THE GREAT — aerion targaryen (i)
synopsis. You are married into the Targaryen dynasty, and soon enough, its princes begin dying like flies—leaving you and your husband as the last people anyone disastrously trusts with the Iron Throne. THE GREAT!AU
pairing. aerion targaryen x lyseni&fem!reader
word count. 8,437
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authors note. mind you, it can get a little annoying at first since the reader genuinely lives in a fantasy of sunshine and happy endings 😭 but i tried to follow the plot/tone of the great so… yeah. she will become a baddie as the story progresses. also, i’m not planning to follow the canon events after the ashford tourney which means we are absolutely getting king aerion 🤍 and yes, i shamelessly stole some dialogue from the show because they were simply too funny not to include <3 likes n comments are very much appreciated! lemme know if u enjoyed it!! warnings. violence, mentions of virginity loss and references to sex, eventual smut, reader is from lys and from house rogare (also described to have brunette hair and green eyes for the plot!), death/killing, arguing, profanity, attempted suicide, toxic relationship (VERY), misogyny, cheating, aerion being a bitch as always (let me know if I missed smth).
✴︎ 209 AC
THE AFTERNOON HEAT in Lys clung to the skin like damp silk, thick with the scent of salt wind drifting in from the sea, crushed rosewater from the perfumed courtyards, and incense curling lazily from a hundred painted temples. The air shimmered against pale marble walls, soft and luminous in the sun, as if the whole city had been carved to be looked at rather than lived in. Yet none of it felt real to you. In your mind, the world smelled of rain and smoke and the sea. Of wet stone streets, damp castle halls, and fires burning late into cold evenings. It smelled like the sort of place where important things happened.
You sat upon the old wooden swing in the center of the courtyard, its ropes creaking softly each time you pushed yourself higher with the tips of your slippers. Your dark green skirts fanned around your legs like spilled ink, brushing against the pale stone beneath you.
But your attention was fixed on the strip of sky above the rooftops.
“I am to be married,” you announced suddenly, unable to contain the smile pulling at your mouth. Across from you, your sister paused midstroke while brushing out her hair. She stared at you with immediate suspicion rather than excitement.
“Who,” she asked carefully, “would marry you?”
You laughed under your breath and leaned back against the swing ropes, letting yourself sway lazily. “A prince of fire and blood,” you said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. “We shall spend our evenings reading poetry by candlelight while musicians play in the next room. He will understand me entirely. We will speak of philosophy and history and make the court less dreadful than it is.”
She snorted. “You make him sound like a savant.”
“He is not a savant,” you replied with mock offense. “He is a prince.”
“Yes, but is he aware we are poor?” she asked flatly. “Truly poor. Not tragic-poetry poor. Actual poor. Father died owing money to half of Lys. We still even need to water down the wine.”
You waved a dismissive hand. “That is beneath his concern.”
“Is it?”
“Yes. Prince Aerion and I are to concern ourselves with finer matters.” You hopped down from the swing, smoothing the creases from your skirts before lifting your chin with practiced dignity.
The silver brush slipped from her fingers and struck the stone with a sharp crack. For a moment she only stared at you.
Then, very quietly, she said, “Prince Aerion?”
You smiled wider. “Yes.”
“The Targaryen prince?”
“Yes.”
“From Westeros.”
“Yes, from Westeros.”
The color slowly drained from her face.
“The ravens arrived this morning,” you continued brightly, crossing the courtyard toward her. “Mother accepted immediately, of course. By the end of the year I shall be in King’s Landing. A princess of the Seven Kingdoms.” You clasped your hands together. “Doesn’t it feel strangely destined?”
“No,” she answered at once.
“Yes, it does.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
You let out an exaggerated sigh, tilting your head back toward the sky. “You are determined to ruin this for me?”
“They do not even have dragons anymore,” she snapped, stepping closer now, her voice tightening with unease. “The last one died years ago. Westeros is cold and filthy and full of miserable lords killing each other over chairs. And the prince…” She hesitated. “I’ve heard things.”
“From whom?”
“Merchants. Sailors from King’s Landing. Men who know better than to invent stories about princes.”
You brushed past the warning without care. “Sailors invent stories for sport.”
“They say he’s cruel.”
“And people said Father was clever,” you replied lightly. “The world exaggerates.”
She looked unconvinced.
You turned away before she could continue, lifting your face toward the blazing evening sky. Somewhere beyond the sea was Westeros. Somewhere beyond the horizon was a prince with silver hair and violet eyes and a destiny grand enough to pull you from this gilded, decaying life at last.
“If there are no dragons left,” you mused, “I suppose I shall simply have to hatch one myself.”
She stared at you as though you had finally lost what little sense you possessed.
“You cannot hatch a dragon.”
“Why not?” You asked ridiculously.
“Because dragons are dead.”
You shrugged. “So were we, practically.”
For the first time since the conversation began, genuine fear crossed her face. Without another word, she bent quickly to retrieve her fallen brush and hurried toward the house.
“I am finding Mother,” she muttered under her breath. “She has completely lost her mind.”
Aerion Targaryen was absolutely losing his mind.
He stood beside the tall arched window of the great hall, watching the Blackwater glitter darkly beneath a veil of grey cloud, one hand clasped tightly around the hilt of his sword as though it alone was preventing him from saying something unforgivable. In his other hand sat the problem itself. A letter.
Its seal had already been broken hours ago, yet Aerion still held it like he might somehow strangle better news out of the parchment if he stared hard enough. Its contents were simple enough to feel insulting.
A marriage.
No. Not just any marriage, an arranged match with a daughter of some Lysene house clinging to old Valyrian pride it no longer truly held.
