossiping.”

He hesitated, as though weighing whether to press further. “And what do you think?” he asked finally, his voice quieter now.

You lifted your head, meeting his eyes. “It’s no matter what I think,” you said evenly. “If my father and yours decide on our betrothal, then I will do my duty.”

He studied you for a moment, his expression unreadable, before nodding once—slowly, as if he understood more than he cared to admit. “My father would say duty is the only thing that keeps us honourable.”

You straightened. “And my mother would say it’s the only thing that keeps us useful,” you replied, your tone steady but tinged with quiet bitterness. “Either way, there’s little choice in what we would want.”

Robb tilted his head slightly, eyes searching yours. “And what is it you want, Princess?”

The question caught you off guard. Such a simple thing—and yet, no one had ever asked it before. Not your father, who spoke of alliances and bloodlines as though you were part of his crown’s ledger. Not your mother, who viewed choice as an illusion beneath the weight of duty. Never anyone who cared for you beyond what you represented.

Your breath misted in the cold as you turned your gaze toward the heart tree, its red leaves whispering softly in the wind. “I’m not sure I’d know how to answer that,” you admitted after a moment. “I’ve spent my life doing what’s expected of me. Perhaps what I want…”—you hesitated, voice softening—“…is a chance to know what freedom might be like. To make a choice for myself—not because it’s required, but because it’s mine.”

Robb was quiet for a long moment. Then, softly, he said, “You’d fit the North better than you think.”

You glanced back at him, one brow arching, uncertain if he was teasing. “Would I?”

“Aye,” he said, and there was no jest in it. “You value freedom, and you speak plainly. You’d find honesty here, even if it’s cold and rough-edged. And I think you’d hold your own against it.”

Something unguarded flickered in your eyes as you looked at him. You hadn’t expected kindness from him—not the sort that saw beyond your name. “You and your family are kinder than I expected, Lord Stark.”

A small smile touched his lips. “And you,” he said quietly, “are not what I expected at all, Princess.”

You looked back toward the pool of still water, its glassy surface reflecting the red of the Weirwood leaves. Your voice was soft when you finally spoke. “Do you think your father will agree to it?”

Robb was quiet for a long moment, the weight of your question settling in the still air between you. His gaze drifted toward the heart tree, its carved face solemn and knowing. “I think he’ll do what he believes is right for the realm,” he said at last. “As will the King. The rest of us will learn to live with their choices.”

You met his eyes again, and for a fleeting heartbeat, the rest of the world seemed to fall away—the crown, the politics, the heavy chains of your parents’ expectations. In that stillness, you could almost imagine another life. One where you weren’t a Baratheon princess bartered like gold, but a woman who chose her own path. A woman who could stay here, in this quiet northern stronghold, where the air was pure and the people were honest. 

You could almost see it—a future with Robb Stark. You’d be lucky, you thought, to be his wife. He wasn’t much older than you, and unlike the courtiers you’d grown up around, there was nothing false in him. He was kind, and honest, and strong in the quiet way that made others listen. If the betrothal fell through, you knew your next match would likely be some aging lord looking to get his hands on a young Highborn wife, grasping for status through your name.

“I should return before someone notices I’ve vanished,” you said at last, drawing your cloak around your shoulders. “If my mother realizes I’ve been out here, she’ll lecture me about the impropriety of frolicking out in the wild.”

Robb’s expression softened. “I won’t keep you, then.” He hesitated, his voice lowering. “But you’re welcome here, whenever you need quiet. The Godswood belongs to no one.”

You paused at that, turning back to him. The smallest smile curved your lips, faint but genuine. “Thank you, Lord Stark.”

“Robb,” he corrected. “I’m not Lord Stark yet—and I think we’re past the point of formalities.”

You held his gaze for a moment, something unspoken passing between you, before nodding. “I’ll see you later, Robb.”

It was the first time you’d said his name without title. The sound of it on your sweet lips, felt like a spark in his heart, a warmth that lingered long after you turned and walked away.

Days passed, and with each one, Robb found it harder to ignore what Jon had said that night in the training yard.

You weren’t like the rest of your family. There was no sharp vanity in your tone, no hunger for control in your gaze. You carried yourself with quiet poise, yes—but it wasn’t born from arrogance. It was the kind taught through years of lesson. The kind a person learned when they’d been watched all their life, weighed and measured against what they could offer.

He saw it in the way you walked through Winterfell’s courtyards, shoulders straight but eyes watchful, politely enduring the stares and whispers that trailed after you. He saw it when you stopped to help and speak with the servants, asking—not out of idle curiosity, but genuine interest—about life in the North, about the work and the weather and the long winters to come. And when you bent to greet a stablehand’s hound, unbothered by the mud on its fur, Robb found himself watching longer than he should have.

There was kindness in you—a gentleness he hadn’t expected from a lioness raised among vipers. But there was something else, too. A restlessness. A spirit that longed to stretch its wings, to break free of gilded walls and southern expectations you’d grown up with. You looked at the North not with disdain, but with wonder. This was a world you had been raised to look down upon, yet you seemed intent on understanding it.

The decision of your marriage still lingered in the air like the heavy promise of a storm. The King and his father had yet to speak it aloud, though everyone knew it was coming. 

Sansa, for her part, had taken to her chambers most evenings, whispering fervently to her mother about her destiny to be beside Prince Joffrey. Robb had passed their door more than once, catching the sound of her pleading voice—soft, desperate—begging Catelyn to convince their father to agree to the match.

Robb tried not to listen. Tried harder not to imagine the kind of life his sister would have beneath that boy’s thumb. He’d seen Joffrey’s nature, clearer than most. Beneath the polished manners and perfect smile lay something rotten. He was spoiled, vain, cruel in ways that made Robb’s skin crawl. He treated the servants as though they were less than human, mocking them when they stumbled, taking pleasure in their punishments when he thought no one else was watching.

The thought of Sansa bound to him—chained to that kind of arrogance and cruelty—made Robb’s stomach twist. No. He would rather sacrifice his own happiness, his own future, than see her endure that fate.

And though he would never say it aloud, the more he thought of it, the clearer it became: if someone had to be bound to the lions, he would rather it be him than his sister.

The truth was… the more time he spent near you, the less that sacrifice felt like one.

He had begun to seek your company without meaning to. Somehow, you always seemed to find your way to the Godswood or the courtyard, and more often than not, Greywind was padding loyally at your side. You had taken to feeding the wolf treats when you thought no one was watching—though Robb had noticed, more than once.

He pretended not to notice the first few times, content just to watch from a distance. You would look around before crouching down in the snow, your crimson silks brushed pale white at the hems, your voice gentle and cooing as you murmured to the growing pup as if he were a child. Greywind, though already larger than most hounds, behaved with startling gentleness around you—ears low, tail wagging, his enormous head nudging against your arm in quiet affection.

You smuggled bits of bread or dried meat from the kitchens, unbothered by the dirt or the snow that clung to your gloves. Each time, Greywind would take the food delicately from your palm, his golden eyes softening before he devoured it, tail thumping against the frozen ground.

Robb decided to approach you finally and the way you startled at being seen nearly made him laugh.

“Does my lord intend to scold me?” you’d asked, voice carefully measured, though your cheeks were pink with embarrassment.

He’d shaken his head, a small smile curving his lips. “Hardly. Greywind seems to like you more than he does most of my kin. I’d be a fool to interfere.”

You’d relaxed then, your shoulders easing as you looked down at the wolf nuzzling your hand, his great head pressing insistently into your palm.

Robb leaned back against the cold stone of the courtyard wall, arms loosely crossed, watching you toss a small scrap of meat into the air for Greywind to catch. The wolf snapped it up easily, rumbling in satisfaction. Robb wasn’t entirely sure when it had begun—these moments, these quiet meetings—but he realized he had come to anticipate them.

He told himself it was curiosity. That he only wished to understand the woman who might one day be his wife. But the truth was simpler—and far more dangerous.

You had begun to occupy the corners of his mind in ways he couldn’t quite name.

You laughed softly as Greywind pawed at your cloak, demanding another treat, and Robb found himself smiling despite the strange tightness that bloomed in his chest. You weren’t the woman he’d imagined when the King had first spoken your name that night at the feast. There was no hauteur in you, no cold detachment born of noble breeding. You were earnest, curious—so very alive.

He’d heard the whispers, of course. That you were a lioness raised in gold, your mother’s beauty and your father’s temper wound into one. But he had seen no cruelty in you, no vanity. Only a quiet grace—and a loneliness that, to his surprise, mirrored his own.

“You know,” you began, brushing snow from your gloves, a hint of playfulness threading through your voice, “you seem to be making a habit of finding me in the cold.”

“Or perhaps,” Robb countered easily, “you’re making a habit of keeping company with my wolf.”

You smiled faintly, eyes glinting. “Then I suppose we’re both guilty.”

Greywind trotted between you then, tail wagging, as though satisfied with the truce. Robb hesitated for a heartbeat, then gestured toward the path that lead to the Godswood. “Walk with me?” he asked, a trace of warmth softening his tone. “Before he decides to eat your hand next.”

You laughed—soft and breathy—before straightening and accepting his arm. Your personal guard fell into step a few paces behind, close enough to preserve propriety but far enough to grant you both the illusion of privacy.

“Does it ever stop snowing here?” you asked after a moment, genuine curiosity lacing your tone.

He grinned, the corners of his mouth lifting boyishly. “Not long enough for us to forget what it feels like.”

You smiled in return—small, unguarded—and for a fleeting heartbeat, it made Robb forget himself.

You brushed a light dusting of snow from your sleeve, still smiling faintly. “I enjoy it here,” you admitted. “The cold is… refreshing.”

“That’s one way to put it,” Robb said, amusement colouring his voice. “Most southerners start complaining before they’ve been here a day.”

“I’ve done enough complaining for a lifetime,” you replied softly. “It doesn’t change much.”

Robb turned his head slightly, studying you. Though your voice remained light, there was something in your eyes—a quiet, familiar sorrow you rarely let show. “You don’t seem the sort who sits idle,” he said carefully. “If you wanted something changed, I think you’d find a way.”

You glanced at him then, the corner of your mouth curving in faint amusement. “You think too highly of me, my lord. My father can move armies with a word. I, however, can’t even choose my own husband.”

The words hung between you, sharper than you meant them to be. Robb’s smile faltered slightly. “If our fathers do decide it,” he said after a pause, his voice low and measured, “I’d hope you’d never feel caged here.”

You tilted your head toward him, curiosity softening your features. “You’d let me speak freely? Do as I wish? Hunt, ride, even argue?”

He grinned, the boyish spark returning to his eyes. “Only if you promise not to best me at any of those.”

That earned him another laugh—brighter this time—and the sound carried through the Godswood, breaking the quiet like sunlight through clouds. Even Greywind perked up, trotting ahead before circling back to brush against your skirts, his tail sweeping the snow.

“You’ve a charming wolf,” you teased, reaching down to scratch his head as he leaned eagerly into your touch. “I think he’s taken a liking to me.”

Robb’s smile deepened before he could stop himself. “I’m beginning to think,” he said quietly, “he has a good choice.”

You looked up at him, surprised, and for a moment neither of you spoke. The words hung between you, fragile and too honest.

Robb cleared his throat and turned away toward the heart tree, his cheeks colouring deeper beneath the cold. “He doesn’t warm to strangers easily, I mean.”

“Of course,” you said softly, though the faint curve of your mouth betrayed your amusement. “I’ll take it as a compliment nonetheless.”

The silence that followed wasn’t awkward. You walked side by side beneath the red canopy of the Godswood, your cloaks brushing with each step, the snow falling in soft, lazy flakes around you.

Finally, you broke the quiet. “Do you ever grow tired of this place?” you asked. “Of duty? Of… being what’s expected?”

He thought for a long while before he answered, his voice low. “Sometimes,” he admitted. “But the North doesn’t change for us. It’s not meant to be easy.”

You smiled faintly at that, your gaze sweeping over the snow-dusted branches before landing on the faces carved in the tree. “I think that’s what I like most about this place. In King’s Landing, everything is handed to us with a single word. Here, everyone needs to help to earn their keep, otherwise they answer to the unforgiving winter.”

Robb nodded, thoughtful. “That’s true enough. Up here, a man’s worth is in his work, not his name.”

“And in the South,” you murmured, “it’s the opposite. A man’s name can make him a saint or a monster before he ever opens his mouth.”

Robb’s gaze lingered on you, studying the way your expression shifted as you spoke — not bitter, only weary. “You don’t sound proud of the place you come from.”

You hesitated. “Pride’s a dangerous thing in the capital,” you said at last. “It makes fools of even the clever ones.”

Robb’s steps slowed, his eyes tracing the curve of the heart tree’s pale trunk. “And yet,” he said, voice quieter now, “you don’t strike me as a fool.”

You gave a small laugh. “Then perhaps I’ve fooled you into believing that.” you said lightly.

Robb’s mouth curved faintly. “Perhaps,” he allowed, “but I don’t think so. You see too clearly for it. You… question things that most highborn don’t.”

You turned to look at him then—truly look—and found that he was already watching you. The torchlight from the path flickered across his face, catching in his eyes and making them seem even lighter, like a storm breaking at sea.

Something in your chest tightened. You’d spent your life surrounded by men who wanted to possess or impress you, to see only what they wished to believe. But this—this was different. Robb Stark looked at you as though he were trying to understand you.

“Most people see what they want to see,” you murmured, meeting his gaze. “You, however, seem to see past that.”

Robb swallowed, the movement subtle, his eyes steady on yours. “Perhaps, I just take the time to look,” he said quietly.

The air between you shifted, the silence thickening like the hush before snowfall. There was something disarming in the way he said it—earnest and unguarded. It slipped past your defences before you could stop it.

“You shouldn’t,” you murmured, though the words lacked conviction. “It’s dangerous to look too closely at people. You might not like what you find.”

A faint smile tugged at his mouth. “I think I’d rather see the truth than live blind to it.”

You looked away then, your gaze drifting to the Weirwood’s bleeding face. The red sap glistened like tears frozen mid-fall. “Truth is rarely kind,” you said softly.

“No,” he replied, his voice low and even. “But neither is the North. We endure both just the same.”

For a time, neither of you spoke. Your steps slowed until you stood before the great heart tree, its red leaves whispering faintly in the cold wind. The face carved into its bark watched over you. You stared at it in silence. It was strange, haunting, but somehow… comforting.

“The Old Gods are different from the Seven,” you murmured, studying the weathered lines of the carving. “They don’t promise mercy.”

Robb nodded once. “No,” he agreed quietly. “But they don’t lie either.”

You turned to him, catching the flicker of reverence in his expression as he looked up at the tree. In that moment, he seemed bound to this place in a way you could only envy. “You have faith in them,” you said, your voice softer now.

“I have faith in what endures,” he replied. “The Old Gods don’t demand our prayers. They aren’t cruel or kind. They just watch. Judge us by what we do. We live and die beneath their eyes.”

You considered that, your breath clouding in the air. “Perhaps that’s why your people are so honest,” you said quietly. “You live with eyes always watching.”

He looked at you then, and for the briefest moment, his gaze felt like one of those eyes— seeing far more than you wanted to reveal. You felt warmth bloom under your skin despite the chill.

You dropped your gaze first, brushing a stray snowflake from your glove. “Perhaps I should start praying to them,” you murmured. “The gods in the south have never listened.”

Robb’s voice softened, the ghost of a smile playing at his lips. “If you do, be careful what you ask for. The Old Gods don’t always give what we want—but they give what we need.”

For a long heartbeat, the only sound was the wind threading through the red leaves above you. Then, in a voice barely louder than the whisper of snow, you asked, “If the gods do will it—this betrothal—would you… resent it?”

Robb was quiet, his breath misting in the cold air as he turned toward you. When he finally spoke, his words were measured, honest. “No,” he said, almost gently. “I don’t think I would.” He took a slow step forward, the snow crunching beneath his boots. “Would you?”

You swallowed, your heart beating far too fast. “I think…” Your voice faltered, softer now, meant only for him. “Perhaps our union wouldn’t be such a terrible thing, after all.”

You took a step closer—closer than propriety would ever allow—but your guard stood a few paces off, mercifully distracted. The world around, you and Robb seemed to vanish.

You looked up at him, meeting his eyes—grey and steady as winter skies. You weren’t sure who leaned in first, only that suddenly you could feel his breath on your lips, the warmth of it sharp against the chill. Your heart pounded, the space between you shrinking until there was almost nothing left.

And then—

Something struck the side of your head with a sharp thud.

You gasped, stumbling back as snow splattered across your cloak. Robb’s hand shot out instinctively, steadying you before you could fall. For a heartbeat, you were too stunned to speak.

Then a young girl’s voice rang out, “Got you, Robb!”

“My lady!” your guard exclaimed, rushing to your side. “Are you hurt?”

You stood frozen for a heartbeat, snow sliding down your cheek and into the collar of your cloak. The chill hit you, sharp enough to draw a startled laugh from your lips—a breathless, unguarded sound that startled even your guard. You lifted a gloved hand to wipe the melting snow away, still half laughing.

“I’m quite alright, ser,” you said, waving him back. “No need to defend me from such a fearsome assault.”

Robb, meanwhile, had already spun toward the voice, a mix of horror and exasperation crossing his features. His cheeks were red—whether from the cold or embarrassment, you couldn’t tell.

“Bloody hells, Arya!” he shouted. “You got the princess!”

From behind a snow-covered tree, a small head of tangled brown hair appeared, her wide eyes flicking between you and her brother as she tried—unsuccessfully—to hide her grin. “I was aiming for you!” Arya protested, brushing snow off her gloves.

Robb shot her a look caught somewhere between disbelief and scolding. “And missed by half a godsdamned courtyard!”

Arya only shrugged, utterly unrepentant. Then her attention turned toward you, and her grin faltered. “Are you—are you all right, princess? I didn’t mean—”

You interrupted her with a laugh, brushing melting flakes from your cloak. “It’s quite all right,” you said, still breathless with amusement. “I’ve survived far worse than snow, I promise you.”

Arya blinked, startled by your good humour. “Really?”

“Really,” you confirmed with a smile, crouching just enough to scoop up a small handful of snow. You shaped it deftly between your gloves, your tone turning playfully curious. “Though I am curious, what exactly is this game?”

Robb frowned, instantly suspicious. “Wait—“

But before he could finish, you let the snowball fly. It struck him squarely in the chest, bursting into a spray of white powder that clung to his cloak and furs.

You lowered your hands delicately, schooling your face into mock innocence. “Did I do it right?” you asked, your tone light, almost teasing.

Arya’s mouth dropped open—and then she burst into delighted laughter.

“Did you see that!” she crowed, spinning to where Jon was standing a few paces behind his sister, his arms crossed and a smirk tugging at his mouth. “She got him!” Arya grinned, looking back to Robb. “You should’ve seen your face!”

Robb wiped the snow from his chest, a mock glare darkening his features as he turned toward you. “You—” he sputtered, disbelief warring with amusement, “you threw that at me?”

You lifted your chin, maintaining your imitation of innocence. “Well,” you said easily, “it was meant for you originally, wasn’t it?”

Jon chuckled. “Seems fair to me, brother.”

“Fair?” Robb scoffed, though he was already crouching, his gloved hands gathering snow with a practiced ease that should have warned you. A mischievous grin—far too much like Arya’s—curved his lips. “I call that an act of war.”

You gasped, taking a hasty step back, your eyes widening. “You wouldn’t dare—”

But he did.

The snowball left his hand in a perfect arc and struck your shoulder with a soft, satisfying thwack. Cold flakes burst across your cloak, sliding down your arm as you let out a shocked laugh.

“You—!” you began, your voice caught between outrage and laughter, brushing snow from your shoulder as he stood there looking entirely too pleased with himself.

Arya whooped from somewhere behind him, already ducking for cover. “Get her, Robb!”

That was all the encouragement you needed. You bent swiftly, scooping up a handful of snow of your own, the grin breaking across your face nothing short of wicked. “You’ve declared war, my lord,” you said, shaping the snow between your palms. “Don’t think I’ll yield easily.”

Robb’s grin widened. “I’d expect nothing less, princess.”

In a matter of seconds, the solemn Godswood had transformed into a battleground—snowballs flying, laughter echoing through the air. Arya and Jon took sides without hesitation—Arya with Robb, Jon with you—each barking orders like rival commanders on the field.

Your poor guard stood frozen at the edge of the clearing torn between his duty and self-preservation. He looked utterly bewildered, his hand halfway to his sword as if expecting real danger. He ducked as another snowball hurtled his way—Arya’s, if you had to guess—and let out a startled yelp when it exploded across his chest.

You were laughing so hard you could hardly breathe, snow tangled in your hair, your cheeks flushed from the cold and the sheer absurdity of it all. The world felt lighter—freer—than it ever had before. And through the laughter, the flying snow, and the chaos, Robb’s eyes found yours again—bright, warm, and utterly alive.

For that fleeting moment, it didn’t matter who you were or what fate awaited you.

Greywind barked, bounding between you, snapping playfully at the flying snow as though torn between sides. The four of you spilled from the Godswood into the courtyard, boots crunching over the frost. The few onlookers who happened to pass froze where they stood, blinking in disbelief at the sight of the royal princess and the heirs of Winterfell engaged in a full snow-fight.

At one point, Arya came darting after you, laughter bubbling from her lips as she took aim. You turned to flee—just in time to duck. The snowball soared past you in a perfect arc—right toward the open archway of the courtyard steps, where Sansa and Joffrey had just stepped outside.

Sansa shrieked as the snow splattered across her auburn curls, while Joffrey froze mid-step, flakes clinging to his ornate collar. For a heartbeat, everything went still. Then Sansa was already brushing the snow from her hair, her cheeks burning red with fury and embarrassment.

“Arya!” she cried, her voice shrill and scandalized. “What’s wrong with you?!”

Joffrey rounded on Arya, his face twisted in disdain. “Do you have any idea who I am?” he spat, stepping forward. “You dare to attack the prince?”

The playfulness drained from the air as quickly as the colour from Arya’s face.

She stumbled back, torn between defiance and panic. “It—it was an accident!” she stammered. “I didn’t even see you there! I was aiming for Y/N!”

Joffrey’s eyes cut toward you, his expression souring further. “Aiming for her?” he repeated, voice sharp with disbelief. “You dared to throw snow at a princess?”

Arya blinked, realizing too late what she’d just said. “I—”

But Joffrey was already advancing, his hand twitching at his side, his words venomous. “You filthy little savage,” he spat. “Do you have no respect for your betters? I should make you beg for forgiveness—on your knees.”

Before Robb or Jon could react, you were already moving—swift and steady, the remnants of laughter still dying in your throat as you stepped between them.

“That’s enough,” you said firmly, your tone sharper than anyone had ever heard from you.

Joffrey’s head snapped toward you, disbelief flashing across his face. “Enough?” he repeated, the word spat like venom. “You mean to defend her? She hit me!”

“She’s a child,” you interrupted coolly, your tone calm but edged in steel. You stood tall, unflinching despite the prince’s fury. “And we were playing. You’ve been struck by snow, not steel. I think you’ll live.”

A collective gasp rippled through the onlookers. Sansa’s eyes went wide with horror. “Y/N—it was her fault!” she blurted, desperate to smooth the tension.

“Princess,” You corrected, “Do not think you can speak to me so familiarly,” you said, your voice dropping, cold as the northern winter. The sharpness of it startled even you. A little of your mother’s ice—your father’s command—cut through the air as you turned your glare on both of them. “She is your sister. And she has done nothing to warrant your insults or your temper.”

Sansa flinched, her face colouring as she bowed her head. “I—I didn’t mean—”

“She attacked us!” Joffrey snapped, indignant fury twisting his features. “It’s an insult!”

You arched a brow, every inch the queen you were born to be. “If you cannot tell the difference between an insult and a game, then perhaps you are the one who should be sent to the nursery.”

His face turned crimson. “Watch your tongue,” he hissed, stepping closer. “I am your prince!”

You didn’t move. “And yet you act like a spoiled child,” you stated calmly. “Titles don’t make men, Joffrey. Actions do.”

He froze, his pride striking like a wounded animal. The sneer crept back onto his lips, his voice thick with spite. “You forget your place, sister. I’ll not be shamed before these northern savages—”

“Enough!” The single word cut through his rant like a blade. “You will hold your tongue,” you said, your composure trembling on the edge of fury. “Or I swear by every god—old and new—you’ll prove yourself as much a fool as people already whisper you are.”

Joffrey’s face went red, then pale, the edges of his mouth curling in silent outrage. “You—”

And that was when his hand moved.

He didn’t think—he simply reacted, his pride goading him further. The sound of his glove cutting through the air was sharp as a whip as he raised his hand to strike you.

But Robb was faster.

He caught Joffrey’s wrist mid-swing, his fingers locking around it with unyielding strength. The motion was so swift, so instinctive, that even the prince seemed stunned by it. Robb’s grip tightened—not enough to harm, but enough to make Joffrey wince.

“You’ll lower your hand,” Robb said, his voice low and edged with danger. “Before you do something very, very stupid.”

Joffrey glared up at him, his mouth twisting into a snarl. “Unhand me,” he spat, his voice cracking with indignation. “You’ve no right—”

Robb’s jaw clenched, the muscle in his cheek tightening as his voice cut through the cold air. “You’re standing in my home,” he said evenly, each word heavy with command. “And in my home, you will not lay a hand on a woman—” His voice dropped an octave, a warning growl. “My woman.”

The words had your heart stuttering in your chest. You’d danced around the prospect of marriage, nearly kissed beneath the red leaves of the Godswood, but you’d never let yourself believe he wanted you, not truly. Not beyond duty.

Yet now there was no denying it.

Joffrey froze, his outrage faltering beneath the weight of something colder—fear, maybe, or the realization that Robb Stark was not a man he could cow with titles or threats. Robb was everything Joffrey wasn’t: grounded, unyielding, and very much in control. A man defending what was his.

The courtyard had gone utterly still. The only sound was Greywind’s low, guttural growl rumbling through the air from where he stood protectively by your side. The Direwolf’s hackles stood high, his teeth flashing white as he took a single step forward, golden eyes locked on the prince.

“Call off your beast,” Joffrey spat, his voice cracking, his earlier confidence bleeding into panic.

You stepped closer, your shoulder brushing Robb’s as you met the prince’s glare head-on. “Then perhaps you should return inside, Joffrey,” you said, your tone calm but laced with quiet authority. “Before you embarrass yourself further.”

Joffrey’s mouth twisted, fury flashing in his eyes. For a heartbeat, you thought he might try again—but then his pride faltered beneath the combined weight of Robb’s unflinching stare and Greywind’s low, rumbling growl.

He yanked his arm free, his movements jerky, his voice trembling with barely-contained rage. “You’ll regret this,” he hissed, each word dripping venom.

He turned sharply, cloak snapping behind him as he stormed toward the keep, boots crunching furiously in the snow. Sansa scrambled after him, her face pale and stricken. “Joffrey, wait—please, he didn’t mean—” Her voice faded into the cold as the great doors slammed shut behind them, leaving the courtyard in breathless silence.

The courtyard seemed to exhale all at once. You stood there, heart still pounding, the wind tugging at your cloak.

Robb hadn’t moved either. His hand was still half-raised from where he’d stopped Joffrey, his chest rising and falling steadily beneath his furs. His gaze shifted from the closed doors to you, softening the instant your eyes met.

The world around you was cold, but his voice, when it came, was not.

“Are you all right?” Robb asked quietly. The edge of command that had cut through his tone moments ago was gone, replaced by something gentler—concern, threaded with the faint tremor of leftover anger.

You swallowed, willing your pulse to steady, and nodded. “Yes,” you said softly, exhaling a shaky breath. “Thank you. But I’ve grown up dealing with Joffrey’s tantrums.”

The words came out lighter than you felt, but Robb’s expression didn’t ease. His brow furrowed, his gaze searching your face as if to make certain you spoke the truth.

“No one should have to,” he said finally, his voice low but steady. “You shouldn’t have to grow used to that kind of behaviour.”

You gave a faint, humourless smile. “You’ll find that my brother believes the world bends to his will. He’s never been told otherwise. My mother turns a blind eye, my father laughs it off. He was born thinking he could do no wrong.”

Robb’s jaw tightened. “Then perhaps it’s time someone did.”

Despite yourself, a small giggle slipped past your lips—a soft, incredulous sound. “Careful, my lord. If the king hears you’ve manhandled his heir, there might be a war before dinner.”

Robb huffed a quiet laugh, the tension in his shoulders finally easing. The corner of his mouth curved, but before either of you could say more, a small voice broke through the quiet.

“I… I didn’t mean to.”

You turned to find Arya standing a few paces away, Jon protectively beside her. Snow clung to her hair and lashes, her brown eyes wide with guilt. The defiance that had burned so brightly during the snowball fight was gone—what stood before you now was a child afraid she’d started something terrible.

“Hush now, Arya,” you said softly, your tone gentling as you crossed the snow toward her. “There’s no need to fret.”

You knelt so that your eyes met hers, your cloak pooling around you in the snow. “My brother has always been quick to anger,” you murmured, offering her a reassuring smile. The girl’s lip trembled, her gloved hands still clutching a half-formed snowball she’d long forgotten to throw. “It wasn’t your fault. You were only playing, and he—” You hesitated, searching for the right words. “He doesn’t yet understand the difference between pride and respect.”

Arya frowned, her brows knitting together. “But he almost struck you,” she said in a small voice, glancing between you and Robb. “Because you wouldn’t let him punish me.”

You met her gaze steadily, your tone quiet but firm. “Because you did nothing wrong,” you said.

The simplicity of your words made Arya blink, her wide eyes searching your face. “You’re not like the other southerners,” she said at last, almost accusingly.

A small laugh escaped you. “Is that a compliment?”

Arya’s mouth curved into a tentative grin. “Maybe.”

You reached out and tapped the tip of her nose lightly, dislodging a flake of snow. “Then I’ll take it as one.”

Robb watched the exchange in silence, his expression softening as he saw Arya’s tension dissolve beneath your words. When you rose to your feet, brushing the snow from your skirts, he found himself smiling without meaning to. His gaze drifted to his brother, who was sending him a knowing look. Jon was right. You didn’t belong to the same world as Joffrey.

As you turned to look at him, a faint smile still lingering on your lips, Robb felt something settle deep in his chest—steady and certain. He didn’t know what the King would decide, nor what his father would say when the time came. But for the first time since the betrothal had been spoken of, he knew what he wanted.

He wanted you to stay.

Not out of duty. Not out of command. But because he’d begun to believe the gods themselves had sent you north—not to bind two houses, but to give him something he hadn’t known he was looking for.

And perhaps, if the gods were listening, they would give him that chance.

The day had come grey and cold, a thin veil of snow drifting lazily through the air. Winterfell’s great hall, usually alive with the hum of conversation and clatter of dishes, was subdued—its vast stone walls echoing only with the low murmur of men awaiting the will of kings and lords.

Robb stood a few paces behind his father, his hands clasped neatly behind his back, every muscle in his body drawn taut. To his right, Lady Catelyn sat composed and still, though the flicker of worry in her eyes betrayed her calm. Beside her, Sansa’s expression was bright but anxious, her fingers twisting the silken folds of her gown in her lap.

Across the hall, the King’s court stood in stark contrast—southern finery gleaming beneath the gray light. Your father slouched in his chair, broad and imposing even in his half-sober state. His laughter, usually loud enough to fill any room, had quieted into a gruff patience he seldom possessed.

Beside him, your mother sat like a statue carved from cold marble. Her green eyes gleamed with restrained disdain. She looked every inch the queen, every inch the lioness who would rather be anywhere else than here in the wolf’s den.

And behind her, you stood.

Your head was bowed in perfect decorum, but Robb noticed the subtle tremor in your hands where they clutched your cloak. You looked small beneath the vaulted ceiling, framed by the grey stone and the banners of House Stark. 

Robert’s booming voice filled the hall, breaking the quiet. “Well, Ned,” He said, leaning forward with a weary grin, “we’ve danced around it long enough. You know why I came—to bind our houses once and for all. Lions and wolves, standing together. I’ll not have it wait another day.”

Lord Stark’s expression was calm, thoughtful. “Aye, Your Grace. But the choice must serve both houses—and the children themselves. This isn’t a decision to make lightly.”

Cersei’s lips curved in a thin, cutting smile. “The realm has little patience for northern hesitation, Lord Stark,” she said coolly. “The match must be worthy of the crown.”

Robert waved a hand dismissively. “Gods, woman, enough of your prattle.” His attention swung back to Ned, his heavy voice echoing off the stone. “We’ve two fine children from each house. My son Joffrey, and daughter Y/N. Your son Robb, and daughter Sansa. Either match would serve well enough—but which one, that’s the question.”

The silence that followed seemed to stretch.

Robb felt Sansa’s gaze flick toward their father—wide, pleading, hopeful. Her hands were folded tightly in her lap, knuckles white against the fabric of her gown. She had dreamed of this match since the day the royal party had arrived, and though Robb wanted to look away, he couldn’t.

His father’s voice broke the stillness. “My daughter Sansa is of age to wed the prince, should it please the crown,” he said, the words falling with measured restraint. “It would be a great honour.” 

Robb’s stomach twisted. He could feel every word land like a blow. The image rose unbidden in his mind—Sansa’s soft smile turned toward Joffrey, the way her cheeks flushed when he looked her way. She saw a golden prince; Robb saw the cruelty that gleamed behind those same golden eyes. The thought of his sister bound to that… boy made his chest tighten until it was hard to breathe.

But worse still was the image that followed—one he hadn’t meant to summon, one that struck deeper.

He imagined a life without you.

You, standing beside some nameless lord in King’s Landing, your fire dimmed beneath the weight of courtly duty. You, smiling that polite, practiced smile that never reached your eyes. You, turning from him in the Godswood for the last time.

The thought clawed at him, sharp and cold as the northern wind. He had told himself it was folly to think of you—to imagine a future that might never be—but now, as the King’s words echoed through the hall, the possibility of losing you settled in his chest like a stone.

You were duty, yes. But you were also more.

And for the first time, Robb Stark found himself praying—not to the Old Gods for strength or guidance, He prayed that fate would be kind.

He drew a slow breath through his nose, forcing his shoulders to remain square, his expression composed even as his heart hammered in his chest.

Across the hall, Robert leaned back in his chair, his heavy crown tilting slightly as he studied the two families before him. “Aye,” he said after a long pause, nodding once. “A fine match indeed.”

But then his gaze shifted—first to you, then to Robb.

He lingered on the sight of you, head bowed in quiet poise, the faint tremor of unease in the way your fingers tightened around the edge of your cloak. And then his eyes flicked to Robb—rigid, jaw clenched, blue-grey eyes stayed fixed on you. 

Robert recognized that look. He’d worn it once himself—long ago, for Lyanna Stark.

His brows drew together, voice lowering into something more thoughtful. “And yet…” he murmured. “There’s sense in matching the North with my daughter, too.”

Your head snapped up, hope flickering across your face as your gaze darted between your father and Robb.

Meanwhile, your mother’s head turned sharply toward your father, her eyes flashing with cold fury. “Your Grace—” she began, her voice tight with warning.

