ঌ STARFALL
FEATURING: aerion targaryen x fem!reader
SUMMARY: the golden company arrives in lys, and aerion is forced into unfortunate situation after unfortunate situation in his attempts to avoid capture. but he realizes that he is not the only one the blackfyres are here for, and he does not know how to cope with the fact that he might lose you for good.
WARNINGS: fem!reader, reader comes from valyrian lineage but no physical traits are mentioned/described. the high valyrian is not properly translated because we don’t know the words for the words I needed so bear with me LOL. aerion's narration is well aerion aufhsduhf LOL he has fantasies of violence and love in the same breath. implications of valyrian exceptionalism from reader/jaenys with how they talk about targaryens/blackfyres but it's not explicit. mentions/references to pegging/aerion "unwillingly" fantasizing about it LOL. aerion is forcibly drugged at one point. brief reference to/mention of abuse of sex workers in lys. choking. there are implications of rape/torture in the first scene when reader & aerion are talking about what could happen if the blackfyres get their hands on him or realize what she's doing. brief self-harm (aerion holds the blade of a dagger against his hand too tight trying to ground himself). switch!reader, switch!aerion (as always).
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Yayyyyyy I hope you guys enjoy this part. It's the longest so far and will probably be the longest generally, I don't see myself ever writing an installment as long as this one LOLL (except maybe when they get married we'll see). But my god this one was a total beast and gave me so much trouble LOLLLLL. I have my first exam on Friday and another Monday, so wish me luck euhuhuuhhuhuhuh. I left one longer note at the end because I don't want to spoil anything that takes place in this part. Also here’s an art I got done of some of the more notable Volantene universe ocs, if you guys are curious. Anyway, comments and reblogs always appreciated! I hope you guys enjoy!
READ: EPHEMERAL
“Get up,” Aerion hears, blinking blearily as his sheets are ripped off his body. “Aerion, get up! Now!”
What the fuck—
Half awake, Aerion’s heart races as he pushes himself into a sitting position, trying to figure out what the fuck is happening. The only reason he doesn’t reach for his blade is that he recognizes your voice. He lets out a disgruntled noise when he feels fingers grab his cheeks hard, glaring when he sees your face inches from his.
Outraged, he sees movement from the corner of his eye and realizes that you did not come alone.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he demands, still trying to wake himself up. He tries to look to the side to see who the fuck you brought into his chambers, but your grip on his face tightens. He grimaces, giving you an annoyed look. “Answer me, you miserable wench. Why—”
“The Golden Company is in Lys,” you say, and Aerion doesn’t think that he hears you correctly at first, staring at you blankly. “Caelyx has clothes for you. Get up, and get dressed now.”
“What did you just s—”
Aerion’s head snaps to the left, a sharp pain spreading through his cheek as he stares at the open balcony looking over Magister Vyrano’s manse.
Did you just strike him?
His tongue darts out to wet his lips, brows furrowing in disbelief. Before he can look back at you and demand to know what the fuck is the matter with you, he feels your hands cradling his face, forcing you to look at him again.
“Aerion, wake the fuck up,” you say again, and he should be angry—he is angry, his chest is hot and bubbling, and his face stings, and indignity and pride flare terribly, and it all fizzles when he hears the fear plain in your voice. He’s never heard you sound this way before. He’s heard you furious, mocking, teasing, happy, but never scared. “Get up, and get dressed now. Stop asking questions. We do not have time.”
Aerion stares at you for a moment longer before he pushes himself out of bed, hardly given a chance to orient himself, before someone—your whore, Aerion realizes disdainfully, the silver-haired pillow boy who always attaches himself to you—is forcing silk chiffon over his shoulders. He looks at the white fabric that he’s being dressed in: revealing and clinging in a way that feels entirely inappropriate for the situation. Dress for a whore, not a prince. And then he looks at the fitted leathers you’re wearing, the red cape attached to your shoulder, the sword at your hip, and he shoves your whore away from him, sneering as he watches him stumble back into a table.
“I am not fucking wearing this,” he spits furiously. “What the fuck is going on?”
“You’re going to wear whatever the fuck I tell you to wear,” you reply, undeterred by his fraying temper. You step closer again, and you grab his cheeks to force him to look at you. You don’t let him yank his face away when he tries. “We need to get you out of the manse and into one of the whorehouses so that your kin don’t come and slit your throat. I’ve arranged for the Second Sons to take you on a ship out of Lys to the Disputed Lands, but the ship doesn’t leave until tomorrow morning, and they cannot leave earlier without drawing suspicion. So for the next day, you’re going to be Ari of Lys, dragon prince, and Aerion Targaryen will have left Lys a moon ago because he grew bored with whores and wine. Do you understand?”
Aerion shakes his head, and when your whore tries to get the clothes on him again, he raises his hand furiously, threatening to put his fist into his face. You immediately raise your hand in response, threatening to strike him again. Aerion gapes at you, betrayed.
“If you strike him, dragon prince, I will parade you around as you are,” you hiss, pointedly looking down at his current state: bare-chested and hair sleep-mussed. “Caelyx was kind enough to let you borrow his silks so that you may not be entirely indecent when you step outside. Or would you prefer to be dragged through the streets half-naked for all of Lys to admire?”
“It is transparent,” Aerion says furiously. “I may as well be bare.”
“It is disguising,” you shoot back. “No one will look twice at another silver-haired whore on an island full of silver-haired whores.”
“I am not a fucking whore.”
“You will be whatever the fuck I tell you to be if it keeps you alive,” you shout. Then you exhale, rubbing your face. “Aerion, please—they are docking, they have probably already docked by now. We do not have time for this.”
Frustrated, Aerion glares at you, and then he glares at your whore, who has the audacity to give him a sweet smile. Aerion bares his teeth at the boy, a disgusted expression on his face as he returns to dressing him in the soft silks.
Aerion spits, “How many men have you let fuck you in this?”
The whore raises his eyebrows, lips curled up. “They are my special silks, prince,” he purrs. He looks pointedly at you as he answers, “Only one person has fucked me in them.”
Aerion’s blood pressure skyrockets, pulse thudding dangerously in his ears as he turns to look at your whore. There’s no way that he’s being dressed in something that another man was wearing while you fucked him. The boy only gives him a smug smile, and Aerion’s gaze cuts toward you, questioning, and he blanches when he sees your eyes slide shut.
Instead of denying it, you give your whore a long look—a warning.
Aerion gapes again. “You cannot be serious,” he hisses at you, ripping his arm away when your whore tries to finish dressing him. “Will you—”
“We do not have the time for this,” you say through your teeth, turning a cold look on Aerion now, as though Aerion isn’t the victim in this situation. “Caelyx, stop antagonizing him. Aerion, get dressed.”
Aerion’s nostrils flare as he inhales deeply, tongue pressing against the back of his teeth as he wills himself to calm down. His gaze flicks back toward the open balcony as your whore—Caelyx—returns to wrapping him in the fine silks. He can’t see anything—Aerion’s balcony faces the west, and Lys’s ports are to the north, but he’s heard enough about the Golden Company in passing to imagine the fleet of ships with golden banners docking in the harbor. Recent reports have put their numbers at over twelve thousand—all of Essos has been whispering about them since the sacking of Qohor.
“How many are here?” he asks you, jaw tight.
“Enough,” you answer, arms folded over your chest as you stand in the doorframe of his chambers, one hand on the hilt of your sword, looking down the hall, as though you expect Aegor Rivers to come barreling down any moment. Aerion’s heart is pounding, he realizes, as the situation finally begins to hit him. “One of my harbor boys came running to me as soon as he saw the gold banners in the distance. I came here as soon as I got everything handled.”
Aerion lets out a sharp breath through his nose, dragging his hand through his hair as he paces once across the room, away from your whore, silk clinging to him in a way that makes his skin crawl.
“After you got everything handled,” he echoes, incredulous, turning on you, trying to turn the nasty panic that climbs his throat into something more manageable: anger. “Instead of waking me, you decided to—what—build a whole fucking scheme while I was asleep?”
“I did not have time to argue with you first,” you hiss. “By the time I reached the harbor to confirm the banners, the first ship was a mile out from docking. I—”
“You should have come to me first,” he interrupts, heat rising in his chest. “You should have—”
“Aerion.”
Aerion’s teeth grind, something uncertain spiking in his chest with his heart rate as he fists his hands at his side to hide the way his fingers tremble—he pretends it is fury and not fear. You look back over at him, gaze lingering on the way the sheer silks cling to his slim hips, hiding little more than necessary—barely what is necessary. He glares at you, but there is a lump in his throat, and he cannot swallow it away.
Aerion could die today.
There is a really good chance that Aerion will die today.
He exhales as he paces over to the balcony. When his back is to you and your whore, he lifts shaking fingers to his chest, over his rapidly beating heart. The last time it beat like this—wild and erratic, like it was trying to tear itself out of his chest—was during the Trial of Seven. In the mud, with blood in his mouth, in his eyes, iron on his tongue, vision blurring and head half in the clouds because he lost so much blood, staring up at a hedge knight who could have killed him if he wanted.
He had been afraid.
He’d been lying in the muck; he knew he had lost even before he yielded. He knew it the moment the oaf stood back up after Aerion had given it his all. He had no energy left, and he was bleeding out, and when he hit the ground that final time, he knew that he wasn’t going to get up. He remembers hearing his father yelling for him—my boy, Aerion! My boy!—and he remembers thinking that at least he would die in battle, at least he would die with his father’s voice in his ears, he would die knowing that his father cared enough to fight for him, to beg for him.
He is afraid now.
And there is no oaf in front of him this time, no enemy wielding a blade that he can try to strike down, and no father to save him; just ships on the horizon, men he cannot see yet, and the suffocating feeling of knowing that they are coming from him. The Blackfyres are here, on this island, searching for him, and there’s nothing he will be able to do if they find him. There will be no yielding, no surrender. If they figure out he is here, they will cut his throat, and he will die cowering in silks instead of armor, in silence instead of with his father’s voice in his ears.
He wonders, briefly and bitterly, if Maekar will even care.
Probably not—no, there’s no probably about it. His father will not care. He did not care when Aerion was choking over his own blood, hardly able to speak, when he delivered the news that he would be sent across the Narrow Sea. He did not care to hear Aerion beg him not to do this, did not care when Aerion reopened the stitches on his thigh, trying to scramble after him when he turned his back on his own son. His father knew that the Blackfyres and their allies were across the Narrow Sea. Knew that this was a risk. And he sent Aerion here anyway. Aerion died to Maekar the moment Baelor’s heart stopped beating.
He will not care.
Maybe, even, he was hoping for this.
A tragedy to befall the mad prince that he can work into a way to gather sympathy back home. Aerion was never useful to him alive, cost him far more than he was worth, but maybe in death—
Distantly, he hears you tell your whore to leave and then your boots clicking against the ground as you make your way over to him. He half wants to tell you to fuck off, to let him handle this himself, that he doesn’t need nor want your help, and he can face the Blackfyres himself, but then you slip your arms around his waist, rest your forehead against his shoulder blades, and the protests die on his lips. His throat bobs as your hand slides up his torso so that your palm is over his heart, feeling the rapid, fluttering pace of it.
“Do you trust me?” you ask quietly, lips against his shoulder.
It terrifies him how easily the answer comes to him. “Yes.”
“Then trust me,” you say. “Go with Caelyx. He will bring you to the Perfumed Garden. The First Magister and I will be meeting the Golden Company in the central square. The Garden sits on the north end of the central square. You will be able to watch and listen to what we say to the Golden Company, and if things go south, Caelyx will make sure you get to the west side of the city and—”
“And what about you?” Aerion demands, whirling around to face you. “If things go south, you expect me to cower and hide while you—” While you die. He cannot even bring himself to say it. “I will not. You cannot expect that of me. You—”
“I’ll be fine,” you say dismissively. “I—”
“Do not take me for a fool,” he hisses. “There is a reason you are armed.”
You press your lips together, staring at him for a long while, and Aerion feels sick. They are here for him, they will kill him if they get their hands on him, and you are trying to send him away so they cannot, but if they realize what you’re doing, they will kill you.
Aerion might die today, and Aerion might get you killed today, too.
He has never felt so useless before.
“They won’t kill me if things go south,” you finally say, shaking your head, and Aerion bristles, because you do take him for a fool and he should see your tongue removed for it, but all he can do is try to swallow his own as fear claws at his chest. “They won’t, Aerion. They will not risk making an enemy of Volantis. We have been over this before. If anything, they will take me hostage and—”
And what the hell do sellsword companies do with their hostages? he wants to scream at you. You are capable, he knows this. You are capable, and you are influential, and you are dangerous, but you are a woman. He wants to shake you to make you understand—if they take you hostage, then—
“They will do worse to you if they get their hands on you,” you say quietly. “They will make a spectacle of you. They will want something to show for it—something to carry back across the Narrow Sea and boast of. The Brightflame finally put out, the mad dragon tamed. They will keep you alive long enough for word to spread, long enough for your family to send men after you, and while they have you alive, they will do everything they can to break you—”
Aerion does not need to hear this from you. Doesn’t like the way it makes his skin crawl.
“You are a fool if you think they would break me,” Aerion says through his teeth. “They—”
“They will,” you interrupt, voice so firm that it makes a chill run down his spine. “Aerion, they will break you. They will take their time, and they will make you into something that can be passed from hand to hand, something they can laugh over and parade about as a prize to mock your family. And once word has spread, and there is nothing left of you worth keeping, then they will kill you.”
“I would sooner kill myself,” Aerion hisses, but his stomach is turning, and the room feels too small, and the silk is too tight, and the air is too thin. “I would—”
You grab his face between your hands hard, pinching his cheeks, and Aerion loathes what you must see in your eyes to make the frustration and anger drain the way it does into something softer, grip on his face more gentle as your thumbs stroke his cheekbones.
“They would not let you, Aerion. Please stop fighting me. We do not have time for this.”
He glares at you, fury and indignation rising rapidly in his chest, because he knows that you are right. He knows it in the way his pulse will not slow, in the way his thoughts keep circling back to the same suffocating end, no matter how hard he tries to twist them into something else. He knows, and he hates it, hates that you have named it, hates that you are forcing him to look at it, to feel it.
Will his father even care?
Will Maekar spare a second thought or go on his merry way?
“Do you trust me?” you ask again, firmer this time.
Aerion’s jaw tightens, and he nods.
“Then trust me,” you repeat, hands sliding from his cheeks to hold the back of his head, fingers threading through silver hair. “Trust me. Please. I need to meet with the First Magister before the Golden Company reaches the central square. Go with Caelyx and listen to him. He will relay everything else I don’t have the time to explain, okay?”
Aerion does not like it. He stares at you, and he is angry and helpless and so frustrated that he can feel his stomach churning, and he knows you know it from the way your eyes search his, begging him to just agree, not to make things more difficult.
He lets out a noise caught between a scoff and a sigh. “Fine. Fuck. Fine. But I do not like this at all, and if things go wrong—”
If things go wrong, then what? He’ll be dead, or worse. You’ll be dead, or worse.
His throat bobs as he swallows.
Still, you say with a smile, “If things go wrong, you may hate me for it, and you may tell me I told you so when we meet in hell.”
Aerion snorts. “That is not funny, wench.”
You hum, lips still curved up. “It is kind of funny.”
