wrap me in your skin and bones

Recently at the head of your house since the passing of your uncle without any issue, you were among the few women at this table, but no less respected or feared. While Cregan had met you on several occasions throughout your youth, he knew little more than your name and your reputation for being skilled with the sword and the ax. 

“War will soon be at our doorstep, Lord Karstark, whether or not the young prince flies to us,” you admonished. “Do you think the North would be spared from the fire of dragons if the usurper flew to us, or Gods forbid, won this war?”

“It is a Targaryen matter—” the old man tried to defend once more.

“It may be a Targaryen matter, but House Stark swore an oath,” you reminded them, and all fell silent at the mention of Rickon Stark bending the knee. “Would you have us betray it?”

“Would you have our men fighting south while our women and children suffer the winter alone?” Lord Glover inquired, setting his empty cup down sharply.

“Well, our women can fight as well, can’t they?” the young Manderly suggested, which seemed to please you, and you gave him a friendly pat to the shoulder.

“It is a matter of honor, lads,” Lord Umber finally joined the debate. “We northerners never forget an oath, and as Lady Cerwyn said, will we allow a usurper to take the throne and govern us?”

At that Cregan finally rose as well, followed a second later by Prince Jacaerys, whose gaze was fleeting from him to you. The Warden gave you a slow, grateful nod, which you answered with pride. “In the end, if Lord Cregan judges it necessary that we march south, then we shall,” you said decidedly, as though you were speaking for all. “We will follow you, my Lord.”

“We shall march south, then,” Cregan addressed his men. “Gather your warriors and your banners, and we shall meet at the Crossing in two moons time.”

Hayford castle was small and devastated, not nearly large enough to host their wounded nor offer a resting place for their dead, but it would have to do. It had been over a year now since the North had marched and joined forces with the Riverlands, and now their goal was within reach, but not before war had extracted a heavy toll. Mere days prior they had faced the Baratheon army and won at great cost to their numbers.

Some of the men had dug rows of trenches on the estate, turning the field behind the castle into the largest resting place Cregan had ever seen. Cregan had noticed young Kermit holding a journal with notes with as precise an account of each man as possible even though it was an impossible endeavor. All trenches were set ablaze one by one, not after a word of solemn respect and a minute of quiet contemplation. 

Cregan thought these men deserved better than to be laid to rest so far from their homes, but such was the way of war, and he suspected many would fall again when they would take King’s Landing, which was where they marched towards, now.

He had been given the rooms reserved for the king when he travelled to the crownlands on procession or for hunting, and it was more comfort than he had seen in months. A large basin of steaming water had been brought, and while it was not quite a bath, it would serve, however he struggled to take his armor off without a squire or a fellow knight to assist him.

Instead it was you who entered the borrowed chambers without so much as a knock—he suspected that in so close quarters with men on camps and battlefields, you had learned to set aside any bashfulness. 

“The maester gave me a salve for bruises. I thought it would serve,” you said, setting the vial on a nearby table. “Shall I assist you?”

It was not the first time you had served as a squire should have, helping him in or off his armor, but it was the first time it was in such close quarters. The battlefield often resulted in bonds of brotherhood, closeness that could only be born out of sheer desperation to remain alive and save the man fighting back to one’s back, and you had been no exception to it.

From the first day, you had followed him almost blindly, shielding him as he shielded you, and fighting as fiercely as any man.

“Are you wounded?” he asked. 

“Let us tend to you first. You led us to victory, allow me to ensure you live long enough to see us home,” you replied quietly, and while it made him smile privately, he knew you meant every word. 

Setting the steel aside, you did not avert your eyes when he shed his stained gambeson and shirt, which you took from him and dropped into a bucket that would be collected by the maids in the morning. He was broad and big, with bulky muscle under thick, bruised skin.

His chest was black and purple, with a shallow gash across his stomach, following the front curve of his ribs—you could see the marks of close fighting, where maces had been swung into his back or chest, or swords had attempted to pierce his armor.

“It is not victory yet,” he reminded you, reaching for the large basin the maid had left on the dinner table along with a pitcher and linen cloths. However before he could pick it up, you had reached for one and dipped it into the fresh water.

“We’re only a day’s ride from King’s Landing now,” you reasoned as you ran the wet cloth across his chest and shoulders, and the quiet intimacy of the gesture settled in his bones. 

