wrap me in your skin and bones

“So we shouldn’t neglect the survival skills,” Commodore replies.

“Precisely, my leviathan. Precisely.” Charm pats the back of his monstrous hand approvingly. “You must practice how to start fires and build shelters, and learn which plants are poisonous and how to catch fish, and there will be a station in the gymnasium concerning first aid, staunching blood and setting broken bones and so on…”

As she talks, you notice that among her plentiful jewels is a particularly ornate diamond on the ring finger of her left hand. “Are you married, Charm?” you ask.

She glances at her wedding ring apathetically. “Oh yes, my Wilbur. He gave me a better life. He put all of this…” She gestures broadly, to the opulent Tribute Center, to her aspirational role as an escort in the Hunger Games…even if only for an upstart district. “Within reach for me.”

Commodore is confused. “You weren’t always rich?”

“Goodness no,” she says, tittering. “I’m old enough to remember the times before.” Before the Capitol won the civil war, she means. Before the Hunger Games. Before President Snow. “Bombs and hunger. Blackouts and dust.” Charm shudders, then is spirited again. “But you must never feel sorry for yourself.” She wags a glittering finger at you and Commodore admonishingly. You both nod. “The people who curled up in the dark and felt sorry for themselves are all dead now. But I’m still here. You never give up. You never succumb to self-pity. You never wallow in impossible fantasies. You never make excuses. You never stop clawing your way higher.”

There is no other world, you remember you told Aemond. We have to make the best of this one. “And…do you have children…?” you ask, a little horrified by the prospect of Charm being a mother.

She laughs. “No, no children, and what a blessing that is!”

Beside you, Commodore sighs in relief, and you exchange a brief smile with him.

“It’s not as if women have much of a choice in the matter,” Charm continues, flipping open her compact to check her makeup, white eyeshadow to match the cowrie shells of her dress, lips that shine red like fresh blood, oxygenated and unclotting. “With everything that happened all those years ago…radiation and pollutants…natural pregnancies are rare here in the Capitol. Nothing can be done to prevent them. If you’re one of the few who can manage to reproduce without the assistance of needles and Petri dishes, you just have to sacrifice for the good of humanity and get on with it! Still, if a woman does manage to conceive and carry to term on her own, she usually only has one or two children.”

“My mother had five,” you say, and Charm is staggered.

“That many?! What a disturbing thought. And she’s all shriveled up like a raisin, I assume? Drained of every ounce of beauty and vitality?”

“She died having me.”

“Oh,” Charm says, lowering her compact. She is solemn in a way that is awkward but sincere. “I’m sorry, dear.”

“It’s alright. It’s Daddy I feel sorry for, he’s the one who lost her. I never knew her, I’ve never even seen pictures. My oldest sister Misty is kind of like my mom, I guess.”

“And now you’re here,” Charm laments. Now you’ll die in the arena, and your mother’s blood will have paid for nothing. “Well…at least you have siblings!” Charm says brightly. “It’s very hard on families when there are no siblings or cousins to distract from the loss of a tribute.” She turns to Commodore. “Do you have siblings, sea monster?”

He shakes his head.

Charm tsks. “Unfortunate.” She scrutinizes her eyelashes in the mirror again, dabbing black flecks of mascara from the crests of her cheekbones with her elegant fingertips. “Sirena was an only child,” Charm says, and you recall suddenly: That was the name of the other tribute Aemond saved. He helped Jack win…and he helped Sirena. But she’s gone now. “And her parents were so ecstatic when she won, it was a very emotional homecoming. A truly heartwarming occasion. Ratings for her Victory Tour were through the roof. Her family got her back…and then a few years later, they lost her all over again. Can you imagine? How awful.”

“I heard it was a car accident,” you say.

Charm snaps the compact shut. “It wasn’t an accident. She waited for a car to go by, and then she ran out in front of it. It was an accident for the car, I guess. Not for her.”

You’re so stunned it takes you a moment to respond. “Why would she do that?”

Charm looks at you, a little impatient, a little sorry. Because winning the Games isn’t the end of your suffering. It’s just the beginning.

“It must have been difficult for Aemond,” you manage, wanting to know more, not sure how to ask. “He was only fifteen when his name was called on Reaping Day and his life changed forever, and then he had to adjust to being here in the Capitol…and being a mentor…and then to work so hard to save Sirena only for her to end up dying that way…”

“Fifteen is quite young, yes. But Aemond’s name was never chosen. He volunteered.”

What? He did?

Before you can get your bearings, Aemond emerges from his rooms and Charm adeptly changes the subject. “Anyway, I hope you both have a marvelous first day of training!” She picks up one of the outlandish fruits on the table and holds it aloft. “This is a prickly pear! They grow in the desert! Has anybody ever tried one before?” Charm stares at all three of you, then seems frustrated that nobody in interested. She sighs and sets the prickly pear down again.

Aemond hangs your knife around your neck and then sits across from you, white suit, shimmering sapphire, his long silver hair in a braid. He looks tired, shadows under his eyes. He frowns at your empty plate. “Will you eat something, please?”

“Nothing looks good to me.”

“Then try one bite of everything,” he says, and you do, and by the time you’re done it amounts to just about a full meal.

As the elevator descends towards the gymnasium—Charm complaining about how the suites for the District 1 and 2 tributes are nicer and Commodore nodding placidly along—you stare at Aemond and think: Why would you volunteer for this? But maybe the answer is simple. He didn’t know what it was. And once you’re here, there’s no getting out; it’s a vortex, it’s quicksand, it’s the event horizon.

When the elevator stops at the bottom floor, Charm stays inside; she’s headed off for fittings with Salem, she says. You, Commodore, and Aemond continue to the gymnasium, where the other tributes are already warming up: axes, knives, slingshots, archery, hammock-rigging, knot-tying. The mentors are supervising and advising, and some other victors are here to offer their expertise as well: Mags is showing the District 6 kids, Rihannon and Pacific, how to fashion hooks and lines for fishing; Jack is over at the spear station with Hawk and Saratoga. Commodore, as aspiring Jack acolyte, sets off to join them. Monty and Pluto are using a bean bag to play catch with little Babylon from District 5, who is twelve years old now and forever.

I hope when he’s killed, it’s quick, you think, distraught. However it happens. Whoever does it.

“Way to go, Baby!” Monty cheers when the boy snags the bean bag out of midair, giving the kid a high-five. Baby, beaming, slaps Monty’s palm as hard as he can. Pluto drops to his knees and points to his own jaw, telling Baby to practice punching him. Baby does, and Pluto makes a great show of collapsing to the floor and rolling around in supposed agony. Monty laughs, loud and warm. Behind a window of clear glass, some of the Gamemakers are observing the gymnasium with passing interest; it’s still early, and the tributes haven’t hit their strides yet.

Roosevelt is running on a treadmill, his red hair flying. The District 2 mentor, out of shape and badly in need of a shave, is leaning against the machine and mumbling to him. Roosevelt doesn’t seem to be paying attention. He sees you walk in and blows a kiss, grinning. When he speaks, somehow he isn’t out of breath at all. “Hey, Sparkles.”

“Will you shut up, freak?” Brookie says from where she and Isla are on the floor stretching nearby.

“I want you to go to the edible plants and insects station,” Aemond tells you, opening his notebook. Beetee is there with the District 3 kids, Kista and Tendo, teaching them a rhyme to help them remember which mushrooms are poisonous. “Let me watch the other tributes and I’ll check back in with you in an hour.”

“Can I talk to my friends first?”

Aemond is exasperated. “You don’t have any friends here. You can have allies, but not friends.”

“I have friends,” you disagree, and he sighs and relents, gesturing for you to go ahead. Then he leaves to sit on a metal bench by the wall, sliding a black pen out of the pocket of his suit jacket and watching the Careers with a militant gaze: Brookie, Hawk, Saratoga, Roosevelt, Commodore.

“I can’t believe you volunteered for this,” Isla is saying to Brookie as they stretch, arms pulled across chests, legs extended to the front and then the sides, toes pointed and flexed. You sit down with them and start stretching too, which feels pretty pointless. Across the gym, Commodore swipes a spear out of Hawk’s grasp with ease and breaks it over his knee. Hawk chuckles nervously, trying not to seem petrified.

You add: “Yeah, you’re freaking insane.”

Brookie just smiles. She has a pair of small, decorative axes lying within reach; her initials are etched into the blades: B.B. “It’s an honor where I come from. I’ve never seen my mom so proud before, not when my dad was elected mayor, not when my sister had her twins. My parents have very high expectations. I finally met them.”

“But aren’t you scared?” Isla says. “Aren’t you worried that…you know…it might not work out?”

“I haven’t missed a target in years. And it’s not really me versus twenty-three people,” Brookie says matter-of-factly, like this is something that has been repeated to her until she accepts it as truth, like seasons or food chains. “The odds are a lot better than that. Statistically, almost all the victors are from District 1 or 2…or 4, since Aemond took over as their mentor. So I only need to worry about three, maybe five other tributes.”

“Uh huh,” Isla agrees, politely ignoring the fact that Brookie has already discounted her. “But upsets happen! When Beetee from District 3 won back in the 34th Games, that was super unexpected, wasn’t it? And the District 4 girl who won six or seven years ago wasn’t a good fighter. Remember her? What was her name?”

“Sirena,” Brookie says. “Yeah, I remember. One of the best finales I’ve ever seen. She was this tiny kid with a baby face, she definitely didn’t look fifteen. She got a training score of 3 from the Gamemakers. Pathetic. She spent the whole Games hiding until only one of the Careers was left. The arena was a swamp, or something…?”

“A bayou,” Isla says. “Gators and live oaks.”

“Oh, right, yeah it was! Sirena was crawling around up in the branches. Then Aemond figured out the Career was allergic to tree nuts. I don’t know how he put that together, it was supposed to be a secret, for obvious reasons. But Aemond is smart, and he has a lot of connections, I guess. So he sent Sirena a bunch of pecans and almonds until she realized what he wanted her to do, and she ground them up into a powder and got close enough to the Career to drop it down on him, and he suffocated to death.”

Isla’s brow furrows. “Why couldn’t Aemond just send her a note that said tree nut allergy, choke the fucker out or something like that?”

“Because any gift or note has to be approved by the Gamemakers, and they want to keep things interesting. If the victor wins too easily, the audience will lose interest. If the people placing bets think the Games are rigged, they’ll stop gambling.”

“Ah,” Isla says, nodding.

“So how are y’all planning to win?” Roosevelt calls over from the treadmill. “You’re gonna Pilates me to death?”

You reply: “Hey, are you allergic to tree nuts?”

Brookie and Isla burst out laughing. Roosevelt must get the reference too, because he smiles. “I’m onto you, Sparkles. The sponsors can send you gifts, but they can’t help you use them.”