“Not even slightly.”
You laugh, leaning in to press your forehead against his temple, and he sighs, eyes sliding shut. You ghost your lips against his cheekbone, and then turn his face slightly to the side so that you can brush your lips against his.
You say quietly, “Pāsagon nyke. Nyke gīmigon skoros iksan gaomagon.”
Trust me. I know what I’m doing.
“Gaoman pāsagon ao,” he murmurs. “Issa pōnta qilōni gaoman daor pāsagon.”
I do trust you. It is they whom I do not trust.
He feels you smile against his lips. The nerve.
“Eman ossēntan lēda qubykta vali,” you tell him, brushing your fingers through his hair. “Mirri kessa ivestragon iksan qubykta vali.”
I have dealt with worse men. Some would say I am worse men.
Aerion scoffs, but he finds himself smiling. “Iksā iā mittys, iksis skoros iksā,” he replies, voice weaker than he intends for it to be. “Māzigon arlī naejot nyke. Konir sagon iā udrāzma.”
You are a fool, is what you are. Return to me. That is an order.
Your lips curve up again, and you tilt your face to ghost your lips against his temple. “Kesan va moriot māzigon arlī naejot ao, zaldrīzes dārilaros.”
I will always return to you, dragon prince.
It should bring him some semblance of comfort, but the pit in his stomach only worsens.
———————
“You should be paying attention to me, prince,” your whore drawls as he leans against the doorframe to the room Aerion is waiting in. “I am trying to teach you how to behave properly as a courtesan.”
Aerion’s eye twitches, but he doesn’t look back at him, staring into the central square as you talk quietly to the First Magister, standing between him and his son, several of the Second Sons and the magister’s household guard lingering behind the three of you.
This is the first time he’s seen the man look so serious—he’s always been quick to smile, friendly enough to be overlooked, though you are quick to tell Aerion that he is quite the cruel gossip behind closed doors. A vicious tongue and sharp mind to match, because one does not become First Magister in Lys without both at his disposal.
Aerion has always dismissed it when you would tell him this; he’s never been able to reconcile the man you lauded as quick-witted and ruthless with the jovial man he portrays himself as, but now he can, with the way his eyes are cold and expression is stern as he stares in the direction of the ports, head tilted slightly toward you as he listens to whatever you’re saying. His son stands slightly behind the two of you, stiff, hand on the pommel of a decorative sword, gaze flicking nervously, visibly taking deep breaths to calm himself.
“Did you know Marcellus asked her to marry him when she first arrived in Lys?” Caelyx says as he makes his way over to where Aerion is sitting, lounging on the cushions across from him. Aerion gives him a cool look, but the whore only raises his eyebrows, smiling easily, as though the Golden Company isn’t about to come down on Lys.
“Who the fuck is Marcellus?”
Caelyx lets out a huff of laughter and then nods out to where you’re standing. Aerion realizes he must be referring to the First Magister’s son—Aerion never even bothered to learn the idiot’s name. He scoffs and says, “Him? He is a fool. I once saw him trip over his own silks walking into a feast. Nearly took half the table with him. Then had a servant whipped to make it seem as though it was her fault.”
“He is an idiot,” Caelyx agrees, taking a sip of wine, unbothered, “but he is also pretty, and he is also cruel, so that makes him just her type.”
Aerion sneers, gaze flicking back out to where he’s standing just a smidge too close to you. He isn’t sure if he’d go so far as to say pretty—he’s sun-kissed, tall and thin, not toned, missing the lean muscle Aerion has, missing the silver-gold hair of Valyria, even if he does have the purple eyes. It’s a tawny brown instead, braided over his shoulder; he finds himself shaking his head, a scoff on his lips.
No, Aerion thinks bitterly, not pretty at all. Not nearly your type.
“She liked him well enough for a few months,” Caelyx notes, smiling to himself as he watches the square. “Lasted longer than most, poor boy actually thought she might marry him. Eight whole moons, then he didn’t exist to her anymore. The two of you are coming up on that, aren’t you?”
Aerion stills, gaze sliding from the square to the whore sitting on the cushions next to him—too close to him, too smug. Aerion does not have time for this. Does not have time or patience. The Golden Company will arrive any moment, but—
—but he does not like the mockery in his tone. The implication. Aerion is not stupid, he knows what your whore is trying to say, and it settles very, very poorly.
Caelyx leans in a little, so close that Aerion can smell the cherry wine on his tongue. “I could teach you to pleasure her,” he murmurs, leaning in closer to brush his lips against Aerion’s ear. “So that she does not become bored with you like she does everyone else.”
Aerion shoves him away hard, seething. “I should take your tongue, whore,” he spits. “Who do you think you are?”
Caelyx is unbothered, smiling still as he leans back against the cushions again. “I only mean to help, prince—”
“My prince.”
“Would that you were,” Caelyx drawls smugly. “Think on it. We both know she grows bored easily, and we both know that in the five years she’s been here, she’s never grown bored of me. I love nothing more than to be of use. We could have fun—the three of us.”
“Do not speak to me again,” Aerion says through his teeth. “If you speak to me again, I will have your tongue removed, and not even she will be able to save you.”
“Did you know that sometimes she enjoys taking the lead?” Caelyx continues, unperturbed, silver hair falling in his eyes as he tilts his head to the side. As Aerion’s about to spit out a yes, reminded of the countless times you forced him onto his back and climbed on top of him, Caelyx adds, “In ways most men are too proud to learn.”
Aerion pauses, brows furrowing as he casts a side eye toward the whore, unsure of what exactly he is implying. He fights a snarl when he’s met with another too smug smile.
Caelyx only smiles wider. “It can feel good for men too, prince,” he purrs, leaning in again. “Taking it the way a woman does. She knows how to make it feel good.”
Aerion’s face burns hot as soon as Caelyx’s words register. He flounders, lips parting, attention drawing from the square fully now. Vile words threaten to burst from his lips, pride and indignity warring, insult for this whore to say something so crude, but they die in his throat, strangled by the heat that floods his chest and the unwelcome flicker of curiosity that follows. He hides it with a scoff, but—
His thoughts traitorously cling to the idea, envisioning what your whore dared to imply. He can see it too easily—your hands on Caelyx, pushing him back against the bed, holding him there, his head tipped back, mouth parted, gasping, moaning, violet eyes rolled back as you press deep inside him and take what you want.
Something green and ugly twists in Aerion’s chest, breath quickening, rage curdling, and then—
Then it turns. Then it is your hands on him instead, firm at his hips, nails digging into his skin as you force him down, as you hold him there, and all he can do is take everything you’re willing to give him. It would be a fight—everything is always a fight with the two of you, a war for dominance with blood drawn and bruises painted on smooth skin. He would not yield to you, not so willingly, not like your whore, but you would make him yield, and Aerion would—he would enjoy it. Aerion has never let anyone take control like that, has never given it, has never even considered it. The very idea should disgust him, should make him recoil the way he did just a moment ago, but it doesn’t.
He chokes, breath catching in his throat, heat flooding his face as he realizes how much his thoughts have drifted—that Caelyx has noticed it too, from the way satisfied expression on his face—and Aerion jerks his gaze away like he’s been struck.
“Shut up,” he snaps hoarsely, jaw clenched so tight it aches, because he cannot tell if he wants to rip Caelyx’s throat out for saying it or himself for imagining it.
Luckily, or unluckily, maybe, Caelyx does not have the opportunity to respond, because the Golden Company finally approaches the square.
Disgust curdles in Aerion’s stomach when he recognizes Aegor Rivers standing at the head of the group, black hair loose at his shoulders and dressed in plain armor, the Valyrian sword Blackfyre sheathed at his hip.
For a moment, he nearly rises. The impulse is sudden and violent—grab a blade, any blade, and cut his way through them until the bastard bleeds out in the dust and that stolen sword is returned to where it belongs.
Behind the bastard are the false claimants. Aerion recognizes them without introductions, and it makes him sick. It makes him sick that they look like him. Sick that they have the same silver hair, the same violet eyes, the blood of Old Valyria running just as true through bastards and pretenders as it does through him—and they dare to stand beneath the banner of the black dragon.
His body shifts, nails biting into his palm and teeth grinding together.
He hates them. He hates the way they stand there like they have a right to be, like they have not stolen everything they are from his family and twisted it into something lesser. Hates the way the city seems to hold its breath for them, as though they’re something to be reckoned with instead of something to be stamped out.
He starts to rise, and your whore tenses on his opposite side as though to stop him, and then—
—and then the First Magister steps forward, and Aerion loses the opportunity.
He draws blood from how hard he bites his tongue, feels it dripping between his knuckles, too.
“I must say, if you have come to conquer our fine city with such… modest forces, then you will find us less accommodating than you might hope,” the First Magister says, eyes sharp as he stares down at the Golden Company from the top of the marble steps. “We do not take kindly to uninvited guests.”
Aegor Rivers does not rise to the bait. He paces a few steps forward, standing at the foot of the steps, gaze sweeping from the First Magister to you to the First Magister’s son, and finally to the men arrayed behind the three of you—a small regiment of the Second Sons, Lys’s gonfaloniere, and the household guard. The other magisters are nowhere to be seen.
It is a statement of unity, Caelyx had explained when Aerion first made note of it—the Golden Company is not welcome in Lys.
“We are not here to conquer, magister,” Aegor Rivers replies at last, inclining his head to the First Magister. “We hear you harbor a guest of particular interest to us, and we hope to come to an… understanding.”
“How unfortunate that you have come all this way for a rumor,” the First Magister replies with a thin smile, and he exchanges a quick look with you that Aerion isn’t able to read, “and without the decency to give notice before your arrival. One would almost think you meant to insult us. Did you mean to insult the magisters of our lovely Lys, my lord?”
“He is no lord,” you interrupt blandly. “You are being far too generous, magister.”
Aerion’s lips curl up despite himself. But then you throw a wink back at the First Magister’s son, Marcellus, who snorts at your words, and his smile flattens, irritated again. He side-eyes the two whores who slip into the room with them—two girls, he’s seen them hanging around you before, but he doesn’t know either of their names.
“Caelyx,” the taller one says, glancing nervously out to the square. “How is it going?”
“She’s only insulted them once,” Caelyx says as he smirks into his wine. “So I would say well.”
The shorter girl laughs, settling onto the cushions next to Aerion, resting her head on her arms as she looks out into the square. Aerion finds himself irritated again all of a sudden—the silk clings to him, too soft and too light and too wrong, and the scent of perfume and wine hangs thick in the air, cloying and suffocating.
He should be down there—at your side, at the First Magister’s shoulder, steel in hand, not hidden in silk and pillows and painted smiles, not tucked away among whores. His fingers curl into the cushions, nails biting into the fabric as his eyes track you. This is fucking humiliating. He exhales hard through his nose, trying to calm his temper.
“Watch yourself, prince,” Caelyx drawls, watching him carefully from the corner of his eye. Aerion sneers at him. “I only mean to say that you know what is at stake. Do not let your pride get the best of you.”
“I do not need you reminding me, whore,” Aerion scoffs.
Still, his stomach flips as he remembers what you said earlier. He does not want to think about that, because if he thinks about that, he thinks about how he got here, and if he thinks about how he got here, he thinks about his father, and if he thinks about his father, he will wonder—will he even care? And Aerion will not like the answer he comes to, so he cannot think about what will happen if the Blackfyres see through the lies, so he does not.
“I had thought Lys better governed,” Aegor says after a moment, “than to allow its… wards such freedom with their tongue.”
You tilt your head, considering him.
“And I had thought you more impressive,” you reply. “Given the stories.”
“Across the Narrow Sea, a ward who spoke so carelessly would find herself corrected. Firmly,” Aegor says after a moment, voice low and edged. “It is a failing of the Free Cities that they keep such a gentle hand in the face of such disobedience.”
“If you are so fond of firm hands, I suggest you sail back to your Sunset Kingdom and find one willing to keep you,” you say, smiling, until you are not. “If you ever imply I need to be firmly corrected again, I will skin you alive and pour salt over every inch of your body.”
Aegor’s mouth curves, faint and humorless. “A bold threat,” he says. “Though I wonder—would your hosts thank you for starting a war in their square? It would be a shame to see Lys burn for your temper.”
“Lys would not be the city that burns, sellsword. It will be your ships and your men,” you drawl. “The sacking of Qohor has made you bold, but Lys is not Qohor—nor is Volantis, and you tread on making an enemy of both.”
“You are an exile, my lady,” Aegor says coolly, tilting his head. “You think your city will go to war at your whims.”
“Exile, maybe, but I am old blood, and you are the son of an Andal whore. They would never suffer the insult without consequence.”
Aerion barks out a laugh.
“It’s good to know you haven’t lost your teeth in the years you’ve spent amongst silk boys,” an unfamiliar voice says from the crowd of sellswords. Your expression shifts instantly, the irritation disappearing, eyes widening, and a pit inexplicably forms in Aerion’s stomach. He spares a glance at Caelyx, but Caelyx put down his wine, frowning as he straightens from where he was leaning back against the cushions. “I warned him that you would eat him alive if he tried to play this game. You should have listened, Rivers.”
Aerion watches as a man with silver hair, braided back from his face, makes his way across the marble toward you, all careless smiles and casual arrogance. He is tall, thin, but lean in the way of a man who knows weaponry, not the pillow play of the Lyseni silk boys—and he is very, very pretty. He dresses like you in black leather with a red cape over his shoulder, and he wears Valyrian steel like it’s fucking gold on his fingers, on his neck, on his ears, a sword at his hip and a dagger at his forearm.
Aerion knows before either of you speaks.
All of the tension bleeds from your body, disbelief spilling across your face, and Aerion feels sick to his stomach already.
“Jaenys?” you gasp, a breathless smile spreading across your face as you make your way down the steps to meet him halfway. Aerion doesn’t realize he’s rising to his feet until he already has, jaw tight as he watches the way the man reaches for your waist, pulling your body close until it’s flush to his. Your hands rise to his face, gentle, your cradle his jaw, thumbs brushing his cheekbones like you need to make sure he’s real. Aerion’s stomach twists. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“That’s one of her friends,” one of the girls says, and Aerion’s teeth grind because that is not the way friends hold one another. “From back home. I recognize the name.”
That is the way—that is the way you’ve held his face in the cove, in bed, when it is only you and only him. He watches as you let out a bright laugh, genuine and pretty as a bell, more real than anything Aerion has ever heard from you before. And Aerion feels fucking sick—he feels sick, and he does not want to see this, but he cannot draw his gaze away, watching as the other man draws you in close, burying his face in your hair, pressing his lips to your temple, your neck, laughing into your skin.
“Why is he with the Golden Company?” the other girl asks warily. “Caelyx, what should we do?”
Caelyx is no longer drinking. He has set his wine aside, watching the scene with calculating eyes, and he’s holding a small bowl in his right hand, and distantly, Aerion recognizes the fine powder that sits inside it from the corner of his eye, but he’s more focused on you, on the way your gaze traces Jaenys’s face, the way you’re holding him, the way he’s holding you. You’re talking to him, but your voice is too quiet now for him to overhear from the Perfumed Garden, as though you’d forgotten he was listening, forgotten you’d promised that you would talk loud enough so that he’d know what was happening, forgotten about him.