He was usually the one to care for his men, to watch over them as they caught an hour of rest on the side of the road, hold them down as the Maester treated them, or wipe their brows when the healers were stretched thin and could not tend to them all. 

“The city might be ours within the week,” he said quietly, to which you hummed your agreement. 

He groaned when you ran the cloth at the back of his neck, leaning into you instinctively. Water rivulets were running down his abdomen and into the waistband of his trousers, but he did not dare reach for them. While you were one of his soldiers, you were still a woman, and he doubted you would appreciate the sigh of a bare man outside of a bed you had invited him to.

“Think not of it for tonight,” you murmured, reaching for his face gently. “You’ll need all your strength and a clear head.”

Cregan paused then, but did not pull away. It wasn’t until you were wiping at the grime on his temple that he realized how sore and weary he truly was, and for a moment, he allowed you to hold him upright, and bear his burden.

“Assist me, will you?” you asked, as normal as could be, reaching for your own belt and shedding your doublet—your armor no doubt laid somewhere in the castle, perhaps even with the blacksmith. 

Before he could inquire about modesty, you had turned your back to him and reached for the nape of your neck, pulling your undershirt over your head. That was when he noticed the thick linens wrapped around your chest. You looked at him over your shoulder as he cut the fabric that bound your breasts, and the trust you had in him made his throat tight.

As you had done for him, Cregan wet a cloth and ran it across your back, mindful of the bruises that had bloomed under your skin. Fighting his instincts and the rising warmth in his stomach, he resisted the urge to press a kiss to your shoulders, to follow the trickle of water that fell into the divot of your spine, then down past the waistband of your trousers.

“Cregan,” you called softly, one eye still observing him from over your shoulder, holding his gaze as you turned to face him, baring your chest to him.

He swallowed heavily but did not say a word, instead mirrored the care you had shown him, washing the grime gathering at your collarbone, focusing his attention away from the two mounds of your breasts that peaked in the cold—or perhaps from his touch. Without a word you unlaced your trousers, and it made him want to curse aloud, even more so when you stepped out of them, not before kicking your boots aside, and stood entirely bare in front of him. 

He indulged in the sight of your skin, as bruised as his own was, and the curves of your body, and followed the rivulets of water down your navel, then lower. The way you sighed as he touched you, the damp cloth the only barrier between your folds and his fingers, was more soothing than any salve on his sore heart. 

“Allow me?” you asked, reaching for his own trousers, and he could only manage a quiet grunt in answer.

His stomach quivered as you unlaced the leathers and he kicked the remainder of his clothes much as you had. His cock had started to stir, heavy between his legs, and your mere gaze upon it was enough to make him widen his stance, shifting to accommodate his growing desire.

The wet cloth was passed back and forth then, wiping skin clear and stoking the embers of desire until it could not be ignored anymore. Despite the exhaustion and the thrumming pain, you fell into each other, your mouth finding his, and he groaned into your kiss. 

He pulled you into him by the small of your back and you felt his cock fill and harden against your belly, igniting a fire within your core. Rolling his hips into yours, he hissed, a groan tearing out of his chest as a burst of pain erupted behind his ribs.

“I don’t think I can—” he said regretfully, which you silenced with a short press of your lips to his.

“Trust me,” you said, and he wanted to reply that were you to hold his very life in your hands, he would trust you with it, but instead he let you guide him to the large bed and press him to the sheets, climbing after him with the same focus he’d seen whenever you drew your bow and aimed.

The first lick to his cock nearly made him shout, throwing his head back against the cover, and he hardly managed to swallow his desperate moan when you closed your mouth around the head and sucked, gentle, easing him into it. He could not remember the last time he had tended to his own needs, even less when he’d had a woman’s mouth between his thighs.

Slowly, stroke after stroke, he melted into the sheets, tension bleeding out of his very bones. The heat of your mouth around his cock was a touch of heaven, and it took all his strength to mind his wounds and not thrust into the tight pressure. 

Within a minute he was panting out loud, his hips quivering under your hands with the force of his restraint. To have such a warrior splayed as he was beneath you was heady. You enjoyed the weight of him on your tongue, the sharp focus it required, and how it forced you to calm your breath and slow your mind.

