sasari🎧

Steve Harrington.

Not his problem.

I won't let you go, please don't ask me to.

Panic Frequency.

My Moon and My Man. My Moon, My man and My sun.

The Weight of Air.

Jack Abbot.

Things you learn without meaning to.

The quiet kind of wanting (or the cruel way tbh)

still yours.

You are not the exception.

Dean Di Laurentis.

She Always Won. --- Intervention.

Sharp Edges

John Logan.

Please stop the music. Don't dare stop the music.

10 reasons not to tell him i love him (and why none of them were enough)

Gwayne Hightower.

Don't Speak.

Valarr Targaryen.

The Illusion of Being Loved — so why is my heart broken?

hiiii miaaa.

They say no one knows what they have until they lose it. And how sad, how terribly sad, that so many people don't discover the true worth of the person beside them until that person is gone, until the time to say it has slipped away with them. You believe, with the naivety of someone who's never lost anything important, that the other person will just stay there forever, waiting in silence, patient, eternal. But no. People get tired. People fade out little by little, and one day, without warning, they leave. If you don't sow sincere feelings, what harvest did you expect to reap?

That's why Valarr suddenly becomes clingy out of nowhere, from one day to the next, like someone waking up late from a long dream. If you look closely at the scene, he never speaks ill of his wife or paints her as a bad woman; on the contrary, he acknowledges her virtue with a kind of resigned sadness, and tries to win her favor with clumsy, belated gestures. What condemns him is his own self-deception, that phrase he repeats like someone praying without faith: "if only my father hadn't interfered... Kiera would be..." Those words were his way of clinging to denial, of convincing himself that his one true love "had to be" Kiera, so he wouldn't have to face head-on what he actually felt for his wife.

But when she hears him and shuts down, Valarr is overtaken by the silent panic of someone who realizes, too late, everything he's lost. He becomes clingy because he finally understands he's truly lost her. He's learning, the hard way and much too late, that affection out of time doesn't erase the mark of contempt. That there are silences which, once sown, can no longer be dug up.

Thank you for the compliment, and thank you so much for sharing your confusion with me, the support really makes me happy, haha. In the coming parts, I'll try to make all of this feel a bit more noticeable.

That's such a great question Anon! Honestly, the situation with Valarr is super messed up.

Understanding him, though, is nowhere near the same as letting him off the hook.

On one hand, he was straight up trapped in the myth of "first love": he convinced himself he could only ever love Kiera, so actually feeling something real for his wife turned into a silent betrayal, a guilt he had no clue where to stash. He denied what he was feeling and hid behind coldness, like someone slamming a door shut so they don't have to deal with what's on the other side.

But that confusion doesn't excuse the contempt, the silence, or the humiliation he put his wife through. And here's the most immature part of Valarr: the moment he finally sees her shutting him out, the moment he feels her slipping away for good, he panics like the selfish coward he is and clings on like a scared little kid. He naively assumes that if he just starts "returning" her affection with scraps of attention, she'll magically go back to being who she was before, that she'll come running back into his arms like nothing happened, completely ignoring the deep damage he caused.

Wow, you really got me thinking for a long time, haha. I hope you can understand. Thanks for the support!

pairing: Valarr Targaryen x wifereader!

summary: I won't consume him, or let him consume me.

warnings: angst, dubcon marriage, public humiliation, an emotionally guarded protagonist, non happy ending. (yet)

a/n: Sometimes I make beautiful things out of my most miserable thoughts, I cry and project myself onto characters who don't even have a name. I don't know if you'll like this, but I really hope you do; writing in this tone isn't usual for me, I generally prefer my main characters to be more expressive. Thank you for reading and sticking with me through such a different chapter. It means a lot to know it connects with someone. I hope to keep surprising you with what's coming!

Btw, the song at the end was actually a big inspiration for me, it gives such strong medieval vibes that fit the setting, jeje.

part one.

Sometimes I considered Valarr beyond the crown that weighed upon his temples; I contemplated him as a man crushed beneath the burden of his own expectations, a being filled with contained silences. I would often find him seeking air, leaning upon the sill of the window in his study that commanded the gardens. From there he watched the gatherings of betrothed maidens and damsels, and it did not escape me the way his sighs died upon looking at me. Was that a gaze steeped in pity? Or did my eyes deceive me, and in truth his longing sought the young woman who laughed at my side, the beautiful Kiera? I wondered then whether it would be Valarr’s ardent blood that would consume my youth until it begot an heir, or whether I would be the slow flame that devoured his spirit, becoming the bitter reminder of a life he never chose.

After what happened that afternoon, the day had only to ruin itself further. The Tourney at Ashford had already been a disaster from the first day, yet to finish spoiling everything, the cruel Prince Aerion had provoked yet another colossal scandal. It all began when he brutally assailed a modest company of puppeteers, which forced the intervention of a giant of a hedge knight known as Ser Duncan. The youth, unable to tolerate the prince’s cruelty, inflicted upon Aerion a historic thrashing in the midst of the camp, unleashing the demand for a Trial of Seven to settle the affront.

As if the spectacle were not enough to hold the attention of the entire realm, the search for the culprit brought to light a revelation still more astonishing: the modest, shaven-headed squire who accompanied the giant was none other than Prince Aegon, the last lost prince of House Targaryen, the youngest son of Maekar who had been wandering in disguise.

Against all expectation, the combat to the death did not end in the tragedy all had feared. All had survived the bloody fray; though they bore considerable wounds and bandages beneath their tunics, they walked upon their own feet. He who suffered the worst was Aerion himself: disfigured, beaten to a pulp and humiliated, he could scarcely hold another’s gaze.

Seeing him there, bent and with his pride in ruins, a dark and comforting thought crossed my mind. It comforted me to know that the worst had fallen to him, that the justice of the gods had returned to him even a fraction of the pain and humiliation he dispensed with such liberal hands. Still fresh in my memory was the bitter recollection of the banquet the night before, that closed-door supper which yet stung my soul.

With such a whirlwind surrounding the royal family, the banquet that night held nothing of festivity. We gathered behind closed doors in the principal pavilion: a long table laden with jugs of wine and dishes scarcely touched, where the princes sought to trace the strategies and alliances for the combat on the morrow. The air within the tent was dense, heavy, dominated by the grave tone of masculine voices and the shadow of the blood judgment that would take place at dawn.

I remained seated beside Valarr, maintaining an impeccable posture with my hands crossed in my lap. The discomfort between us was almost palpable, an invisible yet icy barrier that separated us though we sat shoulder to shoulder. From time to time Valarr’s arm brushed mine as he reached for his cup of wine, and a rigid tension seized his body before he apologized with a clumsy murmur to which I scarcely replied with a slight inclination of the head.