Aerion’s fingers curl at his sides, nails biting into his palms as he watches the way Jaenys lifts your hand to his lips, kissing your knuckles, your wrist, your pulse, smiling into your skin—the two of you curling into one another like the Golden Company is not in the square, like there’s no danger and no one is watching.
What the fuck?
You say something again, too quiet again, and then you nod toward the Perfumed Garden, and Aerion’s heart drops to his fucking feet. No—no, you wouldn’t. His mind scrambles to make sense of the motion you just made, to force it into something that doesn’t feel like a blade sliding between his ribs. You wouldn’t just—you wouldn’t just give him up so easily, not like that, not after everything you said, not just because, not just because—
He can’t even finish the thought, because he can’t even fucking convince himself of it. He knows well how much you long for home, more than he does; he knows the way you speak of the people you left behind, the future you lost, and he knows—
“It’s not what you think,” he hears Caelyx say, but it feels like there’s fucking cotton in his ears. Everything feels distant and far away, and he can only stare out at the square, at the way your head is bent together with Jaenys, at the way you motion again to the Garden, to Aerion. “It’s not—”
“I know,” he spits, and then he laughs once, sharp and humorless. “You do not need to—I do not need—”
He can’t even get a fucking sentence out, and his face flames red with humiliation, and his breath is too shallow. You wouldn’t, you wouldn’t—iksan aōhon, iksā ñuhon. You said it, he said it. You would not give him up so easily.
“She told me to tell you that if the Golden Company pressed for negotiations, she would bring it to the Perfumed Garden so you could listen in on what’s being said in the chance it pertains to your house,” Caelyx says, and then shifts closer. Aerion shifts away, bumping into the whore on his other side, and he suddenly feels too closed in and too distracted, because he can’t drag his eyes from the square. “You need to take this.”
“I am not drugging myself when they are five feet from the fucking door,” Aerion snaps, rounding on him, voice low but vicious. His hands are shaking now—he curls them into fists to hide it, nails digging deeper into his palms. “When they will be in the same fucking room as me. Have you lost your damn mind?”
Caelyx doesn’t flinch. “You will give yourself away the moment they start talking about you or your family,” he says, lifting the bowl slightly, the fine powder shifting inside. It’s not the same one you took with him in the garden at the revel—this one is a shimmering blue. “Look at you.”
“I am fine,” Aerion spits.
“You are not,” Caelyx replies flatly.
Aerion’s pulse won’t slow; his thoughts are spiraling, circling back to you, the Golden Company, Jaenys, that gesture, to the way it looked, to the way it felt, to the way it hurt. Aerion isn’t even sure if he’s breathing properly.
Will his father care?
Will he think twice when news reaches him?
Will you care?
Will you—
Caelyx’s gaze flicks behind Aerion, and Aerion catches it a split second too late. His gaze snaps behind him as the woman on his opposite side grabs his right wrist hard, pinning it to the cushions, while the other one grabs his left. Aerion thrashes, but they are stronger than they look, and Aerion is thoroughly distracted.
“What the fuck—” Aerion snarls, twisting hard, muscles straining as he tries to rip himself free. The cushions shift beneath him, silk sliding, his footing useless, and fury spikes hot and immediate, cutting clean through the panic. “Get your hands off me—”
He jerks again, violently this time, and one of them gasps as his shoulder clips her, but her grip doesn’t loosen. The other tightens, digging her fingers into his wrist hard enough to bruise, and Aerion cannot get his footing for leverage to pull away.
“Hurry up, Caelyx!”
“You think you can lay hands on me? I am a prince of the blood,” Aerion spits, voice dropping into something more dangerous but riddled with panic that he cannot quite push down. His eyes flash, violet gone almost black in his rage. “I will have your hands for this—I will have your tongues, your lives—every last one of you—”
“Hold him,” Caelyx snaps, all softness gone.
Aerion bares his teeth, lunging forward despite the hold on him, trying to get at him, to hurt him, because this—this humiliation, this loss of control, this—
Caelyx moves faster. A hand fists in Aerion’s hair, yanking his head back hard enough to make his breath hitch, his throat exposed, jaw forced open on a startled inhale, and then fingers are shoved into his mouth, the powder coated on digits, and Aerion chokes, thrashing hard now, rage turning wild and frantic as he bucks against their hold. Your whores, to their credit, look guilty—the girls do at least, Caelyx is only watching with thinly pressed lips, holding his face and his nose so that he cannot breathe, forcing him to swallow the powder he pushed into his mouth.
“Sorry, prince,” Caelyx murmurs, though he doesn’t sound all too sorry. The powder is already dissolving on Aerion’s tongue, bitter and strange, and when he tries to gasp for air, he swallows. “She told us to use whatever force was necessary if it came to this.”
He shoves Caelyx away hard, scrambling off the cushions to the marble floor, on his hands and knees, vision blurred as he tries and fails to gag up whatever they forced him to take. One of the girls has the audacity to creep closer to him, worried, and he bares his teeth at her furiously, grabbing whatever is closest to him—a glass— and flinging it hard at her head. It misses, shattering against the wall, but it still has its desired effect, as the girl scrambles away.
“I’ll kill you,” Aerion gasps, eyes wild and furious as he stares up at Caelyx, who hasn’t budged from the cushions. “All three of you, her, I’ll kill you all, I’ll—”
Caelyx sighs, gaze drifting out to where you’re still laughing with your friend, limbs entwined, faces too close together, to where the Golden Company is waiting for the two of you to stop talking, and he says quietly, “Let’s make sure you live long enough to have the opportunity, yeah?”
Will you care? Will you care? Will you care?
———————
Everything feels distant and faraway.
After Aerion settles down, Caelyx explains that they give the younger ones this powder when they take their first clients. Men pay extra for whores who haven’t been passed around yet—cruel men, violent men, the kind that want to see the blood, that want to cause it, that want to hear the sound a girl makes when they hurt, but still want to convince themselves that they’re not doing anything wrong, because it’s only sex with a whore, after all.
The powder makes it easier for them; it softens the worst parts, turning something unbearable into something survivable. Not painless, because it’s never painless, but it makes everything more distant and manageable.
Aerion stares forward as you enter the room, laughing in the arms of your friend Jaenys, and there’s not even a tug in his chest or a twist in his stomach—as though everything happening around him belongs to someone else.
He knows what he should feel—the bitter, ugly flood of it, the heat and the humiliation, he knows it is there, but he just… cannot reach it. It sits somewhere behind his ribs, muffled and dulled down to a distant pressure that cannot claw its way to the surface.
Aerion watches you as you cross the threshold, Jaenys’s hand at your waist like it belongs there, like it has always belonged there, like Aerion is an imposter and never truly had a place in your life—the sight registers cleanly, but it does not cut the way he knows it should.
Your gaze slides over him like he’s not even there.
He should not have stayed.
(“You don’t have to sit in the room for the conversation,” Caelyx says as he gets the main room ready for the meeting about to take place—only the Perfumed Garden’s best permitted in the area. “You can wait in the back or upstairs. You’ll still be able to hear it all, but—”
“No,” he says after a moment, voice slow to his own ears. He cannot even reach the anger he knows he should feel. It is infuriating. “No. I need to be here. They won’t recognize me. Not like this.”
Because this is humiliating. This is shameful. This is everything Aerion Brightflame is not. Even if they do see a ghost of the Targaryen dynasty in his face, the whole world knows him well enough to know that he’d never be caught dead dressed in silk posing as a whore. That’s exactly why you insisted on this, exactly why he fought it.
He will put it to the test, he decides, and if it fails, and he is butchered in silk by the Blackfyres, then it will be your fault.
Will you even care? Will you even—)
He doesn’t like this. He doesn’t like this at all. He doesn’t like seeing you with your friend. He doesn’t like the way you don’t acknowledge him. Doesn’t like the way the First Magister’s son trails behind you, looking out of place and like he wants to cling to you. Doesn’t like the pit in his stomach that forms when he sees Aegor Rivers duck into the Perfumed Garden with a twisted expression, distant and unreachable as that pit may be. Doesn’t like the sight of the Blackfyre bastards that follow in after him—three of them, silver-haired and violet-eyed.
“My lady,” Caelyx greets you with a demure smile, pressing his lips to your knuckles. You are leaning your body against Jaenys, as though you do not wish to stand on your own, as though the two of you are husband and wife, lovers who can’t bear to part. The sight of it makes Aerion sick—or, it should make Aerion sick. He cannot reach that either. He does not like this. “We’re here to serve as you please. Let us know how we may make your guests comfortable.”
“We’ll take the room,” you reply, and you shift to stand up straight. Aerion can breathe again. You finally look around the room, disinterest flicking across your face until your eyes settle on him resting against the cushions. He catches the irritation that flashes briefly in your eyes. “Get me Vaella and Rhalla. And a couple of the other girls. Boys too. And wine. Lots of it. Gods know I need it.”
You are a fucking idiot, you tell him without saying anything, fighting a frustrated sneer as your gaze lingers on him a moment too long. Why are you lounging about so carelessly? Why didn’t you go upstairs?
Aerion doesn’t raise his eyebrows mockingly, but he thinks you know he wants to, because your eye twitches before you mask it and turn back to your guests.
“We do not need whores,” Aegor Rivers says roughly. “Let us—”
“Do not speak to me unless I address you first,” you cut in, casting an annoyed look back to the sellsword.
Aerion knows it’s because you’re frustrated with him and taking it out on the first person who dared to speak to you, and it pleases him—or it should. He cannot feel anything beyond this muted numbness.
The silence stretches, taut, as Aegor stills at your interruption, something dark flickering behind his eyes, his jaw tightening just a fraction before he reins it in. You turn your back on him, dismissing him, then make your way over to the cushions, exhaling as you drop back onto them, head rolled back as you stare up at the ceiling for a moment. He wants to know what you’re thinking, he wants to know what’s happening, he hates this. He hates all of this.
The others begin to seat themselves—Aegor Rivers and the Blackfyre pretenders across from you, Marcellus on your left, Jaenys to your right. After what feels like an eternity, Caelyx returns to the room with the two girls from before, along with several others, boys and girls alike, all soft smiles and lowered gazes as they drift into the room, trying to figure out who to go to, where to stand, like they are nothing more than decoration.
Your head rolls to the side, gaze cutting across the room, straight to Aerion.
“Ari,” you purr, lips tilted up into a lazy smile. Aerion doesn’t react only because he can’t. The muted panic sits low and unreachable in his stomach when he realizes that you’re purposely drawing attention to him. What the hell are you doing? “Come here. I’ve missed you.”
The instinct to refuse is there, buried beneath the haze, sharp and stubborn and his, in spite of the drugs dumbing him down. He wants to bare his teeth and stay exactly where he is, wants to force you to come to him instead. But it never makes it past that first flicker, because Aegor’s gaze shifts, the room tilts in his direction, and Aerion is suddenly very aware of every pair of eyes that might look at him with suspicion if he hesitates or lingers too long or does anything other than exactly what is expected of him.
Because he is a whore of the Perfumed Garden. Ari of Lys.
Aerion fucking hates you. Aerion wants you dead. Not even this stupid drug can force away the resentment that bubbles in his chest as he forces himself to his feet, silk scraping uncomfortably against his skin as he makes his way across the room toward you.
Are you purposely doing this to humiliate him? Why would you do this? Will you care? Will you—
“Do you know all of the whores on this island by name?” one of the Blackfyres drawls across from you, distracted as he glances up at a pretty golden-haired girl who smiles sweetly at him.
Aerion realizes that no one is really looking at him anymore, not beyond the short glance when you first addressed him. By the time Aerion reaches you, the attention has already shifted away—he has been dismissed, just another pretty thing in silk.
That was your play, he recognizes too late, lowering himself into your lap when you guide him down. You pulled him into the center of the room, forced their attention onto him for a heartbeat, just long enough to see him clearly, to register him, and then discard him. Better this than the edges of the room, where he would linger, where sharp eyes might wander back to him, and suspicion might build, where he might become something worth noticing.
Now, he is nothing—a prop, a distraction already spent.
“Most of them,” you agree with an easy smile, one arm slinking around his waist possessively as you pull him close and he settles against you, shoulder pressed against your chest, hand sliding to rest loosely at the side of your neck, fingers grazing the edge of your jaw. “The ones worth remembering, at least.”
He hates this.
He hates the silk clinging to his skin, too soft and too revealing, nothing like the leather everyone else of note in the room wears, nothing like anything a prince of House Targaryen should ever wear. He hates the way they look through him like he’s not even there. He hates that his body sinks into yours, and he cannot help the way his eyes half-lid when your fingers slip beneath his silks, thumb rubbing soothing circles over his hip, out of sight from everyone else. He hates that it comforts him. Hates that his head dips toward yours instinctively. Hates that he can feel the heat roaring through his veins, that he knows he should be ripping himself out of your hold, baring his teeth, reminding them all exactly who the fuck he is: a dragon and a prince, better than them, all of them, but he cannot fucking reach it. He cannot reach the fire he knows is there; it dies before he can hope to grasp at it, and he—
Someone is still looking at him.
The hair on the back of his neck stands on end, and Aerion’s gaze shifts to the side, trying to figure out who is still looking at him, and he pauses when he sees that it’s your friend, Jaenys, watching him with sharp, calculating eyes, trained not on his face, but—
—Aerion forgot to take off the steel.
Aerion forgot to take off the fucking steel.
The Valyrian steel at his throat—the steel you gifted him, the steel you placed on his neck, the steel you found in the ruins of Valyria, likely with the boy sitting right next to you, weighs on his neck like a fucking shackle. How the fuck did he forget to take off the steel? He’s become so used to the weight of it that he doesn’t even notice it anymore. He didn’t even think anything of it until now, until someone who recognizes it stares at it like it’s the most fascinating thing in the room, because why the fuck would you gift the last relic you have of your home to some random Lyseni whore?
Aerion’s fingers twitch against your neck, a useless, delayed reaction, his mind scrambling sluggishly to catch up with what his body should have already done—hide it, move it out of sight, do something. But he doesn’t, because it’s too late, because moving now would draw attention and confirm exactly what he knows Jaenys must be suspecting.
Jaenys watches him for a moment longer, gaze lifting from the steel at last to his eyes, and Aerion hates the look in his eyes—amused and knowing and far too perceptive for Aerion’s liking. His lips curl, just slightly, but then he turns his attention back to you, lithe fingers reaching for your free hand.
Jaenys holds eye contact with Aerion as he lifts your hand to his lips, kissing your knuckles again before he leans in to ghost them against your ear. He says something quiet, only for you to hear, and Aerion can only make out the word special, but whatever is said is enough to make you physically tense, grip on his hip tightening.
“How is everyone back home ?” you ask, ignoring the Blackfyres and Aegor Rivers to focus on your friend.
“Miserable without you,” Jaenys says with an easy grin and a wink in your direction. “You could not imagine how boring things have been. You’ve probably been having more fun on this whore island than we are in Volantis.”
Aerion feels you huff out a laugh, chest rising and falling against his back. “Do not be dramatic, Jaenys,” you reply. “There is little to do here beyond fucking and drinking, and we both know I can only handle so much of that without some blood in between.”
Jaenys hums, amused, lithe fingers sliding absently up and down your forearm. Aerion’s gaze follows them, watching how easy the movement is, how familiar—thoughtless in a way that makes Aerion’s chest tight even though that powder should have him dulled into oblivion.