Listening to his groans and occasional frustrated hisses, you followed the sounds of his pleasure to guide the rhythm of your head and the swirls of your tongue, your hand reaching between your thighs to soothe your own throbbing desire.

“Gods be good—” he cursed, bitterness spreading on your tongue, and you knew he was not far from his breaking point.

Hand on his hip, you held him down firmly, the rhythm of your mouth unrelenting, and he tensed to the point where you feared he would hurt himself. Suddenly the rope snapped and he groaned aloud, spilling inside your mouth in hot bursts—the sound of his ecstasy only made you grind your hips down, chasing your own pleasure.

Cregan caught his breath while you pulled away and wiped your mouth on a corner of the sheets, but then he was eager to tend to you. “Come,” he said, his voice rough, guiding you to straddle his stomach, still mindful of his ribs. 

He was quick to join his fingers to yours—he pushed inside at your silent request, two of his thick fingers pressing against the spot inside of you that made you clench and shiver.

With a hand on your hip to rock you against him, he let you take your pleasure as you wished. He crooked his fingers in time with the tight circles you were drawing on your core, keeping the same rhythm until your mouth dropped open and you stilled, clenching around his digits as your body shuddered.

Once the waves had passed and you grew languid again, Cregan cradled you against his chest, uncaring for the sting in his ribs and you settled into him with a contented sigh, slumber crawling at the edges of both your minds. 

On the morrow the two of you would ride side by side towards King’s Landing and face your last enemy—if victory indeed awaited you as you seemed to believe, Cregan knew what he would ask then, for you to return north not only as one of his loyal bannermen, but as his lady wife.

A/N: Dividers by @/saradika. Based on a request by @zaldritzosrose.

Cregan taglist: @kateris-world @elleclairez @watercolorskyy @praline357 @whodis-26

@elle-28 @hb8301 @flawroses @random-shit-i-like-2 @heavenly1927

@thegeminithrone @vixemi @rockerchick05 @maniccrystalhippie @melsunshine

@siimiasoi @mxtokko @apollonshootafar @thenameswinter99 @multyfangirl

@alawnuhyawpp @arrozyfrijoles23 @r-3dlips @yujyujj @lessdepressy

@blessedbymoon @deltamoon666 @writingjourney @still-jon-snow @vampzv

As a lady-in-waiting to Lady Kiera of Tyrosh, you were the epitome of that harsh upbringing. Your dressed were never wrinkled, your hair was a masterpiece of braids and silk, and your voice never rose above a melodic, controlled murmur. You moved through the draughty halls like a ghost of perfection, carrying the weight of your family's honor on your narrow shoulders.

To you, duty was a religion. And that was precisely why you loathed Prince Daeron Targaryen.

He was the blot on the page. Known to the court as Daeron the Drunken, he was a prince who traded his dignity for the bottom of a wine flagon. You had watched him from afar for months — stumbling through the gardens, his eyes unfocused and glazed, his sandy brown hair matted with sweat. To you, he was an insult. He had been given the greatest gift in the world — the blood of the dragon — and he was throwing it away while you struggled every day just to keep your chin at the correct angle.

Every time you passed him in the Great Hall, you felt a surge of visceral disgust. You woul look at him with eyes as cold as the Wall, your spine so straight it looked ready to sharp. You saw the way his lips would curl in a defensive, bitter sneer when you glided past. You were the Perfect Lady, and he was the Royal Failure. You hated him because he was allowed to be broken, while you were forced to be a statue.

The night of the encounter began as many other. The air was thick with the scent of old incense and the damp salt of the sea. You had just finishe a grueling evening of service, reading Tyroshian poetry to Lady Kiera until your throat was dry. The moon was a silver bone in a sky of ink as you began the long walk back to your quarters.

The Red Keep at night was a different beast. The tapestries of ancient kings seemed to watch you with judgmental eyes, and the shadows stretched like grasping fingers. You walked with your candle held high, the flame steady — a reflection of your own discipline.

But as you turned the corner near the library, a sound broke the stillness. It wasn't the rhythmic clanking of a Gold Cloak's patrol. It was a ragged, wet gasp, followed by a frantic thumping, like a trapped bird beating its wings against a stone cage.