On the other side of the table the atmosphere was no better. Aerion and his betrothed sat together, offering their own grotesque spectacle. The young woman made not the slightest effort to disguise the disgust and anger that gnawed at her face. She kept her arms crossed, her brows furrowed and her lips pressed into a thin line, utterly outraged at having been dragged into such shame on account of an absurd puppet show. For her, that her future husband should have become the talk of the entire realm for brawling with puppeteers and a knight of the streets was an intolerable humiliation.

Aerion, far from appearing repentant or ignoring his betrothed’s fury, seemed to take pleasure in provoking her. With that twisted, malicious smile that turned my stomach, he goaded her subtly. He gave her little playful nudges with his elbow in her side and whispered cutting remarks into her ear solely to force her to react, watching with delight as the poor girl’s cheeks flared with pure contained rage; then he let out a rasping laugh before pouring himself more wine.

“Come, Valarr,” said Aerion, pointing at him directly with his silver cup, wearing that twisted smile that always churned my insides. “Enough of your contemplations and don your armor tomorrow. Be one of my seven champions. A true dragon does not remain in the stands watching a wretched peasant trample the family’s name.”

Valarr did not lift his gaze from his plate. He merely clenched his fists upon the fine tablecloth until his knuckles showed white. A heavy, weary sigh escaped his chest before he answered in a voice that sought to be firm, yet sounded empty:

“I will not take part in that spectacle, Cousin. My intention is to return to my chambers whole… and in one piece for my wife.”

For his wife. My stomach clenched in a blind knot. Those words rang to me as the cruelest and most calculated of lies. A phrase rehearsed to fulfill protocol before his own, like those caresses upon the cheek that appeared only when we were observed.

Aerion leaned back in his chair, letting escape a mocking guffaw laden with a venomous malice that froze the blood in my veins.

“Your wife?” Aerion spat, regarding him with open contempt. “By the Seven, cousin, what endearing devotion… Though from what I have heard this afternoon between cup and cup, I doubt very much the poor girl will care whether you return whole or in pieces. In fact, after hearing you insinuate that to touch her feels an infamous punishment and that you would rather have any other in your bed, were I in her place I would pray that a lance run you through at dawn.”

A bucket of icy water seemed to fall upon the entire table.

The impact of hearing the humiliation laid bare thus, so raw and miserable before the eyes of all House Targaryen, provoked in me an unbearable burning behind the eyes. My pride stung like an open wound. I felt I was drowning in my own shame, trapped in the certainty that everyone at that table now knew the secret of my marriage: that I was merely an unwanted burden.

Daeron’s hand, which held his cup clumsily beside him, trembled until it spilled wine upon the wood, knowing himself guilty for having opened his mouth. For an instant Aerion’s betrothed ceased her gestures of annoyance toward him and crossed her gaze with mine; in her eyes there was no mockery, but a grimace of genuine apology and a discomfort so profound that she had to press her lips with pity. A few seats away, Kiera of Tyrosh remained motionless. Upon hearing Aerion’s venom and knowing herself the involuntary shadow in the midst of this disaster, Kiera shifted awkwardly in her chair, dropping her gaze abruptly to her plate, unable to meet anyone’s eyes in the tent while the flush of mortification covered her neck.

But before Aerion could savor his provocation a second longer, Prince Maekar rose abruptly from the head of the table. The entire board trembled.

Without uttering a single word, Maekar stretched out his arm and dealt Aerion a dry, heavy blow to the back of the head. The impact was so strong that the cruel prince’s forehead crashed against the rim of his plate, cutting his laughter short.

“Shut your mouth, you piece of an imbecile!” thundered Maekar’s voice, hoarse with pure fury, regarding his son with true disgust. “You have already covered us with enough dishonor this week by brawling with puppeteers without your mouth now spewing excrement. Focus on the judgment tomorrow if you do not wish to end up dead upon the grass.”

Aerion rose slowly, passing his hand over the nape of his neck with teeth clenched and eyes blazing with wrath against his father, yet he dared not speak another word.

At my side Valarr did not move. He kept his eyes fixed upon the table, but I saw how his throat swallowed a knot and how his breathing grew rapid, uneven, crushed beneath the weight of the situation.

In a desperate, clumsy movement, his hand sought mine beneath the table. He squeezed my fingers with a trembling force, a pleading, blind grip, like that of a man drowning who clings to the last scrap of wood in the midst of the ocean. He wished to hold me, to feel that something still remained to which he might cling amid the ruins of his own disaster.

But I withdrew my hand slowly, without harshness, leaving him with empty fingers upon the tablecloth.

Now, as night fell on the following day, the shadow of that supper still projected itself over us, yet death had claimed no one and the royal pavilion had transformed into a hall of grotesque, deafening merriment. The atmosphere was a seething of cruel laughter, silver cups clashing, and the strident music of the lutes that seemed to drill into my temples.

My eyes settled first upon the opposite table. There sat Aerion with his face disfigured by the bruises and swellings the hedge knight had inflicted upon him in the trial. At his side the young woman who would be his betrothed made no effort to disguise her mockery: she pointed at him brazenly, laughing in his face at the blackened eye and the pride reduced to shreds of the prince. Aerion could only let out a heavy sigh and lower his head, chewing his humiliation in silence.

Seeing the scene, I could not help it: a small, dry, bitter laugh escaped my lips.

At that very same instant, beside me, Valarr let escape a smothered guffaw at the same scene. For the briefest second the two laughs crossed in the air, brushing like ghosts of what we once might have been, sharing the same involuntary measure. Yet the moment our eyes met and we realized we were laughing together, the illusion tore.

We fell silent at the same time.

The cut was so drastic, so painfully automatic, that the air between us froze again at once, leaving a silence still heavier, a void that burned my skin.

Beyond, the dancing floor was an insult to my misery. Little Egg, his shaved head gleaming beneath the torches, turned awkwardly yet with a genuine smile, hand in hand with the young daughter of Lord Ashford. A few steps away the enormous Ser Duncan danced, careful not to tread upon the feet of the puppet girl, Tanselle, whose happy laughter drowned amid the bustle. Maekar had yielded; his youngest son would go to roam the realm as a humble squire, and the child’s freedom filled the air with a strange innocence, while in my breast everything rotted.

At the high table Prince Baelor wore bandages upon his shoulder and a split lip, yet he laughed with the strength of a man who possessed the world.

And in our corner… reigned a septic pit of silence.

I sat beside my husband, Valarr. The distance between us was an abyss of broken glass. Since the incident in the tent and the infamy of the supper, we had not addressed a single word to each other; not one glance, not one touch. I had become pure stone; he, a shadow consumed by a guilt that no longer served any purpose.