You twist the knife that hangs from your throat by its long silver chain, a hushed gleaming threat. “Who says I need help?”

“The Gamemakers aren’t gonna let you go into the arena with that. You’ll have to get it from the Cornucopia.” He’s right, inconveniently. Roosevelt winks. “I’ll race you there.”

You watch him run for a moment, then say: “Can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

“What?”

“Yeah, what do you want?”

“What are you good at?” you say, and immediately he knows what you mean. He’s not tall, he’s not burly, he’s not a swordsman or an axeman or an archer. But he’s a Career, and he’s one of the favorites for a reason.

Roosevelt steps off the treadmill, not stumbling even as the machine continues whirring at full speed, and takes a few steps towards you. His sweatsuit is black; his gait is nimble and fluid, his footsteps barely making a sound. He grins, dark eyes flashing. His mentor blinks dazedly from where he is still leaning against the treadmill. “You want to see?”

“Roosevelt, don’t,” Isla pleads.

Brookie smiles. “No, let him show her. It’s epic.”

Isla is perplexed. “What does ‘epic’ mean…?”

You stand up, a little reticent, looking back at Brookie and Isla. “What is it?”

“It can’t be described, only experienced,” Brookie says. Isla cups her face with her hands and waits, looking on with a wide, anxious gaze. “It’s fine!” Brookie whispers to her.

“It’s scary,” Isla mutters.

You turn back to Roosevelt. He’s very close now. “Go ahead,” he says. “Get your knife ready.”

You pull the sheath off the blade, silver fish, gemstone eyes. You are bewildered. You can’t harm him, and he can’t harm you; your ruin must be saved for the arena where the viewers can enjoy it. You twirl your knife by the iridescent mother of pearl hilt, an extension of your own hand, an indelible reflex over a decade in the making.

Roosevelt’s own hands are empty. He shifts his weight slightly to the right and then the left, his eyes not just on you but in you, noticing every flinch and fortification, every muscle that coils or releases. You try to follow him with the tip of your blade. Then—impossibly, undeniably—he sweeps behind you, hooks an arm around your throat, hits your shoulders someplace that makes the knife tumble out of your grasp and the silver sheath clatter to the floor. You can’t scream, only choke; he’s suffocating you, he’s killing you. His fingers press into the side of your neck and almost immediately, your vision goes black and your knees buckle. But Roosevelt doesn’t let you fall. He releases your throat and blood floods back into your brain and your lungs, and he catches you beneath your arms and yanks you upright, and you stand there gasping as he cackles and your knife swings harmlessly from its chain.

Roosevelt swipes the sheath off the floor and clicks it over your blade, then he holds up both hands. He’s not showing them to you; he’s showing them to Aemond, who is suddenly here.

“Relax,” Roosevelt says, still laughing. “I wasn’t gonna hurt her, I know what’s allowed—”

Aemond strikes out and grabs him by the collar of his shirt, yanks him in close, lifts him off the floor. Roosevelt squeaks in protest as he claws at Aemond’s hands, his eyes huge. The lights turn red, an alarm starts blaring. Peacekeepers and medics rush into the gymnasium. The other tributes are ogling now. Baby yelps in fear and confusion; Monty ruffles the boy’s fluffy brown hair to let him know it’s alright.

One of the Gamemakers says through the speakers, his voice firm but monotone: “Aemond, put him down, please.”

Aemond’s face is bathed in bloody light and fierce and murderous, and you think dizzily: He’s killed people, and I will too. But he complies, and as Roosevelt staggers away, smiling again, Aemond shouts at the window: “I want him sanctioned!”

The Gamemaker replies, an unappealable judgment: “It’s over, Aemond. No harm done.”

“It’s against the fucking rules!” Aemond sees Roosevelt’s mentor inching closer, a timid attempt to mediate, and whirls to him. “Sherman, keep your tribute in line or I will!”

The District 2 mentor nods meekly. “Okay, Aemond. Okay. I got it.”

You try to intercede now that you can breathe again. “Aemond, it’s my fault, I said I wanted to see—”

“You keep your fucking hands to yourself!” Aemond roars at Roosevelt.

“What are you gonna do in ten days, Aemond?” Roosevelt taunts, throwing his arms wide as he walks backwards, retreating towards the treadmill. “She’s all mine then. You can’t go with her into the arena. Let her learn how to fend for herself, let her practice while she still can. Then she might actually have a chance.”

“I can’t wait to hear the cannon fire for you,” Aemond hisses, and only then does Roosevelt’s grin falter.

“Enough!” the Gamemaker’s voice thunders through the speakers. The alarm falls silent, the lights go white again.

You feel sticky wet heat on your face, when you lick your lips you taste salt and copper; your nose is bleeding, and badly. When you lean forward, a river of it pours out onto the floor.

“Oh my God!” Isla cries in dismay. She spins to Brookie. “I told you…!”

“Fuck,” Aemond snaps, and you feel like it’s probably not presumptuous to declare this the worst first fifteen minutes of training a tribute has ever had in nearly half a century of the Hunger Games. A medic approaches cautiously with a fistful of gauze. Aemond rips it out of his hand and shoves it against your nose. The medic scampers off.

You’re about to start crying. “Aemond, I’m really sorry—”

“It’s fine, you’re fine.” Now he’s patient, or at least he’s trying to sound like he is, your blood on his hands, the gauze held in the ideal position to staunch the flow. He’s had practice. He’s an expert in carnage. But his face is troubled, and when he glances down at the puddle of red on the floor he closes his eye like he can make it disappear, like it’s something he can choose not to believe in, a religion or a curse or a mirage or a myth.

“I think you’re going to have to get used to seeing me bleed,” you say, and Aemond shakes his head but can’t come up with a lie good enough to convince you.

You can’t just leave. You know that, even without anyone saying it out loud. It would make you look too weak, and the time to train is finite and precious. So you learn about which plants and insects you can eat, and you practice first aid with Brookie and Isla—“We could have used this thirty minutes ago,” Brookie jokes, and the three of you laugh—and you try out swinging from the ropes course, and you play catch with Baby to make him smile.

“I have to go somewhere tonight and I won’t be back until late,” Aemond says when you’re alone in the elevator together, rising towards the suite for the tributes from District 4. “But I’ll see you tomorrow. Okay?”

You’re disappointed; you’ll miss him. “Where are you going?”

Aemond doesn’t answer, so you know. The red phone. A client. He takes out his cylindrical crystal lighter and lights a cigarette, your blood still under his fingernails.

You’re lying in bed with the shadows of the city flickering across the ceiling. You should be asleep, but you can’t turn off the ticking of the clock in your skull, the sifting of the hourglass sand between your fingers, the impending ruin of your flesh one way or the other.

If men are going to use me, I should at least be able to get something out of it.

You reach between your legs and search for the right spot, the perfect rhythm. You squeeze your eyes shut and try very hard to forget where you are. There are whispers of pleasure, and then they evaporate; you continue the attempt, determined, but then your hand starts to ache.

“Fantastic,” you sigh, giving up. With sleep impossible, you go out to the common area to watch television instead.

You curl up on the couch and flip through the channels, something that feels like having too much power. You’ve never gotten to control a television before, only watched whatever the screens back in District 4 were showing you. One of the channels is broadcasting a marathon of prior Hunger Games in anticipation of this year’s butchery. You try to force yourself to watch so you can learn how to win, but then you see a grinning Jackline Humboldt thrusting his spear through the skull of a boy from District 9, and your stomach lurches so violently you’re almost sick all over the couch.

Is that what it takes?

You can’t kill people like that. You know you can’t. You flip through the channels until you find a documentary about manatees instead, and you half-watch them chomping on eelgrass, your mind wandering to horrific places, your skull painted red with children’s blood.

After midnight, the front door opens, and Aemond is back. He glances at where you’re sitting on the couch, says nothing, goes to his own rooms. You hear his shower running for a long time. When the water finally stops, you assume he’s going to bed, but maybe he can’t sleep either; he roams out to the common area and claims the other end of the couch, staring blankly at the manatees on the television, black sweatpants, white t-shirt, long silver hair unbound and hanging in damp waves.

“Aemond, are you okay?”

He sounds exhausted. His sapphire glints in the semi-darkness; his scar has turned from maroon to black. “Can I just sit here with you?”

“Of course.”

You watch the television for a while in silence, painted by the gloomy blue-green luminescence of the screen, then you lie down on the couch and rest your head in Aemond’s lap. At first he’s taken aback, and you fear you’ve made a mistake; but he settles his left hand on your forehead, and he smooths back your hair, and he is slow and warm and gentle, and he doesn’t stop.

You ask, terrified of the answer: “All those gifts you’ve saved…all those treasures you’ve earned over the past ten years…that’s only enough to get one person out of Panem?”

“Yes,” Aemond says softly. “Just one.”

You close your eyes. “I thought so.” And you think, his palm still on your forehead: If it could be like this sometimes, I’d want to live. Even if it cost my body. Even if it cost my soul.

It’s the second day of training, and Commodore is already down in the gymnasium having Jackline Humboldt teach him how to hurl spears through little kids, and you and Aemond are in the elevator together. There’s no white suit for Aemond today, just a deep royal blue to match the District 4 sweatsuits, perhaps with the ever-present threat of bloodshed that’s a wise choice.

Suddenly, Aemond taps the red Emergency Stop! button on the panel. When the elevator lurches to a halt, he turns to you. “I’m going to hit you.”

“What?!”

“Not hard,” Aemond clarifies. “But if you’ve never fought before, your first instinct when someone hits you will be to freeze up, and that can’t happen in the arena. So you have to get used to it, and you have to fight back.”

“Okay.” You try to be brave, but the closest you’ve ever been to violence before you came here was Misty brushing the knots out of your hair hard enough to make your eyes water.

Aemond swats lightly at your head, and you wince away. He’s visibly disappointed. You’re so sickened by this that you resolve to improve, and when he shoves your shoulder you knock his hand off of you with vicious force. “Good,” Aemond says, pleasantly surprised.

He lunges at you, grabs your wrists when you try to swing at him, backs you up to the cold metal wall and pins you there. You’re breathing in his warmth and his scent—sweet vanilla, sundrenched wood, dark smoke—and his hips are suddenly pressed to yours, and you’re supposed to be fighting this but you don’t want to be.

I can’t keep disappointing him.

You scream and rip your right hand free, then strike him hard across the blind side of his face. Aemond recoils, stunned.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” you say, horrified. “Was that too much?”