You stopped, the flickering candlelight casting long, distorted shadows against the masonry. In a deep, arched alcove, you saw a figure. At first, you though it was a beggar who had snuck past the gates, but the shimmer of a fine silk doublet — now stained and rumpled — gave him away.

It was Daeron.

But he wasn't drunk. Not tonight. He was slumped against the freezing stone, his head between his knees, his entire frame shaking with such violence that his heels were drumming a frantic rhythm against the floor.

Your first instinct was to turn away. The lady in you recoiled at the sight of such raw, unkempt emotion. Disgraceful, you thought. Another night of excess and shame. But as you turned to leave, a sound escaped him — a broken, high-pitched whimper of genuine, agonizing terror. It wasn't the sound of a drunkard; it was the sound of a man facing his own executioner in the dark.

"Prince Daeron?", you whispered, your voice trembling despite your best efforts to remain poised.

He didn't look up. "Go away", he choked out, his voice a jagged ruin. "Leave me to my madness, little saint. Go back to your nests of silk a propriety. You shouldn't be here. You'll get your skirts dusty".

Ignoring the voice of your mother in your head — the one that told you a lady never touches a man in the shadows — you knelt beside him. The ston floor was freezing, and you could feel the dust of centuries clinging to your fine skirts, but for the first time in your life, you didn't care.

"You are not well, My Prince", you said, reaching out a tentantive hand. The moment your fingers brushed his shoulder, he flinched as if you had touched him with a red-hot iron.

"I am never well!", he shouted, finally snapping his head up. His violet eyes were bloodshot, pupils blown wide with a primal terrifying panic. "How can I be well when the world is burning in my head? How can I be well when I see the end of us all before it even begins?".

He lunged forward, his fingers digging into your wrists with a strength born of desperation. His hands were like ice, yet he was sweating. "I saw it again. Just now. The moment I closed my eyes to rest. I saw a dragon, massive and black — so large its wings blotted out the sun. It lay dead in the mud, its heart stilled, its fire extinguished. And beside it...a knight. A common, wandering knight with no name, standint over the corpse of a god, watching the world turn to ash".

He began to hyperventilate, his chest heaving in jagged, uneven bursts. "It's coming. The doom of my house. I see the fire, I smell the copper of the blood, I feel the heat of the pyre. Every time the sun goes down, the dragons die, and I am the only one who has to stand watch at their funeral".

You stared at him, the candle light reflecting in the tears streaming down his face. You had heard the whispers of Dragon Dreams, the curse of the Targaryen bloodline, but you had awlays dismissed them as the dramatic excuses of an eccentric family. Looking at him now, seeing the raw, unadulterated horror in his eyes, you realized it wasn't a legend. It was a physical weight — a psychic burden that was crushing the soul out of him.

"This is...why you drink...", you whispered, the realization hitting you with the force of a physical blow. All those months of judgment, all those sneers of The Drunken Prince — they were all wrong.

"I drink to kill the dreams...", he laughed, a hollow, jagged sound that broke into a sob. "Wine is the only wall I can build. If I am drunk enough, the black dragon stays in the shadows. If I am sober...I am a prophet of the grave. Tell me, Lady of Duty...what is the 'honorable' path for a man who carries the weight of a thousand deaths in his mind?".

For the first time in your life, the armor of your upbringing shattered. Your parents had taught you how to act, how to speak, and how to represent your name. But they had never taught you what to do for a man who was drowning in a sea of time.

"I am sorry...", you said, and the words felt heavy and real. You reached out and, this time, he didn't pull away. You pulled his head to your shoulder, letting his forehead rest against the crook of your neck. "I judged you for your weakness, but I did not know the strength it took just to stand up every morning with that fire in your head".

Daeron let out a long, shuddering breath. He leaned into you, his hand clinging to your waist like a child afraid of the dark. The silence of the hallway swallowed you both. In that moment, the hierarchy of the court vanished. There was no prince, no lady-in-waiting — only two sould in the dark, one terrified and the other offering a anchor.

"Help me to my room...", he murmured against your skin. "Please. If the guards see me like this...if my father sees me...I cannot bear the look in their eyes. Not tonight".

The journey to his chambers was a tense, agonizing crawl. You supported his weight, his arm draped heavily over your shoulders. You could feel the heat of his body through his doublet, a stark constrast to the chilled air of the castle. Every time a shadow moved or a torch flickered, your heart leaped into your throat.