“You always did prefer a little chaos to keep things interesting,” Jaenys murmurs. “I’m surprised you haven’t burned this place to the ground yet.”
“If you are quite finished reminiscing,” Aegor cuts in, tone clipped, bold considering the way both you and your friend raise your eyebrows at one another, smiles easy, but not entertained. “We did not come here to hear tales of your boredom.”
You do not even look at him.
“Then perhaps you should not have come uninvited,” you reply smoothly, eyes still on Jaenys, as though Aegor is little more than background noise. You ask Jaenys quietly, “Why did you come, Jaenys? Why are you here with these Andal cunts?”
Jaenys exhales hard through his nose, averting his gaze for the first time since he entered that room, the easy amusement slipping into something more serious.
“I told you, it’s miserable without you,” he says with a sigh, fingers still against your arm, sliding down to entwine your fingers with his. Aerion can’t draw his gaze from it, can’t ignore the pressure rising in his chest, muted and distant but still somehow all-consuming. “The Tigers are restless, and the Elephants grow bolder by the day. Every assembly turns into the same argument and—” Jaenys exhales through his nose, and Aerion’s stomach twists. He doesn’t like where this is going before he even really knows where it’s going. “We are tired of waiting. Everyone is.”
Your thumb stills at Aerion’s hip.
“And you think I am the solution to that? Eight hundred miles away?” you ask, voice light and dry, but Aerion can feel the tension in your body now, the way your grip tightens at his hip. “Do not be ridiculous, Jae—”
“Not from eight hundred miles away, but yeah. You are.”
Aerion does not like this.
His fingers twitch at your neck, and he instinctively starts to shift in your lap, only to be stopped when the hand on his hip becomes painful, warning him not to move around and make a scene. Whores are meant to be pliant and obedient, seen but not heard, decorations not meant to react to anything being said around them.
But Aerion does not like this.
His heart thuds in his chest. He does not know if the powder is wearing off on its own or if he’s just so bothered by the implications of what’s being said that it’s forcibly sobering him—or worse, this is the muted version of what he should be feeling.
“What the fuck are you talking about, Jaenys?”
“You’re not meant to rot away on this island of fucking whores,” Jaenys says, grip tightening on your hand to force you to look at him. “We were never going to let you, and now we’ve finally got a way to get you back.”
Aerion can feel your heart against his back, racing in a way that he’s never felt before. Aerion’s is too. His mind is too slow right now—if he wasn’t drugged up on this stupid powder, he would’ve been able to put together what’s happening by now, but instead, he’s stuck, lagging behind his own thoughts, watching everything happen in pieces instead of all at once.
Aerion swallows hard, breath shallow, fingers tightening at your neck like he can ground himself there, like if he holds on tight enough, it will force everything to click into place like it already should be.
“And the Andals have something to do with this plan to get me back to Volantis?” you ask, voice riddled with disbelief, nails biting into his skin the same way his are biting into yours, trying to ground yourself with him the same way he does with you. “Jaenys, you—”
“They offer a path,” Jaenys interrupts, glancing briefly toward Aegor Rivers before returning his attention to you. “Just hear it out, okay?”
They’re supposed to be here for him, Aerion thinks desperately. They’re supposed to be here for him, are they—are they here for you? They’re here to—to take you?
“The Golden Company has the men and the means,” Aegor Rivers says, finally pushing into the conversation. Aerion expects you to shut him down again. You do not. “We would be willing to lend our support to the Tiger Party in the event of conflict. To ensure that the outcome is favorable.”
“Conflict?” you echo. Your voice sounds far away. Underwater. Aerion does not like the word, what it means, what it implies. Sellsword companies do not do anything for free. So what do they want from— “You mean to throw Volantis into civil war, Jaenys? What the fuck? We don’t need the help of the Andals if we want to take Volantis by force, but we don’t want—”
Jaenys says your name. Aerion hates the sound of that too—the way he says it, soft and lilting, begging for you to listen, and he hates the way you actually do, halting in your venomous rant as soon as he speaks. Your fingers on his hip are bruising, and his on your neck twice as hard. His gaze drags over to Aegor Rivers from where he was staring over your shoulder; the man stares right past him—at you—and Aerion doesn’t know if he’s breathing properly. His head feels light, and each breath is shallow.
He could kill him right now.
The thought cuts through the haze, and for a moment, Aerion almost feels like himself again.
Aegor Rivers sits barely five feet away—this registers for the first time since everyone seated themselves. No armor, no helm, no guard between them but a room full of distracted men to expect a blade from a whore’s hand. The Blackfyre bastards, too—silver-haired, violet-eyed mockeries of his blood, close enough that Aerion can see the faint scars on their hands and faces, the way their chests rise and fall as they breathe. He could do it. He could lunge forward, rip free from you, seize the fruit knife on the table between the cushions, and drive it through Bittersteel’s throat before the man could react. He could carve through the rest of them after, one by one, leave them bleeding out on cushions and marble like they deserve.
He might die.
He probably would die.
But—but his father would hear of it. Aerion Brightflame, striking down Bittersteel in a way that neither he nor his uncle was able to during the rebellion, cutting through pretenders with his own hand before falling in battle. Not an embarrassment. Not something to be ashamed of. Not an inconvenience to be sent across the Narrow Sea and forgotten about. A Targaryen prince. A dragon in full, not silk and perfume and humiliation.
You would probably die, too.
That is what makes him falter. If he jumped forward now, if he cut Aegor River’s throat and then carved up each of the Blackfyre bastards, you would be caught in the middle. You’re armed, yes, and the moment the lingering Golden Company sellswords drew their blades to cut Aerion down, you would draw yours (right? you would, wouldn’t you? would you defend him? would you even care? would anyone care?). And you are skilled, he knows you are, but there are dozens, hundreds, thousands of Blackfyre loyalists on this island right now, and not even you—
“We could do it,” Jaenys says quietly. “A full coup, rout the Elephants—”
“That’s not how things fucking work in Volantis,” you hiss, interrupting Jaenys, whose lips tighten with irritation at your words. “We are not Andal cunts who chop each other up over inheritance—who destroy our houses and birthright for personal ambition. The Triarchy is not won by butchering half the city in the streets and hoping the rest fall in line.”
“I thought you would want to come home—”
“Of course, I want to come home,” you spit, voice rising in anger. Your grip on Aerion’s hip is painful, and it grounds him, pulling him away from the violence and blood that threatens to put him into a situation that will get both of you killed. “But gods, Jaenys, does my father even know about this? The rest of the Tigers? This could destroy everything, this could—what?”
Jaenys tosses his head back, beckoning someone to come forward from the edge of the room. Aerion’s gaze drags, following the motion as a man steps forward from the line of sellswords. He carries something wrapped in dark cloth, held carefully, and Jaenys reaches forward to take it from him, peeling back the cloth to reveal a sheathed sword—ruby-embedded hilt, dark, rippling steel, the patterns in it catching the sunlight.
Aerion’s mouth dries, and you inhale behind him, leaning forward, lips ghosting his shoulder as you look over him at the sheathed blade. Jaenys gives you a pointed look before he places it between the two of you.
“He gave this to me before I left,” Jaenys says softly, “to give to you.” Jaenys continues, voice lower now, only for you to overhear, “He wants you to come home. We all do.”
Oh.
Aerion feels the change in you immediately. Your spine straightens, and your grip loosens on his hip. You don’t let go of Jaeny’s hand—you let go of Aerion as you reach out to brush your fingers against the hilt of the sword resting between the two of you. The aggression fizzles out of you, and you exhale in a way that is not frustrated or irritated; it’s contemplative.
Aerion’s throat goes dry. His fingers twitch at your neck again, a delayed, useless motion, like he’s trying to remind you he’s still there—he’s still here—but it feels weak, inconsequential, swallowed by everything else that just shifted in the room.
“And what? The Golden Company wants to displace the Elephants and put us in power out of the goodness of their hearts? What do they want in return?” you ask.
There is no derision in your tone. There is no bite or mockery, no easy dismissal waiting behind it.
It is a real question.
Aerion feels it like a blow to the gut, wind knocked from his lungs. His fingers falter against your neck, the last weak attempt at grounding slipping away into nothing as a slow and suffocating reality settles in around him. You’re not shutting this down, and you’re not laughing it off anymore. You’re really fucking considering it.
You might actually accept it.
The thought lands heavier than anything else—heavier than the Golden Company arriving in Lys, heavier than the thought of war, than his father not caring about him, than dying here. His lashes flutter, and the next breath he lets out is shaky.
This is what you’ve always wanted.
He knows that. Knows it in the way you talk about Volantis, about home, about what was taken from you. Knows it in the way you’ve never quite belonged here, no matter how easily you play at it, no matter how well you’ve carved a place for yourself in Lys. Knows it in the way you always look east.
You never wanted to be here—you just never had a way back home.
And now you have a way back.
But you promised him.
You promised him that you would come with him back to Westeros. You said it: iksan aōhon, iksā ñuhon, you told him you loved him, he asked you to come with him and you said I will. You promised, you promised—
“Well, we would like the Bright Prince, for one,” one of Daemon Blackfyre’s wretched sons says easily, gaze lingering for a moment on where Caelyx sits on the cushion next to Jaenys, before he focuses on you. “We heard he was here in Lys.”
Aerion’s pulse spikes hard and fast, blood rushing loud in his ears as his fingers lock at your neck—not gentle or grounding this time, clingy in a way that’s pathetic.
Do not give me up, he says without saying anything at all, desperate and pleading, not half as commanding as he would like, do not betray me, do not leave me.
He would not even be able to defend himself right now, he realizes, tense. He does not have the means—no armor, no sword, and if his body is half as sluggish as his mind is, he does not stand a chance. He is sitting right across from Aegor Rivers and the Blackfyre bastards, he is drugged with nothing to defend himself, and you might give him up to them now.
His breath catches shallowly against your skin, the haze fracturing as fear edges out the last of the powder. You don’t react to his fingers at your neck, not for a long, long time, but then your hand smooths over his hip, squeezing it lightly before you lean back against the cushions with a sigh.
“Even if the Bright Prince were here, I wouldn’t give him to you,” you say with a shrug, and Aerion doesn’t know if that was the right thing to say, but it puts him at ease, something terribly warm bubbling in his chest. “I’m fond of him. We got on well while he was here. He kept me—entertained.”
“Really?” another pretender drawls, mocking. “I hear he’s temperamental. Prone to mad fits. Not the sort one keeps for long.”
Aerion’s throat bobs at the words, remembering your whore’s comment from before: the two of you are coming up on that, aren’t you? So that she does not become bored with you like she does everyone else. Annoyance flares, teeth grinding; he shifts in your lap before he can stop himself, an instinctive movement like he’s trying to settle into you more firmly. Your grip tightens—a warning—you must realize that he’s coming down from the powder.
“Which one are you?” you ask suddenly, gaze roving over the Blackfyre. “Wait. Let me guess. Another Aegon? You Westerosi seem fond of that name.”
Jaenys snorts, turning his face toward you, a smile curving at his lips.
The silver-haired pretender flushes red, an irritated expression on his face. “Haegon, actually.”
You bark out a surprised laugh. “Wow, almost,” you drawl. “Well, Haegon, you’ll find I’m quite skilled at bringing temperamental little dragons to heel. I’m fond of it, even. You seem rather ill-tempered yourself. That, at least, is promising.”
Did you just flirt with that miserable fucking wretch?
A ripple of amusement moves through the room, and Haegon’s flush deepens, pale lashes fluttering as his gaze shifts to the side. Aerion wants to rip his eyes out. Aerion wants to rip your eyes out. Your tongue. His tongue. Aerion can’t deal with this anymore, Aerion—
“The Bright Prince is out of the question,” you say dismissively. “He’s not here, and I’m not wasting my time chasing ghosts. I assume you came with more demands than that, otherwise you make for poor bargainers, and I do not entertain poor bargains, be they in my favor or not.”
Aegor’s lips quirk into a smile, and Aerion feels unsettled. He knows what is coming before anything is said, but the words still make his stomach flip when Aegor Rivers finally speaks them:
“Once you are installed as Triarch, we would expect Volantene support during our campaign in Westeros and taking the Iron Throne from the Targaryens.”
———————
“Is this how it’s going to be, then? We’re not going to speak?”
Aerion doesn’t reply. Can’t reply. Doesn’t. This is the third time you’ve tried to start a conversation with him since returning to your chambers, and Aerion remains seated on the cushions on the far side of your room, face turned away, fiddling with the dagger he should have taken to the whorehouse so he could plunge it into Bittersteel’s throat. Your throat, too, maybe. His fingers slide along the edge, and the pain helps ground him, brings him back to the present, away from the shame eating at his stomach and the rage threatening to consume him.
He never should have let any of that happen. He never should have agreed to let you dress him in silk, never should have hidden himself away in a whorehouse, never should have allowed those stupid whores to drug him stupid and pliant. He should have just died with his blade in hand, one final stand for his father to be proud of—maybe he could have even taken one of the Blackfyres or Bittersteel out with him. His face is hot with mortification; he can’t even look at himself in a fucking mirror.
He cuts through the pads of his fingers once, beads of blood welling up and dripping down his skin. He watches impassively, and then he slides the edge of the blade through them again, deeper this time. A third time, then a fourth, then—
“Aerion.”
Aerion doesn’t reply, and he doesn’t react when you snatch the dagger from his hands and put it to the side. He doesn’t look up at you when you spit out a curse at the sight of his bleeding hand, and he doesn’t let you bandage them when you reach out, pulling away and pressing the injured fingers to his lips, staring blankly at the wall as he sucks the blood from the cuts. You kneel in front of him, and Aerion hates the expression on your face more than he hates anything else—you’re pitying him, you’re pitying him.
“Do you really want to?” Aerion asks, voice low and edged. “Because I do not think you are going to like what I have to say.”
You exhale hard through your nose, and Aerion can see the irritation thinly veiled. You have some nerve, he thinks. Some nerve to be irritated. Some nerve to question him. Some nerve to fucking pity him. He doesn’t need your pity, doesn’t want it. He doesn’t want anything, he doesn’t want you, he doesn’t—
Something wet tracks down his cheek, and his spiraling thoughts come to a halt. His brows knit, breath catching, and then—another, his opposite cheek now, more after that, one after another. His uninjured hand comes up quickly, swiping at his face, and he stares at the wetness smeared on his fingers like it’s something foreign.
What the fuck?
Aerion clenches his jaw hard, teeth grinding, panic flashing hot through the anger still clawing at his chest. He’s not—he’s angry, he’s frustrated, ashamed. He’s not fucking—he’s not upset. He scrubs at his face again, harder this time, like he can force it to stop, like he can drag whatever this is back down where it belongs, bury it under the anger, turn it into something that makes sense.
“Stop,” he hisses, and he doesn’t know if he’s talking to you or himself.
His breath hitches, quick and loud and fucking mortifying, and that only makes everything worse. Fuck. He’s sick of this. He’s sick of being in exile, he’s sick of the constant humiliation—things had been different for a while, different because of you, different because you made it feel like it didn’t matter. The exile, the rumors, the looks, and the shame—you made him feel like it could all be ignored if he just stayed close to you because iksan aōhon, iksā ñuhon, because he is yours and you are his, because you said you would come with him, because you said you wouldn’t leave him behind, and now—
Now it is back to those first few weeks of humiliation, when he was chasing you around like a fool, losing his temper before magisters and merchants, making a spectacle of himself every day. He trusted you—you told him to trust you, and he did. He trusted you.