But Robert ignored her. His eyes were on Ned, a small, knowing smirk playing on his lips. “Tell me, old friend,” he said, his tone deceptively casual. “What does your boy think of the matter?”

The hall went still.

Ned hesitated, his gaze flicking briefly toward his son. “He will obey his duty,” he said at last, his voice even. “Whatever is decided.”

Robert barked a laugh, the sound echoing off the stone walls. “A true Stark answer!” he said, raising his cup in mock salute. “But I didn’t ask for duty, Ned. I asked for thought.”

All eyes turned to Robb.

The hall seemed to narrow around him, every sound fading until all he could hear was the rush of his own heartbeat pounding in his ears. Slowly, he looked toward his father, seeking steadiness in the familiar lines of his face—but his gaze didn’t linger there.

It found you.

Your gaze met his, uncertain but searching. The flicker of hope shifting something in his chest shifted. 

And before he could stop himself, he spoke. “I would marry her.”

The words rang out clear and steady, but his heart hammered behind them. He barely saw the flicker of shock that crossed Ned’s face or the sharp intake of breath from his mother. His eyes were only on you—your parted lips, the way your breath caught, the hesitant, hopeful smile that followed.

A low murmur rippled through the hall like wind through dry leaves. Cersei’s expression hardened, the colour draining from her cheeks, while Sansa made a small, strangled sound beside her mother — disbelief and hurt mingling in her wide blue eyes.

Robert’s brows lifted, amusement flickering across his face. “You would, would you?” he rumbled, leaning back in his chair, half in jest and half in curiosity.

Robb nodded once, never taking his eyes off you as he addressed your father. His voice was calm but resolute. “Aye, I would,” he said. “We remember those who stand with honour, and she has done that since the day she rode through our gates. She’s shown nothing but grace and courage since she arrived. The North could ask for no finer lady—” he hesitated, his breath catching for the briefest moment before he finished, softer, “—I could ask for no finer lady. If it please Your Grace, and with my father’s blessing, I would be proud to call her my wife.”

Your eyes widened slightly, a faint breath slipping from your lips. You could feel every gaze on you, but all you could see was him as he stood tall and unflinching in the centre of the hall, the firelight catching the auburn in his hair and tracing the proud lines of his face. His voice had stilled a room full of royalty and lords, yet his eyes were fixed only on you—as though the rest of the world had fallen away.

“Seven hells, Ned,” Robert said at last, a booming laugh rolling from his chest, breaking the tension like thunder. “You’ve raised yourself a proper lord.” He turned his grin toward Robb, still chuckling. “You sound more like your father than you know.”

Then his gaze shifted to you. “Well, girl? You’ve heard the lad. Would you have the wolf for a husband?”

Your lips parted, your breath trembling in your throat. You had been promised, paraded, spoken of your entire life but never once had anyone spoken for you like this. Never once had you felt as though the choice might truly be your own.

And now, for the first time in your life, you knew exactly what you wanted.

You drew a slow breath, steadying the frantic beat of your heart. “If it please Your Grace,” you said softly, your voice clear despite the thundering in your chest, “then I would.”

The hall erupted — some gasping, some murmuring, a few already clapping — but all of it faded into a distant hum. Robb’s eyes found yours again, and this time, you smiled — small, genuine, and full of something neither of you dared name.

Robert leaned forward, grin wide beneath his beard. “Ned?” he prompted.

For a long moment, Lord Stark said nothing. His gaze rested on his son, studying him—not as a father scrutinizing a boy, but as a man weighing the measure of another and his gaze seemed to soften with pride at what he saw.

Finally, he inclined his head toward the King. “I think the matter is decided, Your Grace.”

Robert roared with laughter, the sound booming off the stone walls. “Good! It’s settled then! The lioness of the South and the wolf of the North!” He lifted his cup high, wine sloshing over the rim. “May the gods damn well bless this union—and grant them strength enough not to tear each other apart!”

The crowd broke into applause, the tension snapping like a bowstring. But amid the noise and the celebration, not all faces shared in the joy.

Cersei rose sharply, her chair scraping against the floor, fury flashing in her green eyes. “You cannot be serious,” she hissed, her words cutting through the laughter. Her gaze burned into Robert’s, venom barely restrained.

“Silence, woman!” Robert bellowed, turning on her with a thunderous glare. “You’ll not sour this moment with your scheming tongue. The matter’s settled.”

Cersei’s lips pressed into a bloodless line as she sat, the gold of her crown catching the firelight like a warning.

And you—your breath trembled, your pulse a storm beneath your skin—but when Robb’s gaze met yours again, something steady flickered there.

A strange, unexpected calm.

Because in that moment, for the first time since the betrothal had been mentioned, you didn’t feel like a pawn in your father’s game.

You felt seen. Not as a daughter of the throne, not as a prize to be bartered, but as yourself.

And across the hall, Robb Stark’s hand curled at his side. For him, too, the weight of duty—the burden of blood, of family, of expectation—suddenly didn’t feel quite so heavy.

For the first time, it felt like choice.

"Shh," he breathed, his hips rocking in a slow, steady rhythm. "There you are. My sweet wife. My soft, warm, perfect wife. Just let me take what I need. You do not have to do anything."

And you did not. You lay there, drowsy and pliant, while he chased his pleasure in your body. His hands gripped your hips, tilting you to the angle he preferred, and his violet eyes were fixed on your face, watching every flicker of expression that crossed your features. When he finished, spilling inside you with a low groan, he pulled out slowly and pressed a kiss to your belly.

"A son," he murmured against your skin. "Give me a son, my sweet rose."

Then he gathered you against his chest, pulled the furs over you both, and fell asleep with his face buried in your hair.

This became your routine. Every night, without fail, Aerion took his pleasure from your body. And every night, you fell asleep immediately afterward, your body spent and satisfied, sleeping through until morning like a babe in a cradle.

He had to wake you each day by smacking your arse. A sharp, stinging slap that jolted you from sleep with a yelp and a flurry of tangled limbs.

"Aerion!" you protested, rubbing the smarting flesh. "That is not a proper way to wake one's wife."

"You do not wake to gentle words," he pointed out, already dressed and immaculate, his silver hair pulled back from his face. "I have tried. I have whispered endearments. I have kissed your brow. I have called your name a dozen times. You sleep like the dead, wife. Only pain rouses you."

"It is not pain. It is...surprise. And indecency."

"Call it what you like." He leaned down and pressed a kiss to your forehead, brief and almost tender. "You are awake now. The day awaits. I have duties, and you have whatever it is you do when I am not bedding you."

You restrained yourself from glaring at him. He could only tolerate so many complaints until he turned insufferable in return. You had learnt to pick your battles. You had also learnt that if you slipped out of the role of the charming wife, the lovely lady Tyrell, instead of figuring out you had never wanted to play the part of his wife in the first place, he'd think you were deeply upset about this one particular thing and he'd fixate on it. So you rose, and you dressed, and you went about your day, and at night he came to you again.

Nothing deterred him. Not your moon blood, you had been mortified the first time, stammering apologies and trying to push him away, but he had only laughed.

"The wetness is different," he had said, his voice dark with fascination. "Hotter. Slicker. I like it." And he had taken you anyway, slower than usual, watching the evidence of your body paint his length with each withdrawal. Afterward, he had kissed your belly and wished for a son, same as always, utterly unbothered by the blood that stained the sheets.

Not even your fights deterred him. If anything, they made him more ravenous. The night you quarreled over some petty thing, you could not even remember what, some slight or sharp word that had spiraled into shouted accusations, you had retreated to your chambers expecting a night of cold silence. Instead, he had come to you with fire in his violet eyes, spun you around, bent you over the bed, and taken you from behind with a ferocity that left you gasping.

"You are all the more delicious when I am angry," he had panted against your ear, his hips slamming into you with bruising force. "My sweet rose. My infuriating, stubborn, impossible wife. I should hate you. I should cast you aside. Instead, I cannot stop wanting you. Cannot stop needing you. What have you done to me?"

You had no answer. You could barely form words, too consumed by the pleasure and pain of his possession. When he finished, he had pulled you upright against his chest, his arms wrapped around you, his face buried in your neck.

"I do not wish to fight," he had whispered, so quiet you almost did not hear. "I do not know how to stop. But I do not wish to fight with you."

And then, because he was Aerion and could not let tenderness stand unadorned, he had smacked your arse and sent you stumbling toward the bed. "Sleep. I will wake you in the morning."

You had fallen asleep within moments, as always, and slept through until his hand connected with your rear at dawn.

That was simply how things were for some time.

You began to build stamina. Your body, accustomed to his nightly attentions, no longer collapsed into exhausted slumber the moment he spent himself inside you. You still fell asleep before him, Aerion had always been a restless sleeper, prone to lying awake and staring at the canopy while his mind churned, but you no longer passed out like a candle snuffed.

One night, however, Aerion woke in the small hours of the morn and found the space beside him empty.

He assumed you had returned to your own chambers. It was not unusual, you kept your own rooms, as was proper for a lady of your station, though you spent nights in his bed. Perhaps you had needed something. A different gown. A book. A ribbon for your hair. He rolled over and went back to sleep.

But it happened again. And again. And again.

The third time, he mentioned it over breakfast. "You left last night."

You looked up from your plate, your brow furrowed. "Did I?"

"You did. I woke and you were gone. Did you need something from your chambers?"

You blinked, clearly confused. "I...do not recall. I must have been half-asleep. I am sorry if I disturbed you, husband."

He let it go. But the fourth time, and the fifth, and the sixth, he began to wonder.

"You left again," he said, his voice carefully neutral. "Three nights this week. Where do you go?"

"I have no idea what you are talking about." Your eyes were guileless, your expression genuinely bewildered. "I sleep through the night, my love. You know this. You are the one who complains about having to smack me awake each morning."

He studied your face for any sign of deception. He found none. But Aerion Targaryen had been raised in the Red Keep before Summerhall, had survived the viper's pit of court politics, had learned to see lies even when they wore the most innocent of faces. His wife was a Tyrell. She had been trained in deception since birth. If anyone could lie to him convincingly, it was her.

The suspicions only began to grow, curling through his mind like poison ivy. She was leaving his bed in the night. She claimed not to remember. Where was she going? What was she doing?

His mind, ever prone to darkness, supplied answers that made his stomach clench.

A lover. She was sneaking off to meet a lover. Some handsome knight, perhaps, or a lord's son with a pretty face and gentle manners. Someone who was not cruel and sharp and difficult. Someone who could give her soft words and tender touches instead of games and barbs and rough handling. He could not think about it without murderous rage. He could only imagine all the painful ways he would kill the man.

Not a lover, mayhaps, but conspirators. She was a Tyrell. The Tyrells had been loyal to the Targaryens during the Blackfyre Rebellion. Leo Tyrell won notable victories in the Reach against Daemon Blackfyre's supporters, though his forces were unable to gather quickly enough to arrive in time for the battle of the Redgrass field. But loyalties shifted with every harvest in the Reach. Perhaps she was meeting with agents of her house, passing along secrets, plotting against him. Perhaps their entire marriage had been a scheme from the beginning, a way to place a Tyrell close to the throne, close to Summerhall, close to his father Maekar.

Perhaps, and this thought hurt most of all, she simply did not truly love him. Perhaps she left his bed because she could not bear to lie beside him. Perhaps she waited until she thought he was asleep and then fled to her own chambers, where she could breathe freely without his suffocating presence.

Aerion did not sleep that night. He lay beside her, listening to her soft breathing, watching the gentle rise and fall of her chest. She looked peaceful in sleep. Innocent. Beautiful. When he finally drifted off, his dreams were troubled.

The next morning, he smacked her arse to wake her, same as always. She yelped and swatted at him, same as always. But when she smiled at him over breakfast, he found himself searching her face for signs of guilt, for evidence of betrayal. He found nothing. She was either innocent or a very, very good liar.

That night, he decided he would catch her.

He feigned normalcy. He unlaced her gown with practiced ease, as he always did. He kissed her throat and her breasts and the soft curve of her belly, as he always did. He took her slowly at first, then with increasing urgency, until she was gasping and clutching at his shoulders and crying out his name. Afterwards, he pressed his lips to her belly, just below her navel.

"A son," he murmured against her skin. A tradition by now, a ritual, his way of sayinga prayer. "Give me a son, my sweet rose. A strong son. A dragon."

He paused. Something caught in his throat, words he had rarely spoke aloud, words that terrified him more than any battle or tourney ever could.

"I love you," he whispered, so quiet that he was not sure she heard. "Even if it causes me pain to say it. Even if I cannot admit it when you are awake to hear. I love you, and I cannot...I cannot lose you. I cannot bear the thought of you slipping away in the night, going somewhere I cannot follow, seeking something I cannot give."

He fell silent. She did not stir. Her breathing was slow and even, her face peaceful in sleep.

He pretended to sleep. Hours passed. The candle burned down to a stub. The fire in the hearth faded to embers. Aerion lay still, his breathing deliberately slow, his eyes cracked open just enough to see the room in shades of grey and shadow.

In the deepest part of the night, she moved.

He watched through squinted eyes as she sat up slowly, her movements strangely fluid, almost mechanical. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat there for a long moment, utterly still. Then she rose, her bare feet silent on the stone floor. She found her slippers, felted wool, soft and quiet, and slid them on. She found her robe, a heavy thing of green velvet, and wrapped it around her shoulders.

She did not look at him. She left the bedchamber.

Aerion counted to ten, his heart pounding. Then he threw back the furs and followed.

He kept to the shadows. He had learned to move silently through corridors patrolled by guards and servants and spies. Trailing his wife through Summerhall was child's play.

She went first to her own chambers. Aerion's heart seized, this was it. She was meeting someone. A lover hidden in her rooms. A conspirator waiting in the dark.

But she did not stop. She passed through her chambers without pausing, movements unhurried, and continued through a side door that led to the gardens.

The gardens. Of course. A secret meeting among the roses. How fitting for a Tyrell.

Aerion followed, his jaw clenched so tight his teeth ached. The night air was cool and sweet, heavy with the scent of night-blooming flowers. Moonlight silvered the paths and the fountains and the carefully tended beds of roses, red and gold, the colors of his house and hers intertwined.

She walked. And walked. And walked.

No one met her. No shadow detached itself from the hedges. No whisper greeted her from the darkness. She simply walked. Around the fountain. Down the rose path. Past the marble bench where they sometimes sat together in the afternoons. Her steps were slow and aimless, her arms loose at her sides.

Aerion watched her for what felt like an eternity, his confusion mounting. What was she doing? Where was she going? Why was she... She turned a corner and nearly walked directly into a rose bush, its thorns gleaming in the moonlight. Aerion moved before he could think. He strode forward, caught her arm, and pulled her back from the thorns. She did not resist. She did not react at all.

"What are you doing?" he demanded, his voice too loud in the quiet garden. "Where are you going? Who are you meeting? Tell me now, wife, and I may yet show mercy..."

She did not answer. She did not even look at him. Her eyes were closed.

Aerion's words died in his throat. He stared at her face: peaceful, serene, utterly unaware of his presence. Her lips were moving, forming words too soft to hear. He leaned closer, his heart pounding for an entirely different reason now.

"...roses need pruning," she was mumbling, her voice distant and dreamy. "The red ones first. Grandmother always said red roses first. Then gold. Then the path to the fountain..."

She was not meeting a lover. She was not conspiring against him. She was not fleeing his bed because she could not bear to lie beside him. His poor, sweet wife was sleepwalking.

Relief crashed over him like a wave, so intense it left him dizzy. He stood there in the moonlit garden, holding his sleeping wife's arm, and laughed: a shaky, breathless sound that was half-sob.

But the relief faded quickly, replaced by a new and different fear.

She could have walked into that rose bush. She could have torn her skin on the thorns, could have bled into the garden soil while he lay sleeping in their bed, oblivious. She could have fallen into the fountain and drowned. She could have wandered out of the gardens entirely, into the darkness beyond, where anything might have happened to her.

She could have been hurt. She could have died. And he would have woken in the morning to an empty bed and no explanation.

His grip on her arm gentled. He stepped closer, sliding his hand down to clasp hers.

"Come," he said softly, though she could not hear him. "Come back to bed, my sweet rose. You are safe. I have you."

She did not respond, but she did not resist when he turned her gently and began to lead her back toward the castle. Her feet moved automatically, following his guidance, her face still peaceful and blank.

As they walked, Aerion's mind raced with plans.

He would have to lock the bedchamber doors at night to keep her safe. He would put the key somewhere she could not find while asleep. Under his pillow, perhaps. Or around his neck on a cord.

He would have to put away all sharp things. The letter opener on his desk. The small knife he used for cutting fruit. Her sewing scissors. Anything she might stumble upon in her dreaming wanderings.

He had heard, somewhere, that a wet cloth placed on the floor beside the bed could help wake sleepwalkers. The shock of cold on bare feet, jarring them from their dreams before they could wander far. He would have the servants place one on her side of the bed each night. He would check it himself before they slept.

He would protect her. He would keep her safe. He would not lose her to something as absurd as a sleepwalking accident.

They reached his bedchamber. He guided her inside, closed the door behind them, and made a mental note to have a new lock installed in the morning. A sturdy one. One she could not open without a key.

He led her to the bed and eased her down onto the bed. She went willingly, her body limp and pliant, already sinking back into deeper sleep. He lifted her legs onto the bed, arranged the furs over her, and stood looking down at her for a long moment.

Her face was peaceful. Beautiful. Utterly unaware of the terror she had put him through. He climbed into bed beside her and pulled her against his chest. She mumbled something unintelligible and burrowed closer, her hand fisting loosely in his nightshirt.

"I will keep you safe," he whispered into her hair. "I will do whatever I must. You will not wander where I cannot follow. You will not come to harm."

a/n: You can donate on Ko-fi, your support helps me write more: https://ko-fi.com/catbayunthestoryteller <3

a/n: This was a random fic but I missed Growing Strong!Aerion hehe. I had the last chapter of the series, named Valyrian Legacy, typed up. Then I realised it sucked so now I'm going to do it in a completely different format. I now understand how George R. R. Martin feels about finishing his book.

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“You weren’t even there.”

“I didn’t need to be”

“You would’ve run too”

“I wouldn’t have climbed a tree and screamed for father,” Aemon replied smugly.

“I was not screaming,” Aegon’s voice lost some of its confidence. “And none of you were in danger, so I don’t see why it matters.”

Maekar glanced up. “The only danger was to the dignity of this family.”

You couldn’t help the small smile that slipped through. You involuntarily glanced towards Aerion, sitting across from you, to see he was already watching you. He held a relaxed expression with the faintest hint of amusement, quickly hidden the moment you noticed it. 

Aegon, however, was not finished. “If I had my sword–”

“You don’t own a sword,” Daeron's voice startled you. You hadn’t even noticed he had risen from his drunken slumber.   

“That’s not the point.”

Maekar set his fork down with deliberate patience. “Enough, eat your food.”

Aegon obeyed, thought not without muttering under his breath.

The conversation soon drifted towards Aemon’s studies with your cousin-in-laws, Valarr and Matarys, chiming in. 

You take the distraction as your opportunity.

“If you’ll excuse me,” you say quietly, rising from your seat before anyone can question it.

It had been a moon since the accident that left your memory fractured, and you had begun to recognize the signs. 

A tightness behind your eyes. A distant ringing in your ear. 

You move quickly through the corridors, your hands brushing along the cool stone walls to steady yourself as the sensation builds.

You hadn’t told anyone about these small bursts of memories that would come without warning. Sometimes multiple times a day, something only twice a week. Most of them were insignificant– memories from your first meeting with the family, random literary discussions with your husband’s grandsire, Aegon demanding you accompany him into the city, mostly fragments of conversation. 

You reach a quiet alcove beyond the main passage, the noise of the hall fading behind you. 

The pressure sharpens at your temple, your breath catching as you press your fingers against it, willing it to pass. 

It eases slightly and you take the opportunity to make it back to your shared chambers. The path is no longer unfamiliar to you. 

The door closes with a soft thud. You barely make it halfway to the bed before the pain strikes again, sharper this time. 

Your hands catch the bedpost, fingers tightening around the wood as you hunch forward. Your knees give out and you collapse to the floor as your head rests upon the mattress. 

The room tilts and then your world shifts. 

Aerion leaned forward, firmly pressing his lips to yours. You eagerly kissed him back as your hands reached up, tugging on his hair. His hands trailed down your sides, settling on your hips. 

You sat onto the bed, tugging off your nightdress. He’d seen you naked many times by now, but never seemed to grow tired of the view. He climbed onto the bed, crawling on top of you.

 “You’re eager today,” he murmured. 

“Can you blame me?” You bit your lip, a small smile forming. 

He nudged your thighs apart, slotting himself between them. Lowering himself onto his elbows, he braced himself on either side of your head. 

“Aerion,” you whined, feeling his cock nudging your entrance. “Enough of the teasing.”

Aerion grabbed his cock and slid it through your wet folds before easing himself into you. “Your cunt is so fucking tight. It feels like the first time again and again.”

You whimpered, arching up into him. “My dragon, please.”

A manic grin twisted his lips as he pulled out slightly before he thrusted back in, watching your expression closely. You let go of the sheets to wrap your arms around his shoulders, pulling him closer. 

He buried his face in your neck, his breathing sharp against your skin. Another moan tore through you when he started to pound into you faster, his excitement getting the better of him. He used one hand to hike your legs up higher onto his waist, allowing him to hit deeper. 

Parting your lips, he kissed you roughly, allowing his tongue inside your mouth. His pace was relentless and the room filled with the sound of the headboard banging against the wall and skin slapping. You moaned into his mouth, the pleasure growing more intense. 

Neither of you cared who might hear. 

“Aerion–” you panted. “I’m going to–”

“Come for me, wife,” he rested his forehead against yours, his pace unwavering. “Milk my cock, baby.”

Your hands gripping his shoulder, your nails forming crescent moons onto his skin. You repeated his name again and again. You cried out as your orgasm hit, clenching around him. 

He continued to pound into you as his own high approached. His body shuttered and he stilled, coming inside of you. 

Burying his face into your neck, you could hear him muttering absolute nonsense. 

“My little dragon… taking place… I’m sure of it.” He turned his head, looking down as he withdrew from you. 

You basked in his warmth. The two of you holding onto each other as the exhaustion settled in. 

The memory began to warp. 

Aerion’s warmth lingered, but it was flickering, like a candle struggling. The weight of him shifted, the sound of his breathing began to echo. 

The sheets beneath you no longer felt soft, but rough and cold. 

You blinked and the ceiling above you was no longer there. Instead, you could see the tangled branches stretching overhead, blocking the sunlight. 

The warmth vanished all at once and cold air rushed against your skin. 

The bed was gone and you were standing. 

You were back in the memory of your accident, the one you had the day after waking. You couldn’t move, reliving the memory but more aware. 

In flashes you could feel the man’s grip tightening around your mouth. Your elbow driving back. You grabbed the dagger, embedding it into his side. Your vision was blurry, you could not make out the face clearly. 

Startling awake, your skin is damp with sweat, the sheets clinging uncomfortably to your body.

Heat rises to your cheeks at the vivid memory that lingered, an outlier from the others you mind has resurfaced over the past moon. 

Glancing around the room, something immediately feels off. It is completely dark. Normally, a few candles would be lit or the low burn of the hearth. You feel around next you and Aerion is not there. 

As if conjured, his voice breaks through the room. “What were you dreaming of?”

You couldn’t make out his figure, your eyes still adjusting to the darkness, but his voice was coming from the foot of the bed.

“Where is the light?” you ask, your voice quieter than you intended.

“Don’t change the topic,” his voice is sharper now. “What were you dreaming of?”

“Why are you asking me this?” 

A long pause filled the room. Even in the darkness, you could feel Aerion’s anger seething off him. 

You knew your husband had a short fuse and was often aggressive with his younger siblings, the servants, or anyone who tests his patience, but never directed to you. 

“After abandoning me at dinner, I return to our chambers,” his voice low and controlled, “to find you writhing in pleasure.” 

He continues, “I thought to myself that you had finally come to your senses.”

He steps forward “Instead to hear you calling out another mans name”

Your stomach drops, “What are you–”

“Don’t fucking cut me off.” His voice snaps. “So tell me- have you been warming another man’s bed?”

He takes another step, closer to you. 

“A White Cloak, no less” he adds. “Ser Ronnel Darklyn? So below a dragon.”

“Ser Ronnel Darklyn?” The name hangs in the dark. You shake your head instinctively, even if he cannot see it. 

“No,” you say, voice tightening. “No, that’s not–”

“I didn’t call out his name” you say carefully. “I don’t even remember doing that.”

Silence follows, thick with disbelief. 

“Then explain it,” he says, his hands landing on your calves.

The motion was so sudden and unexpected that you let out a gasp. You could feel his body hovering over you. 

“I have been seeing things,” you admit. “Like memories from before and I can’t control them. It starts with a pressure to my head and then I’m reliving the memory without any control.”

He doesn’t say anything so you continue. “Most of them are insignificant like random conversations.”

“But there is one that keeps returning.” A pause. “The woods the day of the accident. I keep seeing pieces of it and they don’t match with what I’ve been told.”

You continue. “I remember someone grabbing and threatening me. And tonight I remembered more details but it wasn’t clear. 

You swallow. “But I remember the attacker wearing a white cloak.” 

His palm shifts higher beneath my gown. At first, it is subtle and you barely register it, too caught in the weight of your words.  

Your breath stutters as his fingers reach beneath your small clothes.

“Then why,” his voice low, “are you so wet?”

The question lingers in the air. 

“Before… before the memory of the woods.” Your voice was unsteady, “After I excused myself from dinner. I had a different memory return, one I hadn’t seen before.”

His fingers kept stroking you, almost lovingly.

“It was.. It was us. Our coupling.” The words felt strange on your tongue. You didn’t know how to go about addressing this. 

His fingers enter you without warning and he begins thrusting at a snail-like pace. 

You gasp, “... and then it slipped away, and the woods came back.”

“Describe it to me.” He curled his fingers, eliciting a moan from you. 

“It was daylight,” your voice shook, “And we were in this room. And afterwards you were muttering about a little dragon… about it taking place.”

He paused, withdrawing his hand abruptly. Through the darkness you could make out him sucking at his finger– the fingers that were just within you. 

Aerion leaned back against the bed, pulling you with him, his arm wrapping around you as though nothing had happened. 

“You always do that,” you snapped, wrenching yourself out of his grasp. “You use my pleasure as a manipulation tactic.”

He caught you again just as quickly, dragging you back down. His grip was tighter, preventing you from slipping away. “I told you,” he said, his voice low, “you have to beg.”

You huffed at his insistence, turning towards him, though the darkness still kept his expression hidden from you. 

“I would never betray you. That isn’t who I am.”

“I know, little wife.” he murmured, his voice quieter now. “That memory happened right before the accident.”

“What?”

His fingers lightly tracing patterns against your lower back. 

“We fucked the morning before the accident.”

His vulgarness startling you, he continued “You left for a walk in the Kingswood after I departed for a council meeting.”

“Rest assured, little wife,” he voice fading as sleep began to take over, “He won’t live long, but first I’ll cut off his cock and–.”

You lay awake, mind in shambles. The soft snore from beside you is a comforting distraction. 

~

There was a feast the following evening in honour of Aelora Targaryen. It was the eve of her wedding and King Daeron had arranged a grand feast in honour of her union to Prince Aelor. On the morrow, the family was to attend a private ceremony at the Great Sept of Baelor in the city. 

You wore a blood-red velvet gown that accentuated your figure, the bodice structured but comfortable enough to breath. There were golden embroidered dragons towards the shoulder of the gown. It was handpicked by Aerion, as most of your more formal attire was. 

He was fond of dressing you in the house colours and showing you off. 

You were seated on the opposite end of the table with Aemon and Aegon. They were rattling off about some elaborate retelling, Aegon’s hands moving wildly as he spoke.

“I’m telling you,” Aegon insisted, “if they let me ride tomorrow, I could reach the sept faster than any of them.”

“They won’t let you ride through the city at full speed,” Aemon replied, with practiced patience. “It’s a wedding, not a race.”

“You just don’t want me to win,” Aegon huffed. 

“It’s not winning if you’re the only one competing.”

You glance towards the other end of the table, catching Aerion’s gaze for a brief moment before looking away again. A faint smirk tugged at his lips as though he had been watching far longer than you realized. 

He is in no better position, surrounded by his father and uncle, most likely discussing diplomatic issues. You’d much rather be in the company of the little ones. 

A shadow fell behind you. 

“May I have this dance, sister?”

You turned, finding Daeron standing just behind your chair, his hand already extended. 

You placed your hand in his, it was nice seeing him sober; he was much kinder than Aerion.  “I would be delighted, Daeron.”

The rhythm of the dance was lively and chaotic, the hall filled with lords and ladies laughing as they stumbled through the steps. It was a nice change to dance without precision.

His hand settled lightly at your waist, spinning you around the room and easily shifting through the crowd. 

“You seem more yourself tonight,” he remarked quietly, a soft smile gracing his face.

You laughed at that, “I’m not sure I know what that means anymore.”

You had been dancing for many minutes when the music began to slow. Without thinking, you rest your head against Daeron’s shoulder, swaying in time with the music. 

You felt another pair of hands brush your waist. 

“Brother, allow me to steal my wife back.” Aerion’s voice was smooth. 

He twists you around, his hand resting at the base of your back, inching towards– you grab his hand moving it higher on your back. 

“Behave yourself,” you seeth. 

“You should behave yourself,” he murmurs back, his breath brushing against your ear. “You didn’t even save your first dance for me.”

“You didn’t ask me to dance,” you reply coolly, lifting your chin to meet his gaze. “Plus, Daeron is a better dancer than you.”

You hiss as his foot comes down on yours, his full weight landing your toe without apology.

Your grip tightens on his shoulder, “What was that for?” Shooting him a sharp look. 

Aerion only smirks faintly, entirely unbothered as he continues the dance. 

“You’re right, little wife, I am no good of a dancer.” he murmurs, his voice low and pleased with himself. “Should we retire for the evening?”

Something malicious sounded in his voice. 

He started to guide you towards the corridor, you stopped abruptly, forcing him to halt with you. “Wait, I need to congratulate Aelora.”

“You can do that on the morrow.”

When you refuse to move, his patience snaps.

In one swift motion, he hooks an arm around your waist and lifts you clean off the ground, throwing you over his shoulder as though you weigh nothing. 

“Aerion!” you gasp, startled more than anything. Your hands instinctively brace against his back. “Put me down!”

He doesn’t slow, making his way to your shared chambers. 

“Release me, Aerion!”

Upon arriving at the room, Aerion tosses you onto the settee with a thud. 

He stands before you, his fingers undoing the front of his breeches. 

“Open your mouth.”

“What happened to making me beg?”

“This is about my pleasure, not yours.”

“I won’t repeat myself.” He fists his cock, the tip nudging at your mouth. 

Keeping your mouth tightly shut, you look up glaring at him. 

His pupils blown and seething, he grabs your jaw, prying your mouth open and forcing your attention onto him. 

With the smallest opening, he shoves his cock down your throat, the force pressing you against the back of the chaise. His knee braces against the edge as he leans forward.

A groan escapes him. “You test me too often,” he murmurs. 

His thick length fills your mouth and you gag, trying to move upwards. 

“Gods you feel so good,” fingers running through your hair, loosening the pins.   

When your movements turned sloppy, he grabbed a tight hold of your hair, moving your head up and down. His pace quickened as drool dripped down the edge of her mouth. 

Your moans and his echoed inside the room. Your hands wrap around him, gripping his ass. With one final thrust, he pushes your face completely against him until your nose reaches his pubic bone. 

Your eyes locked onto him, he murmurs, “Swallow all of it. Don’t waste a drop.”

You collapse on the chaise as he releases your hair and tucks himself back into his trousers. 

“Good girl,” his evil smirk plastered across his face. 

Lifting you from the chaise, he carries you to the bed and lays you down more gently than expected. You turn onto your stomach, your face nuzzling into the pillow as exhaustion begins to settle in your limbs. 

You could feel Aerion’s fingers at your back, working at the laces of your gown with practiced ease. 

As the fabric loosens and slips away, cool air brushes against your skin, raising a fault shiver. 

“That cunt left the castle last night,” Aerion murmurs. 

“Which cunt?” your voice muffled in the pillow. 

He turns you onto your back, pulling your nightgown over your head. 

“Ser Ronnel Darklyn.”

Fatigue escapes you instantly. 

“What do you mean?” you ask, blinking up at him, “Where did he go?”

“I’m not sure, yet. But I have people searching for him.”

~

You wake with Aerion’s weight pressed heavily against you, his arm slung possessively across your waist. 

“Get off,” you mutter, your voice thick with sleep. “You’re crushing me.”

He only responds with a low, half-asleep growl, burying his face deeper into the curve of your neck. 

You chomp down on his shoulder with no response. 

Rolling your eyes, you pinch his pink nipple and twist sharply. 

“FUCK!” Aerion jerks away, his hand reaches up to your breast, grabbing tightly in retaliation. 

“Stop it, Aerion!”

“Next time I won’t be so kind,” he mutters, loosening his grip.

You dress quickly, the morning already in motion as servants hurry through the halls. Outside, a line of carriages waits before the Red Keep, prepared to escort the royal family to the Sept.

Aerion’s younger siblings are being ushered toward one of the larger carriages, their Septa hovering nearby, fussing over cloaks and ribbons as the children chatter amongst themselves. Aegon lingers at the steps, clearly uninterested in being hurried along, though he offers little resistance as he’s finally pushed inside.

You already know Aerion and the other men will ride ahead on horseback, so you don’t wait for him.

Stepping forward, you move to follow Aegon into the carriage, lifting the hem of your gown slightly as you approach.

“My Lady”

The Septa’s voice cuts in gently but firmly as she steps into your path.

“There is not enough room,” she explains. “You will need to take the carriage behind.”

You pause only briefly before nodding, turning without argument.

The second carriage waits just a short distance away and is much smaller.

Grasping the handle, you lift yourself inside, settling onto the cushioned seat as the door shuts behind you with a soft click.

The carriage jolts forward with a sharp snap of the reins, wheels grinding against stone as the procession begins its slow descent from the castle.

Through the small window, the Red Keep begins to fall away behind. For the first time in a long while, you are alone.

You let your head fall back against the cushioned seat, eyes slipping shut as sunlight filters through the narrow window, warming your face. 

Then, the faint sound of shouting reaches your ears. Your brows knit together as your eyes open, the sound growing sharper. 

The carriage jolts slightly and your hand grips the edge of the seat. 

You lean forward, peering through the small window used to speak to the driver. 

Your breath catches when you see a small group of men, maybe three, coming towards the carriage. None of the other royal carriages were around. 

Without a second thought, you drop to your knees and rip back the velvet carpet lining the floor and lift the hidden hatch beneath it. The wood creaks softly as it opens, revealing the narrow space below. 

You slip through without a second thought, lowering yourself carefully until your boots meet the ground beneath the carriage. 

You could hear the clash of swords, but you already knew you were outnumbered as you were only assigned one knight. 

You dart out from beneath it, keeping low as you put distance between yourself and the wheels. The last thing you need is for the horses to bolt and crush you where you stand.