You passed a bust of Aegon the Conqueror, and for a moment, the stone eyes seemed to judge you for your shattered propriety. You were a Lady-in-Waiting, a woman whose reputation was her only currency. If you were caught now, your life as you knew it would be over. Yet, as you looked at Daeron's pale, sweat-slicked face, you realized you didn't care about the Perfect Lady anymore. She felt like a stranger, a doll made of wood and paint.

"Almost there", you whispered, your voice a soothing balm. "Just few more steps, Daeron. I have you".

His chambers were a chaotic reflection of a fractured mind. The hearth was a heap of grey ash, and the air smelled of old parchment and stale wine. Scattered across the desk were frantic sketches — dragons with broken wings, circles of fire, and names of kin crossed out in dark, aggressive ink. This was the laboratory of a man trying to solve a puzzle that had no solution.

You eased him onto the furs of his bed. The room was dark, so you moved to light a candle, but he caught your hand, his grip desperate.

"Don't leave", he pleaded. "The knight...he's waiting in the corners of the room. He's waiting for me to close my eyes so he can show me the end again".

"I'm not leaving", you promised.

You sat on the edges of the mattress, and without hesitation, he moved, curling up against you. He buried his face in your lap, his arms winding around your waist as if you were the only solid thing in a crumbling world.

You began to stroke his hair, the sandy brown strands feeling like a cool silk between your fingers. You began to speak, your voice a soft, rhythmic hum that filled the empty spaces of the room. You didn't talk of duty or kings; you told him of the Tyroshian coast, of the way the sun looked when it hit the sea, and of the quiet, mundane things of the world that didn't involve prophecies of fire.

"Why are you doing this?", he asked, his voice muffled by your skirts. "You've looked at me with such hate for so long. I thought you were made of marble".

"I thought I had to be", you confessed, your own voice cracking. "My parents...they taught me that any emotion was a crack in the foundation. I hated you because you were the person I was most afraid of becoming. I was afraid of losing control".

"Control is an illusion", Daeron whispered, his breathing finally beginning to slow. "We are all just leaves in a storm. But tonight...the storm feels a little further away".

As the hours ticked by, the castle grew even quieter. Your back began to ache, and the cold of the night seeped through the stone walls, but you didn't move. You watched his face soften in the dim light. The lines of terror that usually etched his brown began to smooth out, replaced by the peaceful mask of a man who had finally found a moment of silence.

You leaned down, pressing a chaste, soft kiss to his temple. "Sleep well, Daeron", you whispered. "The black dragon is gone. The knight has ridden away. There is only the wind against the stones and the warmth of this room. I am here. I am watching".

Every time he stirred or let out a soft, subconscious moan, you would tighten your hold, whispering sweet, nonsense words of comfort until his breathing leveled out again. You became his sentry, guarding the borders of his mind against the horror of the future.

As the first grey light of dawn began to creep through the heavy velvet curtains, you realized that your parents had been wrong about everything. Duty wasn't just about being a perfect statue for the world to admire. Sometimes, the highest, most sacred duty was to be the shield for a broken heart that had no one else to turn to.

You remained awake, curled around the sleeping prince as the sun began to rise over King's Landing. You were exhausted, your reputation was at risk, and your life would likely never be the same. But as you looked down at Daeron — peaceful, at last, in your arms — you knew that you had never been more perfect than you were in this messy, silent, and beautiful moment.

The artificial light is blinding until you’ve had a moment to adjust. The walls are mirrors. Everything else is marble or gold, a sprawling countertop, two sinks, a glass-walled shower, a deep circular bathtub with little holes in the sides like horizontal spigots.

“What the heck are those for?” you mumble to yourself, prodding at them. Then as you’re bathing in endless hot water, a staggering indulgence, you notice a button on the rim of the tub. When you press it, there is an alarming racket and then bubbles come blasting out of the holes, battering you and making the whole tub churn with violent currents. You scream and hit the button again, and mercifully the water goes still.

There is a knock at the bathroom door. “Everything alright in there?” Charm asks, sounding remarkably unconcerned. You think you hear her yawn.

“There’s something wrong with the tub.”

“It’s a Swirlpool, idiot.”

“A what?”