He exhaled slowly through his nose. He had not asked for this. He would not pretend otherwise. Westeros had its customs, its alliances, its endless games of blood and crown—but there were lines he did not intend to cross without reason.
A prince of the dragonlords should not be bound to someone who did not carry their look, their blood, their unmistakable mark of Valyria. Silver hair. Violet eyes. The old fire, faint but undeniable.
It was not sentiment. It was sense.
His jaw tightened as he turned away from the window.
He would not be paraded through courts beside a bride who looked like a foreign ornament—pretty, perhaps, but wrong.
And alas! You paraded into the throne room smiling. Actually smiling. The doors of the great hall opened with all the usual dreadful ceremony, guards standing straighter than necessary while servants scrambled uselessly around your luggage. Aerion watched the entire thing from beside the Iron Throne with the exhausted disbelief of a man witnessing a public execution and slowly realizing he was the one being executed.
You walked into the hall looking pleased with life.
No!
Absolutely not!
Gods… you looked so delighted. The sight alone offended him.
Your dress swept over the stone floors in soft sea-green silk, expensive enough to suggest House Rogare had once been rich and stupid rather than merely stupid. Gold thread shimmered at the sleeves. Pearls hung from your throat. Your dark curls had half-fallen from their pins during the journey, though you either had not noticed or did not care.
Dark hair. Aerion stared harder. Green eyes. He felt his right eye twitch. Now he felt personally insulted by both.
You stopped in the center of the hall and looked up at the ceiling with genuine wonder.
“It’s beautiful,” you breathed softly.
Aerion glanced upward too. It was a ceiling.
“You look taller in your portrait,” Aerion remarked flatly the moment you approached. The hall felt still and you blinked once, clearly uncertain whether you had been insulted yet.
“Oh.”
Aerion lazily glanced toward one of the guards nearby. “Send her back. Find me a tall one.”
Aerion’s eyes flicked sideways just in time to catch the pointed look his father sent him from beside the throne. Maekar merely narrowed his eyes in warning, the expression of a man very clearly imagining the satisfaction of striking his son across the back of the head in front of the entire court and deciding against it only because foreign ambassadors were present. But Aerion could only justify his words by pointing at the snorting courtiers lazily– “See? Funny.”
You smiled politely in the careful way people did when they were not entirely certain whether the prince was joking or truly his words were no jest.
“I see.”
“I’m kidding,” Aerion said. Then, after a beat: “Mostly.”
“Oh,” you said politely. “Very amusing.” It was not convincing.
The maester—Gladys, and very likely the sole architect behind this catastrophic match, stepped in quickly, no doubt sensing yet another disaster beginning to unfold before the previous one had even settled.
“Prince Aerion, may I present Lady—”
“Yes, yes, the bride,” Aerion interrupted. “I gathered.”
You stepped forward then, bright-eyed despite everything that had already occurred. Aerion stepped back all the same, his eyes moving over you from head to toe like he was already finding faults.
“I wished to bring something from Lys,” you explained warmly. Aerion’s mind immediately went to Lysene courtesans. Lys was famously full of them. Or worse—poetry. Music. Some sort of embroidered love token. Gods. Aerion suddenly regretted existing.
But instead, you reached carefully into your sleeve and withdrew a tiny spruce branch wrapped delicately in ribbon. Not jewels. Not a book. But a fucking twig.
You held it out to him with both hands.
“I present this branch of spruce,” you said warmly. Aerion looked at the branch. Then at you. Then back to the branch again. Seven Hells!
“It is an evergreen,” you continued earnestly, entirely unaware that several grown men nearby were visibly fighting for their lives trying not to laugh. “I hoped it might symbolize our feelings toward one another. That we shall remain caring and faithful all our lives.”
Aerion took the branch between two fingers as though it might stain him.
“She gave me a twig,” he observed quietly.
Aerion tilted his head slightly. “She’s not inbred, is she?”
The maester nearly swallowed his own tongue. “There has been no indication of—”
“I assure you,” you cut in quickly, chin lifting with a sudden dignity, “I am entirely of sound mind, Your Grace.” And you were. You also very nearly said something about how funny it was for a Targaryen to be asking that question in the first place. Very nearly. But you did not.
Aerion considered this. The evidence currently suggested otherwise. You brightened again anyway.
“I also wished to thank you for your letter.”
The man frowned immediately. “My what?”
“The letter you sent to Lys,” you continued. “The one speaking of devotion and companionship.” Your expression brightened almost painfully. “It was beautiful. I read it several times aboard the ship.”
Aerion stared blankly for a long moment. Then he looked towards the maester. Said maester suddenly became fascinated by the floor.
“Oh,” Aerion said slowly. “That letter.”
“You wrote it, did you not?” you asked, looking up at him with wide, expectant eyes. “Yes,” Aerion said, as if recalling something mildly inconvenient. Your face, already bright, lit further at the answer, as though this confirmed something deeply meaningful. How utterly naive.
“I hoped,” you continued carefully, “that perhaps our love might grow slowly. Like a flame becoming large enough to warm an entire kingdom.”
Aerion nearly recoiled. Love. Gods above, help him. You really believed him. He exhaled through his nose. “That sounds exhausting,” he said, before he could stop himself.
Your smile faltered for the first time. Only briefly. Then returned again with terrifying optimism.
“And I hope I shall make you happy,” you said sincerely.
Aerion stared at you as though you had personally invented inconvenience. “You’re perfect,” he replied flatly.
The maester abruptly stepped forward before the conversation could collapse any further into disaster, hastily announcing that the wedding would take place on the morrow. Gods. As though there were any risk of you fleeing in the night. You looked far too pleased with all of this.