You push forward, slipping behind a cluster of hedges, then drop into the thick brush of a nearby bush, forcing yourself still despite the pounding of your heart.

Branches scrape against your arms, leaves catching in your hair as you press yourself deeper into the shadows.

You planned to make your way back to the Red Keep, you couldn’t have been too far. Turning back for a final glance, the man you see opening the carriage door, where you should have been, makes you falter in your step. 

Ser Ronnel Darklyn.

~

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Over time, you found solace in accepting this harsh reality, making peace with the truth that your marriage was merely a political arrangement, binding your noble house to his in a web of duty and allegiance. It was a bitter truth to swallow, yet you resolved to fulfil your part in this grand tapestry of power and lineage, even as your heart ached for something more.

This wasn’t the worst fate you could have endured, you knew that well. You were surrounded by a multitude of maids to attend your every whim, feasting on the finest delicacies the realm had to offer, and your future son would rise as the heir to the iron throne. Yet, the last point bore a certain weight, for the honour of ruling was often shrouded in peril and intrigue.

It's not that Valarr found you unsightly or undesirable, far from it. In his eyes, you were a vision of beauty, with hair that shone and skin as smooth as the finest silk. You possessed the enchantment of a siren, beckoning sailors to their doom upon treacherous shores.

However, he kept busy in the web of politics, far too entangled in the affairs of state to fall for your siren song just yet. His gaze was set on aiding his father to rule the realm wisely.

But all it took was one evening for Valarr to finally see the woman in you, not just a beautiful maiden he was to wed, awakening a desire he had kept locked away for too long.

In your private chambers, the dying fire flickered, casting warm shadows across your freshly bathed skin, still faintly fragrant with honey and dates—a scent that wafted through the air like an aphrodisiac. He had stopped by as he did each night, but this time it felt different.

You turned to him, a sweet smile curving your lips, your hair left loose, untamed, and perfumed, an allure he had never before witnessed. Gone were the elaborate gowns and intricate braids. A soft blush on the apples of your cheeks, feeling almost naked in the rather flimsy nightdress.

This was something else. This was raw.

As he lingered in the doorway, his gaze roamed over your figure, dressed in a nightgown, the fabric sheer enough to unveil the gentle curves of your body in the dim light.

Valarr had never seen you in such a state of unready before. As if the Gods had conspired to unveil your softness.

It was like tossing a scrap to a famished wolf—his breath quickened, sweat beading on his brow, the air thick with a growing warmth that made the chamber feel as though it had reached a fevered pitch. The sight of you stirred something deep within him, illuminating the desire he had kept locked away until now.

For a moment, it seemed as though Valarr's throat had gone dry, his gaze fixed upon you. The sheer nightgown's fabric betraying just enough to fuel his imagination, the soft candlelight playing a teasing game with your curves.

He took a step closer, closing the door behind him with a quiet click. His eyes roamed over you, tracing the contour of your hips, the gentle swell of your breasts. His voice, normally controlled, now held a rasp that betrayed his desire.

"My lady," he murmured, his voice low. His eyes drank you in, lingering over the slope of your shoulders, the gentle arch of your neck. The sweet scent clung to your skin, adding an intoxicating edge to the moment.

He took another step forward, the distance now mere inches. His hand moved of its own accord, his fingers gently tracing the line of your collarbone, the touch soft yet possessive. "You look…" He swallowed, his eyes finally meeting yours. "Breathtaking."

You blushed, feeling goosebumps rise on your arms as he grazed your skin. Feeling such a gentle touch for the first time from him, swallowing with slight nerves. "My prince, do not be silly. I am simply in my nightgown," you joked with a light tone, your voice breathy.

You felt a warm flush spread across your cheeks, and a shiver coursed through you as his fingertips danced lightly upon your skin. It was a gentle caress, unlike any you had ever known from him, igniting nervous anticipation in your belly that made you swallow hard. “My prince, do not be foolish,” you bantered softly, a teasing lilt gracing your breath. 

“I am clad in my nightgown.” Your words hung in the air, sweet as honey, while your heart raced at the intimate closeness between you.

He hesitated, fingers barely touching your collarbone, worried he might cross an unwelcome line. His mind raced with thoughts that made him ache, nearly choking on his words.

“I’m not joking. You look... ravishing." The word fell from his lips like a confession, barely above a whisper. "Like a goddess made flesh,” he breathed, his voice thick with desire. Valarr’s gaze devoured you, trailing down your body to the low neckline that had him yearning and weak in the knees.

Valarr swallowed hard, realising he had never allowed himself to acknowledge the depth of his attraction to you until now. He felt blood rush to his cock so fast it almost made him dizzy, breeches tightening against his bulge.

His hand drifted lower, fingertips brushing the swell of your breast through the thin fabric. He felt your nipple stiffen at his touch, betraying your arousal. The air between you crackled with tension, heavy with unspoken desires.

You gasped as Valarr's fingers brushed your soft breasts, your nipples stiffening instantly at his touch. "Valarr," you breathed out, instinctively arching your back to press your breasts more fully into his palm. Your eyes fluttered closed, body burning with a sudden, intense ache that made your core throb.

"Touch me," you murmured, voice husky and low, a plea laced with newfound hunger. Your own hands moved to cover his, holding his touch against you as you felt your heart pounding. The cool air and your racing pulse made your skin prickle with goosebumps.

Now that you'd had a taste, you could never go back.

Your tongue darted out to wet your lips, the action slow and deliberate, an unspoken invitation. The air between you felt electric, heavy with the promise of passion about to be unleashed.

Unable to resist any longer, Valarr cupped the soft mounds fully, thumbs grazing over the hardened peaks. He leaned down, breath hot against your ear as he murmured, "As my princess commands..."

Valarr leaned down and captured your lips in a searing kiss. His mouth moved over yours hungrily, tongue delving past your lips to taste you deeply. One hand remained at your breast, kneading the soft flesh, while the other slid down to grip your hip, pulling your body flush against his.

He could feel his own heart pounding in his chest, his cock throbbing almost painfully against his breeches.

You kissed him back clumsily, but with growing fervour. Your tongues tangled awkwardly as you let out a muffled moan into his mouth. Your hands clutched at his shoulders, fingers digging in as you tried to steady yourself and simultaneously pull him closer.

Gods, but he kisses like a starving man, you thought dizzily, your own hunger rising to match his. You could feel the evidence of his desire, hard and insistent, against your stomach. It thrilled and intimidated you in equal measure.

Valarr's hands slid down to grip your rear, squeezing the firm globes as he pulled you harder against him. He could feel your body melting into his, your soft curves moulding perfectly to the hard planes of his body. His hips rocked forward, grinding his cloth-covered erection against your core, seeking friction even through the layers of fabric separating you.

Breaking the kiss, Valarr's mouth trailed down to your neck, his teeth grazing your pulse point. He nipped and sucked at the tender skin, determined to mark you as his own. His hands slid under the hem of your nightgown, calloused fingers skimming up your thighs, leaving goosebumps in their wake.

Valarr was inexperienced, having lived a sheltered life and never visiting the brothels as his cousins often did. But he was a man—a Targaryen. He instinctively knew where to trace his fingers.

"I want to taste you." He whispered, voice shaky with how many thoughts and feelings were swirling inside him.

Driven by a yearning that stirred deep within, he needed to taste you, to have your honey on his tongue.

You let out a shaky sigh at his bold confession, the breath catching in your throat for a fleeting moment. "Taste me?" you inquired, uncertainty lacing your voice. 

Your knowledge of intimacy came from books or your handmaiden, who kept the description of the act rather vague. Teaching you that the main purpose of a man and woman being together was to reproduce.

Valarr's hands slid further up your thighs, thumbs brushing the sensitive skin at the apex. "Here," he murmured, voice low and thick with desire. "I want to put my mouth on you, taste your essence, feel you come undone against my tongue..."

"Forgive me, I forget myself. This is new for me too." His thumb caressed your inner thigh soothingly.

I want to put my mouth on your sweet cunt until you're writhing and begging for more. That is what he truly wanted to say, but he kept his baser instincts at bay.

Your eyes widened, and you let out a breathy gasp, "Oh! I see..." You bit your lip, a blush spreading across your cheeks. "Well, I suppose that could be... pleasant." You trusted him; that's what made you agree almost embarrassingly quickly.

Valarr's heart raced at your breathy consent. Slowly, almost reverently, he eased you down onto the bed, settling between your parted thighs. He gazed up at you, eyes darkened with lust and a hint of tenderness.

"Pleasant doesn't begin to cover it," he murmured, hands sliding further up, thumbs brushing maddeningly close to your core.

With that, he leaned in, breath ghosting over your clothed sex. Then, he pressed a soft kiss to your mound, breathing in your scent before pulling the fabric aside.

Gods, she smells divine, he thought, mouth watering.

Your stomach fluttered nervously asyou felt Valarr's breath ghosting over your most intimate place, thighs clenching instinctively. A breathy, almost mortified whimper escaped your lips as he pushed your nightgown up and exposed your womanhood to his hungry gaze. "Ah," you gasped, cheeks flushing crimson. Yet, you made no move to stop him, pulse quickening in anticipation.

Valarr paused, looking up at you with a mix of hunger and tenderness in his mismatched eyes. "Shh, don't be nervous," he murmured. "I would never hurt you, my princess."

He leaned in, inhaling your scent deeply before placing a soft, open-mouthed kiss on your bare mound. His tongue flicked out, parting your lower lips, tasting your essence. He groaned at the flavour of you, eyes fluttering closed.

"Sweet gods, you taste even better than I imagined," he rumbled against your skin, the vibrations sending shivers up your spine. His hands gripped your thighs, spreading them wider as he settled between them.

His tongue delved deeper, exploring your folds with a growing hunger. He lapped at your essence, savouring the taste of your arousal. His hands slid up to grip your rear, kneading the flesh as he pulled you tighter against his mouth.

"Valarr~" you mewled, back arching off the bed as jolts of pleasure shot through you. Your fingers clawed at the sheets, bunching the fine linen in your fists as you gripped them for dear life.

What is this feeling? You thought dizzily, overwhelmed by sensations you had never known before. Soft, breathy mewls and whimpers spilt from your lips uncontrollably.

"So... so good..." you trailed off, unable to even articulate the depth of your pleasure, your body writhing with a hunger you had never known before.

Valarr groaned against your sex, the sound vibrating through you. Behaving more like an animal rather than a prince.

He sealed his lips around your clit, suckling the sensitive bud. His tongue flicked over it in quick, teasing strokes, drawing more of your essence.

Your breathing grew ragged, mingling with the obscene sounds of his suckling, filling the room with a symphony of lewd noises.

Valarr's thumbs spread your glistening folds apart, revealing your slick, little hole to his hungry gaze. "Exquisite," he breathed, the sight of your dripping sex making his painfully hard cock throb against his breeches. 

Unable to resist any longer, he leaned in and dragged the flat of his tongue along your slit, savouring your ambrosial taste, before delving inside your tight channel with a low moan.

He thrust his tongue in and out, fucking your hole with his mouth as his hands gripped your hips, pulling you harder against him. His nose brushes your sensitive clit with each thrust, the stimulation driving you wild.

Valarr's movements might have been clumsy, but he was too focused on making you feel good. Listening what exactly you seemed to like, ears trained on the pretty sounds you made for him.

He could feel your walls fluttering around his invading muscle, your body instinctively trying to draw him deeper. Nothing else mattered in that moment but bringing his princess to the pinnacle of ecstasy.

One hand slid up to splay across your belly, feeling it quiver beneath his touch as he pleasured you with lips and tongue. The other hand gripped your hip, holding you in place.

"Oh fu- gods!" You cried out, voice ragged with pleasure. Your body undulated beneath him, thighs quivering and clenching around his head. You could feel every drag of his tongue, every suckle and nip, stoking the fire building in my core.

Moans spilt freely from your lips, growing louder. In that moment, you cared not who might hear. Your fingers tangled in his brown hair, nails digging into his scalp as you held him to you, pushing his face into your cunny.

Valarr's eyes rolled back in bliss as he feasted on your dripping sex. The lower half of his face was entirely coated in your juices, but he didn't seem to mind at all.

"Ah, gods, I can't... I can't..." you gasped, voice breaking as your body began to tremble uncontrollably. 

He pushed his hand more firmly on your stomach, holding you in place so he could continue lapping at your cunt, making sure you couldn't run away from the pleasure.

A broken cry tore from your throat, eyes fluttering shut as a coiling heat gathered in your core. Valarr's grip on your hips held you in place, preventing any escape from the intense sensations consuming you.

His cock had been hard and leaking the entire time, pulsing against the mattress as fresh beads of precum kept staining his breeches.

Valarr's hips began to hump the bed instinctively, his painfully hard cock rubbing against the mattress as he lost himself in pleasuring you. The friction of the fabric against his aching arousal only heightened his lust, making him hump against the bed like a dog in rut.

Uncontrollable, near animalistic moans spilt from your lips, your body writhing beneath him. "Valarr!" you choked out, your voice ragged and raw with pleasure.

The coil of tension in your belly wound tighter and tighter, threatening to snap at any moment. You could feel the impending release building, your walls clenching and fluttering around his invading tongue.

You had never known such intense sensation. It felt as if you were possessed, leaving you a writhing, mewling mess.

Valarr's own body was wound tight, his cock throbbing almost painfully as he rutted against the bed. He needed to make you come, to feel your pleasure crest before he sought his own release. Only then would he allow himself the satisfaction of spilling in his breeches like a green boy.

He could only whine into your cunt, the sound muffled by your dripping flesh. He sees your body tensing. He knew you were close. He needed to taste your release, to feel you come undone against his mouth.

He sucked your clit hard, his lips sealing around it as his tongue flicked over the tip rapidly, pushing you closer and closer to the edge.

He could feel his own release building as well, his balls drawing up tight as he rutted desperately against the mattress, chasing his own end. But he focused only on you, determined to please you before seeking his own.

"Valarr!" You cried out, voice ragged and raw with ecstasy. Your body convulsed beneath his touch, back arching off the bed as you shattered into a million pieces.

"Mmhhh~" you mewled shamelessly, fingers fisting in his hair, holding him tight against your sex as you rode out each intense wave of your climax.

Valarr's own body seized, his cock pulsing hard as he found his release in his breeches. With a muffled cry against your sex, he found his own release, his body stiffening as hot seed spurted from his cock, staining his breeches. His hips jerked and shuddered as he came, the sensation of your quivering walls under his tongue pushing him over the edge.

He shuddered and twitched below you, gasping for breath as the intense pleasure of his climax rolled through him. Hecouldn't remember the last time he had come so hard, so intensely. The taste of your sex, the sound of your cries, the feel of your body writhing above him—it was all too much.

He held you close as you trembled and shook, his hands gripping your hips tightly as he helped you ride out each intense wave of your climax.

Finally, as your body went limp beneath him, he slowly pulled back, looking up at you with hooded eyes.

"Fuck," you panted, chest heaving as you stared up at the canopy above. "That felt... really good." You sat up on your elbows, meeting his gaze. "I didn't know men did that to their women." You admitted shyly, still catching your breath. "Can you do it again sometimes?"

Valarr smiled, a boyish grin spreading across his face as he gazed up at you. "Anytime you wish, my princess," he murmured, voice still rough from his own intense climax. "In fact..." He leaned in, placing a soft, lingering kiss on your sensitive mound, making your muscles twitch. "I look forward to it."

Valarr smiled, a boyish grin spreading across his face as he gazed up at you. "Anytime you wish, my princess," he murmured, voice still rough from his own intense climax. "In fact..." He leaned in, placing a soft, lingering kiss on your sensitive mound, making your muscles twitch. "I look forward to it."

He leaned in, capturing your lips in a deep, sensual kiss. You could taste yourself on him, the musky flavour of your release. His hands slid up your sides, cupping your breasts and kneading the soft flesh.

"I must be patient until we are married," he murmured against your lips. "I need to be proper. But once you are mine, I will have you every day if you only let me. I want to fill you with my seed until it takes, until your belly swells with my child."

Rolling onto his back, he gathered you to his side, one arm wrapped possessively around your waist. 

You sighed in bliss as he held you, relaxing into his touch. Finally feeling loved and appreciated in this union, caressing his chest softly while your lids grew heavy with sleep.

SUMMERHALL'S DELIGHT

Princess Visenya was Summerhall’s delight; a ray of sunshine in everyone’s lives. Perhaps her arrival to this world helped the troubled family to bond over her in the ways they hadn’t expected to be possible.

She was Prince Maekar’s first grandchild and first granddaughter. He was mesmerised with her and her innocent softness just like all his children had once been. And she never minded that he was grumpy or unpleasant. In fact, it would make her giggle and make grabby hands to give him a hug. Maekar always wanted to babysit her whenever he could.

But he had lots of rivals in that aspect.

Prince Daeron was drinking less just to spend more time with her. His adorable niece who kept looking at him with love and admiration. She inspired him to get better, to never lose a moment from her growth, to help her and guide her, and sneak her sweets from the kitchens. To be the best uncle in the Realm and perhaps to settle down as well soon and have a family of his own.

Princess Daella and Princess Rhae were constantly with the little girl, dressing her up, putting flowers in her hair and brushing it delicately as they would tell her stories.

Prince Aegon was observing his niece curiously. He loved to make her laugh with funny faces and watch her blow bubbles of saliva from her widely smiling mouth.

Prince Aerion had surprised everyone the most, though. During your pregnancy, he had been telling absolutely everybody that you had been carrying his son, a dragon, his heir. Yet, the moment a maester had told him about the babe being a girl, he had fallen for her instantly. He had been the one to name her Visenya but she was not like the Queen she had been named after. At least not for now.

She was kind, she was sweet and she was lively. Daeron would sometimes say she reminded him of Aerion when he was a babe himself but only when Aerion was not around to hear that.

Maekar would agree.

And now he was bouncing her on his knee as the little girl giggled, reaching out towards him as he laughed. It was a lovely morning and they were in his office. He was supposed to be answering important letters but he preferred to entertain Visenya.

When he realised that Aerion entered the room, Maekar’s smile dropped. He knew it meant his son would want his daughter back.

“Father,” Aerion looked around, a little irritated. “You’ve been with her all morning. It is my turn now, is it not? Besides, you are supposed to be answering letters.”

“Am I not allowed to entertain my precious granddaughter a little bit more?” Maekar asked, tickling Visenya as she giggled.

“Actually, no,” Aerion approached them and took Visenya from Maekar. The girl pouted at first but then she laughed at the sight of her father.

“She even pouts like you,” Maekar chuckled.

“I do not pout,” Aerion objected as he adjusted the baby in his arms. “Come, sweet little Visenya, let your father take you to the gardens.”

Visenya clapped her little hands and Aerion walked out of his father’s office to walk slowly towards the gardens behind the castle. It was a lovely place that had started blooming again after you moved to Summerhall.

Even though everyone was saying Visenya was the one to make everything better, real observant people knew that it was you. It was you who made the place cosier and lovelier. It was you who made the family stronger and it was you who gave birth to this little Princess everyone adored so much.

Aerion knew about it. Even though he found it hard to admit it, he knew. He could feel that everything was better ever since he had married you. And perhaps he wasn’t able to say it out loud but he was definitely trying to show his gratitude.

“We will pick flowers for mummy,” Aerion put Visenya down onto the grass around the flower pots. “I mean, you will. It is not something men do,” he fixed himself and crouched down to help her.

Visenya looked at him funny. Then she pointed at the rose growing nearby.

“You like this one, huh? Then pick it,” Aerion encouraged her but his daughter refused to move. “Come on, don’t make me do it.”

Visenya pouted and crossed her arms. Aerion sighed.

“I suppose you’re right. Roses have thorns, after all. We wouldn’t want you to get hurt. Alright then, just this once,” he picked up the lovely rose. “You’re picking up the next one, Princess.”

Visenya crawled to the lilies and chuckled at them happily. Aerion followed her with a gentle smile. She looked so pretty surrounded by flowers. He had never expected to feel this way looking at anyone and here she was, his child, and his heart was practically melting into a puddle.

“You want mummy to have a lily now? Well, pick it up then,” he teased but he knew she wouldn’t. So, he sighed and leaned in to pick a flower.

“Naaah-aah!” Visenya protested, seeing the flower he chose.

“Not this one?”

“Naaaah!” She rolled her eyes and he laughed. 

“This one perhaps?” He touched another lily.

Visenya squealed out of frustration and her little fists clenched.

“You cannot be so picky, come on, what is wrong with this one?” Aerion asked.

Usually, he would lose his temper already. But never with her.

Finally, she pointed at the flower she wanted from the beginning. Aerion shook his head and picked it up. Surprisingly, it wasn’t a random choice. This lily was truly the prettiest.

“You have a good eye for flowers, my sweet,” he pointed out and his girl giggled. “You know, one day I am going to win you a tourney and I will crown you The Queen of Love and Beauty, how about that? And you will wear a wreath made of the prettiest flowers,” he promised. She kept staring at him with admiration and awe.

Aerion cracked a smile at that. It still felt unusual sometimes to have something so pure loving him unconditionally. Deep down he knew he didn’t deserve that.

“Well, we only have two flowers. We should find more for mummy,” he changed the subject quickly as he cleared his throat. “What now? Daisies? Peonies?”

“Since when do you know so many flower names?” Your voice interrupted him. Aerion froze at first and then he turned around, only to spot you standing by one of the trees. Your eyes were sparkling and your lips were curved into a loving smile. “Forgive me, Lord Husband, I was taking a walk and spotted you two. Couldn’t help myself and spied on you.”

“That is not very nice, Lady Wife, to spy on people,” Aerion pointed out teasingly. “But to answer your question, I must know more about flowers now because I am a father of a little Princess.”

“My dear, I will not trust your judgment when it comes to being nice,” you approached him and kissed him on the cheek even though he looked betrayed by your words. “I find your devotion to little Visenya very endearing, though,” you admitted before smiling at the little girl. “Oh, darling, look,” you pointed at her.

A pretty butterfly sat on the top of her nose as he chuckled. The sight itself nearly made you cry out of happiness. 

You loved Aerion but you knew everything about his flaws, about his madness. You hoped that your sweet little Visenya didn’t inherit the Targaryen illness. So far she seemed to be doing fine. Only time would tell… 

But she was so pure… Made you think that perhaps your husband’s heart had been pure once, too. That he had been born with a heart just as clear and good.

The butterfly flew away and Visenya tried to grab it but she failed at it. She pouted and you picked her up to hold her close.

“She even pouts like you,” you pointed out.

“I do not pout!” Aerion protested, frustrated. You raised an eyebrow at him.

“You do, husband. Daily,” you chuckled. Visenya giggled when she heard your laughter. She clapped her hands.

“Let us not dwell on that. I would rather choose more flowers for the bouquet. Now that you are here, you can choose them yourself,” Aerion looked around, hunting for more flowers to gather.

“What makes you think I won’t be as picky as Visenya?” You joked as you followed him deeper into the garden.

“I know you will be even worse but I will handle it somehow,” Aerion smirked.

After all, it was only fair. You were putting up with him as well.

You smiled to yourself and kissed Visenya on top of her cute little nose as you winked at your daughter. You couldn’t wait for her to be older, so you could talk to her and cause mischief together. At the same time, you wanted her to forever stay this tiny and cute.

After half an hour of picking flowers and annoying Aerion as Visenya giggled, you finally had a pretty bouquet completed. Your husband handed it to you as he took his daughter from your arms. She wrapped her little hands around him and hid her sleepy face in the crook of his neck.

“Looks like someone here needs a nap,” you smiled and rubbed her back. “We should take her inside,” you said and Aerion nodded.

You went to the nursery. It was quite a big room in the castle but at the moment only Visenya occupied it. Aerion laid her to bed and put a cover over her before kissing his girl’s forehead. Meanwhile, you put the flowers inside the vase filled with fresh water and put it on the dresser nearby.

“Those were supposed to be yours,” Aerion whispered, keeping his voice low so his baby girl wouldn’t wake up.

“I know,” you nodded as you fixed the petals of some flowers. “But I want her to have it. She helped to choose the flowers. Let her have her first bouquet.”

After that, you left the nursery and sighed as you looked at your husband.

“Are we not spoiling her too much?” You asked, suddenly. Aerion was confused at that question.

“Too much?” He inquired. “Not such a thing,” he grinned. “She’s a Targaryen Princess, my little flame. If she asked for the world, I would conquer it for her in a heartbeat.”

You cracked a smile. Sometimes his insanity was revealing itself in such adorable ways.

“I have to go now. My squire awaits at the training yard,” Aerion informed you. “Do you want to watch me, wife?”

“Yes, of course. Just let me grab my embroidery,” you nodded and hurried to your shared chambers to grab what you needed.

You joined Aerion at the training yard to watch him train because it brought your husband pride and pleasure to have you there. However, you were not following the movements closely because you were busy with embroidery in the meantime. You were creating a blanket with dragons for your little girl. One day she would be old enough to cheer on her father next to you and you smiled at the thought.

Your peace and quiet was interrupted by a wet nurse. She arrived with flushed cheeks and wide eyes, holding her chest after running all the way to the courtyard.

“What is it?” You asked.

“Little Princess is not in her crib, my Lady!” She revealed. She was a new one and often panicked when such events occurred but you only cracked a smile.

“Her grandsire or uncle probably snatched her,” you chuckled and shook your head. “Come, I will help you look for her,” you put the embroidery down and gathered your skirts to follow the woman inside the castle.

It didn’t take long for you to find Daeron half-laying on one of the sofas, holding giggling Visenya up and chuckling at her. The little girl was kicking into the air with her feet and reaching out towards him with her little hands. 

“Daeron, you cannot wake her up from naps like that. She needs her sleep,” you laughed and crossed your arms as you leaned on the doorway. “Besides, she needs to be fed.”

“Could not stop myself, sweet sister. I was passing by and heard her snore lightly, the most adorable sound,” Daeron explained, sitting up and holding Visenya close to his chest now.

“You need a babe of your own,” you pointed out as you nodded at the wet nurse to approach your brother-in-law to get the Princess from him. He hesitantly allowed her to do so.

“I need a wife first,” Daeron laughed, nervously.

“We will find you one,” you promised with a nod. “In fact, I can take it as a challenge to find you a wife before the winter comes.”

Daeron rolled his eyes at that and then he made a funny face at Visenya who was now being carried out of the room in the wet nurse’s arms. She chuckled and blew him a kiss.

“It is truly astonishing how adorable she is considering the obvious,” you whispered, sitting on the sofa next to Daeron.

“It is not astonishing to me,” he whispered. “We just have to make sure that the curse doesn’t get to her.”

“And what if it does? Despite our earnest attempts?” You asked, voicing out your greatest fear.

“Then we will figure it out,” Daeron smiled nervously as he looked at you. “Together.”

You nodded at his words and smiled at Aerion who just walked inside the room and looked around.

“And? Is she safe?” He asked.

“Yes, my dear, Daeron took her. She’s with the wet nurse now,” you told him and stood up to approach him and fix his tunic slightly. Then you moved your hands up to his silver Targaryen hair as you brushed the reckless strands.

His bright eyes found yours and you smiled. If only his madness was not a threat to Visenya… You wouldn’t have to worry about anything then.

“Let’s go,” Aerion took you by your hand and led you out of the room as he guided you towards your own chambers now. “What were you talking about with my brother?” He asked on the way there.

“Nothing of importance…” You bit your lower lip but Aerion stopped in the middle of the corridor to turn around and look deep into your eyes. 

“Don’t lie to me, I cannot stand it, wife,” he reminded you, harshly. You took a sharp breath in.

“I am worrying that Visenya might… Might have the Targaryen madness,” you didn’t know how to phrase it differently.

“Why would she? After whom?” Aerion furrowed his brows.

You couldn’t admit to him that he was the main source of the problem.

“Well, it happens quite randomly, doesn’t it?” You only inquired.

“It does not, it is a slander from those who are jealous of us!” Aerion explained, nervously. “Don’t be like them, wife, it is so weak of you.”

You nodded at him and looked down, playing with your fingers.

“She will be alright,” Aerion squeezed your arm and raised your chin with his hand to make you look at him. His face was gentler now. “She’s my daughter, after all,” he reminded you with a smirk and left your side to continue the walk towards your chambers.

“And that is what worries me,” you whispered under your breath.

If Visenya truly was to be mad and insane, watching her succumb into that state would be the most painful thing you’d ever have to endure.

But you would figure it out.

Just like you figured out her father.

The parcel had arrived from Lys three weeks prior, wrapped in oiled silk and smelling faintly of exotic flowers you could not name.

Your handmaiden Lynesse had presented it with the appropriate ceremony, her eyes bright with the particular gleam of a woman who had already read the accompanying instructions twice.

"From Magister Daeratos personal apothecary," she'd announced, setting the box upon your dressing table as though it contained the secrets of Old Valyria itself.

"The very same preparation used by the finest courtesans of the Free Cities. They say a woman who employs this shall possess skin smoother than Lyseni silk."

You had examined the contents: a small copper pot filled with a golden substance that smelled of honey and resin and something sharper beneath, lemon, perhaps, or spirits.

A collection of linen strips cut to precise lengths. A wooden spatula carved with patterns you did not recognize. And a letter, written in flowing Valyrian, detailing the art of depilation.

"The removal of unwanted hair," Lynesse had translated, her cheeks pinking slightly. "From… anywhere, my lady. They say it leaves the skin bare as a maiden's blush and twice as soft."

You had been intrigued. Then skeptical. Then, lying awake that night with your husband's arm draped heavy across your waist, you had been decided.

The women of Essos guarded their beauty secrets like dragons guarded gold. Who were you to refuse such knowledge?

Three days later, after Lynesse had practiced upon her own forearm with mixed results and considerable cursing, you found yourself in your private chambers, clad only in a thin shift, contemplating the choices that had led you to this moment.

"This shall be fine," Lynesse assured you, though her voice carried the particular brightness of someone attempting to convince herself. "The Lyseni letter says the discomfort is… fleeting."

"Fleeting," you repeated, eyeing the copper pot warming over a small brazier. The honey-resin mixture bubbled gently, releasing that sharp-sweet scent into the air. "A fleeting discomfort. For skin like Lyseni silk."

"Precisely, my lady."

"And you are certain this is the… appropriate area?"

Lynesse's cheeks flushed crimson, but she nodded with the solemnity of a maester preparing for surgery. "The courtesans of Braavos swear by it. Everywhere, my lady. Everywhere. They say their patrons are most appreciative."

You thought of Valarr. Of the way his breath caught when he first saw you bare. Of the reverent way his hands mapped your body as though memorizing sacred texts. Of how he would bury his face between your thighs and worship until you forgot your own name.

"Proceed," you said.

Lynesse dipped the wooden spatula into the warm mixture. The honey-resin gleamed amber in the candlelight, stretching in golden threads as she lifted it.

"Spread your legs, my lady. Just… a bit wider."

You complied, shifting on the cushioned bench, your shift rucked up around your hips. The air felt cool against your most intimate parts. Vulnerable. You stared at the ceiling and thought of Lys, of silk, of Valarr's delighted face.

Lynesse applied the warm mixture with careful precision.

It was… not unpleasant. Warm. Slightly sticky. You could tolerate this. You were a woman of House Targaryen by marriage, which meant you had endured far worse than—

Lynesse pressed the linen strip firmly against the honey-resin.

"On the count of three," she said.

"Wait—"

One.

"Lynesse, perhaps we should—"

Two.

"Lynesse—"

Three.

The strip tore free with a sound like ripping parchment and a sensation like being flayed alive by the Dothraki.

"SEVEN HELLS AND ALL THEIR BLOODY—"

"Shhh, my lady, shhh, the guards will hear—"

"I DON'T CARE IF THE KING HIMSELF HEARS, LYENESSE, THAT WAS—" You sucked in a ragged breath, tears pricking at your eyes. "That was barbaric."

Lynesse held up the linen strip like a battle trophy. Trapped within the golden resin was a neat patch of curls, torn clean from your most tender flesh.

"Look," she said weakly. "It's working."

You stared at the strip. At the evidence of your sacrifice. At the smooth, pink, bare patch of skin now visible between your thighs.

"…seven hells," you whispered again, but softer this time. Wondering.

An hour later—after considerable wine, several breaks to compose yourself, and one moment where you genuinely considered abandoning the entire endeavor—it was finished.

You stood before the tall looking glass in your shift, examining the results with a mixture of pride, residual pain, and genuine curiosity.

Bare.

Completely, utterly, impossibly bare.

The thatch of curls that had always resided between your thighs was simply… gone. In its place was smooth, soft skin. You looked like a maiden from some Lysene fresco, all soft curves and untouched innocence. You looked like something Valarr had never seen before.

"Gods," Lynesse breathed, peering over your shoulder. "It's… quite something, my lady."

"It feels strange," you admitted, running cautious fingers over the newly bare skin. It was impossibly smooth. Sensitive. Every brush of your fingertips sent little shivers through you. "I feel… exposed."

"You look beautiful."

You tilted your head, studying your reflection. There was something almost obscene about it—the bareness, the vulnerability. You looked like a woman who had been prepared. Like a gift waiting to be unwrapped.

A slow smile curved your lips.

"Send word to my husband," you said. "Tell him his wife requires his presence. Immediately."

Valarr arrived with the speed of a man who had learned never to ignore such summons.

He burst through the chamber doors still wearing his riding leathers, his hair windswept, his mismatched eyes bright with concern and anticipation in equal measure.

"You sent for me. Is everything—are you well? Lynesse looked odd when she delivered the message. She wouldn't meet my eyes. She kept giggling. Lynesse never giggles. What's happened? Has someone died?I swear by the old gods and the new, if this is about another—"

"I have a surprise," you interrupted.

He stopped mid-tirade. Blinked. "A… surprise."

"Yes."

"What manner of surprise? Is it a good surprise? You're smiling, which suggests a good surprise, but you also smiled when you told me about Lord Frey's bridge, so forgive me if I approach this with appropriate caution—"

"Valarr."

"Yes?"

"Come here."

He came. Of course he came. He would have walked into dragonfire if you'd asked him in that voice.

You caught the front of his leather jerkin and pulled him down for a kiss, slow, deep, promising. He made a pleased sound against your mouth, his hands finding your waist with familiar eagerness.

"I've done something," you murmured against his lips.

"Something good or something concerning?"

"Both, perhaps." You stepped back, letting your robe, silk, Essosi, purchased from the same trader who'd brought the wax, slip from your shoulders. Beneath it, you wore nothing at all. "I tried a new beauty ritual. From Lys."

Valarr's gaze traveled down your bare form with the devotion of a man beholding sacred art. His breath caught, as it always did. His hands twitched at his sides, as they always did. "You're beautiful," he said, reverent. "You're always beautiful. Whatever you've done, I'm certain I'll—"

You let him guide you back toward the bed. Let him lay you down among the furs and silks. Let him kiss his way down your body, your throat, your breasts, the soft plane of your stomach, with the worshipful attention he always paid.

And then his lips reached the juncture of your thighs.

He stopped.

Completely stopped.

You felt his breath against your sensitive flesh. Felt him go utterly still. Felt the exact moment his mind processed what his eyes were seeing.