“It’s a massage tub. The water that shoots out of the nozzles help soothe sore muscles and improve circulation and such. You’ll appreciate that later, trust me. Once you’ve bruised and bloodied yourself in the gymnasium.”

“Oh,” you reply, puzzled. You squint at the little holes again. Nozzles, you mentally amend.

“Hurry up. Salem is here with your outfit.” Then Charm abandons you; you can hear her heels clicking on the cold hard floor.

Salem is the stylist assigned to District 4, a tiny androgynous person with black hair and lightning-quick hands. They are waiting impatiently in the bedroom when you emerge in your robe, have you stripped in seconds, shove you into your clothes before you have a chance to glimpse them. Suddenly there are rings on your fingers and bracelets jangling on your wrists, all gold.

“Do you like it?” Salem asks, already wrangling with your hair. Their tone implies they don’t much care whether you do or not.

You spin around to look in the full-length mirror mounted on the wall, thinking: Why are there so many mirrors in this place? Salem has dressed you in a long flowing skirt that sits just above your navel, an off-white color like sand and patterned with royal blue stingrays. Your shirt is beaded, one large stingray to match the creatures on your skirt, its body covering your chest, its long tail cascading down your belly, its wings reaching around to meet at your mid-back. “It’s amazing! You did a wonderful job!”

“Of course I did,” Salem says. “Your ears aren’t pierced, are they?”

“No, why?”

Out of nowhere, Salem produces what looks like a small silver gun and jams it against your left earlobe. You yelp as it feels like you’re being stabbed, then Salem repeats the process on your right ear. When you consult the mirror again, you are wearing two gleaming gold studs to match your rings and bracelets. “Makeup next,” Salem says.

Three minutes later, Salem departs and you venture out to the common area. Charm and Commodore are both sitting on the couch and watching footage of this year’s Reaping Ceremonies, trying to memorize all the tributes’ names. Aemond is at the dining room table, taking notes and etching deep pensive grooves into his scarred forehead. He looks up and sees you, and for a moment he just stares.

“That Brookite from District 1 is so gorgeous,” Charm says, then glances over at Commodore. “If you end up killing her, don’t bash her face in or anything, alright? Her parents should get her back looking like herself.”

“Okay,” Commodore replies. He’s learned that Charm expects an engaged audience.

You tell Aemond, gesturing to your outfit: “This isn’t so bad.”

He chuckles. “Just wait. It gets weirder.”

“Aemond, you’re making a glare on the television,” Charm complains. She’s right: the sunlight streaming in through the windows reflects off his sapphire and scatters white dots across the screen. He sighs and goes to stand in the shadows. His suit is jade green; Charm’s short form-fitting dress is a similar shade, and accentuated by a very large hat shaped like an octopus. The beast glitters with stones of emerald, peridot, aquamarine, blue topaz. Its bulging blind eyes are ghost-white pearls.

You notice that Commodore is eating an enormous bowl of cereal, something you don’t have in District 4. The tiny pieces are in a rainbow of colors and shaped like animals: blue elephants, orange kangaroos, green alligators, red bats, white bears, others you can’t readily identify. There is a cardboard box on the coffee table labelled Polychromatic Pets! “Aren’t we headed to breakfast?”

Charm says: “You think this megalodon is going to fill up anytime soon?”

Aemond comes over to you and hangs something around your neck. It’s one of the filleting knives from Daddy’s set, the mother of pearl hilt gleaming, the blade tucked into a brand new sheath: not worn leather but silver, forged to look like a nest of seaweed and swimming fish, the sharp metal of the knife just barely visible through the gaps. Each fish has a tiny fleck of a gemstone as an eye: emerald, ruby, amethyst, onyx, opal, sapphire. The hilt is suspended from a long, thin silver chain, so that the knife rests at your breastbone.

“Oh, that’s lovely, Aemond,” Charm says, her green gaze wide.

“Is this okay?” Aemond asks you.

You take the weapon in your hand to study it and smile. “I like it. I’ll always have a piece of home with me.”

Charm snorts. “It’s not supposed to be sentimental. It’s for stabbing and slicing.”

There is a bizarre repeated buzzing sound. Aemond reaches into his suit jacket and produces a small device, red with black buttons and a little screen at the top. He peers down at it, unspeaking, expressionless.

“What is that?” you ask.

Aemond says, still reading the screen: “A mobile phone.”