“No, that was great.” Aemond returns to you, then begins showing you the places to aim for. His fingertips press gently at the top of your abdomen. “Solar plexus.” When anybody else here touches you, it feels like a violation; it makes you think of how you once handled filets and loins, butterflying muscles flat, cutting out bloodlines. But you are beginning to crave the weight of Aemond’s hands, a treasure like the relics he keeps locked up in his glass case. His fingers travel south then north again. “Achilles tendon. Knee. Temple. Zygomatic arch. Eyes.”

“Eyes?!”

He smiles grimly. “They’re soft. They’re vulnerable. And people are pretty useless without them.”

He would know; he lost one in the arena. A District 1 girl named Sapphire took his eye, and he took her life.

Aemond hits the red button on the elevator again and it resumes its descent. “When the Games start, there will be a pile of weapons and other supplies right in the middle. The Cornucopia. Do not go for it. The opening bloodbath favors the stronger tributes. Big guys like Commodore, Pluto, Hawk, Monty, they’ll crush you. Your advantage comes later, once they’ve tired themselves out. They need more calories to stay alive. They expend more energy just by breathing. When the Games first begin, they’re lethal. Fast forward a few days and they’ll be suffering the most from thirst, hunger, fatigue, exposure. Then you can surprise them.”

“Aemond, I can’t kill those people.”

“Do you want to live?”

“You know I do.”

“Then you’ll have to,” he says, and when the elevator doors open he steps through them.

You are in your pod being refined by the prep team, essential touch-ups, excavated ruins. Your old skin is buffed away and washed down the drain by the lukewarm water that rains from the handheld showerhead. Your hair is combed and washed and recombed and then conditioned until it is impossibly soft and free of tangles. Your glossy nude nail polish is stripped and replaced with a more appropriate motif: silver glitter that catches even the lowest light, because everyone knows you sparkle. There is one week left until the 47th Annual Hunger Games.

The partition rolls open, and Aemond stands in the doorway. You gape at him, puzzled, as you sit on the cold metal table in your white robe having your hands slathered with cuticle oil. He’s wearing a black suit; randomly, you think of how no one wears black back home except when they’re going to a funeral.

“Get out,” Aemond tells the prep team.

“But we still have to do the deep-tissue massage!” a man protests.

“Out!” Aemond demands, and they scatter amidst a chorus of groans and complaints. When everyone else is gone, Aemond rolls the partition closed and flips a latch so it locks. You watch as he crosses the small room until he reaches the table. The mirrorlike metal is still beaded with moisture from when they washed your hair and your body, always with lukewarm water because they’re too preoccupied to notice it isn’t hot yet, and you never complain. The drain at the end by your bare feet is still frothy with pearlescent soap bubbles.

“Aemond, what are you doing?”

He’s looking everywhere except at your face: at the floor, at the wall, at the table. His hands are hidden in his pockets. His cheeks are flooding a hectic, gory pink. He’s not mad, you realize, more mystified than ever. He’s nervous. When was the last time you saw him nervous? At his house of glass, in front of his treasures? When we talked about our secrets? “Is this okay?”

“That depends,” you say slowly, still staring at him. “I don’t know what you’re doing.”

“I wanted to show you something.”

“Show me what?”

He doesn’t answer; he peers down at the showerhead attached to a long stainless steel hose for easy reach, now at rest in its bracket on the rim of the table.

“Show me what, Aemond?”

“You’d have to roll up your robe,” he says; and his gaze at last finds yours, and he stays there, one harsh glittering sapphire that isn’t really him, one pale blue iris that reminds you of the sea and the sky, of rain that soaks parched earth. “Just to your hips.”

What? Now you think you know what he’s offering, but you don’t understand how.

“I won’t touch you. And I won’t look any more than I have to.”

Faintly, you can hear sounds from the other pods: muffled anonymous voices, clanking equipment, rushing water, rolling doors. Then all the noise seems to bleed away like soap bubbles swallowed down the metal grate of a drain, and the ticking of the clock in your skull vanishes too, and the hourglass stops hemorrhaging golden grains of sand, and the tides and the arc of the sun go still.

Without tearing your eyes away from Aemond, your fingers close around the hem of your robe where it rests just above your knees and roll it up: over your thighs, all the way until your knuckles hit your hips. You bend your knees, keeping them together to conceal yourself. You lean back against the table, propped up on your elbows, and wait to see what he’ll do.

Strangely, Aemond reaches for the showerhead. He grips the handle with one hand and turns on the faucet with the other, and then he tests the water with his palm, adjusting the faucet several times. Eventually, he directs the stream against your thigh. When the water touches your skin, it is hot, just on the verge of too much. Steam billows up to fill the air, to dampen your lungs, to cloud your thoughts, to smother the nerves. So many people have seen and touched you since you’ve been reaped, and you don’t trust any of them the way you trust Aemond. Why should you be ashamed? Why should you be so possessive of the skin that now belongs to everyone?

You open your legs for him, just a little bit, and the cascade of water slowly revolves to the inside of your thigh, where the flesh is downy-soft and delicate. This is nice—hot water really makes a difference, you think, resenting the prep team—but you still don’t know exactly what he’s going to do. Your muscles are loosening, opening, warming under the hot water. Gradually, the showerhead travels up towards your hips, the water washing over the apex of your thigh and the lowest part of your belly, and then—

Aemond glances down for the briefest of moments, and the stream hits a tangle of nerves, a bottle of lightning, and scalding, disorienting pleasure bolts through you. You gasp in a sharp breath and Aemond’s eye comes back to your face as you exhale shakily, gazing up at him, grateful, awed.

Oh, THIS is what it’s supposed to feel like.

Aemond says: “Do you want me to stop?”

“Definitely not,” you sigh, and roll down until your spine is flat against the table, cold metal turning blood-warm. And he’s true to his word; he doesn’t look between your legs again, only at you, and you imagine an anchor dropped into the blue currents of his eye, something to tether you to him, something to keep you from ever drifting away and being pummeled to wreckage in the open ocean.

Aemond rests his left palm on your forehead, just like he did the night you waited up for him, and he smooths back your hair and then does it again and again, a slow repetitive motion, a chain that links you, and when you whimper he murmurs: “Shh, shh.”

There is the sensation of being pulled somewhere, of being set aglow, of being on the spiraling edge of a whirlpool. A hushed moan escapes from your lips. Your legs are trembling; your hips shift, wanting the torrent of water to be closer, harder, merciless. You’re so close to what’s next, but you can’t imagine what it will feel like; nothing better than this can exist, can it?

“You have to keep quiet,” Aemond says.

“I don’t know if I can.”

His hand skates across your face. He stops over your mouth and thrusts his ring finger between your teeth. “Bite down.”

You do, starving incisors, bruised skin, and then he holds your head down as your spine arches and your throat burns to scream, light exploding and depths opening, a dragging, a grasping, electricity ricocheting through shredded muscles until it dissolves.

Abruptly, like a bone snaps, you are too sensitive and the pounding of the water is painful. You shove the showerhead away and Aemond turns off the faucet. As he clicks the showerhead back into its bracket, you lie on the table panting in the sweat and the steam, mesmerized, thinking: If I get to do that again, I want to live forever.

Aemond is watching you, and when he unfurls your white robe to cover your thighs again you see that his hands are shaking. There is an indigo indentation on his ring finger from where you bit him. There is a thick ridge in his black suit pants, a hardness, a desire, a dream, a mirage of an impossibility.

You want to be close to him; you want to be together with him in this moment, in this dwindling life. You want to give him what he’s given you, or at least something almost as good. You reach for his hand. “Aemond—”

He turns away and goes to the door, unlocks it, heaves it open and is gone. Moments later, the prep team stampedes back inside. “He is so difficult!” one of the women huffs. Others take their places around the table, oblivious to the steam or the fact that the reflective metal is newly wet again or almost anything about you, really.

“Ready for that deep-tissue massage?” an ever-smiling man asks you, and you nod and let them disrobe you, turn you onto your belly, knead their fingers and their forearms and the heels of their hands into your captive flesh as you doze.

Aerion knew his tolerance for pain was higher than most. Simply, because he enjoyed the feeling. It had started during training, relishing the bruises on his skin as a sign he was improving.

That soon found its way into other aspects of his life. Specifically, sex. Scratches on his back or reddened indents from nails digging into his skin. He wore them like trophies. Signs of achievement.

He had only hoped you would see them the same way. And in time, you did.

At first, you had worried you were hurting him past the point of pleasure. But he never seemed to care. His back littered with scratches in various states of healing. Even a bite mark on his hand from where he'd had to cover your mouth that morning - he hadn't been able to wait to reach your chambers.

"I wish I could remember the exact point each one happened," Aerion mused, inspecting what he could see of his back in the mirror.

You let out a scoff, "As if you don't already have those memories securely in your mind."

Your flesh was no less marked by him. Though yours were often less permanent. Despite his reputation, Aerion could be gentle. He loved you enough to play only within your limits.

A bite mark to your inner thigh. A carefully placed bruise on the flesh of your breast, far to similar to the shape of his mouth. Sometimes a handprint left hot on the curve of your backside.

You moved to stand behind him, fingers tracing the freshest scratches.

"I made you bleed, if I remember," you whispered, tracing the path of a particularly angry red line.

Aerion let out an approving hum. That one would most certainly scar the best. Lucky him.

He had a way of bringing out your darkest desires. Making you want chase things you never thought you would enjoy. Opening your mind to pleasures beyond your imagination.

The sting made you hiss through your teeth. He had never bitten you quite that hard before. But you could tell by the punishing rhythm of his thrusts, that nothing but lust and adrenaline filled his mind.

Your lip felt swollen, even as Aerion kissed away the remnants of the pain. But it was the taste of copper that made your cheeks flush. He had broken the skin.

His hips seemed to slow as realisation hit him. Tongue darting out to taste the few droplets that clung to his own lip.

"Yet another delicious part of you, my love," he growled, the taste of your blood on his tongue seemingly igniting those pleasurable flames once again.

The stone of the wall bit into your back. Cold and rough, almost as punishing as Aerion's thrusts.

You couldn't deny the rush of it. Knowing at any point someone might find you. Knowing your husband was so enamoured with you on even the basest of levels, that he couldn't wait any longer.

As hips stuttered, your nails found the only skin they could. Marking a sliver of bare skin at the back of his neck, and making Aerion smirk into his kiss.

"Another to add to the collection."

Aerion Taglist:

@aemondsbabe @multyfangirl @sylasthegrim

@targaryen-dynasty @leather-bound-fantasies

@deadonyouraccount @tumblin-theworldaway

@legitalicat @vhagar-balerion-meraxes

You brought out two sides of Maekar. A gentle side, reserved only for your eyes and ears when he was feeling particularly romantic. But you also enjoyed when he explored a different side. To the outside world he was gruff and standoffish. Rude, some might say.