"Yn," he said. His voice was strange. Hollow. "Yn, what…"

He lifted his head.

The expression on his face was not delight. It was not desire. It was not even confusion.

It was grief.

"Yn," he repeated, his mismatched eyes wide and wounded. "What have you done?"

You propped yourself on your elbows, suddenly uncertain. "I told you. A beauty ritual. From Lys. They call it waxing. It removes the—"

"I know what it does." His voice cracked. "I can see what it does." He stared down at your bare sex as though beholding a tragedy. "Why… why is your honeypot bare?"

"My what?"

"Your honeypot." He gestured helplessly at your most intimate parts. "Your… your sweet little nest. Your garden. Your—" He made a frustrated sound. "The pretty curls! Where have they gone?"

"Valarr, I removed them. That's the point of—"

"Removed them?" He looked genuinely stricken. "You removed them? As in, they're gone? Permanently?"

"They'll grow back. Eventually. The lyseni letter said—"

"Eventually?" He sat back on his heels, running both hands through his hair in visible distress. "Yn. Yn, my love. My heart. My entire reason for drawing breath. Do you not understand what you've done?"

You stared at him. "I thought you would like it. The courtesans of Braavos swear by—"

"The courtesans of Braavos?" Valarr looked personally betrayed. "You took intimate grooming advice from Braavosi courtesans? Women who are paid to look a certain way for men who are not their husbands?" He pressed a hand to his chest.

"Yn. I am your husband. I have opinions about your honeypot. Strong opinions. Loving opinions."

"You've never mentioned these opinions before."

"Because I assumed my devotion was obvious!" He gestured emphatically at your bare sex.

"Every night when I put my face in your cunt and make sounds like a drowning man who has found salvation! Did that not communicate my feelings? Did my enthusiastic appreciation somehow fail to register?"

You felt heat rising to your cheeks. "I thought you were simply… enthusiastic about the act."

"The act!" Valarr threw his hands up. "The act. As though I would bury myself between your thighs for just any honeypot. No! No, Yn! I loved yours. Specifically. The little curls. The way they felt against my lips. The way they smelled like you. The way they—"

He broke off, his voice dropping to something almost wounded. "They were my friends."

"Your friends."

"I visited them nightly." He looked down at your bare sex again and his expression crumpled. "And now they're just… gone. Exiled. Banished to whatever realm houses departed curls. Without even a farewell."

You stared at your husband, this prince of the blood, this heir to the Iron Throne, this man who had faced down hardened warriors and scheming lords currently on the verge of tears over your pubic hair.

"You're being absurd," you said.

"I am being heartbroken." He reached out with one tentative finger, brushing it against your newly bare skin. His touch was feather-light, almost reverent, but his face remained tragic.

"It's so… bare. Like a little egg. A sad, naked little egg."

"It's smooth."

"It's lonely." He cupped your sex gently, protectively, as though comforting a wounded creature.

"Poor thing. Poor, bare little thing. What did it ever do to deserve such treatment?"

"Valarr."

"It's like looking at a garden after a frost. A beautiful garden, yes, always beautiful, but where are the flowers? Where is the life?"

He looked up at you with those mismatched eyes, and you were astonished to see they were genuinely glassy.

"I loved that garden, Yn. I tended it with devotion. I knew every curl by heart."

"You did not know every curl by heart."

"I did! There was the one that curled left when all the others curled right. I called him Ñuha Qēlos—my Little Star. And now he's gone."

"You named my pubic hair."

"I name everything I love!" Valarr dropped his forehead to your thigh with a dramatic groan.

"I name my horses. I name my favorite sword. I named your left breast Aegon and your right breast Rhaenys because they conquered me the moment I saw them. Of course I named your honeypot curls. They were family."

You lay back against the pillows, staring at the canopy above, experiencing a complex mixture of exasperation, amusement, and genuine bewilderment.

"I cannot believe," you said slowly, "that I endured an hour of agony—actual agony, Valarr, I believe the Dothraki use this substance for interrogation—only for my husband to mourn my pubic hair like a fallen comrade."

Valarr's head snapped up. "Agony? It hurt?"

"It felt like being flayed alive by tiny, honey-scented demons."

His expression transformed instantly from grief to protective fury. "Who did this to you? Was it Lynesse? I'll have her dismissed. I'll have her exiled. I'll have her sent to the Wall. Do they take women at the Wall? They will now. I'll make them take—"

"It was my idea. She merely… facilitated."

"Under duress, surely."

"Under my explicit instruction."

Valarr's fury deflated into wounded confusion. "But why? Why would you subject yourself—subject your honeypot—to such brutality?"

You reached down, cupping his face in your palm. His light stubble rasped against your skin, familiar and beloved. "Because I wanted to try something new. Something different. Something I thought you might enjoy."

"Enjoy?" He turned his face to press a kiss to your palm. "Yn. My love. My only. I enjoy you. Every part of you. I don't need you to change anything. I don't want you to change anything." He looked down at your bare sex again, and some of the grief returned.

"Though I suppose… it is very smooth."

"The letter said it heightens sensation."

Valarr's eyebrows rose fractionally. "Does it?"

"So they claim."

He was quiet for a moment, his thumb tracing absent patterns on your inner thigh. Then, very slowly, he lowered his head and pressed a gentle kiss to your newly bare sex.

You gasped.

The sensation was different. Sharper. More intense. Every brush of his lips, every whisper of his breath, seemed to echo through your entire body. There was no soft barrier of curls to diffuse the feeling, just pure, electric contact.

Valarr lifted his head, and his expression had shifted from grief to curiosity. "Oh."

"Oh?"

He kissed you again. Slower. More deliberate. You made a sound you didn't recognize.

"Oh," he said again, and this time there was wonder in it. "Oh." He settled himself more comfortably between your thighs, his shoulders pushing them wider.

"I still mourn Ñuha Qēlos. I shall mourn him for some time, I think. But in the interest of… scholarship… I should perhaps investigate these purported heightened sensations."

"Purely for scholarship."

"Purely." He pressed another kiss to your bare flesh, and his tongue flickered out, just barely, just testing. Your hips bucked.

"Valarr—"

"Quiet, my love."

And he proceeded to investigate, with a dedication to scholarship that would have impressed the maesters of the Citadel.

Later you lay tangled together in the rumpled sheets, your body still humming with residual pleasure. Valarr's head rested on your stomach, his hair tickling your skin, one hand absently stroking your bare sex with possessive tenderness.

"I still miss them," he murmured. "My little friends."

"They'll grow back."

"They will?"

"The letter said the effects last several weeks. Perhaps a moon's turn."

Valarr was quiet for a moment. "So I shall have both? Sometimes bare, sometimes… garden?"

"Apparently."

He lifted his head, and his mismatched eyes were bright with revelation. "Yn. Are you telling me that I get to experience variety? That sometimes I shall have the smooth little egg, and sometimes I shall have my beloved curls, and sometimes perhaps—" His breath caught. "—the regrowth phase? The soft little stubble? The—"

"You are becoming far too excited about the cyclical nature of my pubic hair."

"Yn." He scrambled up the bed to frame your face in his hands, kissing you with fervent devotion. "Yn, this is the greatest gift you have ever given me. Better than my dragon egg. Better than my Valyrian steel. Variety. Seasonal honeypots. I shall compose poetry. I shall write songs. Ode to the Ever Changing Garden."

"That is the most absurd—"

"I love you." He kissed your nose, your cheeks, your forehead. "I love you and I love your honeypot in all its forms. Bare. Curled. Regrowing. I shall love every iteration. I shall catalogue them. I shall—"

"If you attempt to paint my pubic hair at various stages of growth, I will annul our marriage."

He paused. "What if I do it from memory? Very discreetly?"

"Valarr."

"I'm joking." He settled beside you, pulling you close, his face pressed into your hair. "Mostly. Partially. I make no binding promises."

You sighed, but you were smiling. "You are utterly ridiculous."

"Utterly devoted." His hand found your bare sex again, cupping it gently. "Poor little egg. It's growing on me, I think. Very smooth. Very sensitive. The way you sounded when I—"

"That's quite enough scholarship for one evening."

"For this evening," he agreed. "Tomorrow, however, is another day"

You laughed, turning in his arms to face him. His mismatched eyes were soft in the candlelight, filled with that overwhelming adoration that never failed to make your heart stutter.

"You truly don't mind?" you asked quietly. "That I changed something?"

Valarr's expression gentled. He pressed a kiss to your forehead, lingering there.

"Yn. My love. You could shave your head and paint yourself blue and I would still fall to my knees every time you entered a room. You could grow a second nose and I would learn to love that nose. You could—"

"These examples are becoming concerning."

"The point," he said firmly, "is that I love you. Not your hair, not your honeypot curls, not any single part. I love the woman who decided to try an Essosi beauty ritual because she thought I might enjoy it. I love the woman who endured agony for the sake of surprising her husband. I love the woman who is currently letting me ramble about pubic hair poetry without smothering me with a pillow."

"The night is young."

He grinned that boyish, devastating grin that had stolen your heart the first time you saw it. "I love you. All of you. Every version. Every season. Every honeypot variation."

You kissed him, soft and slow. "I love you too. Even when you name my body parts after dead conquerors."

"Aegon and Rhaenys are honored. As is Visenya."

You pulled back. "Visenya?"

Valarr's grin turned sheepish. "Your… ah. Lower. The other—"

"Valarr."

"She's my favorite! Don't tell the others!"

You buried your face in his chest, laughing until tears pricked at your eyes. His arms wrapped around you, warm and strong and safe, and you felt his laughter rumbling through his chest.

"I cannot believe," you managed, "that I married a man who names my arse after a Targaryen conqueror."

"You married a man who loves every single part of you," he corrected. "Especially the parts that change with the seasons. Now—" He rolled you beneath him, his eyes dancing. "—about that second round of scholarship…"

And when the curls finally began to return, soft at first, then fuller, Valarr greeted them like long lost family, pressing kisses to each new sprout and welcoming them home.

He was, after all, a man who appreciated variety.

But you weren’t entirely foolish. You were skilled in combat, taught to you by your older brother. And you made sure to leave a note for your husband in the case of an emergency. You wouldn’t be surprised if the Kingsguard were already surrounding you at this moment, unseen but present. 

Aerion was aware of the suffocation court held and allowed you this small freedom. 

The snap of a twig makes you freeze. The guards don’t typically announce themselves when you’re at the pond, allowing you a dream-like bliss of solitude. 

Before you could turn, a hand clamps over your mouth. You twist instinctively, your elbow drives back, but the grip only tightens. 

“Dont,” a voice hisses low against your ear. 

You shift your weight, your fingers curling against the weapon tucked in your sleeve. With just enough strength, you twist free and imbed the dagger into him. 

Without looking behind you, you run for the treeline, trying to lose your captor. 

Your ankle twists, pain shooting up your leg as you lose balance. Stumbling over a fallen trunk, your head strikes a large stone. 

The trees above blur, their branches twisting together into something unrecognizable. 

The last thing you register is the sound of distant shouting and the white cloaks breaking through the trees as your vision darkens. 

~

Gasping for breath, your eyes snap open. 

Your chest rises and falls unevenly, a thin layer of sweat clinging to your skin. Lying there for a minute staring up at the ceiling, you wait for your heartrate to calm.  

Could that have been real? Could it have been the moment that led to your injury?

Surely not. The Targaryen family would not take kindly to one of their own being harmed. They would have questioned you as soon as you woke up.

Unless whoever attacked you had slipped through unnoticed. 

Through the heavy velvet curtains, you could make out the bright sunshine attempting to seep into the darkened room. 

You shift slightly and a strong arm tightens around you. 

Twisting around, you lay face to face with Aerion. Warmth from his bare chest reaches you through the fabric of your thin nightgown. The steady rise and fall of his breathing brushing softly against your skin. 

His grip was not harsh, but not loose either. Even in sleep, he wasn’t able to let you go. 

In sleep, you’d never be able to imagine the stories whispered about his manic cruelty. Ruffled silver hair falls messily against his forehead. His face was relaxed in deep sleep and he looked closer to a kitten than a dragon.

Your eyelids grow heavy, the warmth of his body and the steady rhythm of his breathing lulling you back under. 

It does not last long as a hand closes around your throat.

Your eyes snap open, you see a flash of silver hair before his lips are against your, stealing the breath from your lungs before you could gasp. 

Pressing his thumb against your jaw, he forces your mouth open. His body above you pressing you into the mattress. As if instinctively, you fall into the rhythm as your tongues brush against one another. 

Something hard presses against you– 

You shove hard against his chest, wiping the back of your hand against your lips in disgust. 

“Good morning, wife.” his tongue darts out swiping over his lips. 

“Don’t look so upset,” he shifts, pushing himself up from the bed. “I had to wake you for breakfast. My father doesn’t take kindly to tardiness.”

“Don’t ever do that again.” Your chest is still rising too quickly. “I don’t want your dirty mouth on mine.”

“Never bothered you before,” he stands now, birthday suit on display. 

Heat rises to your cheeks as you look away. You don’t need to avert your eyes for long as the large oak doors open, a flurry of maids rushing in. 

“My lady–” one begins, before faltering mid-step, her eyes darting between you and Aerion. 

Aerion does not so much as glance towards them. 

Instead, he lazily pulls on a pair of lounge trousers as his own valet de chambre file in, not a care in the world for the display he just put on. His gaze flicks towards you briefly, and it's clear through his satisfied look that he wanted them to see. He wanted their whispers about your relationship to travel beyond these chambers. 

You are both dressed in silence, the quiet between you uneasy and broken only by the shift in fabric and murmur of servants. Still, his gaze burned into the back of your head, but you refused to acknowledge him. 

You murmur, “Was that necessary?”

One of the servants offers him a shirt, which he takes without comment as he pulls it over his head. Only then does his attention return to you. 

“You are my wife,” he says simply. 

“That doesn’t mean you get to parade me around.”

You could feel the anger seeping through his bones, but he doesn’t grace you with a reply. 

He finishes dressing and leaves the room without another word. 

The dress sat off your shoulders, the neckline cut straight, holding its shape rather than softening to you. The fabric was black with red threads that caught the light when you moved. Along the top, fine gold gems detailed into dragon scales. Large rubies draped over your next, set in ornate gold. 

You were escorted by a knight, Ser Ronnel Darklyn, to the main hall, after being left behind by your insufferable husband, who was painfully aware of your memory loss (after warning you about how Maekar would be displeased with lateness).

You were in the clear to make the assumption that the two of you did not get along through your marriage so far. 

The main hall was filled with chatter as the Targaryen family filled the long wooden table that seemed to stretch endlessly beneath the high ceilings. At the head sat King Daeron with his son Baelor at his side and Myriah at his other. Other members of the family filled the middle of the table, their conversations blending into a low hum. At the far end sat Maekar with his gaggle of children surrounding him, their presence far louder. 

You took the empty chair next to Aerion, reluctantly. 

“Good Morrow, sister.” Aemon greeted you with a kind smile, only to receive a death glare from his brother. 

“Good Morrow, Aemon. I hope you slept well.”

Breakfast continued around you, the table filled with conversation that moved easily from one topic to the next. You focused on the food in front of you, cutting into it with more attention than necessary. Not yet certain with what you should know or what you were expected to say. 

The chatter dims when the King turns his attention towards you.

“I trust you are recovering well.” 

You stare at him for a moment longer than you should, scrambling for the appropriate response. 

“Yes, your Grace.”

“Very well, I await your thoughts on the book I lent you.” he continues. “Perhaps you could join me in my solar this afternoon.”

Your grip tightens around your utensils. Before you respond, Maekar’s voice cuts in. 

“Father,” he says firmly. “She has suffered a bout of memory loss. The Maester assured us she will recover in due time.”

“I see,” The King says after a moment. “That is… unfortunate.”

“And you remember nothing?” he continues. 

Setting your fork down carefully, aware of all the many pairs of lilac eyes focused on you. 

“Very little, your Grace,” you answer, keeping your voice steady. “Only what I have been told.”

Beside you, Aerion sighs only loud enough for you to hear, laced with impatience and irritation.  

The King nods slowly, already shifting the conversation elsewhere. 

~

You decide to spend your afternoon strolling through the gardens, keeping close to the castle walls where the paths are familiar enough. The air is calmer here, quieter than the main halls, and for a moment it almost feels like you can breathe without being watched. 

Even so, you can feel them. 

Hidden along the edges of the garden, just out of sight, lies the Kingsguard silently watching every movement for a sign of a threat. 

Not far from you, the sharp sound of steel cutting through air draws your attention.

Aerion stands in the training yard just beyond the hedges, already deep into his morning practice. His movements are controlled, each strike deliberate. So opposed to his reckless nature. 

You slow without meaning to. Your gaze lingers longer than it should, watching as the droplets of sweat trail down his naked chest. His broad back flexing with each swing of his sword. His trousers hanging low on his waist, revealing a deep V trailing down… 

As if sensing your gaze, his eyes turn in your direction. When he catches your eye, a smug grin spreads over his face. 

The moment ends abruptly as a small hand tugs at your wrist. 

“You must come with me” You barely have time to react before Aegon is pulling you along the path, his energy bouncing off him. 

As you reach the stables, he begins introducing you to each stallion. And there are many. 

The stables are large, as expected from a dragon dynasty, filled with the low sounds of shifting hooves. 

“And this is Nightshade,” he says, patting the neck of a dark mare. “And this one is Maekar Jr, this one– You must pay attention.”

“Come on,” he says, already turning away. “You can feed them.”

He presses a small handful of grain into your palm before you can protest, closing your fingers around it. 

“You have to hold it flat,” he adds. “Otherwise they’ll nip you and Aerion will be upset.”

You let out a quiet breath, more amused, and follow his instructions. Nightshade leans forward, her breath warm against your skin. 

You almost pull back, but Aegon’s voice cuts in. “Don’t move, she’ll think you’re nervous.”

“She remembers you,” Aegon adds casually. “This is Aerion’s mare.”

Before you can respond, a smaller figure darts between the stalls. 

“Aegon!” Daella’s voice is bright and breathless as she comes to a stop, her hair half-done, ribbons already slipping loose. 

Rhae follows more quietly behind her, clutching a small basket to her chest.

“We’ve been looking everywhere for you,” Daella continues, though her attention quickly shifts to you. “Oh! You’re here.”

Rhae steps closer, peering up at you with careful curiosity.

“You didn’t come this morning,” she says softly. You hesitate, unsure how to answer.

“I wasn’t feeling well,” you settle on.

Aegon scoffs lightly. “She forgot everything.”

“Aegon,” you warn, without real heat.

Daella’s eyes widened immediately. “Everything?”

Rhae doesn’t speak, but her hand slips into yours without hesitation, her grip small but firm.

“It’s alright,” she says quietly. “We can show you again.”

Aegon nods, “Yeah. We’ll teach you the important things.”

“Like braiding hair,” Daella adds quickly.

“And the horses,” Aegon insists.

“And which servants sneak us lemon tarts,” Rhae says, almost conspiratorially.

A shadow stretches across the ground in front of you. 

You turn, as Ser Ronnel Darklyn steps forward.

“My lady,” he says with a slight bow, “His Grace has requested your presence.”

There is no urgency in his voice, but no room for delay either. 

Aegon crosses his arms. “You can come back after,” he says, “We’re not done.”

~

It was late when you returned to your chambers. What you expected to be a brief pleasantry stretched far longer than you would assume between a King and his grandson’s wife. 

The King began with careful questions circling your conditions, testing what you could recall (a whole lot of nothing). The topic shifted to books which he spoke animatedly about. Halfway through, you got the hint that you had already had this conversation before and that he was taking advantage of your memory loss to talk your ear off about his passions.

King Daeron and the Queen Consort, Myriah, insisted you dined with them privately in their solar instead of the three of you joining the family in the main hall.

When you step into your chambers, the fire has burned low, casting a dim glowing across the room. 

You exhale slowly, reaching up to loosen the weight of the necklace at your throat, the rubies warm against your skin. 

“It’s late,” a voice cuts through the silence. “A wife ought to dine with her husband.”

Rolling your eyes at his dramatics, you cross the room until you stand directly before him. 

“A husband ought to escort his wife to breakfast,” you reply evenly. “Especially when she has no memory of where she is going.”

“A wife ought to fulfill her wifely duties.”

“A husband ought–” 

Before you could finish the sentence, his hand catches your wrist and he pulls you forward. The sudden shift in balance sends you straight into him, his other arm wrapping around your waist as he settles you into his lap. 

“What are you doing?” you demand. 

“Reminding you of your duties.”

His mouth lands on yours, taking advantage of your shocked expression. But before he can repeat the morning activities, you push at his chest. 

“Enough of this–”

“The Maester said you must continue your routine,” he interrupts, tone eerily calm. 

You stare at him, incredulous. “My routine?”

“Yes.” His grip tightens slightly at your waist, enough to keep you from pulling away completely. “Familiar habits. Familiar patterns. It is supposed to help your memory.”

Your brows knit together, the explanation settling poorly. “And you decided what, exactly?”

“I decided,” he says quietly, “that I will not have you treating me like a stranger in my own chambers.”

“That’s because you are a stranger to me,” you shoot back, “I don’t remember you or this.”

“And yet, you responded this morning”

“It means nothing. My body reacted.”

He doesn’t argue further. Instead, his hands tighten around you, he lifts you and carries you to the bed. You land against the mattress with a soft thud, the cushions shifting beneath you as you push yourself up. 

His arms circle around you, undoing the laces of your dress with expertise. The fabric loosens, slipping from your shoulders, the cold air causing goosebumps to spread over your skin. You did nothing to stop him as he haphazardly threw the gown somewhere across the floor. His gaze travels along your naked body, taking every inch of you in as he begins to unbuckle his belt. 

Dampness pooled between your legs as you greedily soaked in his figure. 

Instead, he turns away, walking towards the dressers. Aerion grabs a sheer nightgown, and pulls it over your head with far less care, the fabric settling lightly against your skin. 

You stare at him confused, “What–?”

“I won’t touch you until you beg for me.” His gaze meets yours, “And, my love, you will beg for me.” 

He moves around the room, extinguishing the candles one by one until the room is left in near darkness, only the glow of the dying fire remains. When he returns to the bed, he pulls you back against him, his arm settling around your waist.

Sleep would not come easily tonight. Your mind was racing and the ache between your thighs persisted. 

~

tags. @thorscrown @hnslchw @writtingforfun @starkleila @mismwaa @goldenrosequeen @dabishou @akstranger-16x @cherrypieyourface @snorklingfae @rebeccawinters @unicoo

This isn’t your room. The realization settles slowly, as your hands grip the sheets. You look around again, searching for something– anything– familiar. 

With a soft creak, the door opens. 

A maester steps inside, his eyes widening the moment he sees you awake. 

“My Lady, you’ve awoken,” he says, startled, moving towards you. 

“Where am I?” your voice is hoarse. 

“Lie back, allow me to examine you”

His hands are gentle as he presses his palm to your forehead, checking your temperature. He examines the wrapping near your temple, where a medium sized gash lies, clearly cleaned and tended to with precision. 

“Your wound seems to be healing properly,” he murmurs. “Your husband is occupied in a council meeting, but we’ll send for him once it concludes.”

Husband?

You don’t get to question him further as he steps out of the room. 

You swallow, your thoughts scrambling. 

The last you could remember was walking through the rocky lowlands of your home in The Vale. Your siblings beside you, daring each other higher and higher along the cliffs, your boots slipping against damp stone as rain begins to fall. Your room in The Vale was simple, decorated in blues and greys, nothing like the suffocating richness of velvet and shadow that surrounds you now. 

Has your family travelled for a feast? A tourney?

The word husband lingers like a bruise yet to develop to dark mauve and sickly yellow.

No, that couldn’t be right. Surely you would remember your wedding. Perhaps the maester had confused you for another lady, and in his rush, was not able to confirm your identity. 

You’ll wait for this lord husband to come by and discuss the mistake at hand. 

Your eyes flicker to the door. As if summoning someone, the door creaks open, almost unnoticeable. 

A small boy, no older than ten and three, peaks his head through. His silver hair falls messily into his lilac eyes. As soon your eyes meet, he rushes inside with a wide grin. 

“Sister!” he blurts, before slipping in. 

Another smaller boy, trailing behind him. “Wait for me–” rushing towards you, he clambers onto the mattress, settling comfortably beside you. 

Sister? Something must be wrong because these boys were not your brothers. Studying them closely now. The pale hair and lilac eyes. Looking eerily similar to a house of dragons. Slowly, the pieces fall together and your gaze drags around the room once more. 

The red and black velvet furniture.  

Gold thread woven into the heavy drapes. 

The furs draped across your limbs, far beyond anything you’ve ever known. 

This was no noble house of the Vale. Could not be a house of any prominent lord. 

Your string of thoughts snipped as the little boy rests his head on your clavicle. The older boy rests his palm against your forehead.

“Hmmph.” He hums softly, brows knitting together in thought. “Yes indeed your fever has broken.” 

A flicker of satisfaction crossed his face. “I must examine you further, sister,” he adds. “As any good maester.” 

Before you can react, he turns toward the small table beside the bed, vials arranged carefully. 

“A maester?” you echo.

Glancing towards you, he blushes. “Well not yet obviously, but as you know, father intends to send me to the Citadel this summer to see where my interests–”

“Who is your father?” you question.

His hand on the vials froze, turning to you slowly, “What?”

The younger boy lifts his head from where it rests against you, blinking up at your face.

Your pulse began to race, “Who is your father?” You repeated. 

“That isn’t funny.” Uncertainty creeping into his voice. 

“I’m not joking.”

The younger one pushes himself up fully now, no longer relaxed, his small hands gripping the fabric of your nightgown.

“Why are you talking like this?” he asks. 

You open your mouth– 

Wood crashes against stone with a force, making the three of you flinch. 

“My wife!” a voice rings out, sharp and theatrical. “What a dreadful time I’ve spent with my uncle and grandsire–” The man’s manic smile fades as he takes in the two boys– one in your arms and the other standing beside you with a vial. 

Aerion Targaryen. He stands tall in the doorway, silver hair catching the firelight, pale violet eyes sharp and burning with something volatile. There is something almost beautiful about him, in the way a blade is beautiful just before it cuts. 

His expression darkens. 

“You little fucking wretch. Why are you bothering my wife?” His voice seethes with venom. “Put those fucking vials down, Aemon.”

Aemon’s hands tremble as he sets the vials down with the rest. 

“Get off the bed now!” he shouts towards the boy in her arms as he yanks at Aemon’s ear.  

The younger boy startles, scrambling back. Your arms tighten around him, holding him close. 

“Stop it!” your voice trembling. “Stop shouting at them. Leave us.” 

Aerion stills, silence floods the room.

You recognize him from the many tourneys you had attended with your family. Dark banners with a three-headed red dragon snapping in the wind. Notably at the last tourney in Ashford, Prince Aerion had called for a Trial of Seven against a knight of no great standing. 

The whole ordeal had unsettled you deeply. 

He releases Aemon’s ear, a look almost close to remorse washes over. It vanishes quickly, replaced with something neutral and bored. 

His mouth opens to speak–

“Brother,” Aemon’s voice cuts in suddenly, “I think there is something wrong with her.” 

“Enough Aemon, you’re no maester yet.” Aerion scoffs, shoving him lightly aside. “Go fetch some water.”

“I’m serious,” his eyes fixed on you. “She doesn’t remember Father’s name.”

“Enough of these games wife,” Aerion turns towards you, head tilted and an unsettling grin graces his face, “you’ve been out for days and I wish to bed you.”

Heat rises to your neck and face. How could he say these words in front of his young brothers? 

“Call for the maesters,” Aemon tugs the sleeve of his jacket, voice rising. “Call for Father.”

Aerion doesn’t look away from you. And in that moment you realize he doesn’t believe you. 

Aemon runs out of the room, you could hear his shouts from the hallway. 

~

The idea of being wed to Aerion Targaryen rattled you greatly. You could not imagine how this match had even been put into place, how your family had allowed it or how you had agreed. Your eyes flicked towards him. Witnessing his cruelty to his own kin had deeply unsettled you. 

You wondered about many things. You wondered what your own relationship with him must be like. And how long you had been married for. Did you have children already? The Targaryens were known for their herds of offspring.  

You must have been together long enough for his family to feel comfortable around you. Egg, who must be about seven, still rests his head on your chest.

Across the room, Aerion lounges in a chair facing the bed, one arm draped lazily over its side. His gaze is fixed, not on you, but the boy in your arms. And something close to possessiveness in his dilated pupils makes your pulse quicken. 

“And can you tell me which year we are in?” the maester questions. 

“I’m not sure.”

A pause. 

“And who do you recognize in this room?”

“I am.. aware of everyone in the room,” you choose your words carefully, “but I had not recognized Aemon and Aegon upon their visitation earlier."

“You recognize them–”

“I know of them, but I am not familiar with them.”

“Convenient.” Aerion’s voice cuts through. 

“Silence, boy.” Maekar Targaryen stands near the foot of the bed now, his presence demanding obedience. 

“I’m telling the truth.” You insist. 

The maester interjects, “and what do you remember of the accident?”

“I remember nothing”

A beat. 

“Then what do you remember last?”

“I was with my family,” you begin slowly, “In the lowlands of the Vale. The weather had turned and began to rain so we rushed inside.”

“Then you mean to tell me you don’t remember anything from your time in King’s Landing? Our marriage?” Aerion rises slowly from his chair.

You shake your head, “No.”

“My Prince.” The Maester steps forward, “This is not uncommon.” 

“Head trauma, particularly one severe enough to render a person unconscious for several days, can result in memory loss,” he explains. “It is not unusual for the mind to retain older memories while losing more recent ones.”

“And her recovery?” Maekar asks, voice firm. “Will this condition.. persist?”

“In most cases, no,” he replies. “With rest and proper care, the mind often restores itself. Memories may return gradually, triggered by familiar places and experiences.”

Aerion exhales loudly, “and if they don’t return?”

“Then we must prepare for that possibility as well, Your Grace,” he admits carefully. “But it is… unlikely.”

Maekar reaches for Aegon’s sleeping form, carefully lifting the boy from your embrace. The sudden absence of weight leaves you feeling cold. 

“You’ve overstayed,” Maekar says, shifting his gaze towards Aemon. 

“But-”

“Now.” Leaving no room for argument, Aemon follows his father through the threshold, pausing to look back at you. 

The door shuts behind them, leaving you alone with your husband. 

Husband. You could not believe this cruel, spoiled Prince was your husband. 

“You’ve exhausted me with this… excursion.” His voice was flat and bored. “I expect your memories back swiftly. For now, let’s sleep.”

“I can’t control the pace–”

The knock came at the same hour it always did.

Three sharp raps against the iron-banded door of your chamber. Not loud enough to wake the dead, but loud enough to wake you. The rhythm was burned into your bones now, two quick strikes, a pause, then a final blow that seemed to reverberate through the cold stone walls like a death knell. It was the knock of a man who took no pleasure in his task but performed it with the grim efficiency of one who had long ago learned not to question the orders he was given.

Ser Alan of the Kingsguard. A broad shouldered Reachman with a face like weathered granite and eyes that had seen too many horrors to be surprised by anything anymore. He had been assigned to you the day you arrived at the Red Keep, a silent shadow who followed you everywhere and nowhere, appearing only when you were summoned to your husband's chambers or when you attempted to wander somewhere you were not permitted to go.

You were not asleep. You never truly slept anymore, not since the first night they had dragged you from your bed at this same wretched hour. Now you simply lay in the darkness, your violet eyes fixed on the embroidered canopy above you, counting the silver threads that formed the three headed dragon of House Targaryen. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. You had counted them a thousand times. You knew every stitch, every knot, every place where the thread had worn thin from age and neglect. The dragon's ruby eyes seemed to watch you in the darkness, patient and eternal, waiting for you to break.

The door opened without your leave. It always did.

"His Grace requires your presence, my lady."

Ser Alan's voice was flat, carefully neutral, stripped of anything that might be interpreted as either sympathy or satisfaction. He stood in the doorway like a statue come to life, his white enameled armor gleaming faintly in the light of the single candle that burned on your bedside table. His hand rested on the pommel of his sword, not in threat, but in habit. A Kingsguard was never truly at ease, even in the bedchamber of a traitor's daughter.

He did not look at you directly. None of them did. The servants, the guards, the ladies in waiting who had been assigned to attend you, they all treated you as if you were made of smoke and shadow, something that existed on the edges of their vision but could not be acknowledged without risking contamination. You were a Blackfyre. The blood of Daemon Blackfyre ran in your veins, the blood of rebels and usurpers and men who had dared to challenge the rightful rule of House Targaryen. Looking at you too long might be mistaken for sympathy, and sympathy for a Blackfyre was treason.

You had learned that lesson within your first week in the Red Keep, when a young kitchen maid had smiled at you in the corridor and offered you a warm roll fresh from the ovens. The girl had been dismissed the next day, sent back to her village with a black mark on her name and a warning never to seek employment in King's Landing again. You had not seen her go. You had only heard the whispers, carried to you by Lady Jeyne with a smile that did not reach her cold gray eyes.

"It seems some servants forget their place. A shame. She seemed a sweet girl."

The message had been clear: kindness to the Blackfyre was a crime, and crimes were punished.

You rose from the bed. The stone floor was cold beneath your bare feet, the spring chill seeping through the mortar despite the thin rushes scattered across the flagstones. The chamber was always cold. The servants who tended the fires in the royal apartments seemed to forget that this room existed, or perhaps they remembered all too well and chose to let the flames die out of quiet, spiteful neglect. The single candle on your bedside table guttered and smoked, casting long shadows that danced across the bare stone walls like specters at a feast.

You had been given this chamber on your wedding night. You had been naively grateful then. "Your own space," Valarr had said, his mismatched eyes warm with false consideration. "Every woman deserves a refuge. Somewhere she can be alone with her thoughts, away from the demands of court and husband. I would never deny you that."

A refuge. That was what he had called it. But there was no refuge in this cold, barren room with its bare walls and its threadbare tapestries and its single window that looked out over the black waters of the Blackwater Rush. There was only silence. Only the slow, grinding erosion of everything you had been before the war, before the surrender, before they had stripped you of your name and your family and your future and dressed you in Targaryen red.

You had not bothered with a robe. The first night, you had wrapped yourself in a heavy cloak, clutching it around your shoulders like armor as Ser Alan led you through the darkened corridors. When you had arrived in Valarr's chambers, he had looked at you with that gentle, puzzled expression he wore so well and said, "Why do you hide yourself, sweet wife? You are the most beautiful woman in the Seven Kingdoms. The blood of Old Valyria flows in your veins. You should be proud of what you are."

He had taken the cloak from your shoulders himself, his fingers brushing against your skin with deliberate, lingering softness. He had folded it carefully and set it aside, and you had never seen it again. The next night, you had worn a different robe. The same thing had happened. By the third night, you had understood the lesson he was teaching you.

You will come to me as you are. You will hide nothing. You belong to me, and I will see all of you.

So now you wore only your shift. Thin linen, pale cream in color, cut low enough to show the elegant soft swell of your breasts. It had been laid out for you by one of your ladies in waiting, Lady Alia, you thought, though it might have been Lady Mariene; they all blurred together in your mind, a procession of cold faces and colder eyes.