A young woman stepped forward from the line of servants and bowed her head. Meriel, you thought her name was—though truthfully, you had barely listened when the maester introduced her. Your attention had remained entirely fixed on the prince before you. Or rather, on the very obvious fact that the prince was looking absolutely anywhere except at you.
The windows. The banners.The Iron Throne. Or that one specific crack in the floor that suddenly seemed to fascinate him beyond reason. Anywhere.
It should have embarrassed you, perhaps. Another girl might have wilted beneath it. But you had not crossed the Narrow Sea expecting instant devotion. Marriage, especially royal marriage, surely required patience. Time. Understanding.
And Prince Aerion, you were beginning to suspect, might require an impossible amount of all three. Still, you smiled.
He still did not look at you.
One of your Lysene servants stepped nervously forward beside the luggage, a pretty thing with blonde curls and nervous eyes. She had spent the entire journey seasick and terrified of Westeros.
Aerion glanced toward her absentmindedly while adjusting his gloves.
“You’re pretty,” he remarked casually.
The girl blinked, startled, before flushing pink. “Th-thank you, Your Grace.”
You stared at him. Ah. You thought slowly. So it would take a great deal of time.
Aerion, meanwhile, had already grown visibly bored with the entire exchange. He turned away with the restless air of a man abandoning an event halfway through because it had failed to entertain him quickly enough.
“I must tend to my whores,” he announced.
A loud throat-clearing echoed through the hall.
Aerion barely paused.
“…Horses,” he corrected lazily. “Horses.”
Several courtiers lowered their heads immediately, shoulders shaking with poorly hidden laughter. “Going riding,” Aerion added with a dismissive wave before disappearing out of the hall entirely.
Meriel led you through the winding corridors of the Red Keep while servants hurried ahead carrying trunks that had absolutely not survived the voyage gracefully. Somewhere behind you, one had burst open entirely, scattering silks across a staircase and nearly killing a guard.
The keep itself felt colder inside than it had from the courtyard below. Not merely in temperature, but in spirit. Long stone halls. Narrow windows. Tapestries heavy with dragons and dead men. Still, you smiled as you walked.
“He seems lovely,” you said softly.
Meriel glanced at you.
“Mm,” she replied carefully. “Aren’t you gorgeously optimistic?”
You laughed under your breath. “It has been said.” Your fingers brushed lightly over the stone wall as you walked beside her. “I simply believe there is no other sensible way to be.”
Meriel made a small sound that suggested she strongly disagreed.
—
The wedding itself passed in a blur of incense smoke, candlelight, and exhaustion.
You scarcely remembered entering the sept. Only the weight of eyes following you down the aisle, the sound of your skirts dragging softly over stone, and Aerion standing at the altar looking like a man attending his own execution. Beautiful, unfortunately.
The septon droned on endlessly while Aerion looked bored enough to die from it. When the vows were finally spoken and you were presented to the court, your heart leapt despite yourself.
“Presenting Prince Aerion Targaryen and his wife—”
You smiled brightly and opened your mouth to speak.
“It is a—”
“No,” Aerion interrupted without even looking at you. “You don’t talk, my love.”
A stunned silence followed. “Oh,” you said after a moment. “Of course.”
Somewhere in the crowd, someone coughed very violently into their sleeve. Aerion looked entirely pleased with himself.
Then, as if suddenly remembering he was expected to behave like a husband for at least one consecutive minute, he gestured lazily toward the side doors of the hall.
“So,” he announced, “a wedding gift for my new wife seems in order.”
The doors opened. And into the hall lumbered an enormous bear. You gasped. A real bear.
The court erupted into chaos almost immediately. One lady shrieked. A knight stumbled backward into a candelabra. The animal itself looked equally confused by the entire arrangement.
Aerion smirked faintly at your expression.
“You wrote in your letters that you wished to see one.”
You stared at the beast with open amazement. “You remembered?”
“No,” Aerion answered honestly.
The bear sneezed violently onto a nearby lord.
You thought it was wonderful.
—
By the time you finally reached your chambers again hours later, half the candles had already burned low.
Your gowns had been unpacked incorrectly. One of your necklaces was missing. A servant was crying quietly in the corner over a broken perfume bottle.
“Oh,” you said distractedly while searching through a trunk, “they’re somewhere, I’m sure.”
Meriel stood nearby watching the disaster unfold with the calm expression of someone already accustomed to royal households collapsing around her.
“Princess,” she said carefully, “where are the rest of your clothes?”
You looked around vaguely.
“An excellent question.”
Then you smiled suddenly, almost breathless.
“Me. A married woman.” You sat carefully at the edge of the bed, touching the fabric beneath your fingers like you still scarcely believed any of it. “How I dreamt of this.”
Meriel’s expression softened slightly.
“Congratulations,” she said quietly. Then, after a pause: “Madam… if I may speak plainly.”
“You may.”
Meriel hesitated.
“You do know what to expect tonight?”
You looked up at once, mildly offended.
“You suppose me more naïve than I am.”
“She explained it to you?”
“My mother explained everything.”
Meriel looked unconvinced already.
You folded your hands neatly in your lap, repeating it carefully from memory.
You spoke with complete sincerity.
“The man caresses you softly, pressing his lips to yours.”
Meriel blinked once.
“Your breasts and skin awaken and shiver with palpitating joy.”
Meriel blinked twice.
“Between your legs quivers and moistens with longing. He enters you and you become one.”
Meriel stared at you in silence.
“Your bodies meld, your souls mesh. As a sensation takes hold of you, you fall into a black sky filled with the shiniest of stars.” You smiled faintly to yourself. “You float for a time in ecstasy, before waves of pleasure push and pull you back into your body.”