It was then that my eyes descended, traitorous, toward his chest. A knot so violent pierced my throat that I nearly choked upon my own saliva.

Valarr wore a doublet of dark velvet I had never seen him wear. Upon the cloth, sewn with a trembling yet meticulous precision, shone the blazon I myself had designed months earlier, needle in hand, pricking my fingers in the most absolute solitude of my chambers. That embroidery which united our houses—a token of blind devotion he had let die at the bottom of a dusty drawer—now covered his torso. It was an attempt so pathetic, so mute and desperate to beg my forgiveness that it hurt me physically, as though an rusted dagger had been driven into my ribs.

I turned my face abruptly, swallowing the tears that threatened to betray me. Too late.

“What ails the heirs of the crown that they seem to be at their own funeral?” The deep voice of Prince Baelor broke our bubble with affable cruelty. He regarded us with a luminous smile. “Take to the floor, my children. Show the realm how happy and in love you are.”

Valarr rose at once, with desperate swiftness, and offered me his hand. We could not disobey the Hand of the King. I rose with a ghostly grace, my body rigid as an elegant corpse, and laid my hand upon his, letting myself be drawn toward the center of the floor.

The music changed to a slow, dense-enveloping melody, a trap from which I could not escape.

Valarr took me by the waist. We glided to the measure of the strings, fulfilling the macabre choreography the courtiers expected of us. Yet in the midst of a turn, desperation broke his composure. In a blind impulse he closed the space between our bodies, pressed me against his chest with unbridled force and, setting his brow to mine, left me without breath.

The heat of his skin burned my face. I could feel his tremulous breath striking against my lips, the wild and chaotic rhythm of his heart galloping unchecked, and that cursed scent of leather and clove that so many nights I had wept for in silence.

“You look extraordinarily beautiful this night, my lady…” Valarr murmured in a thread of voice so broken, so pleading, that it sounded like the lament of a wounded animal. “And this doublet… the truth is I have never worn so fine a garment. You have marvelous hands.”

The tremor in his words tore me within, yet my face remained inert, an icy mask.

“I thank you for the compliment, my prince,” I replied in a measured murmur, so formal, so docile and empty that it sounded like a tombstone. “It is but simple work to fulfill my duty as your wife.”

Valarr blinked, and I felt the tremor of his hand become spasmodic. I could perceive the absolute desperation seeping into his fingers as he realized my courtesy was a wall of ice spikes. He tried to smile, a pathetic gesture that begged for mercy.

“It is not simple; it is beautiful… as everything you do,” he insisted in a desperate whisper, tightening the curve of my waist with a painful force, as though he feared I might vanish into the air. “This silence pains me, my love… I would so wish that the laughter of a moment ago were for me as well. These halls need it so… I need it.”

I. The words resonated in my head like a cruel echo.

“It is very kind of you to notice, my prince,” I said without a single muscle of my face trembling, granting him an inclination of the head so perfect it froze the blood. “I endeavor to maintain the decorum and the joy the occasion demands.”

Valarr shuddered with such violence that I nearly held him. His pupils, entirely flooded with contained tears, sought me blindly, pleading for a miracle. He tightened his fingers upon my waist with a childlike entreaty, crumbling into a thousand pieces while the music forced us to keep turning in an endless circle.

“Speak to me… shout at me if you will, by the gods, tear the skin from me, but do not remain in this silence of death,” he begged in a smothered sob, dragging himself in his misery before my absolute indifference. “I am drowning in this distance… I beg you, my lady… say something to me… look at me truly!”

And then I opened my lips. I let my words fall between us like pure ash upon an open wound.

“I wanted that at least we might have some manner of affection. You and I. I wanted you to look at me in the same way I looked at you. Was that so much to ask? I believed that marriage would, one way or another, draw forth the best in us. I understand that you did not wish to marry me; you know, I supposed that at least you would try, my prince, but instead what did I have? Murmurs at supper hour, sidelong glances and awkward encounters in our chambers. Until I heard your words I had not realized how much I pretended your attitudes did not matter to me… and now the least I would wish is to look at you and not feel so wounded.”

At that precise instant my feet stopped completely in the midst of the floor, compelling the music to halt with our stillness. Valarr froze with his face dislocated, awaiting the final blow, the cry or the open scorn. Yet I did none of that. In a brutal act of submission he buried his face in the hollow of my neck, brushing his trembling mouth against my skin without regard for the gaze of hundreds of nobles. He clung to my fabric with white knuckles, breaking entirely in a dragged and pathetic plea:

“I do not know what is wrong with me… What must I do to regain you?” he sobbed against my neck, stifling a moan of pain while his tears soaked my skin. “I wish to keep hearing you, please, my beloved, tell me what I must do to be worthy of you… Last night I dreamed of you. I dreamed of your voice brushing my skin, of your lips seeking mine… I dreamed of your body drawing near to mine, of a kiss that burned slow. As if desire had memory.” The tremor of his body was so humiliating that he seemed a beggar pleading for a crumb of pity.

Leaning slightly forward, with a ghostly softness, I raised my hand to rest my fingers in his hair, burying them delicately in his characteristic white-and-silver lock. Without withdrawing my gaze for a single second, I held his flooded eyes while I felt how Valarr instinctively inclined his head toward my palm, seeking desperately the refuge of my touch at the very moment I set my lips upon his.

It was a brief, dry kiss, devoid of all heat and of any promise, a farewell disguised as affection. Valarr’s eyes opened still wider, fixed upon mine without blinking, shining with the weeping he strove with every fiber of his being to contain; his jaws tensed until they marked with pain, swallowing the tears by force, refusing to break completely before the realm.

Upon separating, before he could articulate a single sound or recover his breath:

“Despite everything, though my mind may wish to say that it hates you and that it would never see you again, my heart does not recognize those feelings,” I pronounced in a murmur so measured, so mortally calm, that his face decomposed entirely. “Because thanks to you I discovered beautiful emotions I did not know I held within me.”

Valarr shuddered again, swallowing with atrocious desperation, his eyes flooded in a weeping he could no longer contain.

“You were the beacon that kindled my capacity to love, the light with which I learned to deliver the soul without reserve,” I continued, with a thread of voice that tore the air between us. “And though you have also taught me the atrocious cold of solitude, I cannot curse the hand that showed me the beauty of my own heart. I do not hate you, Valarr… for one cannot hate the storm that taught one to value the sun, nor the abyss that made one discover how deeply one could feel.”

I made a small pause, feeling how the last remnant of warm air abandoned my lungs forever, leaving him face to face with the definitive void.

“Yet to love a ghost exhausts life…” I concluded, regarding him fixedly in the eyes, without a single tear, without a single spark of life. “And I have no more light left to burn for you.”