The shift was too fine for a prisoner, too revealing for a proper lady. It was a garment designed to display you, to emphasize every curve and hollow of your body, to remind you that you were an object to be looked at and touched and possessed.

And you hated it. You hated your beauty because it was the reason you were here, in this cold room, in this cold castle, married to a man who looked at you like you were a prize he had won in battle. If you had been plain, if you had been ordinary, perhaps they would have sent you to the Silent Sisters, like your sisters had been, or allowed you to join your brothers at the Wall. But you were beautiful, and your beauty was Valyrian, and Valarr Targaryen wanted to possess it.

You followed Ser Alan through the corridors of Maegor's Holdfast. The hour of the wolf, they called this time. The torches burned low in their iron sconces, their flames reduced to guttering embers that cast more shadow than light. The stone walls were slick with condensation, moisture beading on the ancient masonry like sweat on a dying man's brow.

The Red Keep was never truly silent. Even at this hour, there were sounds, the distant tread of guards on the battlements, the scurrying of rats in the walls, the mournful cry of gulls wheeling over the Blackwater. But the silence between those sounds was vast and empty, a yawning chasm that seemed to swallow everything it touched. You walked through it like a ghost, your bare feet making no sound on the cold stone, your breath forming small clouds in the chill air. The thin linen of your shift did nothing to ward off the cold, and you could feel your nipples hardening beneath the fabric, could feel the gooseflesh rising on your arms and thighs. By the time you reached the Prince's chambers, you would be shivering, your body betraying your vulnerability to him before you ever spoke a word.

You knew the way by heart now. Down the winding stair from your tower chamber, past the door to the servants' quarters where you sometimes heard muffled laughter that fell silent the moment you drew near.

At the end of the passage, a heavy oak door bound with iron bands marked the entrance to the Prince's private chambers. Two more Kingsguard stood on either side, Ser Roland Crakehall and Ser Gwayne Gaunt, their white cloaks hanging still in the motionless air, their faces hidden behind the gleaming visors of their helms. They did not acknowledge you as you passed.

Ser Alan pushed open the door and stepped aside, his duty discharged. His eyes met yours for the briefest moment, a flicker of something that might have been pity, quickly suppressed, and then he was gone, melting back into the shadows of the corridor like a wraith.

You crossed the threshold alone, as you always did. The warmth hit you first.

It was like stepping from a frozen wasteland into the heart of a dragon's lair. A great fire roared in the stone hearth, flames leaping high and golden, filling the room with a heat that seemed to seep into your bones and thaw the chill that had settled there during the long, cold walk. The air was thick with the scent of sandalwood and smoke and something sweet and faintly musky, like the perfume of night blooming flowers mingled with the clean, sharp scent of male skin. It was the scent of him, you realized. The scent of Valarr Targaryen, embedded in every tapestry and cushion and fur, saturating the very air you breathed.

The Prince's chambers were vast, easily four times the size of your own barren room. The furniture was dark and heavy, carved from exotic woods that had been imported from the Summer Isles and the forests of Qohor at unimaginable expense.

And there, in a high backed chair before the fire, sat your husband.

Valarr Targaryen did not look up when you entered. He was reading a leather bound book that lay open in his lap, its pages yellowed with age and covered in the spidery script of some long dead maester. The firelight played across his features, highlighting the sharp planes of his face, the strong line of his jaw, the slight furrow of concentration between his brows. He was dressed in a robe of black silk embroidered with red dragons, loosely tied at the waist, revealing a glimpse of his chest, lean and muscled, with a dusting of dark hair that matched the short cropped locks on his head.

He did not look like a dragon. That was the first thought that had crossed your mind when you had seen him at your wedding, standing before the High Septon in the Great Sept of Baelor as the realm watched and whispered. And it was the thought that returned to you now, as fresh and bitter as ever, each time you laid eyes on him.

He was handsome. You could not deny that, no matter how much you wanted to. His jaw was strong and sharp, his nose straight and aquiline, his brow noble. His mouth was perpetually curved in a half smile that never quite reached his eyes, giving him the look of a man who knew a secret that no one else did and found immense satisfaction in that knowledge. His body was lean and well made, not bulky like a tourney knight, but wiry and graceful, with the long muscles of a swordsman and the easy, coiled tension of a predator at rest.

But his coloring was all wrong.

His hair was dark, a deep, rich brown that bordered on black, and cut short, close to his skull in the martial style his father Baelor Breakspear had favored. It was thick and soft looking, and you had felt it beneath your fingers enough times to know that it was indeed as soft as it appeared. There was only a single streak of silver gold to mark his Targaryen blood, a narrow ribbon of pale brightness that ran from his temple to the nape of his neck like a brand. It was as if the gods had begun to paint him in the colors of Old Valyria and then grown bored, abandoning the work halfway through.

And his eyes. Those mismatched, unsettling eyes. One was a clear, piercing blue, the blue of the Stormlands sky, the blue of his mother Jena Dondarrion's bloodline. The other was a deep, warm brown, almost black in certain lights, flecked with amber and gold, the brown of his Dornish grandmother. They sat together in his handsome face like two strangers forced to share a room, never quite meeting, never quite agreeing. They gave him the look of something assembled from spare parts, something the gods had cobbled together from whatever materials they had at hand and then sent out into the world unfinished.

He looked like a Stormlander. He looked like his mother's son. He looked like a mongrel.

And there you stood, Y/N Blackfyre, the spitting image of Daena the Defiant reborn.

You were everything a Targaryen should be. You were the living embodiment of the bloodline that had conquered Westeros, the bloodline that had ruled for nearly two hundred years, the bloodline that Valarr Targaryen could claim by name but not by appearance. And you wore the name of his family's greatest enemy, Blackfyre, the house of the usurper, the house of rebellion and treason and broken oaths.

The irony was not lost on you. It was certainly not lost on him.

You could feel his attention on you even before he looked up. It was a physical thing, a weight, a pressure, like the heat of the sun on bare skin. He was always aware of you, always attuned to your presence in a way that made you feel like prey being stalked by a patient, methodical hunter. And when he finally raised his eyes from his book, the impact of his gaze was like a blow.

His mismatched eyes traveled over your body with the slow, deliberate thoroughness of a man savoring a fine wine. They lingered on the swell of your breasts, visible through the thin linen, on the curve of your hips, on the length of your legs. They traced the line of your throat, the soft hollow where your pulse fluttered visibly beneath your skin. They drank you in, consumed you, devoured you. And when they finally met your eyes, there was something in them that made your breath catch, a hunger so raw, so intense, so utterly possessive that it stole the air from your lungs.

He wanted you. That was nothing new; you had known that since your wedding night. But there was something else in his gaze tonight, something darker and more complicated. It was as if he resented you for making him want you. As if your beauty was a personal affront, a reminder of everything he was not, everything he could never be. He looked at you like a man starving, and hating himself for his hunger.

"My wife," Valarr said, his voice low and smooth. He did not look away from your face, though you could see the effort it cost him. His eyes kept flickering down, tracing the lines of your body, before he forced them back up. "How kind of you to join me. I was beginning to fear you had forgotten the way."

As if I could forget. As if I could ever forget anything about this nightmare you have constructed for me.

You said nothing. You had learned that too, in the long weeks since your wedding. Silence was safer than words. Words could be twisted, weaponized, turned back upon you with that gentle, reasonable smile he wore so well. Words could be used to trap you, to expose you, to give him more ammunition for the slow, grinding war of attrition he waged against your spirit every single day.

Silence, at least, was your own. He could not take your silence. He could not twist it or weaponize it or use it to humiliate you. He could only wait, and watch, and try to find new ways to make you speak.

He closed the book and set it aside, but he did not rise. Instead, he leaned back in his chair, his legs spreading slightly, his posture one of casual, arrogant ease. The robe fell further open, revealing more of his chest, the flat plane of his stomach, the trail of dark hair that disappeared beneath the silk. He was aroused, you realized with a jolt. The evidence of his desire was unmistakable, pressing against the fabric of his robe, and he made no effort to hide it. Why would he? This was his chamber, his kingdom, his world. You were the intruder here, the supplicant, the conquered.

"Come here," he said.

Just that. Two words. Soft as a lover's whisper, heavy as a command. It was not a request. It was never a request, no matter how gently he spoke it. Every word that fell from his lips was an order wrapped in silk, a demand disguised as consideration.

You walked toward him. Your bare feet made no sound on the thick Myrish carpet, and you moved with the unconscious grace that had been drilled into you since childhood, the posture of a noblewoman, the bearing of a lady, the carefully cultivated elegance that marked you as someone of consequence even when you had no consequence at all. The thin linen of your shift whispered against your skin as you walked, a constant reminder of your vulnerability, your exposure, your complete and utter dependence on his mercy. You could feel his eyes on you with every step, could feel the weight of his gaze like a physical caress, sliding over your breasts, your hips, the shadowed juncture of your thighs.

You stopped before his chair, close enough to feel the heat of the fire on your skin, close enough to smell him, that intoxicating blend of sandalwood and smoke and warm male skin that you had come to associate with long nights and tangled sheets and the slow, inexorable erosion of your will. He looked up at you, his head tilted slightly to one side, his mismatched eyes gleaming in the firelight.

His hand rose. You braced yourself for his touch, on your face, your throat, your breast. But instead, he caught a strand of your silver gold hair between his fingers, rubbing it gently as if testing the quality of fine silk. His touch was light, almost reverent, and his eyes softened with something that might have been mistaken for genuine admiration by someone who did not know him.

But you knew him now. You had spent a moon learning him, studying him, cataloging his every expression and gesture and word. And you knew that the softness in his eyes was not admiration. It was hunger. It was envy. It was a desperate, consuming need that he hated himself for feeling.

"Beautiful," he murmured. His voice was rough, almost pained. "Gods, do you have any idea what you do to me? What you've done to me since the moment I first saw you?"

He drew the strand of hair to his face and pressed it to his lips. His eyes closed for a moment, and you watched his throat work as he inhaled the scent of you, the faint perfume of the lavender soap you were permitted to use, the clean, sweet smell of your skin. When he opened his eyes again, they were dark with something that looked almost like anguish.

"You know," he said, still stroking your hair, still holding it against his lips as if he could not bear to let it go, "I used to dream of hair like this. When I was a boy, I would pray to the Seven every night, every single night, to make mine silver. To make me look like my grandfather. Like my uncles. Like a true Targaryen."

His voice was soft, musing, but there was an edge to it now. A bitterness that he could not quite hide.

"I would kneel before the altar in the royal sept," he continued, "and I would promise the gods anything, anything at all, if they would just change the color of my hair. I promised to be brave, like my father. I promised to be wise, like my grandfather the King. I promised to be pious and just and merciful and all the things a prince is supposed to be. And every morning, I would wake up and run to the mirror, hoping that this time… this time, they had listened."

He released your hair, letting it fall back against your shoulder. His hand moved to your face, his fingers tracing the line of your cheekbone with a touch so light it was almost not there at all. His thumb brushed the corner of your mouth, and you felt your lips part involuntarily, a small, betraying response that you could not control.

"They never did," he said. "The gods have a cruel sense of humor, don't they? They gave the Valyrian beauty to the Blackfyre, the daughter of traitors and rebels, the spawn of a usurper's bloodline. And they gave the dornish coloring to the Prince of Dragonstone, the heir to the Iron Throne."

His thumb traced your lower lip, pressing slightly, feeling the soft, full curve of it. His eyes were fixed on your mouth now, and you could see the conflict in them, the desire warring with resentment, the hunger battling with something that looked almost like hatred. Not hatred of you, you realized with a start. Hatred of himself. Hatred of his own weakness, his own need, his own desperate, consuming want for something he believed should be beneath him.

"You should have been mine by right of blood," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "You should have been born a Targaryen. You should have been my sister, my cousin, my equal. Instead, you are my enemy's daughter, and I have to pretend that I married you for politics. For duty. For the realm."

His hand slid from your face to your throat, his fingers wrapping around the slender column with a gentle but unmistakable pressure. He could feel your pulse beneath his palm, quick, fluttering, like a trapped bird. His thumb stroked the hollow of your throat, feeling the warmth of your skin, the life that beat just beneath the surface.

"But that's not why I married you," he said, and his voice cracked slightly, revealing a rawness that you had never heard before. "I married you because I couldn't stop thinking about you. Because from the moment I saw you, standing there with your family, defeated, kneeling, surrounded by guards, your head held high even in defeat, I knew I had to have you. I had to possess you. I had to make you mine."

He hated you because you made him feel weak, made him feel wanting, made him feel like a mongrel scrabbling at the gates of a palace he would never be worthy to enter.

And beneath all of that, beneath the hunger and the envy and the resentment and the hate, there was something that looked almost like tenderness. Almost like love. But it was a twisted, possessive, consuming love, the love of a dragon for its hoard, the love of a collector for his most precious acquisition.

His hand tightened on your throat, not enough to hurt, but enough to make you aware of his strength, his power, his absolute control over you. His mismatched eyes blazed with an intensity that was almost frightening, and you could see the muscles in his jaw working as he struggled to contain whatever was raging inside him.

"You are mine," he said, and it was not a statement. It was a vow. A curse.

His hand released your throat and moved to the back of your neck, tangling in your silver gold hair. He pulled you down, and you went willingly, or perhaps not willingly, but without resistance, which amounted to the same thing. His mouth found yours, and he kissed you with a desperate, consuming hunger that stole your breath and set your blood on fire.

It was not a gentle kiss. It was not the careful, controlled kiss of a husband performing his marital duty. It was raw and hungry and full of all the twisted, complicated emotions that churned inside him, the desire, the envy, the resentment, the need. His tongue swept into your mouth, claiming you, tasting you, devouring you. His hand in your hair held you in place, not allowing you to pull away, not allowing you to escape the intensity of his kiss.

And gods help you, you kissed him back. You did not mean to. You did not want to. But your body betrayed you, as it always did. Your lips parted beneath his, and your tongue met his, and your hands came up to grip his shoulders, whether to push him away or pull him closer, you could not have said. The taste of him filled your mouth, wine and smoke and something dark and addictive that you could not name. The heat of him surrounded you, enveloped you, consumed you.

When he finally broke the kiss, you were both breathing hard. His forehead rested against yours, and you could feel the rapid beat of his heart against your chest. His hand was still tangled in your hair, and his other hand had found your waist, his fingers pressing into the soft curve of your hip with a possessive grip.

"You are cold," he observed, his thumb tracing the line of your cheekbone. "The walk from your chambers is too long. I have told the servants to keep your fire burning through the night, but they seem to forget. Careless of them. I shall have to speak to the steward."

You will do no such thing, you thought. You want me cold. You want me to arrive here shivering and desperate for the warmth of your fire, the warmth of your bed, the warmth of you. This is by your design, as everything is by your design.

But you said nothing. You simply stood there, letting him touch you, letting him pretend to care about your comfort. What else was there for a traitor's daughter to do?

"The hour is late," he said, withdrawing his hand. He rose from his chair with the easy grace of a man who had never known a moment's true hardship, who had never had to fight for anything in his life. He was not tall, shorter than his father had been at his age, you had heard, and shorter than most of the knights who served in the Kingsguard, but he still loomed over you, close enough that you could count the flecks of lilac in his blue eye, the flecks of amber in his brown one. "I trust your chambers are comfortable?"

Cold. Empty. A prison with silk curtains and a bed that feels like stone. "Yes, my prince."

"Good." He smiled, and for a moment, he almost looked kind. "I would hate to think you were suffering. You have suffered enough, I think. Your family's choices… well. We need not speak of that. The past is the past, and you are my wife now. The future is what matters."

He reached down and took your hand. His fingers were long and elegant, a musician's fingers, a scholar's fingers. They wrapped around yours with a gentle but unmistakable firmness, a claim of ownership that needed no words to express.

"Come to bed," he said, his voice rough and low.

He rose from the chair, pulling you with him, and began to walk toward the great canopied bed. You followed, because you had no choice. Because your body was already responding to him, already softening and warming and preparing itself for his touch. Because some traitorous part of you wanted this, wanted his hands on your skin, his mouth on your throat, his body moving against yours.

He did not release your hand as you walked. His fingers were warm and strong around yours, and you found yourself gripping back, holding on to him as if he were the only solid thing in a world that had turned to water and smoke.

The act itself was never violent. That was the worst part. That was the part that made you want to scream, to weep, to claw at your own skin until you could feel something other than this terrible, suffocating gentleness.

If he had been cruel, you could have hated him. If he had hurt you, truly hurt you, if he had taken you with the brutal entitlement of a conqueror claiming his spoils, you could have built walls of rage and disgust to shield yourself from his touch. You could have retreated into the cold, clean fortress of your hatred and watched him from behind its battlements, untouched and untouchable.

But Valarr Targaryen was not cruel. He was gentle. And his gentleness was more devastating than any cruelty could ever be.

He laid you down on the bed with the care of a man handling something precious and fragile. The furs were soft beneath your back, the silk sheets cool against your heated skin. He loomed over you for a moment, his mismatched eyes traveling over your body with that hungry, reverent gaze, drinking in the sight of you spread out before him like a feast. The firelight played across your skin, gilding your silver gold hair, casting shadows in the hollows of your throat and the valley between your breasts.

"You are so beautiful," he breathed. His voice was thick with emotion, almost pained.

He lowered himself beside you, propped on one elbow, and his free hand began to explore your body. His touch was light, almost reverent, as if he were mapping the contours of a holy relic. His fingers traced the line of your collarbone, the curve of your shoulder, the soft swell of your breast. They circled your nipple through the thin linen of your shift, feeling it tighten and peak beneath his touch, and he made a low sound in his throat, a sound of satisfaction, of possession, of hunger barely restrained.

"I want to see you," he said. "All of you."

He did not tear your shift away. He did not rip the fabric from your body. Instead, he gathered the hem in his hands and slowly, slowly drew it upward, revealing you inch by torturous inch. The mound of your sex. The skin of your stomach. The curve of your waist. The undersides of your breasts. And then, finally, your breasts themselves, full and round and perfect, the nipples a color that darkened as he watched, tightening in the cool air of the chamber.

He made that sound again, that low, almost pained sound, and lowered his head. His mouth found your breast, and you gasped as his tongue circled your nipple, hot and wet and devastatingly skilled. His hand found your other breast, his fingers rolling and teasing the sensitive peak until you were arching beneath him, your body betraying you with every shudder and moan. His tongue swirled around the bud, sucking gently at first, then harder, teeth grazing just enough to make you arch into him. A gasp tore from your throat, your fingers threading into his hair, tugging at the silver streak as pleasure warred with the haze in your mind. Was this what you wanted? His free hand slid up your thigh, pushing the hem of your dress higher, fingers brushing your wetness.

He took his time. Gods, he always took his time. He explored every inch of you with his hands and his mouth, learning you, memorizing you, claiming you. He kissed the hollow of your throat and the inside of your elbow and the sensitive spot just below your ear that made you gasp and clutch at his shoulders. He traced the curve of your hip with his tongue and pressed open mouthed kisses to the soft skin of your inner thigh. He touched you everywhere, tasted you everywhere, until you were trembling and desperate and utterly, completely his.

And through it all, he watched you. His eyes never left your face, cataloguing every reaction, every gasp, every involuntary arch of your body. He wanted to see your pleasure. He needed to see it. Because your pleasure was proof, proof that you were his, proof that your body recognized his claim even if your mind resisted, proof that the Valyrian beauty he coveted responded to the mongrel prince who should have been beneath you.

"Feel how wet you are for me," he growled, slipping a finger to stroke your slick folds. You bucked against his touch, a moan betraying your body's eagerness even as you bit your lip, eyes fluttering shut. He circled your clit with pressure, dipping lower to push one finger inside you, then two, curling them to hit that spot that made stars burst behind your eyelids. His mouth returned to yours, swallowing your cries as he pumped his fingers, stretching you, preparing you, your whispered 'wait' lost in the rhythm of his thrusts, but your hips rose to meet him, chasing the building tension.

"Look at me," he commanded, his voice rough. "I want to see your eyes when you come apart for me."

You tried to look away. You tried to close your eyes, to retreat into the darkness behind your lids where he could not follow. But his hand caught your chin and turned your face back to his, and you had no choice but to meet his gaze as his fingers found the slick, aching center of you and began to move with devastating precision.

"Look at me," he repeated, and there was something in his voice, a desperate, almost pleading quality that made you obey. "I need to see you. I need to know that you feel this too. That I'm not the only one burning."

Your climax crashed over you like a wave, and you cried out, a sound you could not contain, a sound that was torn from you against your will. Your back arched, your fingers digging into his shoulders, your eyes locked with his as the pleasure consumed you. And through it all, he watched. His mismatched eyes blazed with triumph and hunger and something that looked almost like worship.

"That's it," he murmured, his voice thick with satisfaction. "That's my girl. My beautiful, perfect girl."

He moved over you then, settling between your thighs, and you felt the hot, hard length of him pressing against your entrance. He paused for a moment, his forehead resting against yours, his breath coming in ragged gasps.

"Say my name," he said. "I want to hear you say my name."

You did not want to give him that. It felt like too much, like a surrender too complete to be borne. But his hips shifted, the head of him pressing against you but not entering, and you knew, you knew, that he would wait all night if he had to. He would wait until you broke, until you gave him what he wanted, until you acknowledged that he was the one giving you this pleasure, that he was the one you needed.

"Valarr," you whispered. The name tasted like defeat. Like surrender. Like the death of everything you had been before.

His smile was a thing of terrible beauty, triumphant and hungry and impossibly tender all at once. "Again."

"Valarr."

He thrust into you in one smooth, devastating motion, and you cried out his name a third time, not because he asked, but because you could not stop yourself. He filled you completely, stretched you perfectly, and for one endless moment, you simply stared at each other, joined in the most intimate way possible, your breath mingling, your hearts pounding in tandem.

"Mine," he breathed, and began to move.

He made love to you slowly, reverently, as if you were something holy and he were a pilgrim who had traveled a thousand miles to worship at your altar. His thrusts were deep and deliberate, each one designed to draw out your pleasure, to make you feel every inch of him, to imprint himself on your body and your soul. He watched your face the entire time, his eyes dark with intensity, cataloguing every flutter of your lashes, every parting of your lips, every gasp and moan that escaped you.

"So perfect, so mine," he whispered, voice thick with emotion, slow thrusts that built like a gathering storm, pulling out almost fully before sliding back in, grinding against your clit with each hilt. His hands worshipped your body, one tangling in your silver hair to tilt your head back for his kisses, the other pinning your hip to the bed, controlling the pace. You wrapped your legs around him, heels digging into his ass, urging him deeper despite the lingering fog of consent's shadow.

The intensity mounted, his reverent touches turning possessive, gripping your thigh hard enough to bruise, sucking marks into your neck that would linger like claims. Sweat slicked your skin, bodies sliding together in a symphony of gasps and moans.

He shifted, angling to hit deeper, faster now, the bed creaking under the force. Your walls clenched around his cock, the coil in your belly tightening unbearably. "Come for me," he urged, thumb finding your clit again, rubbing in tight circles as he pounded into you.

The climax crashed over you like a wave, your pussy spasming around him, milking his length as you cried out, silver hair sticking to your damp forehead, purple eyes glazing with release. He followed moments later, thrusting erratically before burying himself deep, cock pulsing as he flooded you with hot cum, ropes spilling into your core, burying his face in your breasts as his body shuddered against yours. You felt the hot pulse of his release inside you, felt his arms tighten around you as if he were afraid you might disappear, felt his lips press reverent kisses to your throat and shoulder and the corner of your jaw.

For a long moment, neither of you moved. You lay tangled together, your breathing slowly returning to normal, your bodies still joined, your skin slick with sweat. His weight was warm and solid on top of you, and despite everything, despite the hatred and the resentment and the bitter knowledge of what he had taken from you, you felt safe.

It was a lie. You knew it was a lie. But in that moment, in the warm, firelit darkness of his chambers, with his body pressed against yours and his breath soft on your neck, you could almost believe it.

He stirred finally, rolling off you but not letting go. His arm remained wrapped around your waist, pulling you against his side, and his hand came up to stroke your hair with a gentle, almost absentminded tenderness.

He pressed a kiss to your temple and settled back against the pillows, his arm still wrapped around your waist.

"You may return to your chambers now," he said, his voice already growing distant, dismissive. "Ser Alan will escort you."

The words were the same as they always were. The dismissal was the same as it always was. And yet tonight, something was different. Tonight, the thought of leaving, of rising from this warm bed and walking back through those cold corridors to your cold, empty chamber, filled you with a despair so profound that it threatened to swallow you whole.

You did not move.

The silence stretched. One heartbeat. Two. Three. You could feel his attention shift, could sense him turning his head on the pillow to look at you. You kept your eyes fixed on the canopy above, counting the dragons. Five. Six. Seven.

"You are still here," he observed. There was no surprise in his voice, only a kind of clinical curiosity. "I gave you leave to go."

You swallowed. Your throat was dry. "I know."

"Then why do you linger?" He propped himself up on one elbow, looking down at you with those mismatched eyes. In the dim light, they seemed to gleam with an inner fire of their own, the blue one cold as ice, the brown one warm as embers. "Have I not been a considerate husband? Have I not given you your own chambers, your own space, your privacy? I would never force you to remain where you are not wanted."

Where you are not wanted.

The words hung in the air between you, heavy with double meaning. You were not wanted in his heart, you knew that, had always known it. He did not love you; he possessed you. He coveted you. He resented you and worshipped you in equal measure. But he did not love you, not in any way that you recognized as love. And you were not wanted in his chambers either, except when he summoned you, except when he wanted to use your body and watch you respond to his touch.

But here you were. Tangled in his silk sheets, breathing his air, warmed by his fire. And the thought of leaving, of rising from this bed and walking back through those cold, dark corridors to your empty room, made you want to weep.

"You summon me," you said. Your voice was barely above a whisper. "You summon me every night."

His brow furrowed with perfect, practiced confusion. It was a mask you had seen him wear a hundred times, the face of a man who could not understand why anyone would question his actions, who genuinely believed himself to be acting only with the purest of intentions.

"I summon you because you are my wife," he said, as if explaining something simple to a child. "It is my duty to attend to you. To ensure the continuation of our line. The realm needs heirs, sweet wife. Our union must bear fruit."

He reached out and brushed a strand of silver gold hair from your face, his touch feather light, almost tender. His fingers lingered on your cheek, tracing the line of your jaw, the curve of your ear.

"But I would never keep you here against your will," he continued. "That would be… unseemly. You are not a prisoner. You are my wife. If you wish to return to your chambers, you have only to say so. I will summon Ser Alan myself."

You are not a prisoner.

The words were a lie, and you both knew it. You were a prisoner in all but name. Your every movement was watched, your every word reported, your every attempt to reach out to the world beyond the Red Keep carefully and quietly thwarted. You were not permitted to write to your brothers at the Wall, not permitted to see your sisters, not permitted to send word to your mother in Tyrosh, not permitted to leave your chambers without an escort of guards who claimed to be protecting you but who served only to remind you of your captivity.

You had tried, once, to walk in the gardens alone. It had been a small thing, a tiny act of rebellion. You had simply slipped away from your ladies in waiting and wandered down a path you had not been shown before. Within minutes, two guards had appeared at your side, their faces carefully neutral, their voices politely insistent. "For your safety, my lady. The Red Keep can be dangerous for those who do not know its ways."

You had not tried again.

And your ladies in waiting, they were not companions. They were watchers. Spies in silk and velvet, assigned to report your every word and deed to the Prince. They whispered behind their hands when they thought you could not hear, their voices dripping with contempt. "Traitor's daughter." "Blackfyre whore." "She thinks herself a dragon, but she's nothing but a pretender in borrowed scales."

They pulled your laces too tight when they dressed you, leaving bruises on your ribs. They brought you cold food and colder stares, and when you asked for something, a book, a warm bath, a moment of peace, they smiled sweetly and promised to see to it, and nothing ever came of it.

The world had been carefully, methodically stripped away from you. Your family, your name, your freedom, your dignity. Everything that had made you who you were had been taken, piece by piece, until only he remained. The only person who touched you without care. The only person who looked at you without disgust. The only person who spoke to you as if you were a person, not a symbol of a defeated rebellion.

You were tired. Gods, you were so tired. Tired of the cold walks. Tired of the cold bed. Tired of the cold stares. Tired of being alone with your thoughts and your grief and your rage until you felt like you might shatter into a thousand pieces.

And he was warm.

He was here, solid and real, his body radiating heat beside you in the vast bed. He was the only person in the Red Keep who touched you without making you feel like something unclean. His hands on your skin, his voice in your ear, his presence filling the empty spaces inside you, it was a poison, you knew, sweet and slow and deadly. But it was the only warmth you had.

You hated him for it. Hated him with a fierce, burning intensity that sometimes took your breath away. Hated him for what he had taken from you, for what he continued to take, for the way he made you need him even as you loathed him.

And you needed him. That was the worst part. That was the part that made you want to scream. You needed his warmth, his touch, his voice. You needed the only human connection that was offered to you, even knowing that it was offered with chains attached.

"Valarr."

His name felt strange on your tongue. You usually called him "my prince" or nothing at all, maintaining that last, fragile barrier of formality between you. But in this moment, in the dying firelight, with your body still humming from his touch and your walls crumbling around you, you could not bring yourself to maintain that final pretense.

"Yes?"

His voice was soft. Encouraging. The voice of a man who already knew what you were going to say and was savoring the anticipation, drawing out the moment like a cat playing with a mouse.

You closed your eyes. You could not look at him while you said it. You could not watch his face as you surrendered this last, precious piece of yourself.

"Let me stay."

The silence that followed was the loudest thing you had ever heard.

You could feel him smiling in the darkness. You did not need to see his face to know that the satisfaction was radiating from him like heat from the dying embers, that his mismatched eyes were gleaming with quiet triumph. You had given him exactly what he wanted, exactly what he had been working toward since the night of your wedding.

"I'm sorry," he said, and there was nothing but gentle confusion in his tone. "I don't understand. Stay where?"

You bastard. You utter, complete bastard.

You knew what he wanted. You had always known. He wanted you to say it clearly, to spell it out, to beg for the privilege of sleeping in his bed like a dog begging for scraps at the master's table. He wanted you to acknowledge that you needed him, that you wanted him, that all his careful manipulation had worked exactly as intended. He wanted you to hand him this victory on a silver platter, to kneel before him and offer up your last shred of pride as a gift.

And you were going to give it to him.

Because you were too tired to fight anymore. Because the thought of that cold walk back to your empty chambers, of lying alone in that cold bed with nothing but your thoughts for company, made you want to weep. Because whatever this was, this twisted, poisonous thing between you, it was better than the alternative.

"The corridors are cold."

"The corridors are always cold." His tone was mild, pleasant. "I have offered to have braziers placed along your route. You declined."

Because accepting would mean admitting I notice the cold. Because accepting would mean I owe you gratitude for every scrap of warmth you deign to give me.

"I did not wish to trouble the servants."

"Ah." He said it as if you had revealed something profound.

"You are too considerate, wife. Most ladies would demand a dozen braziers and complain of the smoke. But not you. You bear your discomforts in silence." His hand found yours beneath the furs, his fingers interlacing with your own. His palm was warm. "I admire that about you. Truly."

You wanted to pull your hand away. You did not.

"Please," you said instead.

The word tasted like ash in your mouth, like defeat, like the death of something precious and irreplaceable. It was the word of a supplicant, a beggar, a woman who had been stripped of everything and was grateful for whatever scraps were thrown her way.

"I am asking. I want to share your chambers. I want…"

You faltered. What did you want? You wanted your family back. You wanted your freedom. You wanted to wake up and discover that the last moon had been nothing but a nightmare, that you were still in Tyrosh with your mother and your siblings, that the war had never happened and Daemon Blackfyre still lived and the world still made sense.

But those things were gone. They were ashes and dust, scattered on the wind of history. All that remained was this room, this bed, this man.

"I want to stay," you finished, your voice barely audible.

His smile was a thing of terrible beauty.

It transformed his sharp, mismatched features into something almost angelic, the face of a savior, a protector, a man who had rescued a fallen woman from the consequences of her family's treason and lifted her up to stand beside him. His blue eye sparkled with warmth. His brown eye gleamed with satisfaction. He looked like a painting of some ancient hero, a knight of legend who had slain the dragon and claimed the maiden as his reward.

"Oh, my sweet wife," he murmured.

He leaned down and pressed his lips to yours. The kiss was soft, tender, achingly gentle. It was the kind of kiss a devoted husband might give his beloved wife after a long separation, a gesture of pure and selfless affection. And it made you want to scream.

"Of course you may stay. I would never deny you anything you truly wanted. I told you, did I not? I am the only one in this world who will care for you. The only one who sees your worth."

He pulled the furs up over your body, tucking them around your shoulders with careful, almost paternal attention. His hands smoothed the fabric, ensuring that you were completely covered, completely warm, completely enveloped in his care. Then he lay back against the pillows and drew you against his side, one arm wrapping around your waist and pulling you close.

His body was warm. Solid. Real. And for one terrible, shameful moment, you felt safe.

It was a lie. You knew it was a lie. This safety was an illusion, a gilded cage dressed up as a sanctuary. He was not your protector. He was your captor, your jailer, the architect of your slow and methodical destruction. The warmth of his body was the warmth of the dragon's breath, and you were the lamb curled in its jaws.

But it was warm. And you were so tired. And for just this moment, just this one moment, you could pretend.

"Sleep now," he murmured against your hair. His breath was warm on your scalp, his voice a low, soothing rumble. "You are where you belong. With me. Where no one can hurt you. Where no one can whisper their poison in your ear. Just us, sweet wife. Just us."

His arm tightened around your waist, pulling you even closer. You could feel the steady beat of his heart against your back, the rise and fall of his chest, the solid reality of his presence. He was everywhere, surrounding you, enveloping you, claiming you.

And then his lips found your ear, and his voice dropped to a whisper so soft you almost didn't hear it.

"I will make you love me," he breathed. "I will make you need me so completely that you won't remember how to breathe without me. And when that day comes, when you finally see that I am the only one who will ever truly want you, I will be there. Waiting. As I have always been waiting."

He pressed a kiss to the curve of your ear, his tongue tracing the delicate shell of it, and you shivered, not from cold, but from the dark promise in his words.

"Sleep," he said again, his voice returning to that gentle, soothing tone. "Dream of me. Dream of us. Dream of the life we will build together."

You closed your eyes.

The tears came then. Silent and hot, sliding down your cheeks to soak into the silk pillowcase. You did not make a sound. You had learned not to cry where anyone could hear, learned to swallow your grief and your rage and your despair until they became a hard, cold knot in your chest. But you could not stop the tears. They flowed from you like water from a broken dam, an endless river of sorrow that you had been holding back for too long.

His arm tightened around your waist. You felt his lips curve into a smile against the crown of your head.

He knew.

He always knew.

And tomorrow, when the sun rose and the world went on as it always did, you would wake in his bed. You would open your eyes to the sight of his chambers, surrounded by his scent and his warmth and his quiet, suffocating care. You would look at yourself in the polished bronze mirror that hung on his wall and see a stranger, a woman who had begged her captor to keep her close, who had traded her last scrap of independence for a few hours of warmth.