Meriel’s face had gone completely blank.
“Your body ushers forth yelps, and sometimes song, before he and you explode within, collapsing together, spent and unified.” You sighed dreamily. “Then you lay together, laughing softly, weeping occasionally with ecstatic joy, and finally, he wraps his arms around you, whispers poetry softly into your ear, and you fall into a… delicious sleep.”
A long silence followed.
Meriel nodded slowly.
“…Yep,” she said at last. “That’s pretty much it.”
You smiled, reassured.
Outside your chamber windows, the storm clouds over Blackwater Bay deepened into night. Candles burned lower. Servants slowly disappeared one by one.
You waited.
And waited.
Aerion never came.
Months passed after the wedding. An astonishing amount of absolutely nothing had occurred within the marriage.
You and Aerion had been moved south to a smaller palace not far from Summerhall, supposedly for peace, privacy, and “the strengthening of the marital bond,” which sounded lovely in theory and deeply embarrassing in practice considering your husband still treated your existence like an administrative inconvenience.
The palace itself was beautiful, at least. Warm stone walls, open gardens, olive trees twisting beneath the sun, and fountains that actually worked, unlike the ones in King’s Landing that smelled faintly of death.
You spent your mornings wandering the gardens with books you never finished because you were too busy imagining dramatic future conversations with Aerion where he suddenly realized you were enchanting and regretted everything.
These conversations never occurred in real life. Mostly because Aerion was never there.
He hunted constantly. Rode constantly. Hosted drunken dinners for men who laughed too loudly and broke furniture. Once, he returned at three in the morning carrying an injured falcon and demanding a maester because “the bird understands him emotionally.”
The falcon died and Aerion mourned for nearly two days.
You considered poisoning him on the third.
At court dinners, he would sometimes remember you existed and stare at you with vague surprise, as though you had appeared suddenly from the walls.
“Oh,” he’d say. “Wife.”
Once, during supper, he had pointed at you with a fork and asked a servant, “Does she always sit there?”
You had thrown a grape at his face. He looked delighted by it for reasons that still irritated you deeply.
And then there was the matter of the marriage bed. Or rather, the complete and ongoing absence of it. Weeks passed, then months– nothing. Not even an attempt. Which would have been less humiliating had the entire palace not clearly noticed.
Servants noticed and servants talked. One maid fainted dramatically after discovering untouched marriage sheets and whispered something about curses. Another began leaving fertility charms beneath your pillows.
At first, you wondered if perhaps Aerion was shy. Then you remembered he was physically incapable of shame.
So eventually, you decided to take matters into your own hands. It had seemed reasonable at the time.
You had spent nearly an hour preparing yourself beforehand, which now embarrassed you deeply in retrospect. You wore a softer gown. You brushed perfume oil against your wrists. You even practiced appearing casually alluring in the mirror, though midway through it you realized you mostly looked constipated.
Still determined, you walked to Aerion’s chambers yourself. No husband could possibly ignore such effort.
And for one glorious moment, when the guards opened the doors without question, you truly believed things were finally about to improve. Then you walked inside.
And found Aerion entirely naked, beneath the Lysene servant he had once casually called pretty the day you met.
A long silence followed. Aerion looked up from the bed. Blinking slowly. Not even ashamed but merely inconvenienced.
“Oh,” he said.
You stared at him.
The servant stared at you, and looked ready to leap directly out the window.
Aerion looked between the two of you with visible irritation, as though you had interrupted him. Then, somehow making the situation infinitely worse, he leaned back lazily against the pillows and glanced between the two of you like this was a mildly awkward dinner arrangement rather than marital betrayal.
“You’re welcome to join us, if you like”
You left before murder became politically difficult to explain.
Behind you, you vaguely heard Aerion sigh in annoyance, as though you had been the difficult one in this situation.
You had had enough. Enough that you stopped waiting for footsteps outside your chambers at night. Enough pretending this marriage was merely delayed instead of rotten at its center.
Divorce was impossible. You knew that much.
Escape, however—
Escape remained an option.
You found Meriel before dawn while most of the palace still slept. Candles burned low along the corridors, their flames trembling each time wind slipped through the stone passageways. Meriel looked startled seeing you awake so early, though the expression disappeared quickly once she saw your face.
“I want to leave,” you told her quietly.
Meriel stared at you for a moment. “Leave where?”
“Away from here,” you replied. “Anywhere else.”
Meriel lowered her eyes.
“I need a large traveling trunk,” you continued, voice steadier now that the decision had finally been spoken aloud. “And a carriage. Something discreet enough not to invite questions.”
Understanding settled over her face slowly.
“You mean to flee.”
“I mean to survive.”
For a moment, Meriel looked almost sympathetic. Then she nodded once.
“I shall arrange it.”
But later that same morning, Meriel went to Aerion instead.
She found him in the training yard watching two knights beat each other senseless while he drank wine far too early in the day. Sunlight flashed against the practice swords each time they collided. Aerion barely looked at her when she approached.
“How is she?” he asked lazily.
Meriel hesitated only briefly. “Unhappy.”
“Hmm.”
“She wants to leave.”
That earned his attention. He hummed, “you want something in return.”
Meriel straightened slightly at that, speaking with a confidence that sounded practiced rather than natural.
“My father was stripped of his lands for siding with the Blackfyres years ago. My family lost everything. Our titles. Our place at court.” Her hands tightened together. “I have served loyally ever since.”
Aerion tilted his head slightly.
“You want your status restored.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
Then, unexpectedly, Aerion let out a short laugh beneath his breath and lifted his goblet vaguely toward her.
“Gods,” he murmured, almost impressed. “You’re awful.”