But you enjoyed that side as much as the other. Demanding, dominating, passionate but aggressive. You sought that side out and Maekar loved you for it. When he would burst into your shared chambers, carrying a proverbial storm cloud behind him, looking at you like you were the only person who could tame it.

The door near swung on its hinges as Maekar entered, boots clicking against the ground as he paced the room before it had even closed over again. You barely batted an eye, closing the distance between you and catching his arm as he passed.

But he didn't stop like he usually did. His jaw so tense you thought his teeth might crack under the pressure. It seemed it would take a little more work to dispel this cloud.

You released your hold on his arm, turning your back as though ignoring him. Letting your robe drop from your shoulders as you changed into your nightgown. The moment you pulled the silk up over your body, you could feel his eyes on you. If you had looked at him, you would have seen the questioning raise of his brow as he stopped pacing.

Were you not going to try and calm him down as you usually did?

If he had been paying more attention, he would have seen right through your little game. But instead he fell into the trap.

"Don't even think about getting into that bed," he snapped, crossing the room and tugging you back towards him.

His hold was tight, almost daring you to defy him in whatever way you could.

If Maekar was dominating, you were anything but submissive. It was a mutual control. Maekar took the lead and you allowed him to. And it worked perfectly. He could unleash the tension often found inside him, and you would get the satisfaction you needed. The feeling of teasing him until he broke.

"But I need to sleep, my love, it is late after all…" you answered, testing the strength of his hold with a small wriggle.

Maekar only held you tighter, his lips on the crook of your neck. Pressing his chest against your back as his breath tickled your skin.

"And what of your husband's needs?"

The low grumble of his voice sent a shiver down your spine. You just needed to push him a little bit more. You chewed at your lip, weighing your next words on your tongue.

"What of them?"

That was enough. The same arms that wrapped around your waist now lifted you from the ground. Planting you on the bed with a less than gentle thump. His body caging you to the bed, arms either side of your head. The smile on your face said it all, you were right where you wanted to be. And so was Maekar.

Maekar had brought things out of you that you had never thought you would enjoy. The domination, bringing a bratty side of you that you never believed existed. There was a freedom in it. Forgetting the outside world and exploring new pleasures together.

The sound of Maekar's hand hitting your backside was so much louder than you expected. Sending a jolt up your spine that almost forced a moan from your lips.

Another strike. Then another. Then another. Each one making your skin hot and your core pulse. And Maekar could see it.

"You aren't supposed to be enjoying this, you know?" he teased. stroking a palm over your heated skin.

It didn't stop him striking your flesh again, however. Nor did it stop him ignoring the steadily hardening length beneath his breeches. Just another new pleasure to explore.

Maekar Taglist:

@multyfangirl @foxyanon @tumblin-theworldaway

@sylasthegrim @dixie-elocin

@targaryen-dynasty @thought--bubble

The night King Aegon died, Dragonstone seemed to remember every death that had come before it.

The castle had never been a gentle place. It had been raised by Valyrians who thought stone should look like something that had screamed itself into permanence. Towers bent like black claws against the sky. Gargoyles watched the sea with frozen hunger. The walls sweated salt and old heat. Even in mourning, even under rain, the island did not soften. It crouched above the water with the patience of something older than grief, something that had watched kings come ashore with crowns in their hands and watched their bones leave in silence. You had been born beneath those towers, Princess Y/N Targaryen, daughter of Aegon the Conqueror and Rhaenys of the bright laugh and quick hands, sister to Aenys, blood of the dragon on both sides and still somehow treated like a delicate thing whenever men wanted your silence. It would have been funny, if it had not been so tiring.

Your father was dead.

That was the truth every candle tried and failed to soften. Aegon Targaryen, First of His Name, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, Shield of His People, Rider of Balerion, the man who had bent Westeros around the heat of his will, was gone. Not slain in battle. Not burned in dragonfire. Not dragged down by some heroic enemy with a song already forming around the corpse. He had died as men did, suddenly, obscenely, inside the body that had carried all that conquest. The Stranger had not cared for titles. The Stranger never did. Men built thrones and banners and lineages because they could not bear that little truth. Death came anyway, rude and unimpressed.

In the great hall, Aenys wore grief like a robe made for someone broader. Your brother sat beneath the carved dragons with the new crown near his hand rather than on his head, pale, shaken, gentle-eyed, already surrounded by lords speaking in careful voices. They called him Your Grace now, but they watched him as men watched thin ice beneath their boots. He thanked them. He listened. He nodded. He looked toward you once, helplessly, as if the two of you were children again and he had found himself lost in a corridor too dark for comfort. You had wanted to go to him. You had wanted to put your hand over his and remind him how to breathe. But the hall was full of men measuring weakness with the quiet industry of butchers checking the fat on a lamb.

So you had remained still.

That was one of the first lessons you had learned as Aegon’s daughter. Stillness could be a blade if held correctly. Your mother had taught you that before she died in Dorne, though she had never said it so grimly. Rhaenys had danced through rooms other people stalked through, but she missed nothing. She had known when to smile, when to cut, when to charm a man so thoroughly he thanked her after she opened his throat in public without spilling a drop of blood. You remembered her hands braiding your hair on a warm morning before she flew south. You remembered her perfume, orange blossom and smoke. You remembered Meraxes’s shadow swallowing the yard, and your mother laughing at some jest Aenys had made, her face turned toward the sun.

Then Dorne had eaten her.

After that, nobody spoke of softness in your presence without earning your contempt.

Visenya stood apart from the others in the hall, straight as a spear, black and silver, her lined face giving nothing away. She had not wept. You did not think she had forgotten how. You thought she considered tears a private language, and Visenya Targaryen did not give language freely to those who had not earned it. Her gaze rested on Aenys with a coldness that might have been judgment or might have been fear wearing armor. Beside her, half in shadow, stood Maegor.

Your half-brother had been a hard boy and had become a harder man. There were men who grew into their faces as they aged, and then there was Maegor, who seemed to have been carved for war before his cradle was built. He was broader than Aenys, taller than most lords, with shoulders made for mail and violence. His silver hair fell loose tonight, damp from the storm, and the dark tunic he wore made his eyes seem paler than usual. He did not fidget. He did not offer comfort. He did not pretend grief had turned him kind. The lords near him kept a careful distance, the way men avoided stepping too close to a chained beast even when assured the chain was strong. Sensible of them, really. A rare outbreak of intelligence in a royal hall.

Maegor’s gaze found you through the smoke and candlelight.

It did not ask if you mourned. It did not offer sympathy. It held you with the old, unspoken recognition that had existed between you since he had first been old enough to understand that you were not like the simpering girls presented at court, not like the pretty hostages dressed as companions, not like the ladies who lowered their eyes and called obedience virtue because some septon had told them fear was holiness. You had been Aegon’s daughter and Rhaenys’s shadow, smiling when you wished, silent when you chose, but never tame. Maegor had seen that before most. He had been a boy with a wooden sword and too much force in his hands. You had been older, already expected to behave like a princess, already bored of men telling you how princesses should breathe.

He had struck a training dummy so hard one morning that the post split.

“You will break every blade they give you,” you had told him then.

He had looked at you, sweat on his brow, fury in his mouth. “Then they should give me better blades.”

You had laughed. He had stared as if nobody had ever laughed at him without fear before. Perhaps nobody had.

That was years ago. Before Aenys’s marriage. Before Maegor’s disastrous match with Ceryse Hightower, that pale Oldtown offering laid at the feet of politics and the Faith like a lamb dressed in silk. Before the realm learned to whisper that Queen Visenya’s son had no heir and King Aenys’s children were too many, too fragile, too soft, too beloved by the wrong factions. Before your father’s body cooled and every lord in the hall began pretending loyalty had not already become arithmetic behind his eyes.

You left before the feast of mourning turned into a council by another name.

No one stopped you. A few glanced your way, but no man reached out. Even after all these years, even after marriage offers rejected, alliances proposed, bargains dressed up as concern, there remained something about you that reminded them of the mother you had lost. You were not Rhaenys. You lacked her easy brightness, the lightness with which she disarmed fools. Grief had made you more deliberate. Court had made you smoother. Watching men exploit Aenys’s kindness had made you cruel in small, useful ways. Still, you had her mouth, her eyes, and when you chose to smile, men remembered too late that Rhaenys Targaryen had conquered as surely as Visenya and Aegon had.

The corridors of Dragonstone were colder away from the hall. Torches hissed in iron brackets shaped like dragon jaws. Rain struck the narrow windows and ran down the glass in trembling lines. Somewhere below, the sea hurled itself against the cliffs with mindless devotion. You walked without escort, skirts whispering over black stone, your mourning gown heavy with dark embroidery worked in the shape of wings. Around your throat rested a ruby your father had given you when you were ten, too large for a child then, perfectly suited to a woman now. Aegon had fastened it himself and said you had your mother’s fire. You had believed him because children believed fathers before they learned fathers were men, and men, even great ones, were full of failures dressed as duty.

You reached the gallery overlooking the eastern yard and stopped.

Below, Balerion slept like a hill of darkness.

No, not slept. Rested. Waiting. There was a difference with dragons. The Black Dread lay coiled in the rain, vast beyond reason, his scales drinking what little moonlight escaped the clouds. Steam curled from his nostrils. Every breath moved through the yard like a bellows stirring a forge. He had carried your father across seven kingdoms. He had burned Harrenhal. He had made kings kneel. Now he lay riderless, and the world seemed wrong for it.

“He will not take Aenys.”

Maegor’s voice came from behind you.

You did not turn at once. “You sound certain.”

“I am.”

“Dragons are not swords, brother. They are not passed from hand to hand because men think inheritance should be tidy.”

“No,” Maegor said. His steps came closer, slow, measured, no jingle of ornament, no wasted sound. “They choose strength.”

You looked down at Balerion’s enormous head, at the closed eye larger than a shield. “And you think strength is always loud enough to be recognized.”

“I think weakness is always loud enough to be punished.”

There he was. No comfort, no false gentleness, no attempt to place flowers on a corpse and call that governance. You turned then, finding him only a few paces away. The torchlight carved his face into bronze and shadow. Maegor wore grief strangely, if he wore it at all. Not as sorrow. As insult. As if Aegon’s death had offended him by leaving too much unfinished.

“Aenys is king now,” you said.

Maegor’s mouth tightened. “Aenys is crowned. That is not always the same thing.”

“You should not say that where stones can hear.”

“These stones have heard worse.”

“They have,” you agreed. “Mostly from our family. A proud tradition of giving architecture trauma.”

His gaze moved over your face. There was no humor in him, not tonight, but something almost alive flickered behind his eyes when you spoke. Maegor did not laugh easily. You were not sure he laughed at all anymore. But he listened to you with a focus that had always felt more dangerous than affection from another man. Other men admired. Other men desired. Other men thought wanting you made them brave. Maegor looked at you as if he had long ago decided you were inevitable.