And now you’re going to give everything up.
You’re going to give him up.
He knows it—he knows it’s the truth in his gut, in his heart. He knows it. You are going to give this up so that you can go home.
“Get the fuck away from me,” he tells you when you try to reach for his bleeding hand again. He rises to his feet and paces away. His heart thuds painfully in his chest, and his fingers sting, and his vision is blurry, and he cannot stop the fucking tears. He’s not even upset—he’s angry, he’s frustrated, he’s—he’s fucking betrayed. “You humiliated me. You—”
“I kept you alive,” you counter, rising to your feet and turning toward him. Aerion hates that you’re not angry, and he hates that look in your eyes—you’re still fucking pitying, you’re still— “I—”
“You had me drugged,” Aerion interrupts, furious, voice rising. “You had me drugged, dressed up in silk like a whore, and sat me in your lap like a damn pet. You made me sit there while you conspired—”
“I did what I had to do,” you spit, pity finally shifting to anger, and Aerion can deal with this. He prefers this. He’ll take all of your anger if it means he won’t be on the receiving end of pity. “If you had walked into that room as yourself, you would be dead, and you know it.”
That’s not the point, Aerion wants to scream. He wants to tug at his hair and fight you for the dagger you stole from him, so he can put it through your throat. He wants to—
“I do not care,” Aerion says, and he shuts it all down, pushes it deep, deep down, just like when he was young, when his mother died and Daeron changed and Maekar refused to speak to any of them. He pushes it down, and he blinks once, twice, three times, and he pushes away the anger and the frustration and the tears. “I trusted you. You told me to trust you, and I did, and then you couldn't trust me. I would rather have died than sit there like that. I do not care if it was necessary, or if it kept me alive, or even if you were right. I do not care. You lied to me.”
“I didn’t lie to you,” you reply, and glee briefly bubbles in Aerion’s chest when he hears how your voice loses the heat, weaker. Aerion huffs out a laugh through his nose. “I didn’t, Aerion—”
“You did,” Aerion hisses. The heat bubbles again, and Aerion smothers it with another deep breath. He doesn’t look at you, raising his chin as he stares out over the balcony, over the gardens of the First Magister’s manse, where he has spent hours laid up in your arms, watching sunrises and sunsets, magisters’ sons make fools of themselves after too many glasses of wine, laughing and sharing breath, kisses, touches. His eyes slide shut. He pushes this away, too. “You did. You lied to me. You told me that I was yours, and you were mine. You told me that—” Breathe. “—that you loved me. That you would come with me. And you sat in there—you sat in there listening to them, conspiring with them—”
“Do not be a fool, I—”
“Do not call me a fool,” Aerion snaps, whirling on you again. It bubbles again, hotter and faster this time. Too much—you’re across the room, but he can feel your hands around his waist, running through his hair, your lips on his skin, and your breath against his ear. All of the promises, all of you. All of the fucking lies. “You were. I know you. The moment your friend showed up, when he gave you that sword—”
“Of course, I was, Aerion,” you shout at him. “They offered me an opportunity to go home. How could I—”
“Then go!” he shrieks right back, defensive, voice pitching higher than he intends. He needs to get ahead of it, needs to be the one to send you away so that you aren’t the one to choose to leave him. “Go back to Volantis. Take their deal, your city, your war. March against my family, march against me—fucking hand me right over to them while you’re at it, would you?”
“Wow. I knew you were hiding a secret, ñuha jorrāelagon, but I didn’t realize your special whore was the Targaryen prince everyone is looking for.”
My love.
Aerion goes stiff at the familiar voice coming from the entrance to your chambers. Your friend, Jaenys, leans against the doorframe like he owns the place, an easy smile curling at his lips, like he hasn’t just walked into something he was not meant to see. You’re as frozen as Aerion is, eyes widening as your gaze cuts to the side, anger draining into something far worse.
Jaenys pushes himself off the marble, slinking forward in your direction.
Aerion watches you, not him. Watches the way your mouth presses thin and the way your shoulders are tense. You never spoke much about your friends back home with him. Aerion hadn’t even recognized the name the way your whores had, he realizes bitterly. But he does know how you describe Volantis and its courts—cruel and vicious, people always looking for the next step up the ladder.
Will Jaenys give him up to the Blackfyres?
Will you let him?
Will you care? Will you care? Will you—
Aerion’s gaze snaps over to you, trying to gauge where you’re at, but he can’t tell, and all of the frustration begins to bubble again, the heat in his chest and behind his eyes. His pulse climbs, and he cannot push it back down. He has to stop him—has to stop both of you if that’s what it takes. He’s never fought you for real; the two of you have sparred occasionally, but always while drunk. He’s never seen you fight at full force, but he knows you’re skilled—knows your friend must be too, from the way you talked about the upbringing of Tiger children. Can he take you both out? Aerion is confident in his swordplay, but he was confident at Ashford, too, and everyone knows how that went, and you two would be much more skilled than that oaf of a hedge knight. But he can’t allow himself to be caught, can’t give his father another reason to—
Fuck.
“Is this how it’s going to be, then?” Jaenys asks you, raising his eyebrows mockingly, tilting his head to the side. “You’re going to choose some Andal cunt over a chance at coming home?” His gaze flicks over Aerion once, dismissively. “He’s not pretty enough for you to be so pussy-whipped, and we both know you’re not so sentimental.”
Aerion cannot stop the words from leaving his lips.
“What did you just call me?”
Everything is burning.
He thinks he laughs as he whirls on your friend, but it’s not really a laugh; it’s too quick and too sharp, breaking halfway through. Your friend tosses an impassive look over his shoulder, violet eyes sweeping over Aerion once before he rolls them, as though decided Aerion isn’t even worth the effort to properly address.
His pulse roars. Something breaks loose in his chest, hot and violent, and it feels more like him than the haze he’s been stuck in all day. All of the muted emotions that he couldn’t sort through in the whorehouse come surging: the rage, the humiliation, the frustration. He exhales hard and takes a step toward Jaenys.
“What did you just call me?” Aerion repeats, slower this time, voice dropping as he makes another noise in the back of his throat—laugh, scoff, something in-between.
“You heard me,” Jaenys replies, unbothered, barely looking at him. Aerion wants him dead. Aerion wants you dead. “Careful now. One word from me and every Blackfyre loyalist in this city will know exactly where to find you.”
Aerion’s lips pull back into something that might be passable as a smile if it weren’t so strained.
“Try it,” Aerion says, though he doesn’t even really register himself saying it. This whole day has been—fuck, wrong. It’s all been wrong. Wrong from the moment the Golden Company ships arrived in Lys. Wrong from the moment you looked at that sword. Wrong from the moment he sat in your lap, and you didn’t feel anything at all. Wrong, wrong, wrong—even he feels wrong now, like he’s not even in his own body, like he’s watching himself from somewhere just behind his eyes, feeling his mouth moving, hearing his voice as though it belongs to someone else. “Try it. See if you get the chance to finish the call out for them. I do not care who you are to her, I do not care where you’re from. If you say one word, I’ll have you skinned and hung from the—”
Jaenys laughs, loud and bright and mocking, genuine glee threaded through the sound.
“You? Kill me?” Jaenys echoes, a condescending smile on his lips as he looks over Aerion once. “Little prince, I would eat you alive.” He looks back toward you, dismissing Aerion again. He winks at you and says, “You know, I shouldn’t be so surprised you went for this one, ñuha jorrāelagon. You always did like the fiery ones—Visedor, Naera, Aenys. Can you tire of him already? Let’s give him over to those Andals and go home already.”
Aerion’s jaw locks.
You say through your teeth. “It’s not like that, Jaenys—”
“You say that every time,” Jaenys scoffs, “and every time it is the same. I am not going to sit here and let you destroy your shot at going home for a boy you won’t think twice of in a few months.”
Why does everyone always speak around him?
Why does everyone fucking talk about him as though he’s already half gone?
Aerion is a prince of the blood. A dragon. He is the one who takes and discards. He is not—
He is a prince nobody wants around. At best, a problem that cannot be fixed, and at worst, a mistake to be forgotten. To you, to his father, to the rest of his family, to everyone.
It is infuriating.
No one ever says it in those words, but they don’t fucking need to—they cast him out like he’s nothing, they do not say goodbye to him when he leaves, they do not send ravens unless someone has died, and even then, they still do not want him home.
And you—everyone seems to be certain that you’re on the verge of tiring of him. Caelyx says it off-handedly when he has far more important things to be worried about. Jaenys stands there speaking as though Aerion were some passing amusement you would soon tire of. As though Aerion should be grateful for whatever scraps of loyalty anyone saw fit to throw him, and Aerion is fucking sick of it. He’s sick of hearing it, sick of believing it—he just wants—
He just wants you. He wants you to want him. He wants you to choose him. He thought you would, because you told him that you would. Iksan aōhon, iksā ñuhon—he is yours and you are his.
And yet, he does not think you will anymore. Not now, and maybe you never planned to.
He should have expected it. He should have known better than to take you at your word, than to believe that—
He cuts the thought off before it can finish. He’s not going to stand here and pick himself apart over it—not in front of Jaenys, not in front of you.
Still, the idea sits under his skin, festering. That you might leave him, you might choose them, you might hand him over.
Fuck.
“… always told you, didn’t I?” Aerion hears Jaenys saying, drawn back into the conversation at hand when he notices him take a step back toward the open door. You don’t move to stop him. Aerion’s jaw tightens—he’s going to have to do this himself. Will you draw a blade against him if he attacks your friend? Did you ever actually care the way you claimed to? “I’m not going to sit back and let you make mistakes like this. I—”
Aerion does not flinch at the sudden crashing noise when you move forward and drive your foot into the open door, slamming it shut before Jaenys can leave, but his breath does hitch when he watches you shoulder Jaenys into the marble hard, putting the dagger you took from Aerion against his neck and pressing deep enough that blood dribbles down his pale skin.
The room is silent for a long, long time.
“I’m not letting you do that, Jaenys,” you say quietly. “You are my dearest friend. Do not put me in this position.”
Jaenys stares at you with an unreadable expression on his face. “You’d draw on me for him?” he breathes, voice riddled with disbelief. You do not respond, because the blade at his neck is answer enough. Oh. All of the tension that had spread through Aerion’s body, the heat beneath his skin and pressing behind his eyes, fizzles as he stares at you, throat working to swallow the lump that formed in it. “But the only person you’ve ever done that for is—”
Jaenys doesn’t finish the sentence, but understanding crosses his face instantly as he glances between you and Aerion one last time. Another few seconds pass with neither of you moving, staring at one another, and then Jaenys exhales, shoulders slumping as he shakes his head with a roll of his eyes.
“You are impossible,” he mutters, and when you don’t immediately drop the knife from his neck, he raises his eyebrows tauntingly. “If you keep that there for much longer, you’ll make my cock hard, and if you do that, you will be taking care of it, ñuha jorrāelagon—favored prince or not.”
Aerion’s lip curls up in disgust. Jaenys notices.
“He really doesn’t like sharing, does he?” Jaenys laughs, head rolling to the side to look over Aerion. He says lazily, “You’re lucky it was me who came, little prince. Naera or Visedor would have snapped your pretty head off if you wanted to keep her all to yourself. Lucky for you, I understand and will oblige you—for now, at least.”
Aerion gapes in fury, hand darting to grab the sword you’d rested against your wall so he can put it through the other man’s neck, but you give him such a cold look that he falters.
You’re choosing him. You’re choosing them. You’re choosing—
“Skoros iā qrīdronnor. Ao gīmigon skorkydoso naejot iderēbagon zirȳ, ñuha jorrāelagon,” Jaenys sighs, more serious now, silver hair falling in his face. “Skoros gaomagon gaomi sir?”
What a mess. You really know how to pick them, my love. What do we do now?
The tension bleeds from your shoulders at his words, and you drop the blade from his neck. Jaenys wanders over to your bed and sits at its edge like he belongs there, burying his face in his hands, and you lean against the wall you just had him pinned against, staring at the blood staining the blade. Aerion does not budge from the opposite side of the room—he doesn’t know what to say, if he should say anything. The way you stare down at Jaenys’s blood, and the way Jaenys is looking at you from the corner of his eye, it feels too personal. Aerion feels uncomfortable—he just, he wants to go back to how things were yesterday.
You’re choosing him. You’re going to choose Jaenys. You’re going to side with the Blackfyres. You’re going to march against his family—against him. You’re going to betray him. You’re going to—
You exhale, sliding down the wall until you’re seated on the ground, still staring down at the marble.“Eman iā kȳvanon naejot jiōragon zirȳla hen se tēgembōñ. Kessa henujagon lēda se Tȳni Trēsi hemtubis.”
I have a plan to get him off the island. He will leave with the Second Sons tomorrow.
“Gaomagon daor ȳdragon yno hae lo iksan daor kesīr,” Aerion hisses, still wound up, not sure what to do with himself anymore, but you let out such a heavy sigh that he physically falters, zeroing in on the exhausted expression on your face.
Do not speak of me as though I am not here.
Jaenys’s eyes flicker with interest at Aerion’s words, lips parting, but before he can say anything, you give him a cold look. He pouts and shakes his head, and then he says more seriously, “Pōnta jurnegon syt zirȳla sir. Issi jāre rȳ mirre hen lenton. Gaoman daor gīmigon lo kessi jurnegon bisy.”
They search for him now. They are going through all of the manses. I do not know if they will search this one.
You throw the dagger on the ground, frustrated, and the metal clatters against the marble loudly. You tilt your head back against the wall, and you hiss, “Nyke qogralbar ivestretan zirȳ īles daor kesīr!”
I fucking told them he was not here!
Jaenys shrugs helplessly and drawls, “Pōnta gōntan daor pāsagon ao.” Then he nods at Aerion, who sneers at him. “Nyke daor pāsagon skoro syt.”
They did not believe you. I cannot imagine why.
You knock your head back against the wall once, twice, a third time. Aerion makes his way over to you to stop you, but Jaenys is closer, and Aerion freezes dead in his tracks when he sees how Jaenys kneels in front of you, one hand slipping behind your head to stop you from smacking your head against the marble a fourth time. His throat is tight as he watches his free hand come up to cradle the side of your face, the way your eyes slide half open to peer down at him, the way you look so exhausted and still lean into his touch. Your eyes are soft, and vulnerable, and—
Have you ever looked at him this way?
“Jurnegon rȳ nyke,” Jaenys says softly, and Aerion’s skin fucking crawls. How could he ever compete with this? He’s known all along that you yearn for home and the people you left behind—more than he ever has, ever will—but it’s different seeing it in front of his face like this. The way you look at him, the way he looks at you, the tone of voice the two of you take with one another and the implicit trust. Aerion has never had that with anyone. “Kesan ziry, ñuha jorrāelagon. Kesi mirre ziry mirre hen hēnkirī.”
Look at me. I will handle it, my love. We will figure everything out together.