—
The trunk was prepared before sunrise the next morning. Reinforced oak, iron latches, large enough to pass for travel storage without inviting suspicion. You climbed inside before the courtyard fully stirred awake, heart pounding painfully against your ribs while the lid shut heavily above you.
Darkness swallowed everything. And for a while, relief almost overtook fear. The carriage moved steadily beneath you. Wheels against stone. Horses breathing hard.
Distance growing with every turn. You were leaving. Finally.
But then the carriage stopped.
And you felt the trunk— the trunk you were in being carried. You shoved hard against the lid. Locked. And then you heard water. Cold seeped through the bottom edges of the trunk while the men carried it farther. Panic struck instantly, violent and absolute.
“No,” you gasped, throwing your shoulder hard against the lid. “No—!”
The trunk sank lower.
Freezing water rushed through the cracks faster now, swallowing the remaining air inside in brutal gulps. Your hands slipped against soaked wood as you shoved desperately against the lid, panic turning your thoughts into something sharp and senseless.
Above you, the voices had gone quieter. One of the men laughed nervously. Another muttered that perhaps this had gone too far.
Then silence.
For one horrible moment, you truly believed Aerion had left.
That this was how it ended, not with greatness or love, but alone in darkness inside a wooden box because your husband found cruelty entertaining.
Above the waterline, Aerion watched the lake for another long moment, expression unreadable. Then, with a bored sigh, he turned his back as if preparing to leave entirely.
The men shifted uneasily beside their horses. One looked pale. Another muttered a prayer to the Seven beneath his breath.
And then suddenly—
Aerion laughed.
“Oh, Gods,” he said between amused breaths, turning back toward the lake. “You thought I was serious.”
The men stared at him. Aerion grinned broadly now, gesturing lazily back toward the shore. “Bring her back before she actually dies.”
Relief visibly swept through the soldiers so quickly. They rushed forward immediately, dragging the trunk back toward land with frantic urgency. The moment it struck the shore hard enough, the weakened latch snapped open completely.
You spilled out with it.
Water poured from your soaked gown as you collapsed onto the mud choking violently, coughing hard enough to make your ribs ache. Wet curls clung against your face while the world spun sickeningly around you.
Above you stood Aerion.
Dry and perfectly composed.
One hand rested lazily over the hilt of his sword while amusement still lingered openly across his face. You looked up at him with absolute hatred. Aerion only smirked.
Then, as though this had all been a mildly entertaining interruption to his afternoon, he turned toward his men.
“Come along.”
The soldiers immediately began mounting their horses again. And just like that, they left you there. You walked back to the palace alone.
Soaked shoes scraping against dirt roads. Wet skirts heavy around your legs. Your entire body trembling. By the time you returned to your chambers, you already knew.
Meriel. Of course it had been Meriel. And worse— Aerion had not even granted her what she wanted. No restored titles. No lands. No reward.
The realization hollowed something inside you completely.
That night, your chambers were unusually quiet. You sat before the mirror still wrapped in blankets, staring numbly at the knife resting across your lap while candlelight flickered weakly against the walls.
Meriel stood nearby. At some point, she glanced toward the blade and asked mildly, “Would you like a cake with that knife, Princess?”
You let out a humorless laugh.
“Do not try to stop me,” you said quietly. “Just leave me be.”
“I would not presume to speak,” Meriel replied at once, folding her hands neatly before her. “For the Princess is so smart and book-readingly that I am certain her judgment must be sound.”
You looked down at the knife again.
“I am resolved.”
Meriel nodded once and turned toward the servant boy lingering nervously near the doorway.
“Fetch a bucket for the blood.”
The poor boy blinked. “Yes, miss.”
“And towels too,” Meriel added calmly. “There may be some overflow.”
“What am I to do?” you whispered instead. “Just live forever at someone else’s whim?”
“Godsforbid.”
You swallowed hard, fingers tightening around the knife.
“I truly believed,” you admitted quietly, “ever since I was a child… that greatness waited for me somewhere.” Your voice shook slightly now, though whether from anger or heartbreak you no longer knew. “A great life. Something important. Like the gods themselves placed me here for a reason.” You stared blankly at the candlelight trembling across the room. “That I was meant to change something.”
Meriel was silent for a moment.
Then softly:
“Why did he make you a woman, then?”
You let out a hollow laugh beneath your breath.
“For comedy, I suppose.”
And so, months later, breakfast with Aerion had become less a marital routine and more a daily exercise in surviving each other.
You sat across from Aerion beneath the open arches of the summer dining hall while servants moved quietly between tables carrying fruit, fresh bread, and wine.
Aerion looked half-awake, dressed lazily in black riding clothes, one boot unlaced.
He stabbed violently at a pear.
“The Ashford Tourney begins next week,” he announced suddenly. “You’re coming.”
You blinked once. Then coughed delicately into your sleeve and Aerion looked up immediately. You coughed again, but weaker this time.
“Oh dear,” you murmured sadly. “I fear I may be terribly ill.”
Aerion stared at you blankly. Then rolled his eyes.
“Tragic.”
You placed a hand dramatically against your chest. “I believe it may worsen if exposed to excessive sunlight.”
“How brave of you to battle through it during breakfast.”
You ignored him with dignity.
Aerion leaned back in his chair, watching you with open annoyance.
“You do realize people will ask questions if my wife refuses to appear beside me.”
“Then tell them I died.”
“That would create paperwork.”
Aerion stood abruptly, already bored with the conversation. And then paused.
He glanced toward your stomach.
“You’re not pregnant yet, are you?”
Silence.
You narrowed your eyes slowly. “Aerion,” you said carefully, “you have not stepped foot inside my chambers since the moment we married.”