“You left him alone in there,” he said.

“Aenys is not alone. He has half the realm pressing its tongue to his boots.”

“He needed you.”

“He needed Father not to die.”

Maegor accepted that with a faint tilt of his head. “That too.”

You looked back toward the rain-streaked window. “I will speak with him when he can hear me. Not while lords crowd him, not while septons murmur about divine order, not while every man with land and vanity tries to carve a future from his shock.”

“He will listen to them before he listens to you.”

“Perhaps.”

“He loves you. That does not mean he understands you.”

The words landed too close to a truth you had spent years folding neatly and hiding beneath silk. Aenys loved you. He had loved you all his life with the open warmth that made people forgive him things they would have condemned in another king. As children, he had followed you through Dragonstone’s halls, coughing in winter, laughing in summer, asking questions until you threatened to feed him to the crabs. You had protected him from courtiers, from his own anxieties, from the knowledge that your father’s disappointment hurt him more because Aegon rarely needed to say it aloud. But Aenys wanted peace so badly that he often mistook appeasement for mercy. He wanted love from a realm built by flame. He wanted the Faith to bless what it had barely survived. He wanted lords to remember oaths when ambition smelled blood.

It terrified you how much you loved him. Love made women stupid in songs. In life, it made them tired.

“And you understand me?” you asked.

Maegor stepped closer. “Better than he does.”

“You understand what you want of me. Men often confuse the two.”

“I have never confused wanting you with anything else.”

There it was, finally spoken plainly enough to make the torches seem louder. The rain kept falling. Balerion breathed below. Somewhere deep in the castle, a door shut, voices faded, the machinery of succession grinding on because humans, being ridiculous little creatures, saw a dead king and immediately began arranging chairs around the corpse.

You held Maegor’s stare. “Careful.”

“No.”

The answer was immediate. Flat. Perfectly Maegor.

Your pulse changed, not quickening like a maiden startled by a kiss, but deepening, turning heavier. You were no maiden. No untouched ornament kept in a tower for bards to ruin with metaphors. You were a woman grown, a princess of House Targaryen, old enough to know desire from threat and foolishness from fate. You had known men’s eyes, their hands, their hunger carefully wrapped in compliments. None of them had unsettled you like Maegor because none of them had ever looked at you without trying to make himself smaller first.

“You have a wife,” you said.

“I have a Hightower bargain.”

“A wife,” you repeated.

“A barren one.”

The cruelty in it should have repelled you more than it did. Perhaps that was a sin. Perhaps that was blood. Perhaps the difference mattered only to septons and other professional cowards.

“Do not speak of her as if she chose the bargain more than you did.”

“I did not choose her.”

“No. Your mother chose ambition. Father chose peace. Oldtown chose influence. The Faith chose its own reflection and called it holy. Ceryse chose obedience because women are praised for swallowing knives politely.” You moved past him toward the next archway, needing air that did not taste so strongly of smoke and Maegor. “Do not pretend you were the only one chained.”

His hand closed around your wrist.

Not hard enough to hurt. Hard enough to stop.

You looked down at his fingers, then up at him. “Release me.”

For one moment, he did not. The pause was small, but it contained every brutal thing in him, every lesson Visenya had carved into her son, every instinct that told him possession was safer than pleading. Then his grip loosened. He did not step back.

“You think I would force you?” he asked, voice lower now.

“I think you would force the world if it stood where you wished to walk.”

“Yes.”

“At least you are honest.”

“Not with everyone.”

“No. With everyone else you are blunt. That is not the same as honest.”

His eyes narrowed slightly, not in anger. Interest, perhaps. Hunger wearing thought. “And with you?”

“With me, you are dangerous because you do not lie enough.”

The corner of his mouth moved. Not a smile, not quite. “You prefer liars?”

“I prefer men who know the difference between desire and destiny.”

“Destiny is a word weak men use when they want permission from the gods.”

“And desire?”

“Desire needs no permission.”

You should have left. Truly, you should have. There were a hundred sensible reasons, and the fact that you could name them all made it even more irritating that your feet remained planted on the stone. He was your half-brother. He was married. He was Visenya’s son, all iron where Aenys was silk, all appetite where other men had manners. The realm was shifting beneath you. Your father’s death had made every private choice political. Any fool could see that.

Unfortunately, fools were often less tempted.

“You came after me,” you said.

“I came to find you.”

“Why?”

“Because when they crown him, they will start killing him slowly.”

You did not answer.

Maegor’s voice roughened, not with softness, but with conviction. “Not with knives. Not at first. They will flatter him. Frighten him. Bleed him agreement by agreement until nothing remains but a king who signs what stronger men place before him. The Faith will smile and call it guidance. The lords will call it counsel. You will call it what it is.”

“Cowardice,” you said quietly.

“Predation.”

That made you look at him again.

He stepped nearer, and this time you did not move away. “You know it. You watched them tonight. You saw their eyes.”

“I saw them.”

“You know what must be done.”

“I know what you think must be done.”

“I know what Father knew when he burned Harrenhal.”

You felt anger flare then, clean enough to be useful. “Do not use my father’s name as a cloak for every violent thought in your head.”

“Our father,” Maegor said.

“Our father,” you allowed. “And he conquered, yes. He burned. He killed. He also stopped. You never learned that part.”

His face hardened. “Stopping gave the realm time to remember disobedience.”

“Stopping gave the realm time to become a realm instead of a graveyard.”

“And now?”

“Now Aenys is king.”

“Now Aenys is prey.”

The silence after that was uglier because it was not empty. It was full of things both of you knew and neither wanted to confess cleanly. Aenys was kind. Aenys was legitimate. Aenys was loved. Aenys was not made for a throne built from swords. The realm might survive him if the gods were unusually generous, but gods, as a rule, seemed to enjoy watching House Targaryen solve problems by becoming worse.

“You speak treason on the night of our father’s death,” you said.

“I speak truth on the night truth is needed.”

“You speak hunger.”

“For the throne?” he asked.

“For power. For war. For me.”

Maegor’s eyes dropped to your mouth.

There was the answer, honest as a wound.

“Yes,” he said.

The word went through you with more force than it should have. You had been desired before, but desire from Maegor was not a perfumed note, not a courtly song, not some knight’s trembling confession beneath a balcony. It was a door barred from the inside. A torch lowered toward oil. It was the knowledge that if you stepped closer, neither of you would pretend surprise when the fire took.

“You should go back to your wife,” you said.

“You do not want me to.”

“Do not tell me what I want.”

“I have watched you refuse every lord Father placed near you.”

“Most men become unbearable when encouraged. I was performing a public service.”

“I watched you smile at their gifts and leave them untouched.”

“They had poor taste.”

“I watched you look at me when you thought no one saw.”

Your breath caught before you could stop it. A small betrayal. Maegor saw it, because of course he did. Men like him survived by noticing where armor shifted.

“You were a boy when I first knew you,” you said, hating how unsteady the words felt beneath their composure.

“I am not a boy now.”

“No,” you said. “You are not.”

The storm pressed itself against the windows. The torches snapped. The castle seemed to lean inward, nosy old beast that it was, eager for another family disaster to add to its collection.

Maegor lifted his hand, slowly this time, giving you every chance to move away. You did not. His fingers touched the ruby at your throat, then the skin just above it. The contact was not gentle in the way singers praised gentleness. It was careful, which from him meant more. His thumb rested at the hollow beneath your jaw, feeling your pulse. Your body, treacherous thing, answered before your pride could organize a proper defense.

“You are trembling,” he said.

“I am angry.”

“You tremble when angry?”

“I tremble when I am deciding whether to strike.”

His gaze burned down into yours. “Then strike.”

You did.

Not with your hand. That would have been simpler, cleaner, and much less catastrophic. You caught the front of his tunic and pulled him down to you, and Maegor came willingly, mouth meeting yours with the violence of something long denied. The kiss was not sweet. Sweetness had no place there, not under those stones, not with your father dead and your brother newly crowned and the realm already sharpening its teeth. It was heat and grief and blood answering blood. His hand went to your waist, gripping through black silk. Yours slid into his hair, dragging him closer when he made a rough sound against your mouth.

You had imagined this before. Seven save you, you had. In idle moments, in angry ones, in the hollow hours after court when every lord’s face blurred into another and only Maegor remained vivid because he never begged to be liked. You had imagined his hands. His mouth. The weight of him. You had imagined telling him no and meaning it. You had imagined telling him yes and damning yourself with open eyes.

He backed you against the stone between two dragon-carved arches. The cold bit through your gown. He kissed your throat, not with courtly reverence but with a hunger that made your fingers tighten in his hair. You turned your face toward the ceiling, breathing hard, and saw one of the gargoyles staring down with its ugly stone mouth open. Typical Dragonstone. Even the masonry lacked decency.

“Maegor,” you said.

He stopped at once.

That, more than the hunger, nearly undid you. He lifted his head, his breathing rough, his hand still at your waist but no longer pulling.

“If you tell me to leave,” he said, “I will.”

You searched his face. You believed him. Not because he was harmless, not because he had suddenly become good, not because desire had purified anything. You believed him because his pride would survive denial better than begging. Because he would not want you like a conquered town. Because some part of him, buried deep beneath all that iron, knew you would rather throw yourself from the cliffs than be taken unwilling.

“And if I tell you to stay?” you asked.

His grip flexed once. “Then I stay.”

“With all that means?”

“With all that means.”

You should have asked what all meant to Maegor. A more cautious woman would have. A better woman, perhaps. But better women often ended up traded between houses while men congratulated themselves on peace. You were tired of caution being demanded from women so men could spend recklessness like coin.

You took his hand and led him from the gallery.

Neither of you spoke as you passed through the inner corridors toward your chambers. Speech would have made the choice smaller. Servants had withdrawn for the night, either out of mourning or survival instinct, and the few guards you passed lowered their eyes with impressive commitment to staying alive. Maegor walked beside you, not behind, not ahead. The restraint in him was visible only because you knew how little he possessed by nature. Each step seemed to pull something tighter between you.

Your rooms had once belonged to your mother.

Aenys had offered to have them changed after she died, but you refused. You had kept the carved screens she liked, the Myrish carpets, the painted chest with silver hinges, the old harp in the corner no one touched because nobody living played it as she had. You had changed the colors over the years, less gold, more deep red and black, less girlish brightness, more flame under ash. But Rhaenys remained in the bones of the chamber. Her laughter was gone, but sometimes at night, when the sea wind slipped through the shutters, you could almost imagine the echo of silk and music.

Maegor entered and looked around once.

“You think of her here,” he said.

“Always.”

“She would hate the hall tonight.”

“She would have smiled through it first.”