“Jaenys,” you start to say, voice quiet. “I—”
Your eyes slide shut when Jaenys leans in to press his lips to your temple. “We can talk another time,” he tells you. “If you have a plan for the Bright Prince to get off this island tomorrow night, then we will see it done. Until then…” Jaenys’s gaze flicks over to Aerion briefly. “Spend time with your little dragon, ñuha jorrāelagon. It might be your last with him.”
Aerion’s stomach lurches at his words, and you only sigh, gaze lowering again. Jaenys rises to his feet, tilting his head back slightly, a smirk curling at his lips as he looks over Aerion blatantly. Aerion sneers at him, but can’t help the way his eyes widen in disbelief when Jaenys hums:
“Perhaps if things work out—if I am still here and you are still interested in him when he returns to Lys, we can share him. Like old times. It’ll be fun.”
Jaenys lets out a huff of laughter, brushing his braid over his shoulder as he leaves your chambers, shutting the door behind him, and the silence that follows his exit is suffocating, pressing in from all sides, thick and heavy and ringing with everything said and unsaid.
Aerion does not move. For a long moment, he just stands there, staring at the door as if it might open again, and then at you, curled on the floor, gaze trained on the marble. You are not looking at him. You are not really looking at anything, he realizes. Your eyes are empty, expression just as vacant. Aerion has gotten good at reading you over the last eight moons, but now he cannot read a damn thing.
And then you sigh again, heavier this time, shoulders curling inward, making yourself small in a way he’s never seen you do before.
“I am sorry,” you say after a moment, so quiet that Aerion almost doesn’t hear you. “I should not have had them drug you.”
Aerion stares at you for a long moment. There are insults on his tongue—cruel and defensive, because he does not forgive you, he cannot forgive you. He needs to brace himself for what is about to come.
Then, his feet move before he knows what he’s doing, dragging against the ground in your direction. His back hits the wall next to where you’re sitting, and then he slides down it to sit with you. Thighs pressing, shoulders knocking together, Aerion’s jaw tightens when he feels you lean against him, resting your head on his shoulder as you let out another shaky breath.
“I would be dead if you didn’t,” Aerion replies quietly, the admission tastes like poison on his tongue. He inhales deeply, eyes sliding shut, head hanging forward. “I would not have been able to sit there listening to them. To—”
To you.
“I should not have had them drug you,” you repeat again, something hollow in your voice that makes Aerion press his lips together tightly. “I do not know what to do.”
The admission comes out so small that Aerion almost doesn’t hear it. You exhale through your nose again, sharp and shaky, jaw tight. You look up at the ceiling briefly, and Aerion falters when he sees that your eyes are glassy with unshed tears. His lips part to say something, but he cannot find any words.
“I thought it would be easy—that if an opportunity came for me to go home, there would be no question about it, I would take it no matter the cost,” you continue. “But this? This is—”
You let out another breath, head hanging forward as you shake your head. You look at him again, gaze dropping to his cheek, and your face twists—he’s not sure why until you lift your hand, fisting the fabric of your sleeve as you bring it to his face and wipe off the makeup Caelyx put over his scars so that he would not be recognized by them.
“If I return to Volantis this way, it will be the beginning of the end for our city,” you say, and something clenched terribly in Aerion’s chest when he realizes that this is the reason you’re wound up, not because of him, not because— “Volantis has existed as long as it has because of the Triarchy, because there are elections and we do not cut each other up over inheritance and right to rule. If I come back through a coup and am forcibly installed as Triarch, everything will change and not for the better.”
Aerion does not respond.
He doesn’t have anything to say that is not bitter and angry and vile, that would be more humiliating to admit out loud than to just keep it in, because he spent months battling with the fact that you would not return with him to Westeros, weeks questioning you, trying to gauge whether or not you would come if he asked you. The relief he felt when you said yes—it was enough to be debilitating, enough that he did not even care how he looked, did not care that he should be ashamed, did not care about anything, just that he would not have to part from you when the day came. And yet—
And yet, he does not even cross your mind.
You care about what it would mean for Volantis, you care about—
Shame floods him so quickly that it almost makes him sick. His next breath is quick, almost painful. Shame, humiliation, anger—he had always known in his gut that this was never as serious for you as it was for him. He tried to pretend the same, but it was intolerable. Aerion has never been good at handling his emotions; no matter how hard he tries to shove them down and pretend they don’t exist, they always bubble back to the surface at the worst possible times, unrelenting and all-consuming. And he could not bring himself to pretend that you did not matter to him—not when you were the first thing he thought of when he woke in the morning and the last that crossed his mind before sleep, not when the sound of your voice was sometimes the only thing to get him through bad days, not when he had begun to dread going home because he did not want to leave you behind.
His throat works as he swallows, fighting the heat that rises to his face, that presses behind his eyes. He has known this even if he didn’t want to admit it to himself, but still, hearing it with his own ears, seeing it with his own eyes—it hurts. Hurts the same way it hurt when Maekar turned his back on him when Aerion begged him not to send him away. The same way it hurt when he waited weeks for ravens from him, or Daeron, or Valarr, and never received anything.
And Aerion does not beg.
He does not beg anyone—not even you, especially not you. So if you wish to throw everything away and act like this never mattered, and maybe it never did to you, then so be it. He will get on the ship tomorrow, sail to the Disputed Lands with the Second Sons, and he will never think of you again.
He knows as soon as the thought crosses his mind that it is untrue.
There is no world where the two of you part ways and he will never think of you again. You will cross his mind every day, every hour, every minute—he will see you in the ocean and the sky and in every person that passes him by. He will spend the rest of his life chasing you, and you will be forever out of reach.
“I lied to you,” you suddenly say. Aerion’s thoughts come to a halt when your words register, brows furrowing. “I was never planning to go back to Westeros with you. I only said I would to get you to stop asking.”
A noise leaves Aerion’s throat before he can stop it—a scoff, maybe, a laugh, something in between. He stares at you, eyes wider than they should be, face hot and he’s sure red, because how dare you. Are you trying to rub it in? To make him feel worse about this? Are you trying to shove in his face just how little he meant to you? His stomach flips, and he—he feels embarrassed, again, because he had known this too. He knew it in his gut as soon as you agreed. He had known it was too easy, and nothing is ever easy with you, but he had let himself believe you anyway because—
Because he is a fool. He is a fool, and he loves you, and he wanted to believe you were telling the truth, wanted to believe that you would come home with him. Aerion hates you—he hates you. He hates that he cannot hate you. He hates that he wants to hate you, but cannot muster anything close. He wonders, briefly, if this is meant to be punishment—penance for getting his uncle killed—because he cannot imagine why else he would love someone who puts him through what you have.
Lying to him in the same breath you tell him you love him, humiliating him in the same second you step between him and a blade—nothing can ever be simple. There’s always some form of whiplash, and Aerion just—
“Right,” he says after a moment, trying not to let his thoughts spiral, voice thin with something he cannot quite contain. “Of course you did.”
He laughs then—short and brittle and entirely without humor—turning his face from you so that you cannot see how his expression crumbles. You do not deserve to know how much your words have wounded him—you cannot know.
“That makes far more sense,” he goes on, words coming quicker now. Harsher. “Gods forbid anything between us be that simple. I must have been so insufferable asking you to come home with me for you to be forced to lie just to silence me. My apologies. I shall not make that mistake ever again.”
“Aerion—”
“If I am such a bother to you, then maybe you should just hand me over to the Blackfyres,” he hisses, face flushing with fury and mortification, the weight of what you said hitting him in full. He is a fool, and you are—you are fucking cruel. “I would—”
“Aerion,” you interrupt, louder this time, grabbing his wrist when he tries to rise to his feet and pull away, but you do not let him.
Your grip tightens as you hold him in place, and he bares his teeth furiously, shoving you back when you won’t let go of him, but he cannot fucking get free. He cannot be free of you—he will never be free of you. His breath hitches traitorously, and his eyes feel hot again. Fuck—he is furious, and embarrassed, and he is—
Hurt.
He is hurt.
“Let go,” he spits. You do not. “Let go of me, you wretched fucking whore. I do not want to be here. I do not want to—”
Your hands find his face, cradling his cheeks, fingers soft and warm against his skin, and Aerion sucks in a breath that sounds like a whistle. He squeezes his eyes shut and turns his face away—distantly, he knows he can push you away. You’re off-balanced right now, half-leaning over him to force his face angled to you, so it would be easy to knock you away and storm off.
He does not.
“Listen to me,” you say. “Let me finish.”
No, he wants to say, because if he lets you finish, if he lets you try to explain your way out of this, he will listen, and if he listens, he will be weak. And Aerion is tired of being weak; he is tired of it—he has been weak all day. Longer than that, even—since the day he met you on that sun-warmed rock, and he let you mock him without consequence. He is sick and tired and he just wants—
“I thought it would be easy to disappear when the ship arrived to bring you west,” you tell him, and Aerion does not want to hear this. He does not need you to rub in his face how much of a fool he’s been. He tries to turn away again, but you do not let him, and he does not shove you away even though he could. “I convinced myself it would be—I would hide away in a cove and wait for the ship to leave port, would watch it leave with you on it, and go on with how life was before you showed up. But I have only been truly lying to myself, I think, because I do not know how I was ever going to disappear when the time came, when now I am handed an opportunity to go home on a silver platter, and I am hesitating because I know if I take this opportunity, I would lose you—for good.”
—you.
He still only wants you.
Fuck.
“It is… easier for me to focus on the logical flaws of Jaenys’s plan,” you continue, hands dropping from his face as you sit back on your heels and look away. “Easier for me to convince myself that I do not want to go along with this because it could spell the end of Volantis as we know it. The only thing I have ever loved more than my home is my brother, and it—it terrifies me that I find myself more upset over the thought of leaving you behind than I am at the idea of my city being on the brink of collapse. That I have a chance to see Viserys again, and—”
You do not finish that sentence, but you do not need to.
“You do not make any sense,” Aerion tells you, voice hoarse. Are you being honest this time? You do not look him in the eye now, gaze averted off to the far side of your chambers, expression downcast in a way he’s rarely seen from you. “You—How am I supposed to take this? Eight moons, and you have only just realized I matter to you? After all of the times you’ve said—”
He can’t spit out the words he wants to say, thoughts jumbled and dangerous, and saying them out loud would only make him feel more pathetic than he already does.
Avy jorrāelan, iksan aōhon, iksā ñuhon. All of the nights in the cove that is only yours and only his. All of the hunts through the streets that ended with you in his arms, legs entwined, tangled in sheets. All of the days laughing on balconies, drunk on wine and each other’s breath. And you are only just now realizing—
“That’s not what I meant—”
“It sure sounds like what you are saying—”
“Kessa ao ivestragī nyke tatagon ȳdragon?” you hiss, temper fraying.
Will you let me finish speaking?
The sharpness of your voice cuts through his spiraling thoughts, right through the mess of everything he’s trying and failing to make sense of. His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t speak again, waiting for you to continue.
“I did not just realize you matter to me. Do not twist my words into something easier for you to be angry at,” you say, inhaling deeply as you shift to sit next to him again, gaze pinned on your lap. “This is not simple for me, Aerion. I—I’ve known for months, since you came down with fever. Before that, since the first time I brought you to the cove, I just—”
He remembers that day—the way you disappeared all day, how he spent hours looking for you, only for you to show up in the middle of the night, dragging him through the dark, over rooftops in a storm to the cove that you claimed was only yours, and now only his. He remembers a couple of days after that, too, when you disappeared again: boredom is survivable, you had scoffed, and I’m not? he asked, and you did not answer.
You tilt your face to the side so that you can look at him, and his falls to the side, too. His gaze meets yours, and Aerion feels weak because he can feel the anger draining as the two of you share breath, as your eyes search his face. His throat bobs as he swallows thickly, and Aerion isn’t sure if he’s ever seen this expression on your face before. It is open—open and vulnerable in a way he’s only ever caught glimpses of when you tell him about home.
“Avy jorrāelan,” you tell him, and Aerion’s jaw tightens as he fights the instinctive need to look away, face hot and eyes burning. “Nyke drējī jorrāelagon ao, Aerion, se iksan zūgagon kesrio syt eman mērī mirre dija sīr kostōba syt mēre tolie issaros isse ñuha ābrar, se nyke pryjatan ñuha giez ābrar syt zirȳla. Tubī, nyke shifang bona kesan gaomagon keskydoso syt ao, se gaoman daor gīmigon skorkydoso naejot mazōregon lēda bona.”
I love you. I really love you, Aerion, and I am scared because I have only ever felt so strongly for one other person, and I destroyed my whole life for him. Today, I realized that I would do the same for you, and I do not know how to cope with that.
Aerion inhales quickly, breath hitching in a way that should leave him mortified, but he cannot even bring himself to care. He admits, voice hoarse, “Nyke pendagon īlē jāre naejot tepagon nyke bē rȳ mēre jēda.”
I thought you were going to give me up at one point.
You shake your head, and he is only consoled by the fact that your eyes are as wet as his are. “Dōrī,” you say. “Kesan daor emagon tepagon ao naejot zirȳ. Daor syt mirros.”
Never. I would have never given you to them. Not for anything.
Aerion doesn’t know why he says what he says next, because he should be taking advantage of this. Drive the nail into the coffin and make you stay with him with just a few well-placed words.
Aerion is not above it. He’s spent his whole life curating a softer, more palpable personality to put on for his father and grandfather and anyone of importance. He knows how to smile demurely, knows how to lower his lashes and give people exactly what they want to see. He knows what to say to make people give him what he wants, and he knows how to say it. Knows how to soften his voice just enough, how to let it catch on your name, how to make it sound like it costs him something to say it. Knows how to look at you like you are the only thing in the world that matters, like choosing you is not a question for him, was never a question for him. Knows how to reach for you slowly, carefully, like he is giving you time to pull away, even though he knows you won’t.
He has done it before. Not like this—not with something that matters so much to him—but the mechanics are the same. And the worst part is that it would not even be a lie this time.
“I love you,” he could say, and mean it.
“I don’t want to leave you,” he could say, and mean that too.
“I won’t survive it if you go,”—that might be a stretch, because Aerion would survive, he would just be forever haunted by the memory of you, but it would sound right, and you would believe it, because you already want to.
It would be enough to make you stay. Enough to make you choose him. Enough to pull you away from Volantis, from your brother, from everything you have ever wanted, and bind you to him instead.
He should do it.
He knows he should.
You’re halfway there already. He can see it already—the way your guard has cracked and your eyes search his face desperately. It would not take much. He knows how he can finish this and get what he wants, and Aerion has never hesitated in that regard. He always takes what he wants, regardless of the consequences it may have for others. It is his right as a prince, after all.
Instead, he says, “You could go home.”
His voice comes out too weak. He knows how much you’ve wanted this, knows it better than anyone. You should not be hesitating.
“I could go home,” you agree, voice just as weak as his. He finds comfort in that. “I might never get an opportunity like this again.”
He’s not sure which of you moves in first, but your lips are on his in the next breath—the kiss is chaste in comparison to the ones the two of you normally share, mouths sliding innocently against one another’s. It is slow and gentle in a way you both are so rarely.
It makes Aerion’s heart drop.
It feels like goodbye.