The servants would know. They always knew everything that happened in the Red Keep. By midday, the whispers would have spread through every corridor and every kitchen and every stable. The Blackfyre whore has moved into the Prince's chambers. She begged him to let her stay. She crawled into his bed like a dog seeking warmth.

Your ladies in waiting would smile their cold, knowing smiles. Lady Jeyne would make some cutting remark disguised as concern. "How wonderful that you and the Prince have grown so close. I'm sure your mother would be so pleased to know that you have found… comfort… in your new home."

And Valarr would watch it all with those mismatched eyes, that gentle, reasonable smile playing at his lips. He would see the whispers and the stares and the quiet cruelties, and he would do nothing to stop them. Why would he? They served his purpose. They reminded you that he was the only one who treated you with anything resembling kindness, the only one who touched you without making you feel like something unclean.

He was the disease and the cure. The poison and the antidote. The dragon and the knight who slew it.

And you were his.

But that was tomorrow. Tonight, in the dying firelight, wrapped in his furs and his possession, you lay still, your body pressed back against his in the spoon of his embrace.

His cock, still half hard from your earlier joining, nestled against the curve of your ass, warm and heavy. You tried to focus on the rhythm of your breathing, to let the exhaustion pull you under, but the tears kept coming, silent tracks carving paths down your face.

Then you felt it, a subtle twitch, a thickening against your skin. His length stirred, growing firm once more, pressing insistently into the cleft of your cheeks. Your breath hitched, a fresh wave of emotion crashing through you.

Not again. Not when your heart felt so raw, so fractured. But your body, traitorous as ever, responded with a faint clench low in your belly, the lingering slickness between your thighs a reminder of how he'd already claimed you.

Valarr shifted behind you, his hand sliding from your waist to cup your breast, thumb brushing over the still sensitive nipple. He hardened fully now, his cock rigid and hot, the veined shaft sliding along your ass as he rocked his hips forward in a slow, deliberate grind.

"Shh," he murmured into your hair, his voice a low rumble that vibrated through your back. "Let me hold you closer. Let me make it better."

You didn't protest, words caught in your throat, choked by the sobs you refused to voice. His free hand trailed down your side, over the flare of your hip, fingers dipping between your legs to part your folds. He found you wet, despite everything, his touch gentle as he stroked your clit in lazy circles, coaxing more arousal from your unwilling core.

A whimper escaped you, muffled into the pillow, as his cock nudged at your entrance from behind, the broad head parting your lips.

He pushed in slowly, inch by inch, filling you again with that stretching burn that blurred the line between ache and need. Your walls fluttered around him, gripping his thickness as he sank deep, his hips flush against your ass. The position pinned you in place, his body a solid weight over yours, one arm banded across your chest to hold you tight while the other worked your clit with unerring precision. He didn't thrust yet, just held himself buried inside, letting you feel every pulse of him, every throb against your inner walls.

Tears streamed faster now, soaking the silk beneath your cheek, your purple eyes squeezed shut against the overwhelming flood.

Why did it feel good? Why did his possession twist the knife of your despair into something almost like solace? He began to move then, shallow rolls of his hips that dragged his cock along your depths, grinding against that spot that made stars burst behind your lids.

His breath was hot on your neck, lips pressing soft kisses there even as his pace quickened, thrusts turning firmer, the slap of skin on skin echoing softly in the chamber.

"That's it," he whispered, his mismatched eyes no doubt fixed on the back of your head, imagining your surrender. "Take me. You're mine to comfort, mine to fuck, mine to keep." His fingers pinched your nipple lightly, rolling it as he drove deeper, his cock pistoning in and out with controlled power.

You cried silently, body rocking with each impact, ass pressing back against him involuntarily as pleasure coiled tight despite the grief tearing at your chest.

He fucked you like that, possessive, unyielding, his hand leaving your clit to grip your hip, pulling you onto him harder.

The angle let him hit deeper, his balls slapping against your thighs with every plunge. Your sobs broke free in quiet gasps, tears blurring your vision, but your pussy clenched around him, soaking his length with fresh wetness. He groaned, low and reverent, burying his face in your silver hair, inhaling your scent as if it were his lifeline.

The build was relentless, his thrusts erratic now, chasing release while forcing yours. "Cry if you must," he said softly, voice laced with that dark tenderness. "But come for me again. Show me you need this as much as I need you." His hand snaked back to your clit, rubbing fast and firm, and the dam broke. Your orgasm ripped through you, walls spasming wildly around his cock, milking him as you shuddered, tears flowing unchecked.

Valarr followed with a muffled curse, slamming deep one last time, his release flooding you hot and thick, ropes of cum painting your insides. He held you through it, cock twitching as he emptied himself, his arms wrapping tighter, as if to absorb your sorrow into his own body.

In the quiet aftermath, he stayed inside you, softening slowly, his lips trailing kisses along your shoulder. The fire had died to embers, casting faint shadows over the furs tangled around you both. Your tears slowed, exhaustion finally claiming you, and as sleep pulled you under, the dreams came, of dragons, but also of mismatched eyes watching over you, a cage that felt, in the haze, almost like home.

Summerhall is suffocating. The air felt thicker here. It reeked of honeysuckle and sun-scorched earth, blown over from the rolling Dornish marches. The gardens were sprawling and luscious, once attentively kept by your husband’s lady-mother, Dyanna Dayne. He never spoke of her to you, but you knew about the traditional funeral practices of the Daynes of Starfall—that his mother’s corpse was most likely wrapped up in a chrysalis of lavender and left on the summit of the Red Mountains to be feasted upon by vultures. The servants tend to her thickets of moon-blooms now. You suppose that responsibility may one day fall to you when Daeron’s married off to some heiress of a great house and is made lord of all she holds dear. 

You swallow that thought down and it bobs viciously in your throat. You have no interest in being the lady of Summerhall, nor languishing in those sweltering gardens surrounded by the lilac buds nursed by a dead woman.

Home was even in the periwinkle thread you were using to stitch waves into muslin. Embroidery’s one of the only past-times you had left. When you miss the shallow waters of Driftmark lapping gently at the nape of your ankles, you put a needle to cotton. When the feeling of sun-warmed sand between your toes seemed like a different lifetime ago, you sit in the bay window of the chambers you share with Aerion, practicing your cross-stitch as you listen to the winds whistling through laburnum trees. 

Today, you’re sewing the pale stone outline of High Tide. 

“Another hard day spent, wife?” Aerion muses when he returns to your chambers after supper, draping today’s cloak over the back of the chair at your vanity. 

You look up from the embroidery hoop in your lap, briefly glancing over that small smirk and the half-lilt of his brows. “If you say so, husband. And you?”

“The hunt went well. Daeron fell off of his horse, but…” He shrugs, “that was to be expected after downing a gallon of wine.”

His mouth twitches, and he’s looking at you as if he’s expecting a similar, amused kind of reaction from you. The best you can manage is a wan, pursed smile that might’ve looked more like a grimace. 

“I’m glad your day was fruitful, my lord,” you offer diplomatically as his smirk melts into a rattled scowl.

“Hmph.” He’s displeased by your lack of reaction, but not surprised. He then gestures lazily to his crimson doublet. “Come. Help me undress, wife.”

This was something he’d make you do every evening since your wedding night. Whether he considered it a form of intimacy or control, it became a relentless part of your routine regardless. 

You sigh, putting your embroidery down beside you on the cushioned window-seat and standing, straightening out the creases in your silks before crossing the room to him. As soon as you were an arm’s stretch away from him, Aerion knocks his chin up, jutting his jaw the slightest bit. A muscle twitches there in his mandible as you step up to him, almost toe-to-two. Your skirts whispered faintly against his legs. His fingers flex at his side, reaching out just enough for his fingertips to touch at the soft satin of your gown.  

“You ought to wear more red,” he says quickly when you begin to work on the buttons of his doublet. “They’re your colours too now, after all. It is proper for a wife to represent her lord husband’s house.”

You bite into your tongue. You have no interest in donning scarlets and blacks to satisfy your husband’s ego. Aerion’s heart bleeds fire and blood so ravenously, he expects everyone to be so fanatic. Especially you, it seems, often regarding the sea-green and teal of your dresses with contempt. But, for a woman hundreds of miles from her home, your clothes were some of the last autonomy you had. Swathing yourself in blood-red would feel like the last bit of rebellion you had left in you rotting away.

Still, you bowed your head demurely and continued to undress him. “Very well, husband. I shall fetch for a seamstress, so they might get my measurements and fashion me something worthy of your noble house.”

If Aerion hears the sarcasm seeping into your calculated response, he doesn’t care enough to acknowledge it. Instead, he lets the corner of his mouth curl viciously and counters, “Well, not before long, this seamstress shall need to take a different set of measurements…to accommodate for the swell of your belly, of course.”

Your fingers went still against the ringmail-vest underneath his doublet. Another fascination of Aerion’s was the idea of you being round with his baby. 

The first time he bedded you, it was as tradition follows. Your consummation had been a private thing, per Aerion’s insistence. He’d bargained with his father that the maester might wait outside of the room until the two of you were finished, to only enter after the deed was done to ensure that you’d bled. After a day of feeling like you were dressed as some prized pig for the slaughterhouse, you’d taken this as a sign of chivalry. You’d almost thought that this marriage would be something you could stomach. 

That night, Aerion undressed you. Working slowly at the laces of your corset with your back turned to him, murmuring to himself about the humiliation of his family that night—Daeron drowning in his cups, his cousin Valarr’s peacocking as he twirled his Tyroshi wife under his arm, and his younger siblings constant nattering. You let him complain. You thought the longer this part of the night was prolonged, the less daunting the act itself would be. But the four-poster of your marital bed lingered in your periphery like some kind of beleaguering ghost as Aerion moved your hair over to one shoulder and started tracing chaste kisses along the trembling line of your shoulder.

“You’re scared, wife,” he’d muttered in observation, fingertips coming to feel the goosebumps along your skin.

Wife. You’re his wife.

“No,” you had scrambled to say, voice catching shallowly around your frantic lie. “Not scared, only…” You shuddered at the feeling of his mouth against the top of your spine, “nervous, that is all.”

“You’ve heard the whispers then. Brightflame. The monstrous second son of the king’s youngest son. So cruel, so capricious.” He slipped one of your arms out of its sleeve, then the other, and his chest rumbled with an amused laugh when your hands reached instinctively to clutch the material at your chest to your breasts. “Do you believe the whispers? Do you think me as frightening as they say?”

You couldn’t say what had possessed you to say it. Perhaps it was the unnerving sensation in your stomach that everything was slowly getting away from you—your dignity, your self-control, any sense of knowing your place in the world. 

“I know that my father did not want me to marry you,” you’d blurted, hands still grasping your gown to your chest. “I know that he would’ve rather married me off to your drunkard brother, but the court whispers that you longed for a Valyrian bride. That you long for Valyria itself. Though, the King wants to leave the days of marrying Targaryens to Targaryens behind. So, your grandfather and Prince Maekar compromised. They offered you me…” The thickening silence behind you had been startling. You could still remember the pounding of your heartbeat against your ribs as he said nothing at all. You’d swallowed and continued in spite of yourself, “Though, we lost most of our coin after the Dance…and, since Queen Daenaera married the Dragonbane, our dynasties have seemed to forget our old alliance. Until today.”

Aerion hummed contemplatively, the knuckle of his forefinger moving down the rosary of your spine over silk. “Until today.” 

“So no, I do not find you frightening because I think you are some cruel, erratic princeling,” you carried on. “I do wonder what you thought you could get out of a marriage with an almost penniless house from a lonely island across Blackwater Bay.”

“I assume the maester of High Tide taught you about Valaena Velaryon?”

You stilled again. “Valaena…?” 

“Let go of your dress,” said Aerion quietly.

“Excuse me?”

“Your dress.”

Taken aback, you felt the hold on the brocade slacken. Aerion hummed in satisfaction, reaching around you to firmly close his hands around your wrists and move your hands from your breasts. The satin of the bridal gown slipped down your body as seamlessly as water, pooling at your ankles and leaving you in the silk chemise your lady mother had commissioned for the wedding. It was lacy around the neckline and hem, intricate but dainty. It left the lengths of your arms and most of your legs bare and exposed to the cold air of your marital chambers.

The hairs on the nape of your neck stood tall, and you went on instinct to cradle your palms to yourself to emulate some semblance of warmth, forgetting that Aerion’s fingers were still clasped around you. The small thrash made him press both of his thumbs into the hollows of your wrists.

“Pretty,” he’d said. It made your throat swell. He then went on, “Valaena Velaryon was the fairest bride of her time, they say.” Your husband’s hands started to move up from your wrists, over your elbows, and up to the skimpy straps of your chemise, teasing his index finger under it to feel at the skin there. “A true beauty of Old Valyria. She married my namesake, did you know that? Lord Aerion Targaryen, lord of Dragonstone during the Century of Blood. He was the last rider of Aegarax. They had a fruitful marriage, Lord Aerion and his lady wife from your lonely island across Blackwater Bay. Do you know why?” 

All words and breath were lost to you. You were acutely aware that Aerion stood behind you, fully-dressed and entirely in control, whilst you were with your back to him, vulnerable and dressed in only a scrap of silk.

“I can’t remember,” was all you could muster.

“Hm.” He didn’t sound particularly disappointed, nor pleased, by your answer. There was no malicious edge or self-satisfied grunt at your haziness. He appeared to be entirely collected. Then, just when he began talking again, he started to pull the flimsy straps of your chemise down your arms, “Aerion and Valaena had three babes. A girl, first…” 

Aerion did not let you cover yourself this time. As soon as the straps were gone, he merely batted your arms away and hooked his fingers into the scooping neckline at the back of the slip, taking his sweet time in pulling it down your torso. 

“After their daughter, a son…” 

When the silk caught at your hips, Aerion let out a quiet, appreciative sound, stroking his thumb over the dip in the small of your back, before tugging it over the swell of your ass. Your breath hitched at the exposure, at the cold draught whispering from the open window. 

“After their heir, a final daughter.” 

The silk hit the floor, joining the shallow sea of your satin bridal dress with a murmur. You were entirely naked.

“Aegon,” you choked then, not even bothering to attempt covering yourself again. “The Conqueror and his sisters. Visenya and Rhaenys. Lady Valaena was their mother.”

“Clever girl,” he praised, half-mocking. “Lady Valaena, of your almost penniless house from your lonely island, birthed the three-headed dragon. Her womb made the Targaryen dynasty what it is today.”

Not a fraction what it was a century ago? You yearned to bite at him, but somehow had resisted the urge.

“And you think I am Lady Valaena born-again, to bring you forth three babes on the birthing-bed, so they might be conquerors?” you asked him. 

“Not conquerors, wife,” Aerion mused, kissing the curve of your shoulder again, “dragons.” 

Before that night, you’d heard horror stories about consummation. Of splitting pain and cruel, selfish men, pawing at breasts like raw meat or spoils of a hunt, emptying themselves into their ripe wives like grunting boars. 

Aerion was not like that. He did not mount you like some stable mare, fuck you brutal and short. It was a methodical art, the way he took you that night. He told you, between heated kisses, the filthiness of his mouth dragging against yours, that he’d had dreams of a three-headed dragon. Of flames, and the sky torn open, bleeding a comet of blazing red, as the night sung with the songs of dragons once more.

He laid you out on his bed, all bare and goose-flesh and shivering, and let the kisses move from your swollen mouth to the valley between your breasts. Your sternum arched from how you shamefully arched out of the crimson sheets and into his hunger. His mouth followed down to your abdomen, lingering over the swell of your lower-belly. He’d looked ravenous, you remembered. As if he could already picture your womb full of him. 

“You’ll give me dragons, wife,” he’d told you, moving himself lower, and lower, until he was brushing his spit-slick lips against the sensitive juncture of your thighs. 

His hands came down to your hips firmly when you started to jerk them, feeling tender and unfamiliar as your cunt started to ache. 

“Three of them.”

Then, he kissed your cunt how he’d kissed your mouth. Insatiably, dirtily, perfect. He licked at you, that tongue of his curling against a particularly tender spot of you that you’d only clumsily felt at yourself when you could not sleep. There was nothing clumsy about the way he handled you. 

A sound came out of you that might’ve been a sob when he sunk his index finger inside of the warm heat of you. He curled it with some kind of second-nature to a sweetness within you that made you needily buck your hips and finally move your hands from where they’d been balling up fistfuls of duvet into them.

“The maesters don’t want lesser men to know this,” he’d murmured against you, opening you up, coaxing a second finger into you, all the while tasting you and sucking at that pearl of yours, “but a woman’s pleasure is just as important as a man’s. I think Lord Aerion treated his lady wife right, do you? Old Valyria did not treat fucking like some sin.” 

You could barely listen to what he was saying, his fingers stimulating a part of you that felt so deep, so intense, and so good, that it felt like it belonged to him rather than you.

“Lord Aerion took care of his Velaryon bride. He fucked three dragons into her and they united all Seven Kingdoms.” 

He met your eyes then, his own so dark with lust and narrowed into almost slits that he almost looked like one of the beasts himself. His mouth left your heat for a brief moment, slick with your arousal and his own saliva.

“I shall do the same to you,” he’d promised.

Your moon-blood had arrived twice since your wedding, and you’d thought that might deter him. But his aspirations remain steadfast, and so does he. Your husband means to make some vessel of prophecy and magic out of you.

Every other night, he’d have his mouth on your cunt again. His fingers filling you. He’d make you unravel at least twice before unlacing his own breeches and taking you however he saw fit—bent over the edge of your bed, sprawled across the sheets with a pillow propped under your hips, you riding him. Each time was pleasurable as the last, and you’d be a liar if you said that you didn’t enjoy laying with him in such a manner. If your husband was anything, it was a good lover. 

But he was also cold and waspish. Cruel to his younger siblings, and derisive to his elder brother. He treated servants and guards alike as if they were animals. He rarely asked about you, rarely acknowledged you as little more than the future mother of his babes. He did not care that you hated the heat of Summerhall, that you missed the sea, and the salt-air, nor that you longed to feel the sand under your feet. He did not care that Driftmark haunts you when you sleep, girlhood laughter, and chasing your brother over the beach, tiny feet splashing through the waters. Your dreams weren’t deemed as important as his. If Aerion were to wake up in the middle of the night, sweating and thrashing after some nightmarish terror of cities burning or dragons slain, he’d wake you up too. You’d try and ask him what was wrong, be the attentive wife, stroke your fingers through his short strands of silvery hair. He didn’t want comfort. 

He’d ruck up the cotton of your nightdress, sink into you, and mouth at the column of your neck as he spoke about fire and blood, slaughtering Blackfyres, the ways of Old Valyria, and how beautiful you’d look pregnant. 

“I pray to the Mother every day that I will one day be worthy of bearing your child, my lord,” you say then, smiling vacantly up at him as he stands there, shirtless and frowning.

He’s so handsome, you think. Handsome in that otherworldly kind of way that only really existed now in his bloodline or across the Narrow Sea in whorehouses. You wish that he cared more. That he’d notice your homesickness, the way you gaze so longingly out of your window as you look eastwards, and offer to visit Driftmark with you. Or at least sit next to you and ask about your home, about yourself, about what you liked to do. You hate embroidery. Your fingers are calloused from needle-pricks and unbuttoning the stiff fastens of his doublet every day. You miss horse-riding. You miss running. You miss talking about things other than Valyrian histories.

You have this grotesque, needy want in you for him to just want you back, not for some royal womb, or incubator for a three-headed augury. You want to be his wife in the same way your mother was your father’s, and Lady Dyanna was his father’s. Mayhaps then you’d care more for the gardens and being lady of Summerhall.

“Such pretty, obedient words,” croons Aerion, his knuckle caressing over your cheekbone. “I almost believe them.”

This makes your eye twitch, but you say nothing. You’re not sure Aerion expects you to, because he’s sweeping past you and over to his wardrobe to find some night-clothes to change into. You glance down at your own dress, then out at the pinkish sunset, and glide over to your own. Pointedly, you slip into a blue shift. You hear a disgruntled sound getting stuck in his throat as he watches the loose material of it all fall over you, but remain silent to start unbraiding your hair. 

Aerion would prefer that you have a maidservant to do these kinds of things for you, such as ready you for bed, and do your hair. He’d rather you do nothing at all but sit somewhere, looking ornamental and pretty all day, as he hunts and spars and spits cruelties to the small folk, then returns to you, so you might open your legs like a good little wife and do your duty. You prefer keeping whatever little of your self-government you have left since becoming a princess.

He waits for you on his side of the bed. He has the levelled look of a bored princeling in his expression, but those eyes of his can no longer deceive you. He’s cross with you. Impatient, for whatever reason. It might’ve unsettled you a moon ago, but now it only makes you languish more to prepare yourself for bed. The sun’s swallowed by the peaks of the marches by the time you climbed in next to him, smelling like the sprigs of lavender you rub against your pulse-points every night.

“How will you have me tonight, my lord?” you ask drolly, folding your hands sensibly over your lap.

Aerion squints at you, affronted. “You make it sound as if it is a chore.”

“It’s a duty,” you correct.

“Oh, so dutiful, when you’re moaning like a wanton whore in my ear for it,” Aerion snarls. He doesn’t like it when you’re short with him, nor when you get righteous about sex. “If you do not wish to be bedded tonight, wife, you need only tell me.”

You scoff. “That’s all I need-do, is it? Simply tell you?” 

“I am not some common brute. Some beggar-raper. I am your lord husband,” sneers Aerion, as if you could ever forget. “If you don’t want me to fuck you, say it. You have a tongue, don’t you? A mouth?” 

“Noticed, have you?”

“Clever girl, aren’t you? So full of wit and bite.” The malice in his eyes darkens when you stare stubbornly back at him, unflinching. “Go on then, what is it? What has upset you so? Are your days spent doing your embroidery and eating lemon-cakes so trifling, wife? Does my right as a husband to expect heirs from you upset you?” 

You feel incensed, wroth stirring in you with a heated sensation not too dissimilar from want. “I do not begrudge you for wanting heirs, Aerion. I understand what it means to be a woman in this world. I know my place. But am I such a frivolous fool for wanting, just once, for you to return from whatever sport you’re spoiling and talk to me?” 

“I am talking to you! I talk to you plenty!” he returns defensively.

“You don’t! You never do. You make snide remarks and ask me to undress you. You’re gone most mornings when I awake. We rarely break our fast together. When you do lower yourself to talk to me, it’s about seeing me round with child,” you seeth, a stinging in your eyes now. “I say child, but you do not want that. You do not want a son to teach how to be chivalrous, or a daughter to protect. You want me to labour three beasts, so you might return your house to its former glory. I knew even as a little girl that I would end up brood-mare to some lord of some castle, Aerion, but I never thought he’d only deign to converse with me if it’s to talk about your thirst for some hatchling to rip me open!” 

Aerion stares at you then, and the moment that ensues is long and filled with tension. The look he gives you is almost indiscernible in its multitudes. Wroth, bemusement, a hint of arousal. He likes you like this, and you know it. He loves the bite, even if he mocks it. He likens it to fire, but you know that it’s the sea. Vicious, still at times, but its belly is as ravenous as a dragon’s. 

“Feel better now?” he then asks, cruel and grinning lopsidedly. 

The steadiness of his voice is like nails against bone. You feel sick with anger and it makes the candlelight reflecting in his eyes resemble flames.

“You’re incorrigible,” you tell him, hurt.

“Next time you do not wish to lay with me, wife, just say it. You needn’t waste your precious breath with touching speeches such as that,” Aerion drawls, shifting to lie on his side all haughty and complacent. 

It made you feel so humiliating and wretched, but Gods, you wanted him to fight with you. To yell at you, just how he yells with his father and Daeron. It’s a ghastly longing, to wish that your husband would shout at you, but it was yours all the same. You remember arguments between your parents when you were growing up. Your father is temperamental as the waves that crash against the slates of Driftmark’s rockery, and your mother, a Stark, was as brittle as winter. Their spats would oft send High Tide splitting into factions. But when they would make up, they were perfectly happy. Your mother would press her lips to the stubble on your father’s jawbone and he’d kiss her brow, and love felt uniquely real. 

Now, silence torments you. Loneliness scabs over your skin like old wounds. You feel perverse for enjoying sex with Aerion when this rotten throb in the pit of your stomach yearns for more. Even if it was ugly. 

“Is that really all you have to say?” you utter, disconcerted as you stare at his turned back. “It is not just about not wanting to lay with you, Aerion, it’s—” 

“Sleep, wife,” he interjects coolly, “I’m sure you have another tiresome day in the morrow of needlework and staring out of your window.”

Do you know why I stare out of that window? You want to shout at him. Do you know what has been taken from me? 

But he doesn’t care. If you were to tell him about how homesick you felt, how alone and uncomfortable in your own skin, he’d surely make some crude remark about how a babe would surely make you busy enough to forget all about how forlorn you were. You did not want to be belittled anymore tonight, so you turn over, back facing him, and bury your cheek against the satin pillow. Under your skin feels so hot and nettled from your upset, but the satiny material cools it just enough for you to steady your breathing.

The window’s on your side of the bed. Your window, Aerion called it. 

Hundreds of leagues of grassland, moors, and plains splay out beyond the palace. Here, you weren’t far from the Red Mountains, crimson at sunset, soaked with the spilled-blood of old enemies. If you were to flee west, you’d reach Blueburn river and Grassy Vale, where House Meadows preside in a flowery keep on the banks. You did not know much about House Meadows, other than that they were sworn bannermen to House Tyrell, who’d surely send you right back to Summerhall, fawning sycophants that they were. South of here was Blackhaven, with its black basalt walls and a bottomless, dry moat. It might’ve been a good place to abscond if it weren’t for it being the seat of House Dondarrion, kin to your good-uncle Baelor. Further north was just miles upon miles of fertile land, rife with farmers and livestock. 

East, then. Storm’s End, at Durran’s Point. The Baratheons had no love for your husband’s bloodline. Their lord paramount, Lyonel, would take you under his wing. He was fond of your mother, having even named her Queen of Love and Beauty at a tourney in their shared youth. He’d feed you, offer you a bed, and extend you an olive branch of refuge all without sending a single raven to the Targaryens. He might find you a ship and send you on your merry way back to Driftmark before word even reaches Summerhall that you’re gone. 

You wait. 

Stars gather and twinkle in the sky. Each inhale, practiced to sound levelled and sleep-like, is taken like communion. 

You glimpse over your shoulder to the curve of his skull. He’s sleeping, you can tell. From the small sliver of his face you can see, there’s softness and an absence of his usual strain. His sleep is dreamless tonight. 

Good, you think. At least he won’t take up, muttering frantically about fire-scorched earth and prophecies. At least you have a head-start. 

Leaving the castle was easy enough. Summerhall’s a royal retreat and only lightly-fortified. The guards stationed at their posts were dolts, at best. They saw you, the mad prince’s wife, treading over cold-stone in your almost-translucent nightdress and just about had it in themselves to straighten their spines and avert their eyes respectfully. 

The gardens were luscious and thick with purpled flowers. Lady Dyanna lived in each flourishing bud of lilac. As you waded through knee-length sweetgrass and herbs, you felt a nastiness gnaw at your insides. A strange kind of jealousy, for the dead mother of your husband. Lady Dyanna was loved. Maekar loved his wife. You try to picture her as you move to the edge of her gardens. All that springs to mind is a saintly vision, of terracotta skin and angelic, violet eyes. In your mind, Lady Dyanna’s radiant and fascinating. Maekar would never let her rot in a window-pane, yearning for Starfall as she makes threads of plum-purple into the Palestone Sword. Why could they not have made their son in their image? 

Your two-faced husband, of perversions and filth when he’s got his mouth on you, who becomes disillusioned once he is spent. 

There’s a thicket of dense wood surrounding Summerhall. Your slippers traipse over splintery twigs as you move through a barren maze of red cedars, sentinels, and wormtrees. The night sky nips at your bare arms and you curse yourself for not bringing a cloak. You try to defend yourself, thinking about Aerion back in that blasted bed, and the odd uneven floorboard in your shared chambers. He could be a light sleeper at times. You couldn’t have risked it creaking underfoot and stirring him. 

The wood around you feels like a wet-breathed, living creature, slipping through the silk of your shift, lapping its roughened tongue over your bare calves. Blackberry brambles snag at the hem and leaves rustle in knotted branches. 

You think of Lyonel Baratheon’s silver streaks in his wiry, black hair and the way he laughs from his belly. Of salt spray, of the damp smell of a ship. It spittles against your skin and catches in your head. You think of that peace and nothing but. 

Certainly not the bed you’d left warm. Anything but the man inside of it. 

And yet…

“I hope they have your eyes,” Aerion told you one night last week, one of your legs hiked up to his waist as he cradled your face. “Our boy. Our girls. Our dragons.” 

A pale-blue tendril ribbons around your sternum, back through the woods, around the stems of Lady Dyanna’s moon-blooms, through the slumbering corridors of Summerhall, and to the very place you slipped away from him. Tonight’s the first night he didn’t fall asleep with an arm around your wrist, chin tucked into the crook of your neck as he mumbled sleepily into your hair. 

“Impudent little wretch,” you snarl to yourself grumpily, breaths rasping into tendrils of white before you as branches whip by in convoluted shapes.

Above, peaking through foliage, the sky’s a chipped, silver stag.

Lyonel, you try to think about instead. A warm hearth, a bowl of broth, a tankard of ale, and someone who thinks of you as a living girl rather than a walking womb. 

Just when the air starts tasting less like the incense Aerion likes to keep burning, that thick, earthy, leatherish smell, you hear a sound that’s not yours. Footsteps, the measured kind. Unhurried and somewhere behind you. 

No. No, no. “Shit.”

You don’t glance over your shoulder to decipher whom, or what, it is that is advancing. Your heart’s a hummingbird against your ribs, and you have the frantic, mindless sort of terror of a chased rabbit or hunted fox. You run.

The fur-lined slippers on your feet slide in damp loam, splattering up the back of your calves. Sweat starts to bead from your pores, making the silk of your nightdress cling to your thighs and collarbone. There’s nothing but the husk of your own frightened breaths and slippery footsteps. You fool yourself into thinking it’s gone—that whatever was chasing you grew sick of the hunt and trudged away. 

Until, “Wife.” 

There’s no wroth in it. The voice isn’t even raised. It scares you more than if it was a yell, torn through the sentries.

It makes your stumble, one of your slippers catching in the mud. You abandon it in your pursuit. One of your feet bare, the unearthed twigs and rocks scratch at the sole of it. You barely feel the sting. You run harder. 

It’s him, you know it. You can’t even hear a company of other footsteps. It’s just him, following after you with unhurried, fluid steps that sound deceptively calm.

“You’re making this worse for yourself,” he calls out to you. 

His words make a whimpered sob lodge itself in your throat. You try and pick up some speed, but the muscles in your legs are burning. Everything feels hot and suffocating. Since your honeymoon, you’ve been cooped up in Summerhall like a caged bird. This is the most you’ve moved in two moons. Those girlhood days of racing your brother and the steward’s son are gone. You feel sluggish, and exhausted, and—A root catches your foot. Your remaining slipper is wrenched off, and a cry tears through you.

The world morphs into a blur of snarling trees and dirt. Before your knees and jaw can slam against the filthy earth, a hand closes around your upper arm. It’s bruising and rough. It’s him. 

Your spine slams into rough bark so hard that your breath abandons you, skull thudding in tandem. Tiny white stars cloud your vision until his face emerges from the fog.

Your husband, your man, chest rising only faintly as if the hunt hadn’t been an inconvenience to him at all. His silver hair’s mused from sleep. No guards flanked him, no cloak rippled in the wind from his shoulders. He’s still in the fine-cotton of his sleep-shirt, eyes mirror-bright from the moonlight. He’s beautiful and terrifying. As pale as pearls and all yours. 

Neither of you speak. 

Shamefully, your breaths are the only ones that come out panting. You struggle to level them, chest heaving so hard that on the inhale it swells out to brush against his. Your teeth are chattering violently. All of your senses feel spiked and sharpened. You think you might be able to hear the footfall of a small creature from a mile away.

Aerion lowers his dilated gaze. Your bare feet are cut and muddied, wet leaves clinging to them, and the hem of your shift is torn. You’ve got your hands behind your back, fisting against the sticky bark, as if you’re protecting the last bit of yourself you can from him. It feels futile when his eyes return to yours and he has that mad, hungry look of a man who knows exactly what you’re thinking.

“You run poorly,” he says quietly.

It hits you like a blow. “You,” your voice is hoarse, wounded, “you followed me.”

His head tilts. “You didn’t think I would?”

The hatred in your flares hot and cancerous, spreading into every vein. “I hate you.” 

An emotion twitches in his expression but you’re too frightened to understand it. He raises one of his hands and the motion makes you flinch so violently that your shoulder slips against the bark, scratching at your skin enough to splinter. It only makes him hesitate for a moment, fingers flexing in the space between you, before it flattens the palm against the trunk beside your head.

He’s everywhere now. You feel in him your lungs. This somehow feels more intimate than sex. He’s in your marrow. 

“I dreamt of you. Of a nursery, bright with sunlight. I woke,” he says, darker, “and your side of the bed was cold.” Aerion’s jaw hardens, his lips so very close to yours. All hot air and want and fury. “Do you know what that felt like, wife?” 

You stare at him, still breathing heavily. You have no words to give him. Your own blood is trying to speak to you as something vile coils around your organs but you can’t make heads or tails of it. It’s an ouroboros that stifles you as his other hand snakes out to press your hip deeper into the tree.

“No,” he answers for you, “you don’t.” 

The cedars tremble as you do, and you’re weak enough to think about Driftmark again. It’s absurd but it’s yours, and you can almost hear the vicious breaking of black-water waves against slate. You remember being small and childlike but it’s nothing like this feeling of fragility. You want your mother and her lap, her hands combing through your tresses. 

Your eyes start to well and you hate yourself for it. Strangely, it’s more than you hate him.

“I wanted to leave,” you confess.

“I know.”

“I meant to reach Storm’s End. Ser Lyonel.” 

Aerion blinks. “And that he might find you a maiden ship that would send you back to your lonely island? Away from here. From me.” 

Your heart’s in your ears, your throat, it beats and pulses everywhere. “How do you…” 

You didn’t think he knew about your homesickness. You didn’t think he cared. 

“You talk in your sleep,” he tells you.

It’s enough to make you dumb. Marriage is a peculiar thing. You were so sure he didn’t know anything about you and yet he knows this. That your slumbering mumbles are of home and the sea. 

Gods, you wish things were different. In another life, you might spend your days swimming and wading through shallow coves as he spars and hunts. You’d return to him happier in the evenings. He’d kiss the salt off your skin and you’d mouth at the swollen bruises on his knuckles. You’d each taste of sea and fire; he’d love you completely, and you’d love him the same. 

“You would have frozen before dawn,” Aerion remarks at your shivering. “You wouldn’t even make the next village over.”

“I’d rather freeze than burn in your stifling palace,” you spit.