“And then?”

“Then someone would have discovered too late that her smile had teeth.”

He looked at you then with something close to approval. “You are like her.”

“No,” you said, walking to the table where wine waited untouched. “I am what was left after Dorne took her.”

Maegor was silent behind you.

You poured wine, drank, and let the burn settle your nerves. When you turned, he had not moved far from the door. That was almost amusing, in a bleak way. Maegor Targaryen, terror of yards and tourneys, standing in your chamber like a man awaiting sentence.

“Are you afraid?” you asked.

His jaw shifted. “No.”

“Liar.”

“I am afraid,” he said, as if forcing the words through his teeth, “that if I touch you again, I will not be able to forget the shape of you.”

The honesty stripped the mockery from your mouth.

You set the cup aside and went to him. The space between you disappeared slowly this time. No storm-driven collision, no grief disguised as fury. You reached for the clasp of his cloak and unfastened it. The heavy black fabric fell from his shoulders to the floor. He watched your hands as if they were doing something more dangerous than undressing him. Maybe they were. Armor could be replaced. This could not be put back into silence once named by touch.

“You speak as if forgetting was ever possible,” you said.

His hands found the laces at your back. “Not for me.”

“No. I know.”

He worked the ties loose with surprising patience. Men always liked to claim women’s clothing was mysterious when really they were simply impatient and undertrained. Maegor, at least, had the decency to treat the matter like a siege requiring skill rather than brute force. The gown loosened, heavy fabric sliding from your shoulders, pooling at your feet with all the quiet drama court ladies spent fortunes trying to achieve. Beneath it, your shift clung lightly to your body, thin enough that the room’s chill raised gooseflesh along your arms.

Maegor touched your shoulder. One finger first, then his whole hand, warm against your skin. His eyes moved over you with naked want, but not the shallow kind that made women feel consumed by stupidity. This was darker. Reverent, if reverence could have a blade in it.

“You look at me as if I am a crown,” you said.

His hand slid to your throat, not pressing, only holding. “No crown was ever worth this.”

You laughed once, breathlessly. “That is the sort of thing that ruins kingdoms.”

“Kingdoms ruin themselves. We only give them songs to blame.”

Then he kissed you again, and whatever clever answer you might have offered dissolved.

You undressed him with less patience than he had given your gown, tugging at fastenings, pushing fabric aside, needing the proof of him beneath the black severity he wore like a second skin. He was scarred in small places, marked by training yards and tourneys, by the ordinary violence of a man raised to believe pain was instruction. He was warm under your hands, alive in a way the mourning hall had not been. When your palms pressed to his chest, his breath changed. When your mouth touched the base of his throat, his hand clenched in your hair, then loosened at once, restraint snapping into place like a chain pulled tight.

“Do not be gentle because you think I might break,” you said.

His eyes darkened. “I have never thought you breakable.”

“Then do not handle me like glass.”

That was the last mercy you gave either of you.

He lifted you as if you weighed nothing, and you wrapped yourself around him with a gasp you would deny under oath if any god had the nerve to ask. He carried you to the bed that had belonged to your mother’s rooms but never, thank every sane power, to your mother’s marriage, since the royal household had always operated with enough separate chambers to let everyone pretend dignity survived dragon incest. He laid you down and followed, bracing himself above you, his hair falling around his face, his mouth swollen from yours. For one suspended moment, you saw him not as the realm saw him, not as Visenya’s weapon, not as Aenys’s dangerous brother, not as the man lords feared and septons would someday curse until their throats grew raw. You saw the boy who had split the practice post because no blade was strong enough. You saw the man he had become because nobody had taught him wanting did not always need to become conquest.

You touched his face.

He went still.

“Y/N,” he said, and your name in his mouth was not soft. It was worse. It was needed.

You drew him down.

The night took shape in heat and breath and the storm beating against the shutters. He learned you not like a courtier seeking praise, but like a warrior studying terrain he meant to remember in darkness. His hands were firm at your hips, your ribs, your thighs, never timid, never careless. Your body answered him with an honesty that pride could not polish into something respectable. When he entered you, slowly despite the strain in his arms, your nails bit into his shoulders and his forehead lowered to yours. The world narrowed to the ache of being opened, the rough sound he made when you pulled him closer, the old Valyrian curse he breathed against your mouth as if prayer and profanity had finally admitted they were cousins.

There was no innocence in it. No pretty lie that this was an accident born from grief. You moved with him because you wanted to. Because the realm had taken your mother, your father, your peace, your usefulness, and tried to leave you with only duty in exchange. Because Maegor was dangerous and you knew it. Because some part of you was dangerous too, and he had never made the mistake of pretending otherwise. He drove you upward until the bed ropes creaked, until your breath broke, until pleasure pulled the room apart and remade it in flashes of candlelight and skin. He watched your face when you came undone, jaw clenched, eyes fierce with something almost like pain. Then he followed you over, burying his face against your neck, his body shuddering with a loss of control so complete it felt more intimate than any vow.

Afterward, the storm sounded farther away.

Maegor remained over you for several breaths, heavy but not crushing, as if the act of moving might restore the world too quickly. You traced the line of his spine with your fingertips. He turned his head enough to look at you, and there was a vulnerability there so brief most would have missed it. You did not. You had been raised among dragons. You knew rare things when they appeared.

“You are quiet,” you said.

“I am thinking.”

“A tragedy for everyone nearby.”

His mouth twitched against your shoulder. There. Almost a laugh. Someone should have recorded it for the histories, since the maesters would otherwise insist such a thing was anatomically impossible.

He shifted to your side but kept one arm around you, possessive in the old way, as if his body had declared law before his mouth could draft it. You let him. For now.

“What are you thinking?” you asked.

“That I should have done this years ago.”

“You were young years ago.”

“So were you.”

“I was less foolish.”

“No,” he said. “You were better at hiding it.”

You turned your head to glare at him. “You are very bold for a man in my bed.”

“Our bed, tonight.”

“Do not get ambitious.”

“I am always ambitious.”

“Yes, I had noticed. Subtle as a dragon landing in a sept.”

He looked at the ceiling, then back to you. “Come with me when I return to King’s Landing.”

The warmth in you cooled by a careful degree. “There it is.”

“I do not want you left here with ghosts.”

“How touching. I was worried you had gone soft.”

“I want you where I can see who approaches you.”

“And there goes the touching part, murdered in infancy.”

His arm tightened. “Lords will come now. Suitors. Envoys. Men with sons. Men with brothers. Men who think Aenys can be persuaded to sell your hand for quiet.”

“Aenys would not sell me.”

“Aenys would persuade himself he was protecting you.”

That one struck, and Maegor knew it.

You sat up, taking the sheet with you, hair spilling over your shoulders. Candlelight moved over the ruby at your throat, still somehow in place, stubborn little thing. Maegor watched you with guarded intensity.

“You think I do not know?” you asked. “You think I have not heard the suggestions? A Baratheon cousin for Storm’s End. A Lannister for gold. A Hightower arrangement to soothe the Faith further, because one Hightower bride was not enough perfume poured over rot. Every man at court thinks a woman’s body is a bridge if he can convince himself the river matters.”

“I would kill any man who tried to take you.”

“Yes, Maegor. I know. That is not the reassuring declaration men seem to think it is.”

“It should be.”

“It really should not.”

His gaze hardened. “You would prefer I do nothing?”

“I would prefer men stop deciding possession is protection.”

“Sometimes it is.”

“And sometimes it is just a prettier cage.”

He sat up then, the sheet falling to his waist, his expression shutting piece by piece. You hated that you understood why. Maegor knew cages too. Not the same sort. Not silk, not smiles, not marriage contracts sealed with hymns. His cages had been expectation, comparison, Visenya’s hand on his shoulder, Aegon’s vast shadow, the realm whispering that he was too much and never enough. But pain did not absolve him. It only explained the shape of the weapon.

“I will not be hidden behind you,” you said. “Not as mistress. Not as shame. Not as some secret you visit between council meetings and your wife’s cold bed.”

“Ceryse means nothing.”

“She means something to the Faith. To Oldtown. To the realm. Do not insult me by pretending politics vanish because your cock is satisfied.”

His eyes flashed, but not with offense. If anything, the bluntness steadied him. Maegor had always preferred ugly truth to scented evasion.

“What do you want, then?” he asked.

You looked toward the shutters. Beyond them, the sea was black and restless, and somewhere in the yard below, Balerion dreamed without a rider. “I want Aenys protected.”

“He will not accept protection from me.”

“Then make him accept usefulness.”

“He fears me.”

“Most people with a pulse fear you. Learn to work around this shocking inconvenience.”

Maegor’s mouth tightened again, that nearly-smile returning despite himself. “You ask me to serve him.”

“I ask you not to break him because you can.”

“He will break without me.”

“Then stand near enough that others think twice.”

“And when thinking twice is not enough?”

You turned back to him. “Then we will speak again.”

“We.”

“Yes,” you said. “We.”

That word changed the room more than the bedding, more than the storm, more than the evidence of what your bodies had done. Maegor heard it as you meant him to hear it. Not surrender. Not promise. Alliance.

He reached for you, but this time he only took your hand. His thumb moved once over your knuckles, rough and warm.

“You would make a hard queen,” he said.

You smiled faintly. “I was not aware we were discussing crowns.”

“I am always discussing crowns.”

“Exhausting man.”

“You would,” he insisted. “Hard, but not cruel without cause. Loved by those who remember Rhaenys. Feared by those clever enough to see Visenya in your spine.”

“I am not Visenya.”

“No. You are worse.”

You arched a brow.

His gaze held yours. “Visenya does not make men want to kneel. She makes them understand they should.”

The air shifted again, intimate in a different way. Dangerous, yes. But then, everything in your bloodline was dangerous. The trick was deciding whether danger served you or devoured you.

“You speak treason again,” you said.

“I speak prophecy.”

“Prophecy is what people call ambition when they want candles around it.”

“That sounds like something you would accuse me of saying.”

“You are a bad influence.”

“I have not begun to be.”

Despite yourself, you laughed. It surprised you, and him too. For a moment, grief loosened its grip enough to let something else breathe. Not happiness. That would have been too clean. But something warmer than despair, something living.

Then a knock sounded at the outer door.

Both of you went still.

The knock came again, tentative this time. “Princess?”

You recognized the voice. Elinda, one of your ladies, young, loyal, and inconveniently awake.

Maegor’s expression turned lethal.

You put a hand on his chest. “Do not murder my lady because she has timing fit for a mummer’s farce.”

“She should not be at your door.”

“It is my door. People do occasionally approach it. Civilization continues its tragic march.”

“Princess?” Elinda called again, more worried now. “Forgive me, but King Aenys asks for you.”

That changed everything.