“I could come with you,” Aerion says quietly, a desperate hitch to the words that he cannot quite mask, lips brushing as he rests his forehead against yours. He hears you sigh, and before you can reject him, he continues, “I have little back home. I am the second son of a fourth son. My own father sent me away as an embarrassment, my brother does not write me. I—”
“And you would be okay marching against your own family? Cutting down your own kin?” you reply doubtfully. “You heard what the offer was. I would be installed as Triarch in return for Volantene support in taking the Iron Throne. Would you back the Blackfyre claim, Aerion? Betray your own blood?”
Aerion presses his lips together, rocks settling in his stomach as he squeezes his eyes shut. “You could not go through with it. Use them, and then—”
“We cannot go back on our word like that, Aerion.”
Desperately, Aerion tries, “You might lose, then.”
“If Volantis marches against Westeros, we will not lose,” you interrupt.
Aerion is frustrated. Why won’t you let him latch onto anything, even if it isn’t true? Why must you be so— “You do not know that.”
“I do, because I would be leading the campaign, and I do not lose,” you tell him. “If you can look me in the eye and tell me that you would be okay with it. Returning home with me, knowing I will march against your family, wage a war that ends with your blood executed—father, uncles, brothers, sisters—and you will not regret it, then I will take you home.”
Aerion’s eyes slide open to meet yours. His lips part. And—and he sees his father teaching him how to hold a sword, hears his voice, my boy, my boy, remembers the way he used to smile at him and Daeron when Dyanna was still alive, before everything changed. And Daeron—he remembers Daeron teaching him to fish. Daeron, finding him on the ground, clawing at his throat, and holding him until the madness passed, teaching him breathing exercises to calm him. Daeron, who would be no better than a trembling fawn on a battlefield, because he never took to combat the way Aerion did.
His throat bobs, and Aerion does not respond. Your lips curve up into a smile that does not reach your eyes, and he knows you know his answer without him needing to say anything.
Is this goodbye?
Will you choose to go home?
Are you going to leave him?
You lean in so that you can kiss him again, more firmly this time, one hand coming up to cradle his face, and Aerion’s drops down to your waist, sliding against the leather of your pants before his grip tightens on your thigh so he can pull you closer to him, onto his lap so that your bodies are flush. Your arms snake around his shoulders, and Aerion sighs into your mouth as you tilt his head back to deepen the kiss. You taste like firewine and faintly of blood—Aerion wonders how hard you must have been biting your tongue when he kept interrupting you.
“Gaomagon daor jikagon lēda zirȳ,” he murmurs against your lips, pulling back slightly so that he can meet your eyes as you slide his shirt off his shoulders. His breath hitches when you smooth your hands over his collarbones, nails scratching lightly at the hollow. He tilts his head back against the wall to look up at you, eyes half-lidded and lips slightly parted. His chest rises and falls beneath your palms, and his eyes slide shut when you lean in to kiss him again, slower this time. “Gaomagon daor henujagon nyke.”
Do not go with them. Do not leave me.
You do not answer him, and Aerion hates that it makes his heart sink. You are going to make him beg, and Aerion does not beg. He does not beg anyone, he does not beg you, but—but he will. And he hates that. He hates that he would bend, strip himself of every last shred of pride just to keep you here, that he would allow himself to become something smaller—not a dragon, not a prince of the blood, just… just a boy. Just a boy who will dig his nails in and won’t let go, ask you to stay, even if it costs him everything that makes him who he is.
“Kostilus,” he breathes into your both, shuddering when you press your lips to the corner of his, to his jaw, kissing down his neck. You drag your tongue from the hollow of his throat to the underside of his chin, and he fights a whimper. His chest heaves as you hover above him, lips ghosting his, tongue darting out to swipe teasingly against his upper lip. “Hah—shit. Kostilus. Kostilus.”
Please. Please. Please.
You kiss him again, deeper this time. You still do not respond, and Aerion hates this even more. Is it because you know he will not like your response? Is it because you cannot bring yourself to say that you do choose him, when it means you are choosing him over a chance at going home, over a chance at seeing your brother again? Aerion does not know, but he knows one answer is far more likely than the other.
“Aerion,” you start to say, and he decides immediately that he does not like the tone of your voice. There’s something in it—careful, hesitant, guilty—and Aerion’s heart rate spikes, because it sounds like the beginning of an answer he does not want to hear.
His hand comes up, fingers tangling in your hair, and he pulls you down into another kiss—harder, less hesitant, less asking. The words die on your tongue before you can get them out, and Aerion kisses you harder still, teeth biting into your bottom lip as his hands slide down to your thighs. He lets out a low grunt into your mouth as he shifts, lifting you with him off of the floor. Your legs instinctively wrap around his waist as he carries you a few steps over to your bed.
He drops you onto the mattress, following after immediately, hips slotted between your thighs, forearms braced on either side of your head, breath uneven as he searches your face for the answer he wants to hear.
But he does not find it. You press your lips together as you look up at him, and Aerion isn’t sure if he’s ever seen this look on your face before. His lashes flutter shut when you lift your hand to ghost the pads of your fingers against his cheekbone, tracing the lines of his face reverently.
“Iksā sīr gevie,” you say softly, two fingers resting over his lips as he stares down at you, hair curtaining either side of his face. Aerion fights a shudder, throat bobbing at your words. “Kesan tepagon ñuha giez ābrar lēda ao lo kostan.”
You are so beautiful. I would spend the rest of my life with you if I could.
This is goodbye, Aerion realizes, breath wavering as he stares down at you helplessly. You’re going to choose them. You’re going to go home. You’re going to march against his family, and you’re going to leave him.
“Kostā,” he tells you, pretending his voice doesn’t break over the word.
You could.
You exhale through your nose, brows furrowing, expression twisting; you let out a sigh that tells him you are still uncertain, battling between two warring desires, and Aerion leans down to kiss you again, pouring everything he has into it. All of the mornings spent hunting you through the streets of Lys, all of the afternoons spent indulging in wine and each other’s arms, all of the evenings at the cove that is only yours and only his, all of the times you cradled his face and said iksan aōhan, iksā ñuhon.
You kiss him back with the same intensity, legs wound around his waist, fingers tangled in his hair, back arching off the bed because even when your bodies are pressed together, it is never close enough. You whimper into his mouth when he rolls his hips, hands sliding from the back of his head to his cheeks, lips parting so that Aerion can swipe his tongue along the inside of your lip.
“Kostā,” he says again, dragging his lips from yours, to your cheek, your jaw, trailing open-mouthed kisses down your neck. “Kosti umbagon kesīr. Iā kosti jikagon naejot Vesteros. Kosti aerēbahon—naejot Qohor se Brāvos. Naejot Qarthi se Ashī. Skoriot mirre jaelā, kosti jikagon.”
You can. We can stay here. Or we can go back to Westeros. We can travel—to Qohor and Braavos. To Qarth and Asshai. Wherever you want, we can go.
It is a nice dream, he thinks, eyes sliding shut as he slides off your tunic and kisses down your chest. It is a—he lets out a shaky breath, nails biting into your waist as he rests his forehead to your sternum, face buried between your breasts—it is a really nice dream. He feels your fingers thread through his hair, and he presses his lips to the swell of your breast, fingers trailing down your body to slide your pants over your hips, and then does the same to his own.
He can almost imagine it when he closes his eyes. With your hands in his hair and your breath rising and falling unevenly, the warmth of your skin and the way you breathe his name—he can almost pretend that the two of you are on a ship to another city, just you and him, together, because he is yours and you are his, and nothing matters more than that.
It is childish, he knows that in his heart. He has known it since the argument in Vyrano’s manse, when you shouted at him and told him that things aren’t so simple, that you are bound by politics and the weight of your station, your titles, and your blood. Aerion knows one day he will be called home, and as much as it’s nice to dream of a world where he burns his father’s letter in retaliation for months of exile and chooses you instead, it just—
It is not so simple.
It will never be so simple, and that is why Aerion cannot get rid of the pit in his stomach, because he knows it is not simple for him, and it is even less simple for you. You could very well choose to go home, and Aerion wouldn’t even be able to blame you—not really. He would be angry, he would be cruel and cold, and he would pretend that he didn’t care half as much as he truly did, but he would not be able to blame you for it, even if you did end up on the opposite side of the battlefield one day. Even if you did—
You cradle his cheeks and lift his face again, bringing your lips to his as he rolls his hips against yours, eyes sliding shut as you kiss him deeper this time, gasping into his mouth when you feel his cock slide between your folds, tip pressing heavy on your clit before he drags it to your hole. His lips part, jaw half-ajar as he slowly sinks inside of you.
“Avy jorrāelan,” you whisper into his open mouth instead of giving him a proper answer, dragging your fingers through his hair, nails scraping his scalp. “Sīr olvie.”
I love you. So much.
Aerion lets out a hitched noise into your mouth, a gasp, a moan, something in between, lashes fluttering as he buries his cock deep in your cunt. One hand drops to your waist to hold you in place when you try to roll your hips up, and he presses his face into the crook of your neck, savoring the feeling of being inside of you, of your thighs around his waist, your chest pressed to his. He mouths absently at your neck.
I love you, you say—you’re hardly the first to say it to him. Many whores crawl into his bed professing their love as they paw at his chest and kiss his neck, thinking it’ll coax him into giving them an extra coin. But it’s… different coming from you, because you mean it. You have seen the very worst of him—vicious and violent and half-mad—and you mean it still. He knows it in the way you say it, the way you look at him, the way you drew your blade against your own friend to protect him. He knows you mean it, and he doesn’t know if anyone has loved him—truly loved him, all of him, even the worst bits—since his mother died.
And he is going to lose you, just like how he lost her, because you love him, but it is not enough to make you stay.
Fuck.
The next breath he lets out is shuddered, and his eyes burn, so he is glad he has his face pressed into the crook of your neck. His chest feels heavy all of a sudden, lust slipping away, and Aerion is frustrated—he’s so frustrated that he cannot even hold onto this. The feeling is there: your body wrapped around his, the heat, the closeness, the way you breathe his name and arch your back into him. His cock is buried in your cunt, warm and wet and tight, walls fluttering around him, but—
His hips still against yours, and for a moment, Aerion cannot move at all, pressed against you, breath uneven at your throat, grip at your waist tight, but not with desire. He does not want to lose this. You.
You card your fingers through his hair, a slow, soothing motion that makes him ache.
“We do not have to do this,” you say quietly, and he hates that you understand. You always understand. Nobody ever understands Aerion, but you always have; with little more than a glance or a look exchanged, you’ve always understood what he wants and needs. He does not want to lose this, he thinks again desperately. He does not want to lose you. “We can just lay together, if you want.”
Aerion’s jaw tightens at your words, frustrated with himself and the situation, because he let himself get too attached to you, because he loves you and now he is going to lose you, because he doesn’t want to just lay with you, he wants you, wants this, but he cannot pull himself out of his own head long enough to even fuck you properly.
“No,” Aerion says, voice strained. “No, I want this.”
His grip tightens at your waist, almost bruising, trying to anchor himself to you. He forces his hips to move again, slow at first, then rougher, chasing something he cannot quite reach, and it feels wrong—disconnected, like his body is moving without him.
“Fuck,” he breathes, forehead still resting on your shoulder, so frustrated that his eyes burn with tears that he can feel on the verge of spilling over. Aerion has not cried in years, and today he has twice. It is mortifying. “I just—”
He does not even know what he’s trying to say. That he’s angry? That he’s scared? That he does not know how life will be after he loses you? That he wants you to tell him that you will still be here when he returns, even if it’s a lie?
You lift his face from your shoulder and press your lips to his again, lips moving slowly against his, coaxing him out of his own head and back into the moment.
“Tell me something,” you say against his lips, fingers carding absently through his hair.
“Like what?” he mutters, sighing as he presses his nose against your temple, basking in your warmth, trying to settle back into the now with you beneath him, your hands in his hair, voice soft in his ear, cock buried deep inside of you.
“Anything,” you reply unhelpfully.
Aerion exhales through his nose, and then, he inhales deeply, drowning himself in the new lavender oil you bought at the market last week.
After a few moments, he says without thinking, “Your whore said something earlier.”
You hum. “Caelyx says a lot,” you say, amused. Aerion almost rolls his eyes when he realizes you know which one he’s talking about without him having to say anything. “What did he say this time?”
Aerion’s face is hot as he registesr exactly what he just said, remembering what it was that threw him so off kilter earlier, unsure why he even brought it up. His mouth opens, then closes again, jaw tightening because he already regrets it. You give him a curious look and he scowls.
“Something stupid,” he mutters, trying to brush it off, but your fingers tug lightly at his hair, trying to coax the answer out of him.
“Tell me.”
“That you—” Aerion cuts himself off, eyes flicking to the side until you press your fingers to his cheek and force him to look at you again. Irritation and embarrassment war within him, begging him to shut the fuck up. “That you like to take control. In ways most men are too proud to learn.”
You are silent for a long moment, and then you laugh—it is bright and pretty, and Aerion pulls back slightly to look at the way your eyes shine, and your smile splits your face. Your fingers drag through his hair as you look up at him, an adoring expression on your face that leaves him breathless.
“Gaoman raqagon bona, zaldrīzes dārilaros,” you purr, leaning up to nip his lips. “Issi jaelā naejot sylugon mēre tubis? Ivestragī nyke gūrogon toliot? Mazverdagon ao dijāves sȳz.”
I do enjoy that, dragon prince. Are you wanting to try one day? Let me take over? Make you feel good?
Aerion’s face flushes hot, and he instinctively moves to press his face into your neck again, but you do not let him, forcing him to hold your gaze. There are a dozen things he wants to say, sharp and cutting, to salvage what little pride he has left. But none of them can make it past the heat crawling up his throat.
“That is not—” he starts, then falters, scowling when your expression only grows more amused.
“Not what?” you murmur, thumb dragging slowly along his lower lip before pressing in slightly. His lips instinctively part for you, letting you trace the inside of his mouth. “Did you imagine it, prince? Taking it? Letting me set the pace, letting me decide how deep, how slow, how hard?”
Aerion’s cock twitches inside of you, breath shuddering, letting out something between a scoff and a strained breath, grip tightening. He stares down at you with wide eyes, and you watch him raptly.
“I think you’d like it,” you continue, thumb sliding further in his mouth to press down on his tongue. He thinks to bite down just to make a point, but he finds himself too consumed by what you’re saying to even try. “Being held down, stretched open, made to take it inch by inch, fucked hard until you forget how to fight me at all—forget to think, forget to breathe.”
Aerion chokes on nothing at the lewd words, face flaming red, pupils blown wide, breath quick and chest heaving. Something close to a whimper spills from his lips.
“You’d curse me for it at first,” you say, lips curved up, almost thoughtful, like you’re envisioning it yourself—him beneath you, back arching, jaw slack, eyes rolled back as you hold his hips. He is envisioning it too. “Try to push me off, tell me to stop—” Your lips brush his jaw, lingering there. “—and then you wouldn’t want me to, start to realize how nice it feels.”
His nails dig crescents into your skin, so deep that he’s sure he’s drawing blood. His hips twitch, but you stop him this time, legs tightening around his narrow waist to hold him still. He fights a complaint, teeth grinding together as he tries to hold himself together with the sliver of pride he has left.
“It is easy to make someone loud, you know? But I could make you feel so good you’d go quiet,” you tell him. “Turn this pretty head of yours to mush, until all you can do is lay there and take it.”