The rhythm of the music continued about us and the courtiers burst into enthusiastic applause. Believing it the culmination of a romantic and suffering reconciliation, the entire hall celebrated the royal couple with cheers and smiles alien to the tragedy that seethed between our hands.

But before Valarr could close his fingers once more upon mine, an enormous and clumsy shadow loomed beside us.

It was the gigantic hedge knight, Ser Duncan, who had approached with an unusual timidity in one of his size, scratching the nape of his neck awkwardly while regarding the prince with respect.

“Forgive the intrusion, my prince… my lady,” Ser Duncan murmured in his hoarse voice, making a clumsy bow. “Would you grant me this dance, my lady?”

Valarr remained motionless, his hand still extended in the air, trapped between the etiquette of the court and the presence of the hero of the day.

And then, very slowly, with a deliberate and cruel deliberateness, my fingers began to slip from his. I unbound my hand from his millimeter by millimeter, breaking the last point of contact between us, until his palm remained completely empty upon the cold air of the hall.

“It would be an honor, Ser Duncan,” I replied with a soft smile, turning toward the knight and leaving my husband behind, converted at last into a shadow for which I no longer felt any pity.

There is something curious that occurs when one ceases to feel loved. There is born a kind of bitter pride, an icy armor that tints every emotion that struggles to spring in our breast when we realize that the other never loved us. In that definitive instant which all of us are obliged to face sooner or later, we attempt desperately to convince ourselves of a pious fallacy: all will be well, because in truth I did not love him so much either; I was only at his side out of habit, out of duty, out of being… is that not so?

Then.

Why is my heart broken?

. .

In the end, acts will always have the last word.

.

.

.

Hey babe, yeah, there’s definitely gonna be a part two—and honestly, maybe even a part three. But there’s so much stuff I wanna write that I feel like I'm totally projecting onto it. I've been spending the last few days basically trying to make myself feel miserable just so I can pump out words way faster, but to answer your question: YES, THERE WILL BE A PART TWO!!! yeuuu

pairing: Valarr Targaryen x wifereader

summary: It only took three words from his cousin to shatter everything.

warnings: Angst, arranged marriage, unrequited love, mentions of fertility pressure, non-explicit intimacy. Reader's house and physical appearance are not specified.

a/n: haha so this is a draft I've had sitting around for a while, it's not fully edited so if you spot any mistakes just pretend you're blind lol. also apologies in advance, English isn't my first language. hope you enjoy it anyway!

part two

The weight of the linen between my fingers was the faithful reflection of an entire year of my life, returned in the form of silences, perfect courtesies, and a quiet sterility that devoured me alive from the inside out.

In the freezing corridors of the Red Keep, I had learned a skill as bitter as it was solitary: talking to myself so I wouldn’t die of emptiness.

I sat across from him at those dinners we only shared out of the strictest dynastic obligation. He remained with his back straight as a steel blade, shoulders firm, and manners impeccable the kind Prince Baelor had hammered into him with honor and discipline. And I, at the other end of the long oak table, spoke.

I told him about the old septon in the small chapel who always stammered through the afternoon prayers; about the one-eyed cat that had given birth to four kittens behind the royal stables; I read him trivial, everyday fragments from the letters my sister sent from our home. I spoke of everything and nothing, spilling words like stones thrown into a bottomless well.

Sometimes, in the gloom of my chambers, I rocked myself alone in the dark, asking myself the same questions over and over: Why, when he looks at me, doesn’t his face light up? A man in love should adore me. Yet he barely speaks to me. Still, sometimes I feel like his heart whispers to mine. He smiles when I laugh. 

Because he did it. On a few occasions he said beautiful things to me. He spoke well of me, making the courtiers praise his chivalry. I deluded myself, clinging desperately to small mirages. I remembered when he would approach, reach out, and brush a strand of hair behind my ear. In those seconds, my heart would race, thinking he was finally seeing  me.

It took me months of torment to understand the truth: Valarr only caressed my hair or reached for my hand when Prince Baelor was nearby, watching us. The moment his father turned away, his hand would drop and his face would return to that stone mask. He wasn’t loving me, he was performing for the man he feared disappointing. And I treasured those rehearsed caresses as if they were real promises.

And then she appeared.

Kiera of Tyrosh. Every time I saw her at court, impeccable and destined for Prince Daeron a bitter thought stung my soul: Maybe I should have been in her place, and she in mine, married to the drunken prince.Daeron isn’t a bad man, but his drinking problem complicates everything. At least, thank the Seven, Kiera was spared the misfortune of being betrothed to Prince Aerion.

But when the image of Valarr beside her took root in my mind, it stole the breath from my lungs. My eyes filled with rage and my hands trembled with helplessness as tears streamed down my face. She’s beautiful, isn’t she? Yes. She is. She’s better than me in every way.

I stared at the walls of the Red Keep and the longing burned in my throat: How I wish your love would disarm me. Wrap me in your cloaks and strip me with your eyes. Later, when the time comes, silence me with your lips and tear me apart. Let your soul be mine and let us live in harmony. Wouldn’t you like that? Breathing in the same rhythm, playing the same melody together.

So why did this cruel fate make me fall in love with you? With you, who doesn’t love me. With you, who never calls for me. Why do the words seem to cost your mouth so much? Am I really that hard to love? Is my heart so insignificant?

Maybe we’re only destined to connect glances, never to entwine them. So I’ll look at my pillow, imagining you… and kiss my dream as if I were happy.

But fate had placed me beside the heir, and her in the untouched memory of my husband.

Even in intimacy, the distance destroyed me. Night after night, scheduled on the calendar for the purpose of conceiving an heir, Valarr touched me with a distant delicacy that made me feel invisible. He whispered quiet apologies if he gripped my wrists too tightly and murmured “rest, my lady” before turning to his side of the bed.

And yet the moons passed and my belly remained flat. Cold. Dead.

Every cycle that I bled in the dim light of my chambers drowned me in ravenous guilt. I lay awake staring at the canopy ceiling, pressing my palms against my abdomen, begging the Seven for a child. I thought a baby with silver-and-gold hair would finally break the spell of his indifference. That motherhood would give him a real reason to look at me as his wife instead of a duty of state. But the blood always came, punctual and cruel, reminding me of my double failure: I couldn’t make him love me, and I couldn’t even give him an heir.

I learned to embroider for him because simple words were never enough. With the desperate logic of someone who loves without being loved in return, I thought my hands might say what my mouth could not. I embroidered three-headed dragons on linen handkerchiefs, on soft leather belts, on the collar of a heavy cloak that took me months to finish by the flickering light of candles. I delivered them myself very early, before the sun fully rose over the bay and before he went down to attend his duties. I left them on his desk with a short, shy note.