You rose at once. Maegor caught your wrist, not restraining, only stopping you long enough for his gaze to search yours.

“He calls,” Maegor said.

“He is my brother.”

“So am I.”

“Yes,” you said, looking down at him. “That is the problem and the point.”

You pulled away and dressed without allowing your hands to shake. Maegor watched from the bed, silent as you stepped into a dark robe and belted it at the waist. The mirror showed your hair mussed, your lips bitten, your throat marked faintly where his mouth had been. You stared at yourself for one heartbeat too long, then took powder from the small silver dish on your table and softened what needed softening. Women had been repairing the visible consequences of men since the dawn of time. Another proud tradition.

When you turned, Maegor had risen and dressed enough for decency, though not enough to pass unnoticed by anyone with eyes and a working brain. Fortunately, most courts trained people out of both.

“You cannot come with me,” you said.

“I can.”

“You will not.”

His face darkened.

“Aenys asked for me,” you said. “Not for you. If you enter behind me now, half the castle will understand before morning, and the other half will invent something worse.”

“I do not fear rumor.”

“No. You only underestimate it because you prefer enemies with armor.”

He came toward you, stopping close enough that you could feel his heat through the robe. “This is not finished.”

“No,” you said. “It is not.”

“If he offers your hand to someone else, I will not stand idle.”

“If he offers my hand to someone else, I will refuse.”

“And if he commands?”

You looked at him then, really looked, letting him see Rhaenys in your face, Aegon in your blood, and something entirely your own beneath both. “Then he will learn I am not his to command in that.”

Maegor studied you for a long moment. Then he nodded once.

It was not submission. Maegor did not submit. It was recognition. That would do.

You opened the door only wide enough to step into the corridor. Elinda stood outside with a candle, pale and anxious. Her eyes flicked once past your shoulder before she stopped herself, which proved she was not stupid, merely doomed to serve in a family where private life was designed by dragonlords.

“Princess,” she said carefully.

“Say nothing,” you told her.

“I saw nothing.”

“Excellent. You may yet survive court.”

Her mouth trembled as if she nearly smiled, then she lowered her head. “His Grace is in the painted chamber. He dismissed most of the lords. He seemed distressed.”

Aenys distressed. Poor water, still wet.

You followed Elinda through the corridors, your body still carrying Maegor’s touch beneath the robe, your mind already armoring itself for your brother’s grief. By the time you reached the painted chamber, dawn had begun to pale the edges of the storm. The room smelled of wax, wet wool, and old maps. Aenys stood near the table where the Seven Kingdoms lay painted in careful colors, as if borders were not simply wounds men agreed to respect until greed made them forget.

He turned when you entered.

For one moment, he was not king. He was your brother, hollow-eyed, silver hair loose, hands trembling faintly at his sides. The crown sat on the table beside him. He looked afraid of it. Sensible man. Crowns had a long history of ruining the heads beneath them.

“Y/N,” he said.

You dismissed Elinda with a glance and went to him. Aenys reached for you, and you embraced him. He held on tightly, face pressed briefly against your shoulder, and the child he had been lived again in that gesture. Your heart hurt with sudden, savage tenderness.

“I cannot do this,” he whispered.

“You can.”

“No.” His voice broke. “No, do not say that because you think you must. Father was... Father was Father. He could silence a hall by breathing. Mother could make men love her while she took everything from them. Visenya frightens men into remembering their knees. Maegor frightens them into remembering their graves. And I...” He pulled back, shame in his eyes. “I make them comfortable.”

“You make them less afraid.”

“That is not enough.”

“No,” you said, because love did not require lying. “It is not enough by itself.”

He flinched, but he listened.

You took his hands. “You need counsel you trust, not flatterers. You need strength near you, even when it displeases you. You need to stop believing every man who kneels has yielded anything more than his knees.”

Aenys swallowed. “You sound like Visenya.”

“Then Visenya must occasionally be right. Horrifying, but survivable.”

A weak breath of laughter left him. Then his face sobered. “She wants Maegor named Hand.”

You had expected it and still felt the floor shift beneath the words.

“And what do you want?” you asked.

“I want peace.”

“Peace is not a man. It cannot serve as Hand.”

“Do you think I should name him?”

You thought of Maegor in your chamber, his hands on your skin, his voice saying prey. You thought of the lords in the hall. You thought of the Faith waiting in Oldtown, already calculating how far it could push a king eager to be blessed. You thought of Aenys, gentle and frightened, and Maegor, brutal and certain, and yourself between them like a bridge no one had built safely.

“I think,” you said slowly, “that if you keep him far from power, he will become a threat outside your reach. If you bring him close, he will be dangerous, but visible.”

Aenys stared at you. “That is not comforting.”

“No. It is advice. Comfort is usually less useful.”

He looked down at your hands. “Do you trust him?”

There were many answers. None clean. Trust was too simple a word for Maegor. You trusted him to be himself. You trusted his hunger, his pride, his violence, his refusal to bend without deciding how to break what pressed him. You trusted that he wanted you. You trusted that he would burn cities before admitting fear. You did not trust him with mercy. You did not trust him with Aenys’s softness. You did not trust him with a crown.

“I trust him to protect what he considers his,” you said.

Aenys looked up. “And does he consider this family his?”

You almost laughed, but the sound would have been cruel. “Yes. In his way.”

“That is what frightens me.”

“As it should.”

He turned away, pacing once around the painted table. “The Faith will oppose him. The lords may resent him. Ceryse’s kin will demand favor. Visenya will press. I can already hear them all. I can hear Father telling me to decide, and I do not know which choice ruins us more.”

You went to the table and touched the painted shape of the Blackwater. “Then do not decide tonight.”

“I must.”

“No. Men who want something from you will tell you urgency is duty. Sometimes it is merely theft.”

Aenys went still.

“You are king,” you said. “Let them wait. Let them wonder. Let Maegor wonder too.”

His brow furrowed. “You think delay is strength?”

“I think choosing when others demand haste reminds them the choice is yours.”

For the first time that night, Aenys looked at you not as a drowning man looks at shore, but as a king might look at counsel. It gave you hope. Naturally, hope in Westeros tended to behave like a candle in a rainstorm, but still, there it was.

“You should be Hand,” he said quietly.

You smiled. “The realm would choke.”

“I might enjoy watching that.”

“There is my brother.”

He smiled back, faint but real. Then his gaze softened. “Stay near me.”

“I will.”

“Promise.”

“I promise.”

He embraced you again, and over his shoulder, through the narrow window behind him, you saw the yard below. The storm had begun to break. In the gray before dawn, Balerion lifted his head.

And there, at the edge of the yard, stood Maegor.

He was too far away for you to see his expression clearly, but you knew he was looking up. Not at Aenys. Not at the crown. At you.

Balerion’s massive head turned toward him.

The world seemed to pause.

Aenys did not see it. His face was still pressed against your shoulder, his grief warm and human and painfully fragile in your arms. You held him, but your eyes remained on the yard as Maegor took one step closer to the Black Dread. The dragon’s nostrils flared. Steam poured white into the dawn. No guards shouted. No one moved. Even Dragonstone seemed to hold its breath, grotesque old pile of stone that it was, thrilled to witness another omen men would later pretend had been obvious.

Maegor stopped before Balerion.

The dragon lowered his head.

Not fully. Not submissively. Dragons did not bow, whatever singers claimed after enough wine. But the Black Dread lowered himself enough that Maegor could reach out and lay one hand against the dark scales of his snout.

Your heart struck once, hard.

Aenys pulled back, noticing your face. “What is it?”

You looked away from the window.

“Nothing,” you said.

A lie. A necessary one.

By midday, all Dragonstone knew.

Prince Maegor had approached Balerion and lived. More than lived. The Black Dread had accepted his hand, then his weight, then his command. At dawn, while King Aenys mourned and lords slept badly in borrowed chambers, Maegor Targaryen had mounted the greatest living dragon in the world. By afternoon, men spoke more softly when his name passed their lips. By evening, ravens were being drafted with trembling fingers.

Aenys took the news with a stillness that hurt to watch.

“He was Father’s dragon,” he said in your chambers later, voice thin.

“He was never only Father’s dragon.”

“No. I know.” Aenys sat near the window, the crown now on his head because you had told him if he feared it, he should wear it until the fear grew bored. He had laughed when you said it. Then he had put it on. Progress, apparently. “The lords will see meaning in it.”

“The lords see meaning in burnt bread if it helps their argument.”

“Y/N.”

“Yes. They will see meaning.”

“And you?”

You stood behind him, looking out at the sea. Far above, a dark shape moved through the clouds, too large to be any bird. Maegor had flown Balerion twice already. Once around Dragonstone. Once far enough that the island seemed smaller when he returned. Men had watched from the yard in silence, and Visenya had looked satisfied in a way that made your skin prickle.

“I see danger,” you said.

Aenys closed his eyes. “So do I.”

“But danger can be used.”

“That sounds like him.”

“It is mine.”

He opened his eyes and looked back at you, studying you more closely than you liked. “Did he speak to you last night?”

You kept your face calm. “Yes.”

“What did he say?”

“That you are prey if you insist on trusting wolves because they wag their tails.”

Aenys winced. “Charming.”

“You asked.”

“Did he say anything else?”

Many things. Your name. Stay. Prophecy. Not finished. No crown was ever worth this. Desire needs no permission. Dangerous things, each of them still alive beneath your skin.

“Yes,” you said. “But nothing you need carry tonight.”

Not through the halls this time. Subtlety, it seemed, had briefly visited him and found the accommodations poor but tolerable. He entered through the narrow passage behind your mother’s old solar, a private route built in Valyrian days, when families apparently expected betrayal often enough to include convenient architecture. You had known he would come. You had left the candles burning low and dismissed your ladies early. A stupid risk, perhaps. But grief had burned away your patience for pretending.

Aenys accepted that because he trusted you. The guilt of it sat beneath your breastbone like a small knife.

That night, Maegor came to you again.

He wore riding leathers, blackened by rain and smelling faintly of dragon, smoke, and storm air. His hair was wind-tangled. There was something different in him now, not softer, never that, but expanded. Balerion had not made Maegor more arrogant. He had made the arrogance seem justified, which was deeply inconvenient for everyone who preferred their dangerous men unsupported by cosmic symbolism.

“You rode him,” you said.

“I did.”

“And?”

His eyes found yours. “The sky is smaller than I thought.”

Trust Maegor to mount the largest dragon alive and insult the sky afterward.

“You will be unbearable now.”

“I was unbearable before.”

“At least you have self-knowledge.”

He crossed the room and took your face in his hands, kissing you with less desperation than the night before but more claim. You let him for three breaths, four, then pushed him back.

“We need to speak.”

“I dislike those words.”