He blinked once. As though genuinely forgetting this detail. Then his face twisted slightly with irritation.
“Annoying.”
You stared at him in disbelief.
Annoying?
Annoying?
Aerion was already pulling on his gloves.
“We should probably do something about that eventually,” he muttered distractedly.
“You think?” You shot him a sharp look across the table. “What a groundbreaking conclusion.”
Aerion finally glanced at you properly for the first time that morning, the inside of his cheek pressed lightly beneath his tongue as he studied you with lazy irritation.
“You’ve been in a terrible mood lately.”
You laughed in disbelief. “Lately?”
“Yes.” Aerion blinked.
“I walked into your chambers months ago and found you naked with another woman. Then you nearly had me drowned in a lake.”
“And I offered to include you,” he pointed out immediately, gesturing vaguely in your direction like this had been an act of staggering generosity on his part rather than insanity. “As for the lake, that was clearly a joke.”
“A joke.”
“Yes.”
“You sealed me inside the trunk.”
“You survived.”
“You watched me drown.”
Aerion frowned slightly at that. “That feels dramatic. You were underwater for hardly any time at all.”
You stared at him.
“And besides,” he continued, now sounding faintly offended himself, “I came back.”
You shut your eyes briefly. Enough.
Instead, like an angry child trying very hard not to throw something, you planted both hands flat against the table and stared straight ahead, refusing to look at him for even another second.
Aerion sighed through his nose, already irritated by your irritation.
Then he waved vaguely over one shoulder as he started toward the courtyard.
“Later.”
The moment he disappeared through the arches, your composed expression collapsed entirely.
“I hate you,” you muttered venomously into your wine.
Life within the small palace quickly settled into an exhausting rhythm of endless feasts.
Aerion hosted them constantly.
The halls filled night after night with second sons of noble houses and young knights who had little to inherit but still too much pride to behave accordingly. Men who, by unfortunate circumstance of birth order, had little to do besides drink themselves stupid, chase women through corridors, lose fortunes over dice, and wake the next morning only to begin the cycle again.
They clung to Aerion all the same.
Not out of affection, he was too sharp, too unpredictable, too openly violent when irritated for that— but because he funded the entire arrangement. The wine, the food, the horses, the tours, the endless indulgence of it all. Aerion paid for their comfort, and in return they laughed at his worst remarks on command. Because if Aerion said something once, and then repeated it slowly while glancing at the room, it meant they were supposed to laugh.
Even when it wasn’t funny.
Especially when it wasn’t funny.
While they drank themselves into stupors below, you found your escape elsewhere.
The library.
It became yours almost by instinct.
Quiet, tucked away from the noise of feasting, it smelled of dust, old parchment, and forgotten ink. Most of the palace ignored it entirely, which suited you perfectly.
Most afternoons, while the men stumbled around the courtyards half-drunk and shouting at one another, you remained hidden among the shelves with a book open across your lap.
You had always loved reading.
Your mother used to tell you that knowledge was the only thing in this world that could not easily be taken from a woman. Knowledge meant power, she would say while correcting your Valyrian translations at the dinner table. And power meant importance. Change.
You had carried those words with you across the Narrow Sea. Held onto them tightly.
Because despite everything; the miserable marriage, the endless feasts, the loneliness of this strange country, you still believed you had been meant for something more than sitting quietly beside a prince while men spoke over you.
You wanted to do something that mattered.
And near the edge of the nearby village, just beyond the palace grounds, sat an old abandoned cottage slowly collapsing into itself beneath climbing ivy and years of neglect. You wanted to turn it into a school. Not for noble girls. Noble girls already had tutors and books and futures decided for them.
You wanted a school for girls who had nothing at all. Girls who could not read their own names. Just a place where girls could learn to read without asking.
And with that thought, you swallowed your pride. The next morning, you joined Aerion on a hunt.
It was not an invitation so much as you appearing beside him as he mounted his horse, which he regarded with immediate suspicion.
“You’re coming?” he asked.
“I would like to see the forest,” you said simply.
He stared at you for a long moment as though trying to determine whether this was an inconvenience or a threat. Then he shrugged, already losing interest.
“Fine.”
The hunt itself was chaos.
Aerion, however, was in a rare good mood— amused, and almost tolerable. The kind of mood where asking him for anything felt marginally survivable.
So when the ride slowed briefly, you took your chance.
“There is something I would like to do,” you began carefully.
Aerion did not look at you. “That sounds expensive.”
“It is not—”
“Everything is expensive,” he cut in.
You hesitated.
Then, quietly, “There is an abandoned cottage near the village. I would like to turn it into a school.”
“Do what you want,” he said, already bored, adjusting his reins. “Just don’t make it inconvenient.”
You stared at him for a moment.
“That’s it?”
He shrugged. “It’s a cottage.”
A pause.
Somewhere behind you, a hunter laughed too loudly at something Aerion had said earlier and then immediately laughed again, louder, as if reminding everyone it was supposed to be funny.
Aerion rode on without waiting for your response.
And just like that, it was done.
No discussions. No debate. Just permission given carelessly, like throwing coins at a beggar to make them disappear. But it was enough. You would take it.
You began preparing soon after.
The cottage sat at the edge of the village like a forgotten thought—half-collapsed roof, broken shutters, weeds pushing through the stone floor. Still, you stood in it for a long time the first day, imagining voices inside it. Girls reading aloud. Chalk on wood. Something small, but alive.
Meriel came with you more than once after that, wordless at first, then slowly softening into the idea of it.
It almost felt possible.
Until it didn’t.
You came back after supper. The sky had already turned dark. From a distance, something felt wrong. The air smelled wrong. Then you saw it.
The cottage.