“Brave girl,” he taunts. His thumb strokes over your hipbone then and it makes you jolt. The way he smirks at you is maddening. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think he’d want to splay you open and crawl inside. “Dragons don’t burn, wife. Haven’t I told you this?”

You want to scream in his face. “I’m not a dragon. I’m a Velaryon by blood. Salt and sea.” 

“Addam of Hull rode Seasmoke,” he challenges. 

“The Sowing of the Seeds as an abomination,” you sneer viciously. “The mythology of House Targaryen being pure-blooded and closer to Gods than men died the day Rhaenyra let bastards claim dragons. Vermithor and Seasmoke died at the Second Battle of Tumbleton. Silverwing died alone in the Red Lake after that useless oaf, Ulf, got himself killed. No one even knows what happened to Nettles and Sheepstealer.”

You thought that he might be angry at you for talking back to him, but that smirk of his softens into an amused curl of the lips.

“You’ve been reading our histories,” he muses fondly, thumb caressing lower from your hip, down to the hollow above your thigh, where the flesh is tender and sensitive. 

“There’s little else to do in your prison of a castle,” you say defensively. 

“Oh, I’m sure,” Aerion croons lazily. 

His entire hand shifts then to cover the entire expanse of your lower belly. Underneath, you feel a mad, ugly stirring. You almost choke.

“You’re vile.”

He bares his teeth. “Am I?”

“And cruel.”

“You fled my bed in your nightdress and slippers,” he reminds you. He presses the slightest bit into your stomach, relishing in the wicked way your face betrays you. “Without so much as a cloak to warm you.”

You glare at him nastily. “I left in haste.”

“No. You did not take a cloak because you feared the floorboard near the bed would creak,” he states. Your lips part in shock and his own widens into a grin. “That loose board by the window—third plank from the foot of our bed. You stepped over it.”

“That doesn’t mean you know me,” you seeth.

“No?” he says. Arrogance bleeds from him. The hand that’s next to your moves too, knuckles grazing along the curve of your torso until they brush the frayed rip of your shift. He toys with the torn threads and looks at you as if you’re a meal. “You stare east every sunset. You rub lavender at your wrists before bed because it reminds you of spring. You sew pretty waves into your embroidery when you’re lonely. You mutter for your mother in dreams. You like it when I fuck you from the behind…so I cannot see how much you’re enjoying it. It makes you feel in control.”

Breath hitches in your throat. 

Sensations invade you. The palm of his hand, greedy and warm, on the small of your back as he gets you when he wants you. The contrasting coolness of your own arms folded under your head as you gnaw on your bottom lip. Sometimes, he’ll kneel for you. A kiss to each hemisphere of your backside, the backs of your thighs, on your heat. Others, he isn’t as patient. He’ll have kissed your mouth first in these instances, after having you unbutton his doublet and peel away your own clothes. He’ll know that these devouring kisses would’ve left you wet enough for him. 

It’ll be as if he wanted to intertwine your body with his, those nights. Like he wanted to swallow you and spit you out onto his bedsheets. His fingers will reach and grab at any part of you he can find. 

You hate yourself. You hate him. 

“You do not ask me,” you manage to say gravelly. “You do not ask me anything.” 

He rolls his shoulder. “I notice.” 

“You have a grotesque way of showing it, husband.” 

You snarl it as an insult but hearing the title makes him smile. 

“Do I?” he mocks. “You wanted a fight tonight. You wanted me to shout at you, to get angry. To prove that I want you. Is that not grotesque to you, wife?” 

Tears gather and the sight of him wobbles in front of you as if seen through water. “You don’t know what I want.” 

“I know what you think that you want. You think you want that lonely island across Blackwater Bay.” Aerion shakes his head then, hand finally daring to slip under the rugged hem of your nightdress. A strangled sound escapes you when his fingers press into the flesh of your thigh. “But that’s not what you really want, is it? Not deep down. Not in here,” he emphasises, the fingers splayed out on your womb moving to linger over your heart. It thuds treacherously against him. “You want the same as I.”

You somehow have it in you to scoff at him. “Dragons, born-again?” 

“Maybe not yet. But you want this marriage. You want me,” he says, and it isn’t even arrogance now that he imbues. It’s just the self-assured confidence of someone who’s uttering a fact. As if he knows all of your wants and deficiencies. 

“You think very highly of yourself, my lord.” 

His teeth are pearl-like in the moon’s glow as he smirks. “Maybe.”

“Your ego is larger than the Red Keep,” you insult. 

“Go on.”

“And you are mad,” you rasp, feeling the heat of his fingers just over your cunt, not quite touching. “You treat the small folk as if they’re not even human, looking down at them in disdain. You think you’re leagues above the whole world, as if you’re still on dragonback. You’re addled with delusions and nightmares, I do not think you even know what is real.” 

“You,” Aerion says darkly, finally letting his fingers touch you, his index and middle slipping between your folds, where you want him, where you’re wet. “You’re real.” 

You keen as his thumb finds that sweet-spot of yours. “Fuck,” you grit, one of your arms untucking from behind you to grasp at his wrist. Startled, you realise your slip-up and look up at his hungry eyes. Chagrined, you correct the mistake, “Fuck you.”

“You want me to?” he asks, grinning. Gods, you hate him. His fingers sink into you, both at once. The stretch is enough for you to whimper, nails biting into his skin. All the while, he keeps his eyes on yours. “You want Driftmark, wife? I’ll find the finest captain and his best ship, I’ll take you. You want the sea? You’ll have it. You need only ask. The dragon ought never let his rider want for a single thing. I want you happy and mine. Let me?” 

His fingers curl then, reaching a part of you that makes you curl into him, forehead kissing his chest that finally feels like it’s at least a fraction as unsettled as yours. He drags them in and out of you at a deliciously slow pace, but your knees are weak with it. Both of your hands grasp at his arms now. He feels strong and unmoving. His mouth pecks at your hairline reverently.

“You’re evil,” you sob. “This is all I am to you. This is all you ever want.” 

Aerion merely hums. Rather than giving you reassurance, he presses an open-mouth kiss to your cheek, dewy and spit-slick. It’s all filthy.

“I want more.” 

Desperation wracks you. More what? You don’t even know. But you’re rocking yourself against him, grinding down onto his hands, and you want the hand that’s still on your heart to move the slightest bit down to grasp at your breast. 

He delivers another kiss, this time to your mouth as he nudges his forehead against yours to pry you away from the cover of his chest. He groans against your mouth, swallowing your own sob of pleasure depravedly. It’s a messy kiss, sloppy and shameless. You’re only distinctly aware that you’re still in the dead of the wood.

“Can you take another?” he checks. 

Your head shakes violently. “No.” 

He smiles against your mouth. “I thought you wanted more?” 

But he listens regardless, crooking the digits already inside of you just right, making you arch and moan brokenly. 

“I hate you. I hate you, I hate you, I—” 

“Show me how much, wife.” 

You come on his fingers, a single tear rolling down your cheek. His tongue catches it, then it catches yours, and it tastes of salt as they tangle in an even dirtier kiss than the last. It tastes like home. He works you through it, kneading comfortingly at your hip as your hips jerked against his at the overstimulation. So gently, he slips them out, holding your gaze as he parts his lips and tastes you. The sound he makes is obscene. 

Bonelessly, you slump against him. His hand, the one that wasn’t just inside of you, shifts to cradle the back of your head against his heaving chest. He smells of smoke and you. 

“I want to go,” you pant, cunt dully aching between your weak thighs. “I don’t want to sit in that room, waiting for you every night.” 

“Then, don’t.” 

“What would you have me do? Tend to your lady mother’s flowers? Sit in your solar, gossiping with the other well-bred ladies, who all titter over how handsome you are?” Jealousy drips from your tongue and sanctifies him. You feel his smirk against your temple, and the only kindness is knowing those wretched lips of his taste like you. “What is it, husband, you think I do whilst I wait for your dragons to tear me open?”

Aerion waits. Thinks, perhaps. He squeezes at the flesh of your hips, rolling them closer to his. He hums again, more contemplative than the last. Then, he draws his wet mouth to the shell of your ear, and speaks,

“Run.” 

Your eyes blow open, gaping at him. “Pardon?”

“I want you, wife,” he says, suddenly letting go of you and stepping back, leaving you on fawn-like legs and shivering, “to run.”

“Is this a trick?” you demand indignantly, one of your eyes twitching.

“It’s no trick. I want you to run,” Aerion repeats. “I want you to prove to me how little you want to be the lady of Summerhall. How all of that court gossip bores you. I want to see how much my pretty wife misses the sea.” 

You’ve just finished on your hand. You can still feel the slick of it between your thighs and a throbbing for more in the bottom of your belly. And yet he’s telling you to run.

“Run,” you echo. 

His expression oozes a bright, fevered certainty. “Yes.” 

There’s no mockery there or even a challenge. It’s hunger and interest and he wants you to bite. He loves your bite, you remind yourself. 

“You mean to make sport of me. As if I’m some wild boar or feral stag,” you accuse.

His mouth twitches. “Perhaps.” 

“You’re sick, Aerion.” 

“And yet you’re still here?” he teases.

This is madness, but you indulge it. “What happens if I run?”

“I follow.” 

Terror waltzes along your spine. “And if I escape?” 

“Then you prove me wrong,” Aerion replies simply, daring you.

It feels like a trick, despite his reassurance that it isn’t. Though, you’re sea-born enough to want to reach the horizon he’s dangling in front of you, however much of a mirage it might be.

“You’d let me go?” you say in disbelief, prayer-like. 

Your husband’s gaze dissects you like you’re an animal as he remarks, “I’ll let you try.” 

“This is a game.” 

“Isn’t everything?” 

He makes an unbridled rage swell inside of you. “Fuck you.” 

“Is that what you want instead of running?” Aerion laughs. 

“You speak of me as if I’m an animal!” you yell at him, appalled.

Aerion doesn’t seem unnerved. “Are you going to do it or not?” 

Your heart’s in your mouth again, leaving your ribs hollow enough for dread to make itself wretchedly at home. It tucks itself away in a layer of rot as your feet move without leave. One step, then another, until a third makes a twig splinter in half under you. The pain lances through you, brief and startling, but you turn and run regardless. 

Aerion does not come after you right away, or maybe you just couldn’t hear it, for the blood that rushes in your ears and the woods that seem to swallow everything in its eerie stomach. 

Air bludgeons you as raw as a gut-blow. The terror you feel is primitive and thrilling. It makes your body unearth a scion of girlhood from within you that dusted over after your wedding in Baelor’s Sept. Outpacing your brother over wet sand, horse-riding along Driftmark’s cliffs, the first morning your father took you out to sea aboard his favourite ship. The gulls caterwauling above you and the entire world opening itself at your feet as if you mattered. 

Bizarrely, an hysterical laugh nearly breaks you in half, like a wishbone. 

He’s driving you to madness, is all you can rationalise. Rumours spill through the Seven Kingdoms about the madness of Targaryens—but what of their wives? Does the coin flip for them, too? How oft do the Gods hold their breaths for the brides of dragons?

The outstretching branches of trees catch at your arms and surely cut them to ribbons. You dread to think about the sorry state of the soles of your feet. As a child, splattered in sea-water and dirt, your mother would scold you for trekking dirt through High Tide’s hallowed walls. She’d clutch at the pearls around her neck to see you like this, soiled and brutish as you run through the woods away from your husband.

Your husband.

“Do you feel alive, wife?” he calls out to you then from within the dark, as if he knew that the thread that binds you had just given. “Do you feel in control?” 

Hearing his voice again excites you. A sick part of you hopes you both get lost in this forest. That the rest of your cursed marriage is spent like this. You would never have to hear the gall of a courtier again, or a buttinsky maestar fussing over your moon-bloods. It would just be the two of you. You’d like that, you think. 

“Tired yet?” he taunts. It’s as if he speaks through the trees. Omnipresent and haunting. 

He’s to you what Valyria is to him.

“Come, wife. Answer me.” You curse him as you run. How is he not out of breath? “I want to hear you. How does it feel? Do you still feel like an animal?” 

“You’re a monster!” you shout hoarsely. 

The trees laugh with him, you swear. It intermingles with the pursuit of footfall, spiking your panic. He’s close. You feel him in your bones. He’s in your very soul.

Your head turns to find him too late as something hits you from behind, hard enough to make the world pitch and eat you whole. You think it’s his name that you wail as you go down into damp leaves and loam. It’s only earth for a moment, your chest flush to it. You feel like a corpse in the dirt, alone and cold against the unending body of it. All that’s gone when a weight settles over you. 

Aerion rolls you onto your back in one effortless motion before you can scramble or grab purchase at tufts of soil. Your hair cascades across the forest floor, torn shift twisting around your thighs. You must look unseemly. 

Still, Aerion straddles you, knees bracketing your wildly-bucking hips. At last, his breaths struggled too. The moon ensnares him in this feral halo that can only be Targaryen. A smirk takes shape, the way a dragon must’ve once looked feasting on its prey. 

There was a dragon over a century ago they called the Cannibal. Aerion must be him in living, human form. The membranes of his wings now exist as Aerion’s arms that snap out to catch both of your wrists and pin them above your head against the moss and foliage. Sinews and tendons strain at the column of his throat, and he’s every bit of those beasts that he longs for. 

“Get off,” you spit, hips jerking up. 

He grinds his own down to meet you halfway. He’s hard. Had he been this whole time?  

“Careful. You’ll make me think you enjoy this,” he says condescendingly.

Your glare is as filthy as your nightdress. “You tackled me!” 

“I caught you. I won.” 

“That’s cheating!” you protest.

Aerion blinks. “We didn’t agree on any rules.” 

“As if you’d even bide by them if we—shit.” 

He moves your wrists into one hand and slips the other between your thighs again. Of course, you’re still wet. It’s smeared and messy, and he teases the tips of his fingers through it, catching them at your pulsing entrance, before quickly moving them up to your clit. He’s relentless in his desire to make a madwoman out of you.

“Look at you,” he says fondly, “my beautiful wife.” The hard length of him presses through his breeches and against your hip. “You look better like this than you did on our wedding night. You were a pretty bride but prettier prey, I think.” 

“What is wrong with you?” You can only marvel at his perversions. You wanted him to want you but this overwhelms your senses. Is this how he wants you? A heart thudding in fear, silk tattered, cunt slick, all as his fingers tease you. 

“Everything that is wrong with me is wrong with you,” he tells you as he leans in to breathe in the scent of your neck. Lavender. “Blood of two, joined as one…” 

Your spine arches away from the earth to press your breasts against his chest. It’s enough to make his fingertips stop teasing you, settling over your clit with a delicious pressure.

“Hen lantoti ānogar,” you murmur against his mouth, repeating the same words to him in Valyrian, “va sȳndroti vāedroma.” 

His pupils dilate, the violets of his eyes lost in seas of insatiable black. “You’ve been learning the old tongue?” 

“I read about Valyrian wedding traditions,” you tell him offhandedly, as if you didn’t do it to impress him. 

He looks at you as if you’re everything he’s ever wanted and suddenly shifts his hips so that his cock presses against your slick, aching heat. The rough fabric of his breeches rubs against your bare, tender folds. It makes you writhe wantonly. 

“And what other research have you been doing, wife?” Aerion asks. He’s released your wrists entirely now and his other hand comes to palm at the soft swell of your breast. His index and thumb find your nipple deftly, rolling it between the digits. “Tell me you haven’t been touching yourself during your lonely afternoons, imagining it was me.” 

Your mouth curls into a sneer. “When you leave me for hours on end, you mean? To slip away into boredom? So what if I did then, husband? So what if I let my hand wander—” 

“And touch what is mine?” he interjects darkly, eyes narrowing at you. He grinds against you again. His breeches must be soaked from you. “My filthy wife, slipping her pretty little fingers inside her dripping cunt. Do you think of me? Is it my cock you want when you get greedy and rub at yourself, or is it my tongue?” 

Heat ravages your body with a fever and you cannot reply to him. Your hips wiggle, seeking more stimulation. He does not give it to you. 

“Both, most like,” he wagers, lust roughening his voice as well as the pinch of his fingers around your nipple. “I bet you fuck yourself thinking about me. You’re not bored, are you, wife? You’re empty.”

“I’m not some whore from Silk Street that lives and breathes cock, Aerion. I want my husband,” you tell him raggedly. 

His lips twist into a pout of feigned sympathy. “Poor girl. I’ve been neglecting you, haven’t I? What a cruel husband you have. To spend his days hunting when he has the prettiest of prey right there in his bed, waiting for him.” 

His degrading words make you dizzy. Is this what you even wanted? You wanted him to want you, yes, but this? The ache in you is for him, but it feels so wrong and perverted that you have to believe that there’s more you want. There has to be. You are not so debased as to think this is all you want from this marriage. You’re of the sea. There must be more.

“I want you to talk to me,” you say, bucking your hips up again, moving your heat against the tent of his cock. “I want you to ask me about my home, about my day. I want us to break our fasts together, after you’ve woke me up with your mouth on me. I want the whole castle to be sick of us when we fight and fuck. When they hear raised voices, they’ll know you’ll soon want me. It isn’t just your cock I want, Aerion, I want you.” 

It’s so painfully earnest that you feel even more humiliated than you did when he fingered you against that tree. 

But he doesn’t smirk at you in sick amusement or delight in your vulnerability. Aerion stares at you, just as desperate. 

“You terrify me,” he says, and it’s the last thing you expected, though you understand it perfectly. 

That terror is part of the want. It’s a limb in this living thing that exists between you. An amorphous mass of it that’s cancerous and obsessive. He looks fascinated by you and you hope he never loses that. You never want to be something that bores him. 

The idea of returning to Summerhall’s tedium makes you taste bile. 

Abruptly, Aerion’s moving from off of you and settling onto the forest floor at your side. He pulls you with him, arranging you as if you were a ragdoll until you’re draped heavily across his chest, head pillowed on the lean muscle beneath his sleep-tunic. His arms embrace you and you’re all his. 

“You’re right,” he admits (this must kill him). “I will do better. I’m sure Lord Aerion broke his fast with his Lady Valaena. If you’re to give me my three dragons, I ought to give you whatever you ask, hm?” 

You’re not sure what to say to that. You knew better than to think that madness would ever leave him, or his dream of a three-headed dragon. A sick part of you didn’t even want it to. As long as he thought of you as otherworldly as him, you were content. Both of your wants made something salvageable out of this marriage and you’d cling to them.

He tilts your chin up then and his gaze is as deep as the ocean, though far less volatile. There’s a tenderness to him that you’ve never seen in him before. 

“Tell me about the sea, wife.”

Part I: The morning Dragonstone lost two princes

Morning broke over Dragonstone in pearl and iron, the first light thin and cold as watered milk upon black stone. Below the castle walls the sea beat itself senseless against the rocks, a ceaseless dark music that filled every court and corridor whether men wished it or no. Wind came hard off Blackwater Bay, salted and sharp, smelling of brine, wet rope, tar, kelp, and the faint ghost of smoke from cookfires kindled too early in too many hearths. The gulls had been at their shrieking since dawn. So had the men on the docks.

Everywhere there was movement. Servants hurried through the passageways with armfuls of folded wool, bundles of winter linen, cedar chests bound in iron, and baskets of bread wrapped in cloth against the sea air. Men-at-arms shouldered spears and shields toward the yard. Stableboys ran breathless between the lower gates with tack, oats, and shouted apologies. Beneath it all came the deeper groan of Dragonstone herself, the long damp sigh of ancient stone holding the night’s cold in her bones.

For the king had sent word that the youngest son of Prince Valarr was to have a nameday worthy of his blood.

There would be a tournament. There would be a hunt. There would be feasting enough to make lesser lords purse their mouths and mutter over cups. King Baelor, being both grandsire and king, had decided his grandson’s nameday ought to be marked with all the joy of a royal occasion and none of the restraint of a prudent man. Never mind that he had only been crowned a few moons before. Some men, once given a crown, took to grandeur the way sailors took to drink. And what better excuse for fresh celebration than his second grandson, that richly cherished child, the chonky baby as he had already become in the unguarded speech of kin, though in formal style he was the second son of the direct heir to the Iron Throne, a prince of the blood, born to weight, scrutiny, and too much love.

And so Dragonstone had fallen into cheerful disorder.

It was exactly the sort of morning in which one might lose track of many things.

A glove. A goblet. A steward.

Perhaps even, if the gods were in sportive temper, a prince or two.

In your chambers the confusion had taken on a gentler shape, though no less frantic for that. The room smelled of beeswax, lavender sachets packed among the trunks, warm milk, damp stone, and the faint dragon-musk that had grown so common in your household you scarcely noticed it now unless a stranger wrinkled his nose. The sea light came thin through the narrow windows, silvering the edges of carved furniture and catching on the brass clasps of open chests. A maid knelt by one coffer sorting little tunics no bigger than folded handkerchiefs. Another argued softly with the nurse over swaddling cloths. A third stood near the hearth with a list in hand, looking as though she might sooner face battle than another round of your instructions.

You sat near the window in a high-backed chair, one hand resting on the arm, the other occupied with pointing, sorting, deciding. On the settle beside you lay your younger son, broad-cheeked, heavy-limbed, and deeply at peace with the world. He kicked his sturdy legs against a blanket edged in red and black thread, his little heels making soft thumps against the cushion. Pale cream silk strained faintly across his middle. His hair, soft and near-white, caught the morning light like spun silver. One eye was blue, the other brown, and both blinked up at the ceiling beams with solemn disapproval, as if all this bustle for a voyage he had not requested was faintly beneath him.

Across the room his elder brother stood at the window seat and watched.

You had dressed him yourself not half an hour before, smoothing back his pale hair with damp fingers, fastening the little buttons of his coat while he stood with all the grave patience of a child convinced he did his mother a favor by allowing it. “We will be leaving soon,” you had told him, touching the tip of his nose with one finger. “So take care, and try not to dirty your clothes too much.”

He had giggled and scrunched his face. “Mama, I will be fine. Do not worry.”

Prince Aenar said it with such princely certainty that you had nearly laughed. Your firstborn had never yet doubted his own competence in any matter. It was endearing in a child. In a grown Targaryen man, you knew, it would likely become ruinous. You kissed his brow all the same, gave him one last smile, and sent him to play with his brother and the carved toys near the hearth while you turned back to the business of packing.

No one noticed that he was watching.

That was the first trouble.

Usually, a hand would ruffle his hair. A maid would smile and ask some absurdly respectful question. A guard would bow and let him finger the pommel of a sword he was not meant to touch. More often still, Valarr would sweep in and take him off somewhere, to the mews to look at hawks, or to the yard to learn another few Valyrian words, or to the dragon yard to see what fresh offence his hatchling had committed.

When Valarr was occupied, you made your own processions of it, taking both boys out along the galleries or down toward the strand where the sea could be admired safely from a mother’s chosen distance. Aenar was accustomed to being seen. Not spoiled precisely. Royal children were too visible to be left wholly unformed. But noticed, certainly. Loved in ways that bent the world toward them.

Not this morning.

This morning the current of the household moved around him and away. His brother was being kissed, adjusted, padded, admired, lifted, settled, fussed over, and discussed at a level of seriousness that suggested he was not a baby at all but the crown jewels done up in cream silk. Even the nurse, who loved Aenar dearly, seemed more occupied with whether the younger child had fed enough and whether his cloak would sit comfortably over those abundant little shoulders.

Aenar frowned.

He adored his brother with that earnest and possessive tenderness only elder siblings could manage, a love made partly of pride and partly of the delighted certainty that this splendid little creature belonged in some way to him. Yet there was something strange in the morning’s neglect, in the way no one thought to ask what he meant to do with himself. He felt, for perhaps the first time in his brief and coddled life, left somewhat to his own devices.

And since he was his father’s son, and had inherited a princely confidence entirely disproportionate to his years, he drew the worst possible conclusion.

If no one had time to take him about Dragonstone, then he would do it himself.

And if everyone was too busy fussing over the baby, well.

He would take the baby too.

It was, to his mind, an excellent plan.

There remained only one flaw in it. He had no intention of going alone.

Curled beneath the window alcove in a patch of thin sun was his young dragon, no hatchling any longer. The beast had grown past the size of any hound and was nearer a small pony now, all rangy limbs, long tail, knifing claws, and black-red scales that gleamed like banked coals where the light found them. Its head lay pillowed upon its forepaws, one wing half-furled, but at the slight scrape of Aenar’s slipper on stone one golden eye cracked open.

Lately you and Valarr had taken to murmuring over whether the creature ought soon to be housed elsewhere. It was good company for the boy, fiercely attached, and clever in the maddening way of dragons who learned too quickly what amused them. But it chewed Valarr’s boots, drooled on your sleeves, stole scraps from the table if given half a chance, and had once sprawled full length across Aenar’s bed as though prince and bedding alike existed for its comfort. Dragonstone was built for dragons, aye, but family chambers were another matter.

Aenar paused before it.

The dragon lifted its head.

“We are going on a progress,” the boy told it.

That, apparently, was invitation enough.

It rose, giving itself a full-body shiver that rattled scales and half-opened wings, then padded after him with the heedless confidence of creatures too young to understand the word no.

Opportunity came sooner than any saint would have wished. The nurse was sent for another wrap. One maid took herself downstairs. Another crossed to the wardrobe. You turned aside to answer some question about gloves and did not see your elder son slip from the window seat with the solemn stealth of a child embarking upon destiny.

In one corner of the room stood a low wheeled cart meant for folded linen and travel things, narrow enough for passage doors, lined already with spare quilts against the shipboard cold.

To Aenar it was not a cart at all.

It was a carriage.

He crossed to it, set both hands on the handle, gave it a testing shove, and nodded when it rolled. Behind him the dragon padded nearer, claws ticking softly against the floor, and sniffed the quilted lining with such grave suspicion one would have thought it an enemy stronghold.

Then the boy went to the settle.

His brother blinked up at him.

“We are going on a progress,” Aenar announced.

The baby, being a baby, lodged no objection.

The dragon gave a soft chirr that sounded suspiciously like approval.

It took more effort than Aenar had expected to move his brother. The younger child possessed that treacherous density some babes seemed born with, all softness and cream to the eye and yet unexpectedly weighty in the arms, as though made of bread dough and iron. Adults laughed when they lifted him. Aenar did not laugh. He grunted, braced his feet, and with stubborn princely labor succeeded in half-lifting, half-dragging, and half-guiding the baby into the quilted cart.

His brother landed with a small affronted sound.

Then the wheels moved, the carriage rolled, and all offence vanished.

Aenar set both hands to the handle and pushed. The dragon trotted alongside, tail held high with excitement.

Out they went.

The guards on the outer solar did not stop them. Why would they? One saw princes with purpose and bowed. Another stepped aside smiling. The dragon slipped after them, too familiar now to rouse true alarm, and in any case too princely itself to be treated quite like a beast. Aenar nodded in return with all the grave courtesy he had seen his father use on lesser men. His brother kicked both feet and burbled happily.

The corridor beyond was all dark volcanic stone, salt damp in the mortar, narrow windows admitting bars of cold light. The cart rattled and wobbled over the uneven floor. The baby’s cheeks trembled faintly with each jolt, making him look like some immensely satisfied little lord borne through his domain. The dragon darted ahead and doubled back again, half-spreading its wings in restless delight.

They went first to the painted gallery, because Aenar liked the shields there. Dragonstone kept old things with the same tenacity she kept grudges. Along the walls hung war-helmets gone orange with age, torn banners, old painted shields, and display armor too storied to melt down and too ceremonial ever to have kept a man alive. The air smelled faintly of oil, old leather, iron, and stone gone cold through centuries. In the narrow hush of the place, the little rattle of cart wheels seemed loud as a challenge.

Aenar liked the gallery because it made the world seem larger than his nursery, larger than even Dragonstone, full of old names and dead men and battles half understood. His brother liked it because everything shone. The dragon liked it because the world, in its view, existed to be sniffed, stalked, bitten, or singed.

The baby gave a pleased cry and flung both hands toward a polished breastplate displayed near the end of the hall.

“No,” said Aenar with all the authority of five generations of dragonlords condensed into one small body. “That is knightly.”

The baby lunged anyway.

At the very same moment the dragon caught sight of its own warped reflection in a vambrace, puffed itself up with outrage, and smacked the thing smartly with one clawed foot.

The cart rolled forward.

One wheel struck the stand.

The armor trembled.

Paused.

Then collapsed in a screaming clatter of steel that rang up and down the gallery and into every adjoining corridor like a trumpet of doom.

The dragon sprang back with an indignant squeal and flared its wings at the fallen knight as if prepared to finish what the cart had begun.

Both boys froze.

For one full heartbeat there was only the echo.

Then the baby shrieked with laughter.

Not fear. Not tears. Laughter.

He laughed until his whole body shook against the quilts, one blue eye and one brown gone bright with joy, as if the gods had invented noise and wreckage for no purpose but his delight.

Aenar stared at the scattered armor. Then at the dragon. Then at his brother. Then back at the armor.

“This,” he said with immense dignity, “is not ideal.”

It was at that precise moment that Prince Daeron came around the corner.

He had come up from the yard half dressed for travel, gloves tucked carelessly through his belt, his hair in need of a comb, and Lady Kiera at his side saying something in the long-suffering tone wives reserved for husbands who heard only half of what was said and remembered less. She, unlike him, saw the disaster at once and stopped dead.

There in the middle of the painted gallery stood one small prince with both hands upon a cart handle.

Inside the cart sat a second prince built like a well-fed loaf, kicking in triumph amid royal quilts.

Beside them prowled a young dragon with its wings half spread and smoke nearly in its nose.

At their feet lay the remains of a knight’s display glittering across the stone.

Kiera made a sound of alarm. “Seven save us.”

Daeron looked at the boys. Looked at the dragon. Looked at the armor. Looked back at the boys.

And because he was precisely the wrong sort of man to encounter such a sight and improve it, a grin broke slowly across his face.

“Well,” he said, “this looks serious.”

Aenar drew himself up. “We are exploring Dragonstone.”

“Are you?”

“Yes.”

Kiera had gone pale. “Where is your mother?”

Aenar hesitated.

Daeron crouched before the cart, all conspirator’s charm. “And are your lady mother and father aware of this splendid progress?”

There was the faintest pause.

Then Aenar said, “They are busy.”

Kiera shut her eyes.

Daeron, rather than taking warning from that, turned his gaze upon the dragon, which was now sniffing a fallen gauntlet as though deciding whether to eat it. “Oh, it cannot be harmful,” he said lightly. “Look at it. It is scarcely bigger than a pony.”

Kiera stared at him. “Daeron.”

“What?”

“It breathes fire.”

“Poorly,” he said. “And only when vexed.”

As if summoned by the insult, the dragon gave the nearest breastplate a tiny affronted puff. A thin curl of smoke rose from the polished steel. Kiera looked ready to seize husband, princes, and beast by their ears and drag them all back herself.

Daeron, who ought at that moment to have done precisely that, instead fell prey to the bright lawless delight that children and small disasters always seemed to wake in him.

“Then,” he said, rising, “you are fortunate we found you. Every royal progress requires an escort.”

Kiera turned on him in disbelief. “We are not encouraging this.”

“We are supervising it,” Daeron corrected.

“We are ending it.”

But Aenar had brightened already. The baby had begun banging the fallen gauntlet against the side of the cart in delighted approval. The dragon had come to stand at the prince’s heel with all the self-importance of a creature included in some great state affair.

And because Daeron was Daeron, and Kiera too soft-hearted to wrench the children bodily away the instant she saw how earnest they were, and because family chaos possessed a momentum all its own once loosed, the thing did not end at all.

It was merely guided into worse shape.

They went first to the sea stair, though only to the upper landing where the air was colder and the wind came off the water with enough force to tug at sleeves and hair. Below, the harbor seethed with labor. Men shouted. Crates swung. Oars knocked hollow against hulls. Kiera had taken the baby out of the cart with a firmness that brooked no appeal, and carried him on her hip, broad and warm and content against her. Daeron kept a hand upon Aenar’s shoulder and another half-ready for the dragon whenever it skittered too near the outer edge.

The younger prince stared out over the glittering water, his mouth rounding with wonder.

“That,” said Daeron solemnly, “is a ship. You are not allowed to command one yet.”

The baby slapped the air in delight.

Aenar pointed downward. “That one is ours.”

“Likely three of them are,” Daeron said.

The dragon climbed halfway onto the stair rail and spread its wings to the wind with unmistakable vanity until Kiera caught it neatly behind the forelegs and set it back upon the stone.

“None of that,” she said.

Daeron smiled as if to say you see. “Entirely harmless.”

Kiera gave him a look that promised a reckoning later.

From there they went through the lower hall of carved dragons, where every pillar ended in a snarling stone head blackened by time and torch smoke. Aenar insisted on showing each one to his brother. The baby answered each dragon in turn with a delighted pat upon whatever carved snout Kiera brought within his reach. Their own dragon, apparently insulted by such crude imitations, hissed at one weathered stone face and climbed into the cart as though to prove the superiority of living flesh over carved rock.

Then there were the kitchens, because no progress worth the name could go unfed.

The cooks, seeing Prince Daeron arrive with Lady Kiera, one prince marching ahead, another on Kiera’s hip, and a dragon riding in a linen cart like some satanic lapdog, assumed the whole affair must have sanction from someone too high to question. Warm rolls appeared. Pears were sliced. Aenar ate with grave concentration, crumbs gathering at his mouth. Kiera tore soft pieces of bread for the baby, who accepted them with the serene greed of a tiny king. Pear juice glistened on one fat wrist. The dragon was bribed with scraps of roast meat and immediately decided the kitchens were sacred ground.

“He is built well,” one kitchen woman said fondly of the younger child.

“Like a little fortress,” said another.

Kiera laughed before she could stop herself. “Do not let his mother hear you say so. She may have all our heads.”

Daeron watched the baby gnaw bread, the elder prince attempt to instruct a dragon in proper behavior, and the kitchen women melt around them, and looked absurdly pleased with the whole lot of them.

By the time they turned back toward the inner ward, the princes were in an excellent humor.

Dragonstone was not.

Back in your chambers you had turned from the wardrobe to ask whether the babe’s fur-lined cloak had been packed and found the settle empty.

At first you thought the nurse had taken him.

The nurse, returning that instant, thought you had sent for him.

Then someone asked where Aenar had gone.

No one knew.

The silence that followed was brief and absolute.

After that the castle erupted.

Valarr was summoned from the yard so quickly he came up the steps with one glove half-fastened and fear already whitening his face beneath the flush of exertion. The nurse wept. Guards were sent to the docks, to the sea stair, to the lower halls. The steward began barking orders so fast he forgot what half of them were. Servants flattened themselves against walls as men rushed past. Far off, a dog began barking in the outer yard. The sound of boots on stone multiplied until it seemed Dragonstone herself had broken into motion.

You stood in the center of it all very still.

Valarr knew that stillness.

It meant you were frightened enough to become dangerous.

“They cannot have gone far,” some fool of a knight said.

Valarr turned such a look on him that the man near swallowed his tongue.

“They are children,” Valarr said. “On Dragonstone.”

No more needed saying.

The cliffs. The stairs. The sea. The blind corners. The wells of darkness in old keeps. The thousand places a boy could wander in a castle built for dragons.