“Most men do. They usually precede consequences.”

His hands remained at your waist. “Speak.”

“You cannot move against Aenys.”

His face closed. “If he endangers the realm...”

“No. Listen to me. You cannot move against him because I will not forgive you.”

That stopped him more effectively than any threat could have.

You continued before he could answer. “You think the realm needs force. Perhaps it does. You think Aenys needs steel near him. I agree. You think men are already circling him. They are. But if you become one more danger he must survive, then you are no better than the rest, only larger and louder.”

“I am not like the rest.”

“No. You are worse if you choose to be.”

His jaw worked. “You ask me to kneel.”

“I ask you to stand where your blood needs you.”

“To serve a weaker man.”

“To protect your brother.”

“He is your brother more than mine.”

“He is still yours.”

Maegor looked away, toward the hearth where the flames burned low and red. “He has always looked at me as if I were a blade left too close to a child.”

“Were you not?”

“Yes.”

The answer was so immediate, so coldly honest, that it hurt.

You stepped closer. “Then become something else.”

His laugh was quiet and unpleasant. “Men do not become something else because women ask nicely.”

“I have no intention of asking nicely.”

He looked at you again.

“You want me,” you said. “Not as a passing bedmate. Not as a secret. Not as comfort. You want me beside you in whatever future you keep imagining when you stare too long at crowns. Then hear me clearly. If you bring ruin down on Aenys for ambition alone, you lose me.”

For a moment, the room felt as if it had no air.

Maegor’s eyes were pale violence. “Do not threaten me with yourself.”

“It is the only threat you might heed.”

“You think I would let you go?”

“No,” you said. “I think I would leave anyway.”

The terrible thing was that he believed you. You saw it strike through him, saw the anger, the denial, the instinct to seize, the deeper knowledge that if he caged you he would destroy the very thing he wanted. Maegor could break doors. He could break men. He could not break you and keep you.

He turned from you, hands flexing at his sides. For several breaths, he said nothing. Outside, the sea pounded the rocks as if trying to get into the conversation. It would probably have offered better advice than half the council.

At last, Maegor said, “What would you have of me?”

The words were rough. Costly.

You went to him and stood at his back, not touching yet. “Take the office if he offers it. Refuse insult from lords, but do not create insult where none exists. Let the Faith expose its appetite before you feed it fire. Give Aenys victories he can survive. Give the realm reason to fear disobedience without making them pray for your absence.”

“And you?”

“I remain with Aenys.”

He turned sharply. “No.”

“Yes.”

“You belong at my side.”

“I belong where I choose.”

“At his side, you are surrounded by men who would use you.”

“At yours, I am surrounded by one.”

A muscle jumped in his cheek. “You think I use you?”

“I think you would, if I let love make me stupid.”

The word slipped out before you could dress it in something less dangerous.

Love.

Not affection. Not desire. Not blood answering blood. Love, that reckless little arsonist.

Maegor went very still.

You could have taken it back. You did not.

His voice changed when he spoke. “Do you?”

You swallowed. “Do not make me say it like some girl in a song.”

“I am not asking for a song.”

“No. You are asking for surrender.”

“I am asking for truth.”

You hated him a little then. For wanting it. For making you want to give it. For standing there like judgment in riding leather while your entire life rearranged itself around a word you had not planned to use.

“Yes,” you said. “Damn you.”

Maegor crossed the distance between you and kissed you with such force that your back struck the wall. His hand cradled the back of your head before impact could hurt, the other arm locking around your waist. The kiss was not triumphant. It was furious, almost desperate. You understood with a strange twist of tenderness that Maegor had expected loyalty, desire, fear, obedience from the world, but not this. Not love freely given with teeth still bared.

When he pulled back, his forehead rested against yours.

“I love you,” he said.

The words sounded unused. Dragged from somewhere deep and poorly lit.

“I know,” you whispered.

“I will not be parted from you.”

“You will, when we must be careful.”

“I hate careful.”

“Yes, that has been made painfully obvious to the realm.”

“I will not let them give you to another.”

“They will not.”

“If Aenys tries...”

“You will do nothing until I ask.”

His expression made clear that this instruction offended every natural law he recognized.

“Maegor.”

He closed his eyes briefly. “I will try.”

For him, that was practically a religious conversion. Alarming. Someone should inform the septons so they could panic in a more organized fashion.

You touched his mouth with your fingers. “That is enough tonight.”

His eyes opened. “Tonight.”

“Yes. Tonight.”

He kissed your fingers, then your palm, and the tenderness of it was so unexpected you almost pulled away. Not because you disliked it. Because tenderness from Maegor felt like finding a flower growing from a sword wound. Impossible. Unsettling. Too alive.

You did not speak again for a while.

The second time you took him to your bed, it was slower. No less hungry, no less forbidden, but less ruled by grief. He undressed you as if committing each motion to memory. You unfastened his leathers and pushed them from his shoulders, pressing your mouth to the places where riding straps had marked his skin. He said your name when your hands moved over him, low and strained, and you learned there was power in making a man like Maegor lose words. You liked it more than was wise.

He held you beneath him, then let you turn him onto his back when you pressed against his chest, his brows drawing together at the novelty of yielding even that much. You smiled down at him, hair falling around your face.

“Do not look so betrayed,” you said.

“I am considering whether I allow this.”

“You are in my bed. You allow many things here.”

His hands settled on your hips. “Only for you.”

“Good.”

You moved over him, taking him in slowly, watching his control fracture by degrees. It was a beautiful thing, in the way storms were beautiful from towers built too close to the sea. His grip tightened, but he let you set the pace. Let you bend, let you kiss him, let you draw those rough sounds from his throat until he sat up and wrapped you in his arms, unable to remain beneath you any longer without making a war of restraint. You laughed against his mouth, and he swallowed the sound like it belonged to him.

After, you slept.

Not for long. Dawn came gray and thin, spilling over your bed with no respect for ruin or revelation. Maegor woke before you but did not leave. When you opened your eyes, he was standing at the window, bare to the waist, looking out toward the yard where Balerion was no doubt terrorizing the local concept of scale.

“You should go,” you said, voice rough with sleep.

He looked back. “You say that often.”

“You ignore it often.”

“I am consistent.”

“You are impossible.”

He came back to the bed and sat beside you. For a moment, his hand rested on your hair with surprising care. “Aenys will name me Hand.”

“You sound certain.”

“He fears what happens if he does not.”

“He also hopes what happens if he does.”

Maegor considered that. “You gave him that hope.”

“Someone had to. The court was hardly overflowing with useful emotional labor.”

“I will stand beside him,” he said. “For now.”

You studied him. “And when for now ends?”

His gaze did not move from yours. “That depends on him. And you.”

There was no perfect answer in him. No promise that ambition would never curdle into violence, no lie that he would become gentle for your sake, no miraculous transformation to satisfy a septa’s moral lesson. Maegor was still Maegor. The dragon had not become a lamb because you had touched it. But he had listened. He had bent one inch where most men would have broken themselves pretending they had not heard.

In your family, that counted for more than it should. A sad little standard, really, but House Targaryen had never been known for emotional moderation.

You sat up and kissed him once. “Then we keep the realm alive one day at a time.”

“And if it refuses?”

You looked toward the window, where Balerion’s shadow moved across the yard like night remembering itself.

“Then we remind it why dragons were feared before they were crowned.”

Maegor smiled then.

Not kindly. Not safely.

By the time the bells rang for council, Prince Maegor Targaryen had left your chambers by the hidden passage, and Princess Y/N Targaryen entered the painted chamber dressed in black and red, hair braided with rubies, face calm enough to fool men who thought composure meant innocence. Aenys sat at the head of the table with the crown on his brow. Visenya stood at his right. Maegor entered last, wearing dark mail beneath his cloak, Blackfyre at his hip, and something newly terrible in his stillness.

But for you.

The lords quieted.

Aenys looked at you first.

You inclined your head.

Only then did he speak.

“My lords,” he said, voice not strong, not yet, but steadier than it had been the night before. “The realm mourns my father. So do I. But grief does not excuse disorder, nor will mourning be used as a cloak for ambition.”

Several men shifted, suddenly fascinated by the painted table.

Aenys continued, “I will take counsel. I will hear petitions. I will honor the laws and oaths that bind this realm. But let no man mistake kindness for surrender.”

Visenya’s eyes flicked toward you.

Maegor did not move.

You stood behind Aenys’s chair, hands folded, expression serene. Inside, your heart beat hard, but no one saw that. Let them see Rhaenys’s daughter. Let them see Aegon’s blood. Let them wonder how much of Visenya’s steel had found its way into you despite all their tidy assumptions about mothers and daughters and which women made which kinds of monsters.

Aenys drew a breath.

“I name my brother, Prince Maegor Targaryen, rider of Balerion, as Hand of the King.”

The chamber erupted.

Not loudly. These were high lords, after all, and high lords preferred to perform outrage through controlled coughing, meaningful silence, and the occasional strangled objection dressed as procedure. Lord Massey began to speak. A septon murmured something about consultation. A Bar Emmon cousin looked as if he had swallowed a fishbone. Visenya’s expression remained carved from satisfaction and old ice.

Maegor stepped forward.

The room quieted again.

He knelt before Aenys.

That was the moment they would remember. Not the objections. Not the murmurs. Not the political calculations breeding like rats behind every polished face. They would remember Maegor Targaryen, brutal and unbending, kneeling before his brother with Blackfyre at his side and Balerion waiting outside the walls.

“I accept,” Maegor said. “And I swear to defend your reign against all enemies.”

Aenys looked down at him. He knew, as you knew, that the oath was both shield and blade. But he placed his hand on Maegor’s shoulder.

“Rise, brother.”

Maegor rose.

His eyes found yours for one brief second.

No one else would have understood the look. Good. Let them be confused. It would give them something harmless to do with their time.

That evening, ravens flew from Dragonstone to the realm.

King Aenys had taken the crown. Prince Maegor had taken Balerion and the handship. Princess Y/N remained at court, beloved daughter of the lost Queen Rhaenys, trusted sister to the king, watched closely by the dowager queen and more closely still by every lord with ambition enough to fear a woman who stood too near power without asking permission.

The histories would write that this was the beginning of Aenys’s troubled reign.

They would write that Maegor’s rise began with Balerion.

They would write that Visenya’s influence darkened the court.

They would write many things, most of them incomplete, because maesters had a gift for missing women unless a war forced them to notice the blood on the floor.

They would not write of the storm. They would not write of your mother’s chambers. They would not write of Maegor’s hand at your throat without pressure, of his voice speaking love like a threat against his own nature, of your promise to abandon him if he devoured the brother you had sworn to protect. They would not write of the private bargain beneath the public oath.

But Dragonstone knew.

Dragonstone always knew.