He never said a word about them. Not a single one. And yet, days later, I would find them folded impeccably on the side tables of his study, among account scrolls and military reports he didn’t care about. They sat there forgotten, neat but set aside as if he didn’t know what else to do with the physical proof that someone loved him, unable to accept it but too well-mannered to throw it away.

That was the worst part. Not cruelty, because cruelty can be hated cleanly; cruelty gives you an enemy to build defenses against. The worst thing about him was that infinite, completely hollow kindness that kept me well cared for and devastatingly alone.

That’s why Ashford Meadow felt different. On the journey from King’s Landing, Valarr had tried to seek me out. He made small efforts at conversation during the stops, asking if the riding fatigued me or if the weather was pleasant. I thought this tournament, far

from the suffocating shadow of the Red Keep, would be the place where we could finally build something resembling love. That perhaps this trip would break the ice between us.

Gods, I was so wrong.

.

.

In Ashford Meadow, the air smelled of trampled grass, campfire smoke, and the sweet leather of campaign tents. I clutched the handkerchief tightly against my chest, pressing the embroidered silk so hard that the golden threads bit into my palm.

I walked between the pavilions of the lords of Westeros, listening to the distant murmur of cavalry and the cheers of the jousts. When I reached the royal tent, the guards recognized my face, bowed their heads in reverence, and lifted the flap without announcing me.

Inside, the warm gloom smelled of spiced wine and horse sweat. Valarr stood with his back to the entrance, wearing a simple dark linen tunic. Beside him, Prince Daeron was slouched clumsily in a wooden chair, holding a silver cup with a limp hand, rocking it with the sloppy ease of drink.

“Tell me the truth, Valarr,” Daeron slurred between loose laughter, running a hand through his disheveled hair. “It’s been a year already, cousin. Tell me right here… Have you learned to love your wife yet?”

I froze three steps from the entrance. The linen handkerchief crumpled violently between my fingers. My heart lurched in my chest.

Valarr didn’t answer right away. I instantly recognized the tension that seized his shoulders: the same stiffness he showed every time I spoke to him at dinner, the same exhausted posture that always preceded his polite silence.

“Ugh…” The sound escaped him low, heavy, choked. A weary groan from someone trapped in a sentence he never chose. “Please, cousin. Don’t ask me for what I can’t give.”

Something inside me snapped with a dry crack, a pain so sharp in the center of my chest that I had to clench my teeth just to keep breathing.

“You know perfectly well it’s not her fault,” Valarr continued in a defeated murmur, dragging a trembling hand across his face, completely unaware of my presence. “Gods, I know better than anyone that she’s a virtuous woman, that she tries to please me in every possible way… but I simply can’t help it. If my father hadn’t interfered with his alliances, Kiera would be—”

“Valarr,” Daeron hissed suddenly.

The drunken prince had shot to his feet. The silver cup slipped from his fingers and hit the carpet with a dull thud, spilling a dark pool of wine. Daeron had gone pale as wax, staring fixedly over Valarr’s shoulder.

“Shut up…” he whispered with genuine terror in his eyes. “By the Seven, Valarr, shut up…”

Valarr froze. The hand on his face lowered slowly. And then, very slowly, he turned.

Our eyes met in the middle of the gloom.

I saw the exact, heartbreaking, brutal instant when he realized what I had heard. Every last trace of color drained from his face. For the first time in a year of marriage, I didn’t see the flawless mask of courtesy or the polite distance.

I saw panic. I saw a shame so deep it twisted his features.

And I saw the naked confirmation of something I already knew in the deepest part of my soul: that for a whole year he had been kind to me purely out of pity, and now, trapped by his own carelessness, he had no words to repair what the wine had just shattered.

Daeron muttered a cowardly apology and fled stumbling out of the tent, leaving us completely alone. The distant murmur of the tournament slipped through the seams of the canvas like a mocking echo.

My fingers lost their strength. The embroidered handkerchief slipped from my hand and fell onto the trampled grass, right between us.

“My lady…” Valarr’s voice broke. It was a sound I had never heard from him. He took an involuntary step toward me, raising trembling hands. “I… gods, I didn’t know you were here…”

I didn’t scream. I didn’t raise my voice even a single decibel. Fury or desperation would have required an emotional energy my body no longer possessed. Instead, an absolute, icy void took hold of me, smoothing my features until my face became polished stone.

Inside, the pain wasn’t a fire; it was a thick, freezing poison seeping through my veins, freezing every corner of my chest where I had once sheltered hope. My throat ached from the knot of tears I forced down, my pride was trampled, and above all, it hurt with the absolute certainty that I had been a fool. All those months of anguish, the sleepless nights begging the heavens to make me desirable to my own husband… it all came down to this. To the pity of a man who forced himself to touch me.

Valarr took a step back, unable to hold my gaze. He lowered his eyes to the grass, fixing them on the fallen handkerchief, on the three-headed dragon I had embroidered thread by thread, pricking my fingers in the gloom to have it ready before the tournament.

“You apologize every time you touch me… you thank me like a stranger,” I said in a flat, measured murmur, so devoid of emotion that my own voice sounded foreign. “You make sure I lack nothing… Why? Why does the mere idea of loving me feel like such a terrible insult to you?”

The words fell between us like a block of ice. Valarr froze.

That single word—insult—seemed to pierce his chest. He opened his mouth to justify himself, flustered, eyes wide with sudden panic. He began speaking in a torrent of clumsy excuses, raising his hands desperately, trying to explain his lack of love, his shame, his inability to feel anything for me. He was looking for a reaction, a spark of rage, a scream… anything that proved the woman in front of him was still alive.

But I couldn’t even feel my own breathing or the tingling in my fingers. I was numb.

As he drowned in his own words, I felt the last ember of affection I still held for him extinguish forever. The pain remained, tearing at my insides in a silent scream that would never leave my lips, but on the outside I granted him no comfort in seeing my suffering. I became so cold toward him that I learned his lesson: I turned into an iceberg.

Noticing my immobility, my empty and distant gaze, Valarr’s voice gradually faded. His desperation crashed against my indifference until it left him completely paralyzed. He fell silent, hand half-extended in the air, petrified by the violence of my serenity. He realized, too late, that he wasn’t arguing with a wounded wife, he was speaking to a stranger.

“Forgive me if I have been a bother to you, my prince,” I said at last, breaking the silence with a bow of my head as perfect as it was distant. “All I ever longed for was your affection.”

He shuddered violently, as if those words of submissive resignation hurt him more than a thousand swords.