Burned.
Not damaged. But burned.
Blackened beams collapsed inward like broken ribs. Smoke still curled faintly into the night sky, as though whatever had been done had not yet finished being cruel. Meriel went very still beside you.
You walked forward slowly, as if approaching it carefully might undo it.
It did not.
By the time you reached the ruins, there was nothing left that could pretend to be a school.
Only ash.
—
The palace was loud.
Drunken laughter spilled through the halls. Music echoed off stone. Someone was singing badly again.
You found Aerion in the main hall, seated at a long table surrounded by men who laughed too loudly at everything he said. A cup hung loosely in his hand.
He did not look up when you entered.
You walked straight toward him, and the people noticed immediately. You stopped in front of him.
“You burned it,” you said.
Aerion blinked once.
Then, slowly: “Oh.”
He leaned back in his chair with the languid ease of a man already bored.
“You didn’t say it was for girls.”
“Women in the villages here cannot read,” he added. “They’re not taught.”
Your hands tightened at your sides.
“That is not—”
“And they should not be,” Aerion said, cutting in.
“Women are for seeding, not reading.”
Laughter rolled through the hall.
You stared at him like he had spoken in a language you no longer recognized.
“…I told you I wanted a school,” you said slowly.
“Yes,” Aerion replied, as if that explained everything.
“And you burned it down.”
“I did,” he confirmed.
No hesitation.
You exhaled sharply through your nose.
“Well, you may go. I forgive you, of course, as I am a man of gentle heart and enormous cock.”
Laughter rippled through the room.
“You are disgusting,” you hissed.
“You do not lie to me again.”
The glass left his hand without warning. It shattered against the pillar beside you—but by then, you had already moved. A thin cut sliced across your right palm, blood beading slowly against your skin. Barely a scratch.
Aerion watched the fragments scatter across the floor before his gaze drifted back to you, a faint amusement flickering in his eyes.
“Ooh,” he drawled. “You’re admirably quick.”
You did not give him any more time to give comments as you turned to leave, anger radiating. You seethed while walking back to your chambers.
The next day there was another feast.
Meriel told you to go to tell the court that you are still alive and breathing.
Aerion was in unusually good spirits that evening, laughing too loudly at something one of his men said. And because when Aerion repeated a joke, they laughed as though it had been genius. Even when it isn’t.
You mostly ignored all of it.
Instead, you found the bear.
It had been brought to the palace courtyard as one of Aerion’s strange, impulsive gifts, something from the hunt, something alive that had survived him when most things did not.
You sat with it quietly for a while, fingers brushing through its fur while the feast roared on inside. It was easier than people. It did not speak. It did not mock. It simply existed beside you without asking anything.
“Maybe you’re the only one here,” you muttered softly, “who hasn’t tried to ruin my life.”
The bear shifted slightly under your hand.
For a moment, it almost felt like it understood you.
And then- the sound of an arrow splitting air. It happened too fast to process properly. A sharp twang from the training platform where Aerion and his men had decided, in their usual brilliance, that the courtyard was suitable for target practice even during a feast.
The arrow struck clean.
Right through the animal. The bear collapsed instantly.
You stared at it for a moment too long, as if waiting for the world to correct itself. But it did not. And then you stood.
Across the courtyard, laughter broke out. “Good shot,” someone called.
Aerion’s voice followed lazily, unconcerned. “Oh, dear. Someone’s cross.” he spoke lazily when he saw you cross the courtyard in a straight line. Aerion was still smiling when you reached him. With no hesitation, you raised your hand and slapped him on the cheek. Hard.
The sound cracked through the hall and silence followed immediately. Even the music faltered. You didn’t wait for anything else. You turned and left.
—
The library was quiet in a way the rest of the palace never managed to be. Not merely silent, but softened, as though even sound was reluctant to disturb it. Dust floated through thin shafts of light from the high windows, drifting over rows of old parchment and ink-stained ledgers, the smell of aged wood and forgotten knowledge clinging to everything.
It was the only place in the entire palace that did not feel like it belonged to Aerion, as if even his presence hesitated at the threshold.
You did not sit at a chair. You sat on the floor between shelves, knees drawn in loosely, staring at nothing in particular while your breathing slowly unraveled. Then your hands began to shake, then enough that you stopped trying to hide it at all. The crying came after that, uneven and broken, sharp breaths caught between anger and humiliation and grief until none of them could separate cleanly anymore.
You did not expect him to follow you.
Aerion did not speak immediately when he entered. He stood there for a moment as if assessing whether this was worth interrupting, then eventually crossed the room and sat down across from you.
“We’ve got problems, haven’t we?” he said at last.
You did not answer.
Silence stretched, thick and unbothered.
“I suppose you are the only person in my life,” he added after a moment, almost thoughtfully, “who has not loved me.”
A breath of disbelief slipped out of you before you could stop it, half-laugh, half-sob.
“It is inconceivable to me,” he continued, as though your reaction was irrelevant, “and says nothing good about you.”
You looked up sharply at that.
He met your gaze without hesitation, unflinching, almost curious.
“If you had shown me an ounce of kindness,” your face twisted as you eyed him, “I was ready with a heart full of love.”
And then, because he could never resist undermining even his own seriousness, his eyes flicked over you and he added, almost offhand, “You look really pretty when you’re angry.”
That was it. Something in you cracked fully open.
“My heart is breaking,” you said, and this time the words came out broken with it, tears spilling freely as a muffled sob forced its way through your throat. “I miss home. I’m lonely for family, friends, fun, ideas, strawberries—”
“And I need my cock sucked,” Aerion interrupted flatly.
You froze.
“What?” you asked in disbelief, staring at him like you had misheard the language entirely.