And then someone whispered that Aenar’s hatchling was gone as well.

Valarr’s face changed.

For one brief and terrible moment he looked like a man prepared to tear the castle apart stone by stone until his family fell out of it.

It was perhaps the only mercy of that morning that they found them before his mind could go any darker.

They came back through the western passage as though returning from some cheerful outing.

Daeron pushed the little cart one-handed, easy as summer. Aenar walked beside him carrying a wooden practice sword someone had apparently seen fit to give him along the way. Lady Kiera came on the other side with the younger prince on her hip, broad, sticky with pear, and entirely pleased with life. The dragon rode curled in the cart among the quilts and stolen kitchen scraps like a lord returned from campaign.

They turned into the great hall outside your chambers and found half Dragonstone waiting.

Everything stopped.

The guards.

The maids.

The nurse.

Valarr.

You.

Even the baby, sensing perhaps that the air had gone suddenly wrong, blinked and fell quiet.

No one moved for one suspended beat.

Then Valarr crossed the floor in three strides and went first to Kiera, taking the baby from her arms. He dropped to one knee so quickly his boot struck the stone with a hard echo. His hands went over the child, to his face, shoulders, ribs, arms, legs, searching for hurt with the brutal efficiency of a frightened father. Finding none, he shut his eyes for one naked instant of relief.

You were already kneeling before Aenar, both hands on his shoulders, looking him over with a breath still trapped high in your chest. When you saw the dragon winding between his ankles as smug and unharmed as the boy himself, something inside you broke the wrong way between laughter and tears.

“Where,” you asked very softly, “have you been?”

Aenar lowered his head.

Kiera stood a little apart then, caught between sympathy for you and the knowledge that against all good judgment she had been swept into the misadventure too.

Daeron still had one hand upon the cart and the look of a man only just beginning to suspect that others might not admire his stewardship.

It was Valarr who turned to him first.

“You found them,” he said.

Not loudly.

That made it worse.

Daeron blinked once. Kiera spoke before he could worsen himself. “In the gallery.”

“With the dragon,” Daeron added, as though this improved matters.

No one answered.

“They said they were exploring,” he tried.

Valarr made a sound that might have been disbelief, despair, or a prince’s last remaining patience.

You closed your eyes.

Daeron, perhaps feeling the floor turn dangerous beneath him at last, added, “In my defense, the dragon was with them.”

Silence.

“Which meant they were well protected?” he offered.

“That was not better,” Kiera told him.

Aenar, still under your hands, whispered at last, “I only wanted to show him Dragonstone.”

Valarr was still pale from fear. You were still trembling with the aftershock of terror. Daeron was still, regrettably, Daeron. But the heart of it shifted, because there it was in the plain and devastating truth of a child. No malice. No rebellion. Only pride. Only brotherhood. Only the earnest conviction that the world was too large and too beautiful for his little brother not to see it.

Your face softened first.

“Oh, my sweet boy.”

He looked up, uncertain. Valarr reached for him, drawing him close with one arm while his other hand remained braced upon the younger child’s round little belly as if he could not yet bear to let either son go fully from his grasp.

“You do not take your brother on a progress without telling us,” Valarr said quietly.

“I know.”

“You do not leave the apartments alone.”

“I know.”

“You do not take your dragon.”

Aenar blinked. “He wanted to come.”

Even Kiera made a strangled little sound at that, half laugh, half horror.

“And,” Valarr said, glancing toward the cart, “you do not knock over ancient armor.”

Aenar looked wounded. “I did not mean to.”

“That,” Daeron muttered, “was mostly the dragon.”

The beast, hearing itself mentioned, gave a proud little trill and climbed onto Aenar’s shoe.

Valarr looked up.

Daeron lifted both hands.

Kiera said, in a tone of perfect sweetness that promised misery later, “You will not survive the voyage.”

The baby chose that moment to crow and slap Valarr’s cheek.

And that was the end of severity.

Not the end of the scolding. That would come after. But the hard edge of fear broke there beneath the sheer ridiculousness of it all, crumbs still clinging to princely silk, one dragon sitting in a cart like a pleased accomplice, and both children safe in their parents’ reach.

Valarr bowed his head once, laughing too, though with the shakiness of a man who had only just come back from some abyss no one else had seen.

The nurse began crying in earnest.

One guard, convinced no one watched him, leaned his forehead against the wall.

Kiera covered her face with one hand, shoulders shaking as she lost her battle with laughter. Daeron, astonishingly pleased with himself, crouched before the younger prince and tapped him beneath the chin.

“Well,” he said, “you have had your first adventure.”

The baby beamed.

The dragon chirped.

Kiera pointed one finger at her husband without looking at him. “You are never to escort them anywhere again.”

Daeron opened his mouth.

Valarr said, “Not one word.”

Daeron shut his mouth.

Then, after a beat, “May I still attend the nameday feast?”

Kiera lowered her hand and gave him a look sharp enough to skin bark. “Yes. So that I may watch you suffer through every course.”

“That seems fair,” said Daeron.

Aenar, safe again beneath his father’s arm, looked from the baby to the dragon.

“Did he like it?” he asked.

Valarr and you both turned.

The baby, as if understanding himself discussed, patted his father’s shoulder with enormous satisfaction.

The dragon gave an approving chirr.

Daeron grinned. “Oh, he loved it.”

And because in the end the morning had given you back both boys whole, and the dragon too, because the ships were still waiting below and King Baelor’s grand nameday feast would still be there at journey’s end, because fear was easier to bear once passed and because love in that family had always had a way of collapsing into laughter when the worst was over, Dragonstone began at last to breathe again.

Servants returned to their burdens. Guards resumed their posts. Trunks were dragged on. Rope went down to the docks. Voices picked up where panic had snapped them short.

Valarr settled the baby fully against his shoulder, where the child went heavy at once with the serene weight of something loved beyond reason. You took Aenar by the hand. The dragon curled itself around his boots. Kiera fell in at your side, near enough that your sleeves brushed, her face all apology and tired affection. Daeron followed under strict suspicion from every soul present.

Behind them the little cart stood abandoned in the hall like the true villain of the tale.

And before that day was out, all Dragonstone would know that the sons of Valarr had gone wandering through the castle with a dragon in tow, felled a knight in the gallery, raided the kitchens, and very nearly sent their parents into early graves before breakfast.

Which, for princes, was not the worst beginning to a nameday journey.

Part II: Valarr catches Aenar peering into the dragon’s mouth

It happened three days later in the inner yard just before supper, when the wind had gentled and the last of the day lay honey-gold upon the black stone. The sea was quieter then, though never still. Below the walls it muttered and sighed against the rocks like some old beast too weary to rage. In the yard the evening light caught along spearheads and glazed the worn flagstones. A kitchen boy hurried across with trenchers. Somewhere above, a woman called for shutters to be closed against the coming damp. The castle was settling into that hour between labor and feast when even noise seemed to lower its voice.

Valarr stood near the archway speaking with a captain about stores, tides, and the order of ships for the morrow’s sailing. He listened with one ear only. The greater half of his attention, as fatherhood had taught him to do without rest, remained fixed elsewhere.

Aenar was in the yard near the low wall with his dragon.

The beast lay sprawled in a tangle of wing, tail, and juvenile arrogance, its scales catching the evening light in dark red glints like garnets buried in soot. Aenar knelt beside it, patting its neck and speaking in the solemn private murmur children used with creatures they deemed both friend and subject. Every so often the dragon flicked its tail. Every so often it nudged him with its snout hard enough to rock him half a step. Each nudge earned it a reprimanding hand on the jaw and a few grave words.

Valarr watched them with that complicated tenderness fathers were never taught and never spared.

He knew the bond between them was true. He knew the dragon would sooner bite through its own tongue than willingly harm the boy. He knew, too, what men forgot too easily when love made them foolish. Dragons were not hounds. Not horses. Not any creature so tamed as men liked to imagine once they had fed it from their own hand and heard it croon at their child. Dragons were themselves. Proud, quick, changeable, and old in instinct even when young in years. They could be coaxed, cherished, commanded if it suited them, but never wholly possessed.

That knowledge lived in Valarr’s bones.

It was why, when the dragon yawned wide enough to bare a red mouth full of pale hooked teeth, and Aenar, taken with simple child curiosity, set both hands on its jaw and rose on his toes to put his head directly inside its mouth, Valarr stopped hearing anything else in the world.

He crossed the yard before the captain had finished the sentence he was speaking.

“Aenar.”

The word cracked out of him sharper than he intended.

The boy jerked so hard he nearly toppled backward. The dragon snapped its mouth shut, more startled than ashamed, and gave Valarr a low affronted rumble as though to protest the interruption of a perfectly respectable investigation.

Valarr was already there.

He caught Aenar beneath the arms and lifted him bodily away, setting him back against his chest with a force born less of anger than naked fright. For one terrible instant his heart did not know how to beat. He could feel it hammering against his ribs as if it meant to bruise its way out.

Aenar blinked up at him, wide-eyed. “Papa?”

“What,” Valarr began, and had to stop because the word came too sharp. He drew one slow breath through his nose and tried again. “What were you doing?”

Aenar pointed at the dragon as if the matter ought to be plain. “I wanted to see.”

“See what?”

“His teeth.”

As if proud of them, the dragon yawned again.

Valarr stared at it.

Then at his son.

Then back at the dragon.

Behind him came the sound of you beginning to laugh.

Not unkindly. Not even truly at him. But helplessly, because you had come into the yard just in time to see your husband move as though he were snatching an heir from wildfire, only to discover the mortal peril in question had been a boy’s scientific interest in dragon teeth.

Valarr turned his head. “This is not amusing.”

“It is a little amusing,” you said, though the softness in your face betrayed you had seen how pale he still was.

Aenar, held securely against his father now, frowned in honest confusion. “He would not bite me.”

Valarr looked down at him. There was no insolence there, only certainty. Childhood had not yet taught him that love and danger might live in the same body.

“I know he would not mean to,” Valarr said.

Aenar frowned harder. “He is mine.”

“Yes,” Valarr said. “And you are his. I know that.”

The boy accepted this for all of half a heartbeat.

“Then why may I not look?”

Valarr closed his eyes briefly.

Because he was a father, and fathers were cursed with visions of ruin no one else could see. Because he had seen dragons turn in battle. Because he had seen fire run wrong. Because he knew better than most men that love did not unmake nature. It only persuaded it, and sometimes not even then. Because the beast before him, however bonded, however beloved, however used to sleeping outside his son’s chamber like some monstrous pet, still possessed a mouth full of knives.

When he opened his eyes again some of the sharpness had gone out of him.

“Because,” he said, shifting Aenar higher on his hip, “dragons are not toys.”

The dragon made a low offended croon.

Valarr fixed it with a look. “You are not helping yourself.”

By then you had come near, the skirts of your gown whispering over the stone. You laid one hand upon Aenar’s back and another briefly over Valarr’s wrist. “He was curious,” you said.

“I know.”

“And frightened half to death when you shouted.”

At that Valarr looked properly at his son and saw, beneath the confusion, the little uncertainty there.

He exhaled. The tightness in his mouth eased.

“I should not have shouted.”

Children forgave in the span of a breath. Aenar leaned into him. “I only wanted to count.”

“How many did you see?”

The boy considered this with deep seriousness. “Many.”

That tugged at the corner of Valarr’s mouth despite himself. “Yes,” he said dryly. “That is generally the trouble with dragon teeth.”

You laughed outright then, low and warm, and even Valarr could not maintain severity against the absurdity of it.

The dragon, deciding peace had returned, lowered its great head and nudged insistently at Aenar’s leg.

The boy brightened. “See? He is sorry.”

“I do not think he was ever ashamed,” Valarr said.

“No,” you murmured. “That sounds more like him.”

Aenar reached for the dragon again.

Valarr caught his wrist before the experiment could begin anew. “You may pat him. You may feed him. You may sit beside him. You may not place any part of yourself inside his mouth.”

Aenar looked up. “Not even one finger?”

“Especially not one finger.”

“Not if I am fast?”

“Aenar.”

The boy sighed the long sigh of the cruelly burdened and let his head fall against Valarr’s shoulder. “Very well.”

You smiled. The dragon, who had understood none of the words and seemed nonetheless offended by all of them, snorted a thin ribbon of smoke across the yard.

Valarr looked at the beast. Then at his son. Then at you.

“I am surrounded by creatures determined to kill me by degrees.”

You laughed again and rose to kiss his cheek. “No. Only love you badly.”

That left him with no answer worth speaking.

So he only tightened his arm around Aenar, reached down with his free hand to scratch the dragon once between the horns, and stood there a while longer in the falling evening light with his family gathered close around him, the boy, the beast, and the woman who had somehow made every fear he carried worth enduring.

Part III: Valarr places Daeron on restrictive duties

It was late by the time Valarr found him.

Dragonstone had quieted at last, though a place like that was never truly still. The sea remained below the walls, turning and striking and muttering in the dark like some old beast too stubborn to die. Wind slipped through the arrow slits and open arches in thin cold fingers, stirring torchflame and making the shadows breathe upon the stone. Somewhere below, from the lower kitchens, came the faint clatter of platters being stacked and the low murmur of servants finishing the day’s labor. A door shut softly in some distant passage. Boots rang once upon a stair and were gone.

The castle had begun to exhale.

Valarr had not.

He found Daeron in one of the long sea-facing galleries, half turned toward an open arch where the night lay black beyond the carved stone. There was wine in his hand and salt in his hair, and he looked, as he always did after causing trouble and surviving it, extremely pleased to still be alive. Torchlight ran bronze across one side of his face. The rest was shadow.

For a moment Valarr simply stood there and looked at him.

Daeron heard the step, glanced over, and smiled with entirely too much ease. “If you have come to thank me for the successful return of your heirs, I should like it noted that I acted bravely and with considerable instinct.”

Valarr kept coming.

Daeron’s smile thinned a little. “Ah,” he said. “So not thanks, then.”

He lifted his cup slightly. “Drink?”

Valarr almost refused on principle. Then, perhaps because the day had been too long, or because Daeron knew him too well and offered without mockery for once, he took the cup from his hand and drank.

The wine was dark and rough and a little too warm, but it burned all the same. Salt hung heavy in the night air. Somewhere out in the harbor a rope knocked against a mast with slow, regular rhythm, hollow as a pulse. For one brief moment it felt almost like other nights, easier nights, when he and Daeron had stood shoulder to shoulder as boys grown into men, trading sour wine and worse judgments while the sea snarled below. That almost made it worse.

For a beat or two neither spoke.

That was usually the more dangerous kind of silence with him.

Daeron knew it too. He shifted his cup from one hand to the other and tried, with only partial success, to look less like a man preparing to enjoy his own defense.

“At least,” Daeron said, “it may comfort you to know they were having an excellent time.”

Valarr turned his head.

There were men who shouted when angry. Men who struck tables. Men who reached for threats because they had nothing weightier to offer.

Valarr had never needed that sort of noise.

“You,” he said, very calmly, “are currently on restrictive duties with my children.”

Daeron blinked.

Then he laughed, because surely this was a jest.

Valarr did not laugh.

The sound died quickly enough.

“You are serious.”

“I am.”

Daeron stared at him as if he had been accused of treason over a misplaced boot. “Restrictive duties.”

“Yes.”

“That sounds military.”

“It is meant to.”

Daeron gave an incredulous little breath. “Valarr. Come now.”

“No.”

“Truly?”

“More than truly.”

Daeron lifted his cup slightly, as though appealing to the gods, the sea, and any ancestor listening. “They were unharmed.”

Valarr’s gaze stayed on him.

Daeron made a small concession with one hand. “For the most part.”

Valarr’s expression did not alter. That somehow made the whole thing worse.

“There is no acceptable fraction of harm,” he said, “where my sons are concerned.”

That landed.

Daeron’s grin faded by degrees.

Below them a wave struck hard enough that the sound came up through the stone beneath their feet.

Valarr turned back toward the dark water for a moment, jaw tight. The torch behind them hissed softly in its iron bracket. When he spoke again, his voice was quieter.

“I know you meant no ill.”

Daeron said nothing.

“I know Kiera was with you.”

Still nothing.

“I know Aenar was proud of himself, and the baby too young to know better, and the dragon pleased with every bad decision in the company. I know all that.”

Daeron leaned one shoulder against the wall and watched him more carefully now. The humor had not gone wholly from his face, but it had gentled.

Valarr’s hand remained spread upon the stone. His fingers flexed once, then stilled.

“When they were gone,” he said, “I had one man tell me they could not have gone far.”

Daeron winced, just slightly.

“I thought of the stairwells. The sea doors. The bridge walks in the wet. The old shafts cut into the rock. I thought of one child trying to carry the other. I thought of that dragon taking fright at the wrong sound. I thought…” Here Valarr stopped, not because he lacked words but because he had too many, all of them darker than he cared to speak aloud.

The silence after that was not empty. It was crowded with everything he had seen in his mind and could not quite forgive himself for imagining.

Daeron looked down into his cup.

When he spoke, some of the brightness had left him. “I did not think it through.”

“No,” Valarr said. “You did not.”

“That is a very cold way to agree with me.”

“You do not deserve warmth at present.”

Daeron huffed a laugh at that despite himself, but it did not last. “I saw them in the gallery and thought, gods, look at them. They were so proud. Aenar looked like he had mounted a campaign. The baby was sitting there like some tiny conquering lord, fat as a feast day pudding. Kiera was horrified, obviously. I was not blind to that. I only thought…” He glanced up. “I thought a little supervision would turn it into a family story instead of a disaster.”

Valarr’s mouth moved, not quite a smile and not near kind enough to be mistaken for one. “And instead you made it both.”

That, at least, Daeron accepted. “Fair.”

The wind shifted. Somewhere farther down the gallery a servant passed in stocking feet carrying folded rush mats, saw the two princes standing there, and vanished again so quickly he might never have existed.

Valarr let out a long breath.

Inside the chambers behind them, far down the corridor, his sons were sleeping. He had stood over both beds before coming here. The younger had sprawled on his back in total surrender to comfort, one fat hand open atop the blanket, his hair gone wild over the pillow. Aenar had curled onto his side with one arm thrown around the dragon’s neck, as though even in sleep he required a beast to guard. Valarr had looked at them too long. He knew that. He had not cared.

When he spoke again, the sharpness in him had changed shape. It was less anger now than the bruised ache left after fear.

“I am aware,” he said, “that I may seem excessive.”

Daeron gave him a look. “May?”

Valarr ignored that. “But you did not see my wife’s face. And as her husband, I would do anything to ensure her comfort and happiness, whatever it may require.”

That killed the jest entirely.

Daeron knew which face he meant. All the realm knew that face. Songs had been made of Valarr and his wife already, more songs than either of them deserved and more than most marriages ever earned. Singers liked to make romance of them, the prince who looked at his lady as though the court were empty when she entered it, the lady who stood beside him as though crowns, councils, and kingdoms were nothing next to the life they had made between them. Noblewomen sighed over such songs. Merchant daughters repeated them at loom and hearth. Even wives already wed had been known to listen with a certain faraway look, as if wondering what it might be to be loved so openly and so well. Men spoke too, though in different fashion. Some said it boded well for the reign to come, that when their hour arrived, prince and princess together would make a gentler power than the realm had any right to expect.

Valarr had never cared for the songs.

He cared for the woman.

“She was frantic,” he said at last, and even now the memory darkened his voice. “Wringing her hands, white as milk, and near tore a Kingsguard to pieces for taking his eyes off the boys. That is always worse.”

He did not have to explain it. Men who loved women long enough learned which silences could be borne and which meant the world had come loose beneath them. The quiet griefs, the soft hurts, the angers that passed. Those could be survived. But a woman afraid for her child and trying not to break under it, there was very little on earth more terrible than that.

Daeron lowered his eyes for a moment. “Kiera said as much after.”

Valarr nodded once.

“I had the baby in my arms afterward,” he said, more quietly still. “And he was laughing. Laughing. As though the whole world had only just now begun to amuse him. I could still feel my hands shaking.”

That was the truest part of it, perhaps. Not the fear in the moment itself, but the indignity of the trembling after, when the children were safe and his body had not yet understood it was permitted to stop fighting ghosts.

Daeron was silent a long while.

At last he said, “I am sorry.”

Valarr looked at him.

Daeron lifted one shoulder, smaller now, stripped of its swagger. “Not in the airy way. In the real one.”

That earned him more grace than anything else had.

Valarr studied him a moment, then gave the smallest incline of his head.

“Good,” he said. “Remain so.”

Daeron exhaled through his nose. “And these restrictive duties, then. What do they entail?”

Valarr folded his arms.

“You may greet my children in the presence of myself, my wife, or Kiera.”

Daeron stared.

“You may not escort them anywhere.”

“Cruel.”

“You may not supervise them.”

“Valarr.”

“You may not, under any circumstance, discover them in the midst of wrongdoing and decide it would be charming to continue.”

Daeron looked wounded. “That seems pointed.”

“It is.”

“And the dragon?”

Valarr’s expression did not shift. “Especially the dragon.”

Daeron took a drink of wine, perhaps because he felt it was the only dignity left available to him. “This is a gross abuse of princely authority.”

“This is fatherhood.”

“That seems worse.”

“It often is.”

Daeron let that sit, then because he was not wise enough to leave himself well alone, said, “So, in the matter of your younger son, he is chonky.”

Valarr turned his head very slowly to look at him.

Daeron lifted his cup. “Fondly.”

“That is not a word.”

“It is in my heart.”

“You are a heathen.”

Daeron laughed then, low and easy, and some of the iron in the night seemed to loosen with it. “Yet not wrong.”

Valarr made a sound that might have been disgust, might have been the ghost of a laugh. “Say that in front of his mother and she will have your liver for supper.”

“She may have it anyway.”

“That would be justice.”

Daeron smiled into the rim of the cup. “Suppose, entirely by chance, your chonky younger son extends both arms to me in unmistakable preference and delight. Am I to reject a prince of the blood?”

Valarr looked at him for a long beat.

“Yes.”

Daeron made a scandalized sound. “Monstrous.”

“He will survive it.”

“I am less certain that I shall.”

Valarr’s mouth twitched then, finally, against his will. It was not much, but Daeron saw it and pounced.

“Ah,” he said softly. “There he is.”

“Do not mistake a lapse in severity for forgiveness.”

“I would never.”

“You absolutely would.”

Daeron smiled into his cup. “Fair.”

For a little while, they stood together looking out at the black water and the pale churn of surf below. The castle around them had gone softer now. Torches burned lower. The air had turned colder. Somewhere behind them, a woman laughed quietly and was hushed.

At length Daeron said, “For what it is worth, Aenar worships him.”

Valarr did not need to ask who.

“He talks about the baby as though he were a prince in the songs already. Kept showing him things. Explaining them. As if the boy were only waiting to understand.”

That struck deeper than Daeron perhaps intended.

Valarr looked out into the dark a moment longer.

“I know,” he said.

“And your younger one,” Daeron went on, because he was not wise enough to stop when sentiment had entered the room, “has the look of a child who will grow into the sort of man everyone would die for and no one can reason with.”

Valarr sighed. “That is exactly what I fear.”

Daeron laughed softly. “You should. He is built like a battering ram already.”

Valarr turned his head.

Daeron lifted his free hand. “Affectionately.”

There was just enough warmth in that to let it pass.

Then Valarr straightened from the arch.

“One moon,” he said.

Daeron blinked. “One moon what?”

“One moon on restrictive duties.”

Daeron stared at him in fresh outrage. “A moon?”

“You are fortunate I do not make it two.”

“For allowing your sons to have one memorable morning?”

“For surviving it.”

Daeron pressed a hand to his chest as though wounded beyond speech. “I shall appeal to the king.”

“You may explain to Baelor that you misplaced both his grandsons and one dragon before breakfast. I would enjoy hearing that.”

Valarr paused, then added with perfect calm, “And while you are there, your father has requested you join the tourney. My sons are quite looking forward to seeing their uncle joust.”

That did it.

Valarr grinned at last, brief and sharp, because he knew very well jousting sat somewhere near the bottom of Daeron’s list of enjoyable pursuits.

Daeron glared at him, then pointed with the hand holding the cup and shook his head slowly, the gesture plain as speech. You cheeky little shit.

Valarr’s grin only deepened.

Daeron considered.

Then grimaced. “No. I see the weakness in my case.”

Valarr gave one satisfied nod and turned to go.

“Valarr.”

He paused.

Daeron’s voice, when it came, had gone easier again, but not frivolous. “I did love them. You know that.”

Valarr glanced back over his shoulder.

The torchlight put one side of Daeron’s face in gold and left the other in shadow. For all his recklessness, the truth of that was plain enough.

“I know,” Valarr said.

Then, after the smallest beat, “That is why you are only on restrictive duties.”

Daeron barked a laugh at that, and this time Valarr let himself keep the ghost of a smile as he walked away.

By the time he reached the turn in the corridor, the sea still muttering below and the torchlight following him in long wavering stripes, he could hear Daeron calling softly after him in a tone of deep offence, “One moon is excessive. I want it noted somewhere official that this is excessive.”

Valarr did not look back.

“Have it noted,” he said.

And because the children were sleeping, and the dragon had not yet eaten anyone, and the woman he loved was waiting in their chambers warm beneath lamplight and wool, the weight in his chest felt, for the first time since morning, a little less like stone.

Your heel caught on the uneven stone of the hearth, sending you stumbling backward. Aegon caught your wrist before you could fall, his grip tightening just enough to make your pulse jump under his fingers. "Careful" he murmured, though the way his gaze dropped to your parted lips made it clear he wasn't concerned about your safety. The heat at your back was nothing compared to the slow drag of his thumb over your inner wrist, a touch that felt like ownership.

"Y-your Grace… I'm quite tired" you mumbled, even as his lips brushed your wrist, breathing in your scent before pressing a slow, open mouthed kiss to the delicate skin there. His exhale was hot, uneven, a man starved. You could feel the scrape of his teeth as he lingered, as if debating whether to bite down and mark you properly. Your pulse fluttered like a trapped bird beneath his mouth.

Aegon’s lips lingered a moment too long, the scrape of his teeth sending a jolt of panic down your spine before he finally pulled back. His grip on your wrist loosened, but before you could exhale in relief, his hands slid up to cradle your face, thumbs brushing the hollows of your cheeks with unsettling tenderness. "Yes" he murmured, voice rough with something between amusement and hunger, "sleep is needed for such beauty, I suppose." His gaze dragged over your face like a physical touch, lingering on the way your lashes fluttered against your cheekbones. "Though you’d still be perfect without it."

His thumbs still pressed against your cheekbones, Aegon exhaled sharply through his nose, a sound caught between frustration and dark amusement. “You wound me” he murmured, though the way his fingers tightened infinitesimally betrayed the lie in his honeyed tone. The firelight painted his face in flickering gold and shadow, carving the sharp angles of his jaw into something dangerously beautiful. “Fourteen moons of refusing me. Fourteen.” His breath hitched audibly, the words roughening as his gaze dropped to your mouth. “Do you know what that does to a man?”

The pressure of his fingers against your jawbone bordered on painful, his breath ragged against your lips. "I’ve dreamt of this" Aegon confessed, voice thick with something you didn’t dare name. "Dreamt of you beneath me, screaming my name loud enough to shake the stones of Dragonstone." His thumb brushed your lower lip, parting it with deliberate slowness. "But you’d rather play the dutiful lady, wouldn’t you?"

"Y-your grace flatters me, but I think it is time you head to bed…" you stammered, twisting your face away from his touch, only for his fingers to tighten, forcing your gaze back to his. The firelight made the violet of his eyes look molten, pupils blown wide with something far more dangerous than mere desire.

His grip shifted suddenly, fingers tangling in your hair as he yanked your head back hard enough to make you gasp. "Flattery?" Aegon's laugh was a low, broken thing, his breath hot against your exposed throat. "You think this is flattery?" The hand not fisted in your hair slid down your side, fingers digging into your hip with enough force to bruise. "I could have taken you a hundred times over...in your chambers, in the godswood, bent over the damned Iron Throne—" His teeth grazed your pulse point, not quite biting, not quite kissing. "But I wanted you willing."

Your fingers trembled against the rough stone of the hearth as you instinctively took a step back, only to freeze when the heat of the fire licked at your bare heels. Aegon sighed through his nose, finally releasing his grip on your hair, though his fingers lingered for a heartbeat too long, trailing down the curve of your neck like a brand.

"My patience grows weak, sweet one" he murmured, voice dripping with false sweetness. The firelight carved shadows under his cheekbones, turning his smile into something jagged. "I assure you, a man having a wife has never stopped him from taking others." His gaze flicked toward the door, as if imagining the distant chambers where Visenya and Rhaenys slept, or didn’t. "Nor has it ever stopped other woman from wanting a married man."

"That is not me, your grace" you whispered, voice fraying at the edges as you pressed yourself deeper into the hearth’s unforgiving stones, the sapphire necklace cutting into your collarbone. "I would not wish my husband to take others…nor I to be with someone out of wedlock." The words tasted like cowardice even as you said them, too soft, too weak against the wild intensity of his gaze.

Aegon snorted, the sound dark and unamused, before lifting your trembling hand to his lips. His mouth was scalding against your knuckles, lingering too long, tasting the pulse that fluttered beneath your skin like a caged thing. "You are quite pious" he murmured against your skin, breath hot enough to sear. "Another reason I burn for you." The words curled around you like smoke, suffocating and inevitable.

You swallowed thickly, fingers twitching in his hold as Aegon's lips brushed your cheek, a chaste kiss that felt anything but innocent. His breath was warm against your skin, lingering just long enough to make your pulse stutter before he pulled away entirely. "I shall wait another moon" he murmured, the words thick with a promise that coiled low in your belly. You blinked, stunned by the abrupt shift in his demeanor, the sudden restraint where moments ago he'd been all teeth and hunger. The firelight caught the curve of his smile as he stepped back, the predatory grace of his movements making the distance between you feel like a taunt.

The silence after Aegon left was deafening, your breath coming in shallow gasps as you slid down the hearth, your legs refusing to hold you any longer. The sapphire necklace felt like a collar now, the weight of it pressing into your throat as if to remind you, his, his, his. You tore it off with shaking hands, the delicate clasp snapping as you hurled it into the fire, watching the gems blacken and crack in the flames. It didn’t matter. There would be another tomorrow. There was always another.

The dress arrived at dawn, wrapped in black silk so dark it drank the morning light. You ran your fingers over the embroidery of dragons coiled around the bodice in silver thread, their tails twisting down the skirt like possessive claims. It was obscenely beautiful. Obscenely his. You wore it without protest, the fabric whispering against your thighs as you walked to the great hall.

The next morning Aegon’s gaze found you the moment you stepped into the hall, his goblet freezing halfway to his lips. The chatter of courtiers faded as he stood abruptly, his chair scraping against stone. "Little love" he breathed, his voice carrying across the sudden silence. He didn’t blink as he crossed the room, the crowd parting for him like waves before a ship. His fingers brushed the dragon at your collarbone, tracing the silver thread with something like reverence. "You honor me."

"It is so very kind of you to send me such gifts" you murmured, folding your hands together with deliberate grace, the silver dragons on your bodice glinting as you dipped into a shallow curtsy. Your smile was practiced, sweet enough to charm, tight enough to betray nothing. "The least I could do is wear them."

Aegon's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Kindness has nothing to do with it" he murmured, fingers lingering on the embroidery over your ribs, too close, too intimate for court. You could feel Visenya's glare burning into your back from the high table, the weight of it heavier than the sapphires you'd burned. His thumb pressed deliberately against the silver thread, right where your heart hammered beneath. "Tonight" he said, low enough that only you could hear, "you'll wear nothing at all."

"Your Grace, you must stop with such comments" you whispered urgently, fingers twitching against the embroidered dragons on your skirt as you took a half-step back. The heat of his touch lingered where his thumb had pressed against your ribs, branding you through the fabric. "Had your wives heard—"

"They would gut you—" Aegon started with a small tilt of his head, but you quickly shook your own, cutting him off.

"They'd be hurt" you corrected sharply, fingers tightening in the folds of your skirt as you watched Aegon's smirk falter for half a heartbeat. His thumb still hovered near the embroidery over your ribs, the phantom press of it searing even through layers of silk. The words tasted bitter on your tongue, not because they were untrue, but because admitting it felt like surrender. Visenya’s knives and Rhaenys’s sweet poison had never frightened you half as much as the raw, wounded pride glittering in their eyes whenever Aegon’s attention strayed too long in your direction.

Aegon's fingers twitched against your ribs...once, twice...before he wrenched his hand away as if burned. "Gods fucking damn you" he snarled, the raw edge in his voice slicing through the court's murmured conversations. The sudden silence was deafening. His chest heaved, the embroidered dragons on his doublet straining with each ragged breath. "Fourteen moons of this...this farce!" The word dripped with venom.

He didn't touch you again. Instead, he took three deliberate steps back, his boots striking the stone like hammer blows. The violet in his eyes had darkened to near-black, pupils swallowing the light. "I am growing tired..." he bit out, each syllable sharp enough to draw blood, "of you rejecting me for such reasons." The last word cracked like a whip.

You opened your mouth, to protest, to placate, to lie...but Aegon was already turning on his heel. The crowd scattered before him, nobles tripping over their own silks to clear his path. He didn't look back. Not when Visenya rose from the high table with her hand on Dark Sister's hilt. Not when Rhaenys' melodic laughter cut off mid note. He simply kept walking, the great hall doors shuddering shut behind him with a finality that echoed in your bones.

The absence of Aegon's voice was louder than his presence had ever been. For two days, he did not speak to you, did not send gifts, did not corner you in shadowed alcoves with promises that tasted like threats. But his silence was a lie. You felt the weight of his gaze like a hand between your shoulder blades, burning through silk and skin alike. At meals, he lounged in his carved chair with a goblet dangling from careless fingers, watching you over the rim with eyes that never blinked. In the courtyard, you'd turn from the training yard's clamor only to catch the glint of silver hair from an upper balcony, motionless as a predator assessing its prey.

That night the door didn't just open, it exploded inward with a crash that sent splinters skittering across the floor. You barely had time to drop the hairbrush before Aegon was there, his boots crushing the scattered shards of wood beneath him like bones. Moonlight caught the wild sheen in his eyes, turning violet irises into something nearly feral. "Your grace?" you whispered, the words catching in your throat as he took another step forward.

The hairbrush clattered to the floor as you stumbled back, your heel catching on the hem of your nightgown. Aegon didn't pause. Didn't hesitate. His hands closed around your upper arms with bruising force, hauling you forward so abruptly your scream tore itself raw against your teeth. "Enough!" he growled, the word vibrating through his chest and into yours where you were pressed against him. His breath smelled of wine and something darker, sharper, like the metallic tang of a blade left too long unsheathed.

"Stop moving, I'm not going to—" Aegon started, but your scream tore through the chamber like shattered glass, raw and primal. You twisted violently in his grip, nails raking down his forearms as you wrenched yourself backward, only for his fingers to slip. The moment he let go, regret flashed across his face, but it was too late. Your bare foot slid on the polished stone, your body arching backward in a terrible fall. The sickening crack of your skull against the wrought iron bedpost echoed like a death knell.