“No…” he managed to whisper in a shattered thread of voice, unable to take a single step, eyes flooded with water as guilt crushed him. “Please… don’t say that…”

I didn’t even look at the ground. I didn’t bother to bend down and pick up the silk. The embroidered handkerchief, the golden dragon, and all the ridiculous love I had poured into it stayed there, abandoned on the trampled grass.

“I wish you luck in the tournament, my prince,” I added in the same neutral voice.

I turned with a firm step and straight back, letting the sound of my skirts dragging be the only thing that broke the air inside the tent. I left him behind, motionless and destroyed by his own paralysis, alone with his conscience and the wilted silk at his feet.

And yet, in my mind, one miserable question still fluttered:

Will he ever manage to love me?

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pairing: Gwayne Hightower x femreaderTarg

summary: Betrayal wears his face. Loyalty wears mine. And somewhere between fire and silence, we lost each other.

warnings: Angst, heartbreak, canon-typical violence, arranged marriage, character injury, mentions of death, bittersweet.

a/n: This is my first Gwayne Hightower fanfic, so I hope you enjoy it! English isn't my first language, so please forgive any mistakes along the way. I also want to mention that I read something similar a while back that inspired parts of this story. Also, a small note: I'm getting back to all my previous works after some time away, so more updates are coming soon. Thank you for reading!

The torches in the corridor flickered as if even the fire doubted whom to serve. My boots rang against the stone as I ran toward the side doors of the wall, my heart pounding in my throat. I wore only a dark cloak over my dress and clutched the hidden dagger so tightly that my knuckles ached.

My dragon waited for me in the depths of the Dragonpit—that wild beast no rider had ever truly claimed, the one that devoured its own blood without remorse and which the Keepers kept bound in triple chains. I had never fully tamed it; no one could tame something like that. But since I was a child, I had felt that my place was there, among its roars and its fire, more than in any hall of this fortress. I just had to reach it.

“Stop.”

His voice pierced me like a spear. I spun around sharply, my cloak swirling around my legs. Gwayne stood there, blocking the passage, wearing the armor of House Hightower, his hand closed around the hilt of his sword. His fingers didn’t move toward it; they simply rested there, tense, as if he needed something to hold on to. His face… gods, his face. The same face that had smiled at me since we were children running through the gardens of the Red Keep, before his father married me to him to bind me more tightly to this house of vipers. Now it looked carved from marble, his jaw clenched, a vein pulsing slowly at his temple.

“Don’t take another step,” he said, his voice hoarse, as if he had been holding it back for hours.

“Or what, Gwayne?” I spat, advancing toward him anyway, chin held high. “Are you going to kill me? Go ahead. It would be more honest than this.”

He took one step toward me, only one, measured, like someone approaching a wounded animal and his eyes gleamed, wet with pain and determination.

“My father… the Council has already decided. You are the sister of Rhaenyra, daughter of the king’s first wife. As long as you live free, you will be a danger to His Grace Aegon. A banner the Blacks could rally behind.”

“A banner?” I laughed bitterly, a dry sound that broke halfway through. “I’m a woman, Gwayne, not a flag raised in battle. My father died, and before his body had even cooled on the bed, your sister placed a stolen crown on my half-brother’s head while Rhaenyra slept, unaware that they had taken the throne our father swore to her before the entire realm in the Great Council. And you knew. You knew what your father and Ser Criston Cole were plotting, and you slept beside me knowing it. You let me sleep knowing it.”

“I am a Hightower,” he replied, and his voice trembled as if the words physically pained him to speak.

“Yes. That’s been made perfectly clear.” My voice came out cold and sharp, each word hammered like a nail. “Before husband. Before friend. Before the boy who swore to me, hand over his heart, in those same gardens, that he would always stand by my side. A Hightower first, always. I should have known from the beginning.”

“And you are my wife!” His voice rose, cracking into something that sounded almost like a plea, and he took another step, closing the distance between us.

“Your prisoner!” I shouted, tears already streaming down my cheeks even as I kept my face hard, my gaze fixed on his without blinking, the way my father had taught a princess of Valyrian blood should carry herself. “Say it. Don’t insult me with euphemisms, not after everything we’ve been to each other. At least have the courage to call it by its name, the way your sister had the courage to steal a crown.”

Gwayne clenched his jaw so tightly I heard his teeth grind. He took another step. We were so close I could smell the leather and steel of his armor the same scent I had breathed against his neck on so many nights and I hated that my body still recognized him as a refuge, that my hands trembled with the urge to cling to him instead of pushing him away.

“You are not my prisoner,” he whispered, his voice breaking on the last syllable. “It’s just… you can’t leave. Not now. It’s dangerous. For you. For us.”

“Us?” My voice shattered into a broken, almost hysterical laugh. “There is no ‘us,’ Gwayne. There never really was. I was only the king’s daughter your house needed to keep under lock and key, the dragon blood that gave legitimacy to your name. All that tenderness, all those years… was any part of it real, or was it just your way of keeping me quiet until this moment arrived?”

I saw those words strike him in the chest: his shoulders sank an inch, his hand finally released the sword hilt and fell uselessly to his side.

“You know that’s not true,” he said, and for the first time his voice sounded as shattered as mine, a raw whisper. “I have loved you since the day I met you… before I knew what my name meant, before I knew what yours meant.”

“Then prove it.” I extended my hand toward the door, toward the freedom I knew was only a few meters away, my voice firm and regal. “As your princess, I command you to let me go.”

My voice did not break there. I kept it hard, chin raised, eyes dry for a moment through sheer force of will, with all the dragon blood that still ran through my veins even though his house had decided it no longer mattered.

But he did not move. He only shook his head slowly, eyes closing for a second as if the gesture hurt him physically.

“Then as your wife,” my voice broke completely, tears falling unchecked, the hand I held out trembling in the air, “as the love of your life, as your best friend since we were children… I beg you, Gwayne. Let me go. I implore you.”

The silence that followed was more painful than any scream. I watched his eyes fill with tears he refused to shed, blinking rapidly to hold them back, his hand trembling in the air between us, fingers opening and closing halfway, unable to decide whether to touch me.

“If you leave,” he whispered, his voice wrecked, almost inaudible, “I lose you forever. And if you stay locked up here… I fear I will earn your hatred with every passing day.”

“Then you’ve already lost me.” I closed the final step that separated us until my voice was barely a breath against his ear, feeling him hold his breath. “You lost me the day you let them crown a usurper and said nothing.”

He stepped back from the doorway, retreating as if my words had physically pushed him.

He said nothing more. There was no need. I walked past him, so close I felt the tremor of his body, the cold air filling the space where warmth had been, and ran out into the night, toward the Dragonpit, toward the roars I could recognize among a thousand, toward the only loyalty no stolen crown could buy.