“Well,” he said, leaning back slightly as if this were logical, “we’re sharing, right? Our needs?”
“Just let me go home, please.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
He glanced away for a moment, as though considering something practical. “Strawberries, I’ll work on.”
Then, more to himself than to you, he added, “What happened to that happy little girl who gave me a twig?”
“She died,” you said immediately.
Aerion sighed through his nose. “Seems overly dramatic.”
He looked at you again, then added, “I am mostly kind to you. Do I beat you?”
“I suffer the blows of your disdain daily,” you hissed, pushing yourself up until you were standing over him where he still sat.
Aerion tilted his head up at you slightly.
“It’s not the same as actual blows, though, is it?”
“Well—”
“What, you don’t know?” he cut in.
Before you could react, he stood. His hand closed around your shoulder, firm enough to stop you from stepping back, and then—suddenly, sharply—he struck you in the stomach.
The breath left you instantly. You doubled slightly, stunned more than anything, pain blooming hot and immediate through your middle.
Aerion watched you bend forward.
“Well,” he said calmly, releasing you, “compare, and get back to me.”
You straightened slowly, shaking.
“Mother and Father never acted like this. My mother was a saint,” he replied. Then, after a beat, he added, almost reflexively, “I’m glad she’s not alive to see this. Not that I’m glad she’s dead. I’m not—”
He stopped himself, as if realizing he was losing his own argument, and exhaled sharply through his nose.
You were still staring at him, unblinking.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he said. “You’re a disappointment to me, too.”
Then, after a pause, his voice sharpened again.
“I do not need a wife with a poisonous mouth and a dry cunny. I will shut you up at my pleasure.”
“You will try and fail,” you said immediately, voice raw.
“You will be happy,” he continued as if you had not spoken. “You will die here in content old age, having given me many hours of pleasure and service, and many heirs. Boys, preferably.”
His gaze flicked over you, sharp and assessing.
“I do have a temper and some rage. You cannot cross me. Especially not in front of others, or you will pay. Endlessly.”
A pause.
Then, quietly, final in a way that was almost certain.
“And you will never win.”
I hope he loses.
Not in the polite way other wives were taught to think it, no soft prayers whispered into candlelight, no folded hands asking for a safe return, no devotion. You did not want safety for him.
I hope he loses the tourney, you thought, watching him across the courtyard as he adjusted his riding gloves, I hope he falls off his horse. I hope the impact is sharp enough to silence him permanently. I hope something in him breaks in a way that cannot be repaired.
Your finger tapped against your gown once, then again, then again, a quiet rhythm of imagined outcomes. You found yourself thinking of it too easily: the snap of bone, the sudden stillness of a body, the stunned silence of a crowd that had cheered him only moments before.
Other wives would have been praying. You found yourself praying for injuries.
He would not come back with laughter still clinging to him. He would come back quiet, maybe even regretful. Or not at all.
Outside the palace entrance, the air was bright and unforgiving. The horses were already prepared, restless beneath their riders, the sound of metal and leather filling the space like a ceremony you had no interest in participating in. Aerion adjusted his riding gloves with careless precision, as though nothing in the world had ever resisted him for long.
You stood beside him. You did not speak. You did not wish him well.
You only performed the smallest, most formal curtsy you could manage. Whether it was even correct no longer mattered.
Aerion glanced at you briefly, as if expecting something more. When nothing came, he simply turned away and mounted his horse.
Then he left.
And the gates closed behind him.
—
Days passed slowly after that.
The palace did not change much in his absence, which you found irritating. The halls remained full, the servants continued their routines, the air still carried the same polished emptiness. If anything, it only made his presence feel less necessary in hindsight, as though he had always been an unnecessary noise in a room that functioned perfectly well without him.
You filled the time carefully.
The library became your refuge again, its silence more honest than anything else in the palace. You spent hours there among books you did not always read, simply existing in a space that did not demand anything from you. When even that became too heavy, you returned to embroidery, though not of flowers as was expected—but insects. Spindly things, sharp-winged things, delicate and unpleasant in a way.
Meriel came and went quietly, as she always did, saying little unless spoken to.
Time passed in a strange, suspended way.
Then one afternoon, a servant came running through the corridor, breathless, face pale and twisted with panic.
“He died!”
The words echoed too loudly down the stone hall.
“The prince died!”
For a moment, everything stopped. Even the air felt like it paused to listen. You looked up slowly from your work. Your fingers still rested on the fabric, unmoving.
Someone nearby gasped. Another voice immediately began asking questions, overlapping, frantic.
A second servant reached you, hesitating as if unsure whether you were supposed to collapse or celebrate or scream. His eyes darted away quickly, as though afraid of your reaction either way.
But then—
A flicker at the corner of your mouth. Barely there.
Something almost like relief, almost like laughter, almost like—
No.
Not yet.
Before it could form properly, Meriel arrived. And the moment you saw her face, you already knew something was wrong. She did not look panicked. She did not look confused.
Composed in a way that made your stomach tighten instantly.
She stopped in front of you.
And spoke clearly.
“Prince Baelor died.”
Silence.
Oh.
You felt it land slowly.
Not Aerion. Not your husband. Not your imagined ruin finally delivered.
Someone else. Someone entirely different.
Your fingers loosened slightly on the fabric in your lap.
And for a long moment, all you could think was:
Oh.
savant - a person of profound and exceptional knowledge. i figured people in lys probably wouldn’t use the word “maesters” the way they do in westeros, so i went down an internet rabbit hole looking for similar terms
updates may be slow since i’m starting summer classes at uni tomorrow, but trust that i will see this fic through to the very end 😈