“You—”
Aerion does not even know what he wants to say, breathing ragged and heavy, cock aching in your cunt. He tries to move again instinctively, only able to grind his cock a little deeper inside of you, and it is not enough, not nearly enough. Your thumb slips from his mouth and Aerion’s head hangs forward, eyes half-lidded, a low groan escaping his lips when you roll your hips up.
“Jaelan so naejot qogralbar nyke se ñuhoso kesā jaelagon nyke naejot qogralbar ao,” you breathe, tilting the lower half of your face up to ghost your lips against his. “Sīr bona skori ao māzigon arlī, kostan gūrogon ao isse manta lēda.”
I want you to fuck me the way you would want me to fuck you. So that when you return, I can take you apart properly.
When you return—hope flares in his chest with a vengeance, and Aerion is rutting his hips into you before you even finish the sentence, choking over a breath, one hand flying to your hair to crane your head back so he can press his lips to yours. He moans into your mouth, eyes rolling back at the feeling of your walls tight around him, drowning in the lewd sound of skin on skin, the sloppiness of his cock pounding your wet cunt.
“Aerion—” you gasp, and he loves the sound of his name on your lips, loves it even more when you sound like this—whiny and needy, fucked out in a way you only ever get with him. Aerion will never get enough of you. He could have you forever, and it’ll never be enough. “Hah—shit—”
He grabs your thigh with his free hand and hooks your leg higher to reach deeper inside of you, bracing his knees on the mattress so that he can fuck you properly, relishing in the way you cry his name, back arching into his chest and—
—and for a second, he cannot stop himself from imagining that it’s him instead. That it’s your weight pressing on his body, your fingers pressing bruises into his thigh as you push it up to his chest, his back arched off the bed as you press deep into him, so deep that he cannot breathe, that all he can feel, all he can think is you. And—and it is wrong. Aerion is a prince, a dragon, he does not give up control to anyone like that, much less a woman, much less you, and he is angry. Angry at you for putting the image in his head, angrier at himself for wanting it.
Aerion’s hand slips down to your throat before he can think twice, pretending that it’s yours on his instead, fingers squeezing just enough to cut the air to his lungs, watching the way his face reddens as he gasps for air he cannot breathe in; he imagines the burn in his lungs as your lashes flutter and lips part, the way his head would go light and fuzzy, vision darkening at the edges.
Your hand flies to his wrist, nails digging deep into his skin, eyes rolling back with each thrust of his hips, lips wet and swollen as you try to suck in the air he deprives you. Your eyes are hazy as you stare up at him, hardly able to hold his gaze, his fingers cutting off the pretty moans of his name that he knows would be falling from your lips.
He cannot get enough of it—he cannot get enough of you. He will not let you leave him, cannot let you leave him. But—but he cannot stop you. He cannot stop you, and you love him, but it is not enough, and Aerion should not be surprised, because when has he ever—
—Aerion does not want to think about that. He does not want to think about it at all, so he leans down to press his lips messily against yours, groaning into your mouth as your walls flutter around his cock. You barely kiss him back, too focused on trying to stay conscious; he can feel the soft, breathless whines against his lips, the ones he cannot hear from his own doing, and he chokes over a moan when he feels you writhe beneath him, jaw falling slack when one particularly rough thrust has you cumming on his cock, hips jerking and body spasming beneath him.
He squeezes his eyes shut, willing himself not to finish with you, even as his cock aches, head hot and heavy, each drag against your tight walls making his whole body shudder violently. He only lets go of your throat when your fingers start to slacken on his wrist, when he notices the way your head starts lolling back against the pillows.
“Fuck,” he groans, watching as you inhale the air greedily, imagining the rush to your lungs, the way pleasure has started to shift to overstimulation as you squirm against him, hips still slapping against your ass as he fucks you hard, chasing his own high now, abdomen tense, body hot and prickly, mind half-way gone already.
“Aerion,” you gasp, nails digging into his shoulders as you seek something to hold to, head tossed back, throat bared to him, and Aerion bites down hard, relishing in the familiar taste of iron in his mouth, the way you cry out, hips jerking as you cum a second time already.
He cums with you this time, hips stuttering when he feels your walls tighten around him again, moaning into your neck as he spills his seed deep inside of you.
He collapses against you, chest heaving as he tries to regain his breath. His eyes slide shut when he feels your fingers on his back, tracing his skin lightly as he comes down from his high. He presses his nose into your neck, ghosting his lips against your skin.
After a long moment, he lifts his face from where he’s buried it in your skin so that he can look at you. There is an expression on your face that makes Aerion’s chest tighten—too sad, too close to goodbye, like you’re memorizing something that will soon be ripped away from you.
“You could come with me,” he says, grateful that it does not come out as a plea, because it certainly feels like one. “Tomorrow morning, on the ship. Join the Second Sons with me until the Golden Company leaves Lys. Come with me to the Disputed Lands.”
Aerion knows your answer before you say it. He sees it in your eyes, and his jaw goes tight, helplessness and frustration, pride and anger eating away at him. But before he can spit out a string of vile insults, accuse you of being a liar and a traitor and a whore and whatever else spills from his lips in a desperate attempt to salvage his mangled pride, you lift your hand to his face, fingers brushing beneath his eye before you hold his cheek in the palm of your hand.
“I do not want to fight tonight, Aerion,” you tell him quietly when you see the expression on his face.
Aerion does not care. You do not get to want anything; you do not get to ask him anything. Frustration bubbles and bubbles and bubbles, and he stares at you accusingly, angrily, because how dare you tell him this when, for all he knows, as soon as he leaves tomorrow, you’ll be on a ship with the Golden Company returning to Volantis.
And yet, it does not spill over. He does not know whether he is the one who does not allow it, or whether he is just tired and cannot muster it.
Aerion lets out a breath as he lowers his head to your chest, eyes sliding shut when he feels your fingers thread through his hair again, carding through the long locks gently. He sinks into your warmth, the feeling of your arms around him, legs entangled, so wrapped together that he can no longer tell where he ends and where you begin—as it should be, as it won’t be soon.
Will you be here when I return? he wants to ask desperately. Is this the last time we will be together like this?
He cannot bring himself to ask, because he’s not sure if he really wants to know the answer.
———————
Aerion wakes to the early morning light spilling through your curtains. He lets out a soft puff of air, pressing his face into your chest before he cracks his eyes open.
The sun only seems to be just breaching the horizon, and Aerion’s eyes slide shut again briefly when he realizes what that means. He feels your fingers still in his hair, absently twirling the ends, and his jaw tightens.
“How long have you been awake?” he rasps, not wanting to move from where he’s laid up in your arms, but he knows it’s only a matter of time.
“I did not sleep,” you say quietly after a moment, and Aerion pauses, staring absently out to the balcony looking over the First Magister’s manse, watching the sun rise over the sea.
For a few seconds, he does not respond. He just listens—to your breathing, to the faint sounds of the city beyond the manse, to the rhythm of your heart beneath his cheek. His fingers smooth over your forearm, sliding down your wrist to entwine his fingers with yours, the movement so instinctive that he doesn’t even realize what he’s doing until he feels your fingers tighten around his.
“Why?” he asks finally after a minute, feeling your fingers pause in his hair before you resume the slow strokes.
“You’re prettier with your mouth shut. I was appreciating the view without all of the snark.”
Aerion clicks his tongue harshly, but his lips curl up into a small smile despite himself. He mutters, “Miserable wench. I should have your tongue.”
He feels you huff out a laugh, and he shuts his eyes again, letting himself rest in your arms, exhaling softly when he feels your hand drift from his hair to trace idle patterns along his shoulder and back. He does not want to move. Does not want to ruin this moment. Does not want to leave when he doesn’t know if you will be here when he returns. He just wants to stay like this.
He thinks you want to, too, because your arms tighten around him, and you make a noise in the back of your throat. He feels you tilt your head down to ghost your lips against the top of his head, sighing into his hair.
“We need to get to the harbor before the rest of the island wakes,” you finally say, voice quiet.
Aerion wants to pretend that he doesn’t hear you, that the world outside this room does not exist and the Blackfyres aren’t a breath away, seeking his head—that it is only you and only him, as it should be, as it is meant to be—but his pride is already in tatters and he refuses to shred what little is left of it, so he pushes himself up, out of your arms.
He hesitates at the edge of the bed, sitting there, staring into the horizon, until he feels your arms slip around his bare waist, nails scratching lightly at his abdomen, your lips on the sun-warmed skin of his shoulder, and he lets his eyes flutter shut again.
Will you still be here when I return?
“I do not have proper clothes to wear,” he says instead. “I will not wear silks to—”
“You can wear something of mine,” you interrupt, and Aerion regrets brushing you off the moment you pull your arms back and shift off the bed, wandering over to one of your chests, pulling out black leathers for him to put on. “We’re going to have to move through the alleys—I’m sure the Golden Company still has men patrolling the streets looking for you. Once you get on the ship, you’ll be fine. They won’t risk starting a conflict with another mercenary company.”
Aerion knows all of this, and if it were any other day, he would make a snide comment about how you should put your tongue to better use than telling him something he already knows. But it is not any other day, and Aerion can only grind his teeth together as he pulls on the clothes you handed off to him.
The two of you dress in silence after that, quickly so as not to waste too much time, but slowly all the same, casting looks toward one another when the other is distracted, savoring in a sight that you will both soon be deprived of.
On opposite sides of the room, the two of you stare at each other after getting dressed. Your jaw is tight, and he’s barely keeping his breath steady. This is goodbye, he knows that, but he does not know for how long.
A few months, maybe.
Forever, maybe.
His lips part to speak, but no words leave them. You exhale through your nose and reach to your bedside, grabbing the steel you’ve carried the past eight moons. You stare down at it for a minute, fingers tracing the red gems embedded in the hilt—it’s not the Valyrian steel that your friend gave to you earlier, but it’s still one of the finest blades Aerion has ever seen.
Your grip tightens on it briefly before you make your way over to him.
“This was a gift,” you say quietly. “From the First Magister on my arrival. My father took my sword, my armor, my jewelry, and put it all back in the family vault. He allowed me only the necklace I took for myself from the ruins, and a short dagger to defend myself with. The magisters do not typically allow people who aren’t household guards or hired sellswords to carry steel, but the First Magister gave me this in hopes of making me feel more comfortable as I was not… adjusting well—” Aerion snorts, and you scowl at him, but then hold out the hilt of the blade to him. He gives you a questioning look. “We will not have time to stop by Magister Vyrano’s manse so you can grab the rest of your belongings. Take it with you. A sellsword without a sword makes for only—”
“Do not finish that sentence,” he mutters, chest tightening as he takes the blade from you. It’s light in his hands, balanced, the morning sun glittering against the rubies in its hilt. He admits, “It is a nice blade.”
You give a wry smile that does not reach your eyes. “Do not lose it, dragon prince, or I will take offense.”
Aerion would never lose something of yours, he thinks to himself, but does not say out loud because he cannot bear to admit more than he already has. He thinks you know, though, because your smile fades at the edges, expression slipping the longer you watch him.
“In my chambers in Vyrano’s manse,” Aerion says after a moment, chest tight, exhaling as he looks away, “there is a chest. A black one. It is important to me, will you—”
Aerion cuts himself off, lookin away, unsure what he’s really asking. But you nod, because you know—you always know.
“I’ll make sure nothing happens to it while you’re gone,” you say softly.
You turn your back on him without another word, making your way to the door, and Aerion’s lips part to call after you, panic spiking hard and fast, clawing up his throat. Once you leave this room, everything will end, and Aerion does not want this to end—not now, not ever. Your hand wraps around the handle of the door, and your name is on his lips, but—
—but he closes his mouth, eyes sliding shut as he follows after you instead, unable to rid himself of the heaviness weighing on his chest.
———————
It takes less than an hour to get to the harbor. There was only one brief scare at the market where one of the Blackfyres—Haegon, the one you flirted with—was lingering, talking to a Tyroshi merchant. Aerion had half a mind to put a blade through his throat before making his way to the Second Sons’ ship, but you stopped him before he could, much to his irritation.
He stands at the edge of the harbor now, the smell of sea thick in the air, watching as the sellswords move about the deck, preparing to set off to the Disputed Lands. The ship looms ahead of him, its shadow dwarfing the pier, and the lump in Aerion’s throat feels terribly uncomfortable.
His thumb tightens reflexively around the hilt of the blade you gave him, thumb brushing over the embedded rubies. Behind him, the city is just beginning to stir, voices carrying faintly from the square as merchants open their stalls, and the harbor children chasing one another down the docks. Life goes on, as it always does whenever Aerion feels as though his life is falling apart.
He lets out a breath, then turns to you.
For a long moment, neither of you says anything.
Up close like this, with the morning light catching in your hair, you almost don’t look real. Like something he imagined into being during those long, empty months of exile. He almost wouldn’t be surprised—Aerion is the last person who deserves to have met his other half, like in the stories and poems that Daella used to have their mother read to them, and madness always has run in Targaryen blood.
But you are real, you are here, and perhaps it does make sense that he has met you, only to lose you. That is a just punishment, he thinks, for who he is and what he has done. His gaze drifts over your face, lingering, memorizing—the curve of your mouth, the glint of your eyes under the morning sun, the way your lips part as you let out a soft sigh.
He swallows thickly, trying to find something to say, but before he can, you say, “Māzigon arlī naejot nyke, zaldrīzes dārilaros. Konir sagon iā udrāzma.”
Return to me, dragon prince. That is an order.
But will you even be here when I return? he wants to ask, the words lodged in his throat, because he is terrified of leaving you here with your friend and the Blackfyres, where they can whisper in your ear and convince you to go along with their plan to bring you home and he will be out of sight and out of reach, too far away to convince you not to forget about him. He is terrified of returning to find you long gone.
“Gaomā daor udrāzma nyke, quba ābra,” he says instead, grateful that his voice comes out steadier than he feels.
You do not order me, wretched woman.
Your smile lightens at his words—the curve of your lips softer, and the look in your eyes gentler than he has ever seen it, a flash of longing crossing your expression before you hide it with another quiet sigh.
A yell from the deck of the ship signals that it is almost time for it to disembark.
“Kesi rhaenagon arlī, mēre ñuhoso iā tȳne—bona iksan gīmigon hen,” you say easily, turning on your heel to leave without so much as another lingering look in his direction. Aerion almost calls after you, but he stops himself, watching you leave with his heart in his throat. “Ēva hembar jēda, dārilaros”
We will meet again, one way or another—that, I am sure of. ‘Til next time, prince.
———————
There IS a universe where our girl chooses to go home & takes the Blackfyres up on their offer instead of staying in Lys… That is not this au, but the idea of that au is saurrrr juicy to me. Like it would definitely be a much darker au because it would be centered on them being opposite sides of a war, which the Targaryes would ultimately lose—so his father/uncles would be killed, potentially his brothers/sister too unless they escaped or someone intervened (hint hint), and Aerion would be in the middle of tug of war because the Blackfyres want him dead because he’s a potential heir to the throne, and reader wants him and is refusing to let up on it. All this to say, it would be much darker and much more toxic LOLLL, Aerion would hate her profusely and also hates that a part of him can’t bring himself to hate her as much as he should, even after everything she did. Definitely tries to kill her several times but either can’t bring himself to do it or is half-assed so she’s able to stop him.

