“And if we meet on the battlefield?” his voice reached me just before the darkness swallowed me, broken, almost a plea.

I stopped dead. I did not turn.

“Then pray to the Seven, Ser Gwayne. Because my dragon recognizes no loyalties, no surnames, no marriage vows. And after tonight, neither do I.”

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The roar of Meleys faded among the flames, and with it something inside me broke that I didn’t know could still break.

I watched Rhaenys Targaryen fall from the back of her dragon. I saw Vhagar’s jaws close around the neck with a violence that froze my blood even before my mind could fully process what I was witnessing. The impact against the walls of Rook’s Rest shook the entire sky. A column of fire rose where a legend had once stood, and for one eternal instant, I couldn’t breathe.

Rhaenys. Dead.

I didn’t think. I didn’t calculate anything. I yanked the reins so hard I felt the leather cut into my palms, and my dragon understood before I finished giving the order: retreat. We had already lost too much. There was no battle left to win here—only more bodies to add to the ashes. We descended in a sharp turn, fleeing the tangle of fire and stone where Vhagar still roared in victory, seeking the path back toward the forest, toward any place that was not this hell.

That was when I saw him.

Gwayne, below, among the City Watch men, his sword still sheathed and his face turned toward the sky. Toward me. For one absurd, stupid second, I felt something like relief: he was alive. After everything we had said to each other, everything we had done to each other, some idiotic part of me still needed to know he was breathing.

Then he raised his arm.

He didn’t run toward the forest. He didn’t cover his face in horror at Rhaenys’s death like the others. He raised his arm and pointed toward the sky, toward me, and shouted something the wind tore from my ears before I could fully understand it. But I didn’t need to hear it. I saw the archers around him draw their bows. I saw them aim. I saw him, my husband, the boy who had sworn to protect me in the gardens of the Red Keep, give the order to shoot me down from the sky like a common raven.

“Gwayne,” I whispered, though he could never have heard me from that height, though the word dissolved in my mouth along with the last scrap of hope I had that anything human still remained beneath that armor.

The arrows flew.

Most were lost in the wind, falling far below us, harmless. But one struck my dragon’s wing, and another hit me, just below the shoulder, with a pain so sudden and so white that for an instant the entire world shrank to that single burning sensation tearing through my flesh. I screamed. I couldn’t help it. My dragon felt my pain through our bond and roared, thrashing in the air, and that sudden movement was enough for my already weak, trembling hand to lose its grip on the reins.

I looked down one last time.

Gwayne was still there. He hadn’t lowered his arm. And on his face, gods, on his face there was no triumph, no soldier’s satisfaction at a duty fulfilled. There was horror. Pure, raw horror, the same horror that must have been written across my own face because in the instant the arrow pierced me, I understood that he could no longer undo what he had done. That he had ordered a dragon shot down without knowing, without wanting to know, what the price would be. Or maybe he did know. Maybe some cold, calculating part of him had decided that my life was an acceptable price for his house’s victory.

I will never know. Because in that moment my body slid from the saddle, the sky and earth swapped places, and all I could feel was the wind tearing the air from my lungs as I fell.

I fell for what felt like an eternity and, at the same time, no time at all. Strangely and distantly, I thought of my father’s face when he taught me to ride my first horse. I thought of Rhaenyra, of her laugh, of the promise I had made to stand by her side until the end, a promise I could no longer keep. And against my will, against all the hatred I had sworn to feel for him, I thought of Gwayne. Of his hands. Of the first time he kissed me, so clumsy and so sincere that I laughed against his mouth. Of how those same hands, only moments ago, had pointed at the sky and decided I should fall.

The lake water hit me like a wall of stone.

The cold was so absolute, so devastating, that for a moment it even drowned out the pain of the wound. I sank, my soaked clothes dragging me down, the blood from my shoulder tinting the dark water around me in swirls I couldn’t see but could feel, hot against the cold that enveloped me. I tried to swim. I tried to find the surface. But my arms no longer obeyed me, and the darkness of the lake merged with the darkness closing over my eyes. Somewhere far away, high above the water, I could still see my husband’s face with his arm raised, frozen in the exact instant he decided his house mattered more than I did.

It was the last thing I thought before everything went black:

That he had chosen. That, in the end, I had always known.

Pain dragged me back to the surface not of the water, but of unconsciousness.

I opened my eyes with a gasp, and the first thing I saw was not the sky but the rough bark of an old tree I was leaning against. My clothes weighed a ton, soaked with freezing water that made me shiver uncontrollably, and my shoulder… gods, my shoulder burned as if they were pressing a red-hot iron into the flesh.

“No.”

Gwayne.

He was kneeling in front of me, those same hands that I had seen raised against the sky giving the order that nearly killed me now pressing a piece of cloth torn from his own cloak against my shoulder wound. His face was pale, almost gray in the moonlight, streaked with dirt and what could only be dried tears. His eyes, wide open, were fixed on mine with a desperation I had never seen in him, not even the day I begged him to let me go.

Rage arrived before words. It came like fire, burning my dry throat, and I opened my mouth to scream at him, to ask how he dared touch me after raising his arm against me, after ordering me filled with arrows like a hunted animal—

“Shhh.”

His hand left the wound for a moment and settled over my mouth, gentle but firm, silencing me before I could utter a single syllable. I felt the tremor in his fingers against my lips, a tremor he couldn’t hide no matter how hard he tried.

“Don’t speak,” he whispered, his voice wrecked, barely a thread. “Please. There are soldiers nearby. If they hear you, if they know you’re alive…”

He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to. We both knew what they would do to a Targaryen princess who had escaped her own execution in the sky.

I bit his palm. Not hard enough to draw blood, but enough to make him pull his hand back with a stifled hiss, surprised. In his eyes I saw something that, in any other life, in any other war, might have made us laugh together.

“You,” I managed to whisper, my voice broken, scraping every word as if tearing it from inside me. “You gave the order.”

Gwayne seemed to shrink under my gaze. He lowered his head, clenching his jaw so tightly I heard his teeth grind, and pressed the cloth back against my shoulder. The pain made me gasp, but I didn’t look away. I wanted him to see the hatred in my eyes. I wanted him to feel the weight of his betrayal in every breath.

“My dragon…” I managed to say, anguish momentarily overcoming the rage. “Where is it?”

Gwayne didn’t answer right away. He finished adjusting the makeshift bandage and slowly turned his head to the right. I followed his gaze, holding my breath.

A few meters away, in a small hollow in the ground, lay my dragon. It was there, a dark and menacing shadow among the trees, its black scales gleaming faintly in the moonlight filtering through the canopy. It was breathing heavily, with a rhythmic, throaty sound that made the fallen leaves tremble around it. It had an arrow lodged in its wing, but it was still alive. Relief flooded me, so strong it made me release a choked sob.

“How did you find me?” I asked, turning back to him, distrust coloring my voice. “How did you know where we were?”

“Don’t ask questions,” he answered hoarsely, without looking at me. He was picking up his sword and helmet from the ground. “We have to move. We can’t stay here.”

The coldness of his response, the way he avoided my questions, made me understand the true dimension of what had happened. He hadn’t saved me out of love or remorse. He had saved me because he was still a Hightower, and I remained a valuable piece in his game of thrones.

I began to cry. It wasn’t a contained weeping—it was a heartbreaking sob that rose from the deepest part of my being. I cried for Rhaenys, for Gwayne’s betrayal, for the future that had been stolen from us.

“This wasn’t what I saw in our future together,” I sobbed, tears sliding down my cold cheeks. “I saw the gardens of Oldtown, horseback rides along the beach, the children we would have… I didn’t see this. I didn’t see war, or blood, or betrayal.”

Gwayne stopped. He stood motionless, his back to me, shoulders slumped. Several eternal seconds passed before he turned and looked at me. In his eyes I saw a pain as deep as my own, reflected in every line of his face.

“And I truly understood,” I continued, my voice broken by sobs. “I understood why you couldn’t stand by my side. You are a Hightower. Your loyalty is to your house, to your family. I understand. I really do. But why did it have to be you? Why did you have to be the one who gave the order?”

The silence of the forest enveloped us for a moment, broken only by the whisper of the icy wind through the treetops and the heavy, throaty breathing of my dragon in the distance. Gwayne didn’t silence me again; he simply sank down beside me, leaning his back against the rough bark of the same trunk. He wrapped his arm around me and pulled me against his chest with almost desperate strength, as if he feared the air itself might make me vanish. I stayed there, shivering, feeling the heat of his body trying in vain to penetrate my soaked clothes, wrapped in that scent of leather, smoke, and steel that took me back to a life that no longer belonged to us.

I rested my head on his shoulder, feeling the cold metal of his armor against my cheek, and let the tears flow freely, whispering into the air the life that crowns and duty had stolen from us:

“We were supposed to be together in Oldtown,” I murmured, my voice raspy and broken by crying. “Raising our children… maybe a couple of mischievous boys and a beautiful girl. We would watch them run through the gardens while we whispered nonsense in each other’s ears, oblivious to the rest of the world. And then… then we would travel to King’s Landing for Rhaenyra’s birthday. She would steal me from your side at the first opportunity, just so she could complain in peace about her grumpy husband, only to eventually abandon her complaints with that smile that showed how deeply in love she was. I would laugh, happy because at the end of the night it would be you and me again. That was always my favorite moment of the day… when the world faded away and only you and I existed.”

Gwayne let out a small laugh, a soft, melancholy sound that vibrated in his chest against my face.

“Two of those children… I hope they would have inherited your beautiful silver hair,” he whispered, his gaze lost in the shadows of the forest. “And while you were hiding with your sister, I would be with mine, trying to calm her down. We would look at each other from across the hall and sigh over the Targaryens who drive us crazy.”

A sweet and profoundly painful silence floated between us. A mirage, a beautiful fantasy disintegrating with every second that passed.

Gwayne let out a heavy sigh, a sound that carried the weight of the world, and gently pulled away from me. He took me by the shoulders with a delicacy that contrasted with the brutality of war and looked me in the eyes with a firmness that chilled my blood.

“You have to get up,” he said, his voice tight with brutal restraint. “I’ll help you mount your dragon. You have to go to Dragonstone. You have to return to your family.”

I snorted, letting out a bitter, blood-and-water-choked laugh.

“My family is you,” I pleaded, clutching the folds of his cloak with numb fingers. “Please, My love… survive. Don’t die in this madness. I beg you.”

He looked at me with such tragic devotion that it tore my soul apart. With the back of his rough, cold hand, he wiped one of the tears running down my cheek with infinite tenderness.

“Don’t cry anymore, my love… don’t cry,” he whispered, his own voice breaking on the last word. “I will survive if you do. But you can’t stay here. Your place is flying high, far from this massacre.”

“Come with me,” I said suddenly, a spark of desperate, almost childish hope igniting in my chest. “Join my side. Let’s fight together, back to back, the way it should have been from the beginning.”

Gwayne shook his head slowly, letting out a sad laugh with no trace of mockery. He leaned in and pressed his lips to mine in a desperate, warm kiss that tasted of salt, iron, and an inevitable farewell.

“I loved feeling the warmth of my wife again, even if only for a few brief minutes,” he whispered against my lips, pressing his forehead to mine as our breaths mingled. “But once you take flight and cross those clouds… we will be enemies again. My duty is to my house, and yours to yours.”

A new wave of pain pierced my chest, sharper than the arrow itself. I stared at him, burning every feature of his face, the line of his jaw, the shadows under his eyes into my memory, as if trying to preserve him from the monster the war would force us to become once more.

“I hope I can end my days by your side,” I whispered, letting my fingers brush his cheek one last time before forcing myself to step back toward the shadow of my dragon. “And if the gods are so cruel as to deny us that in this life… I swear I will find you in all the others.”

He held my face for a second that felt eternal, memorizing every trace of my skin as if he too feared he might never see me again. Then, with a slowness that must have cost him every drop of willpower, his fingers slipped from my cheeks. I immediately felt the cold of the night slip into the space where his touch had been.

Gwayne did not turn immediately. He stepped back, eyes fixed on me, gripping the hilt of his sword until his knuckles turned white. The shadow of the trees slowly began to devour him. One step. Two steps. The moonlight barely reached the reflections of his armor, gradually turning him into a distant silhouette. He paused only for an instant at the edge of the underbrush, giving me one last look filled with shattered love and implacable guilt, before turning and disappearing completely into the dense darkness of the forest.

The silence his absence left was more deafening than any dragon’s roar.

He’s gone, I thought, feeling the cold of the lake water and the loss of blood beginning to numb my body again. He’s gone back to his side, to his house, to the war his family started. I leaned my back against my dragon’s side, feeling the throaty warmth radiating from its scales and the heavy beat of its heart as the only refuge I had left in the world. The irony stung in my chest as much as the arrow in my shoulder: the same man who had ordered me shot down from the sky was the same one who had brought me back to life on the shore of an icy lake. He had saved me only to return me to the slaughter, condemning me to live in a world where the only man I loved wore the armor of the enemy.

If the gods wanted me to survive this night, I would. Not for Rhaenyra’s crown, nor for the vengeance of my father’s blood, but to make sure that when the skies burned again with fire and blood, I would be there to find him.

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