A phone? That’s just for him?? That’s not attached to the wall??? “Who’s calling?”

“Nobody.”

“I thought we didn’t have any secrets,” you tease lightly.

“It’s not a secret,” Aemond pitches back, unsmiling, severe, shoving the phone into a black pocket sewn on the inside of his jacket. “I just don’t want to talk about it.”

And before you can apologize, Charm hustles all three of you off to the elevator. She smacks an adhesive nametag onto Commodore’s titan chest, and then distributes one to you as well. You stick it to your beaded stingray top, stealing timid peeks at Aemond. He stands with his hands crossed over his chest and stares at the wall, but you don’t think he’s seeing anything. Charm totters over to him in her green heels and squeezes his shoulders and yanks him around a little bit, is playful with him, tells him to loosen up, and remarkably Aemond smiles.

There is a welcome breakfast being held in the garden on the roof of the Tribute Center, not just for the twenty-four tributes but also their escorts and mentors, and some other victors as well. Among the glass-and-gold tables and the opulent blooms that resemble flowers you’ve seen before—orchids but larger, roses but brighter, glittering pearlescent calla lilies that spial around statues and fountains—you spot brawny blonde Palladium Barker from District 1, gregarious Chaff from District 11 who lost his left hand in the Games, middle-aged Mags with her grey hair and her kind face. You see Jackline Humboldt, who won three years ago, grinning as he moves briskly from table to table, his skin tan and his hair hanging in glossy dark waves.

“Jack! Hey, Jack!” the young tributes are all calling to him, beaming, waiting eagerly for their turn to shake his hand and ask for advice. But when you look to Aemond, he’s watching Jackline with a cold, wary gaze. Aemond would know him better than just about anyone. Aemond was his mentor, and Aemond helped him win.

You don’t remember much from Jack’s Games; your family always ignored them as much as possible, getting vital updates from neighbors and customers but turning away from the television screens displayed around town. But there is one part that stayed with you. You remember taking a basket of fresh tuna fillets to the marketplace where Misty was already set up, and witnessing a scene you immediately wished you’d never seen. Jack had cornered a girl from District 8 with his spear, and he could easily stab her in the chest or the throat and end her suffering quickly. But instead he jabbed his spearpoint through her belly and then left her there to die alone, the girl cowering between two boulders, forsaken in the mountainous terrain, her hands turning red as she tried to keep pressure on the wound long enough for one of her sponsors to send her a miracle.

Charm points to the gold railing along the perimeter of the roof. “There’s a forcefield, so don’t think you can jump off or anything. You’ll just get me in trouble and earn yourself a nice zap.”

“Hello, Charm!” the District 2 escort Citadella warbles saccharinely. She is standing with several other women, sipping champagne but not eating. “Oh, what an extraordinary hat you’re wearing! Isn’t that a lovely hat, Lapis? It’s so eye-catching, so appropriate for District 4, so…mollusky!”

Charm administers herself a dose of white powder from her compact and then strides off to join them. Aemond goes to say hello to Mags. She’s from District 4 as well, and she won the 11th Hunger Games ages ago; she was probably Aemond’s mentor. You and Commodore investigate the buffet. It’s a peculiar combination, half desserts and half protein. Commodore loads up two plates with lobsters, raw salmon and tuna cut into thin slivers, ribeye steak, bacon, and quail eggs. You get a few muffins and something called a crepe, like a pancake but thinner, stuffed with bananas and berries and fresh whipped cream.

With your plate in hand, you scout the tables, arranged around a shallow koi pond. Commodore goes to sit with the boy from District 1 and the girl from District 2. Their nametags identify them as Hawk and Saratoga. Hawk has sandy blonde hair; Saratoga wears her short dark curls in a practical ponytail. Commodore and Hawk must have already crossed paths, maybe yesterday when you were all being tormented by the prep teams, because Hawk greets Commodore with a big familiar smile and a firm handshake. You don’t seem to be invited.

You consider the other tables. The really young kids are sitting together: Jet from District 12, Marble from District 10, and Babylon from District 5. They’re giggling as they hurl pieces of raw fish at each other. Babylon is the youngest, only twelve years old, chocolate brown hair and bright hazel eyes. You can hear people calling him Baby.

The kids from Districts 3 and 6 are at another table, and the girl from District 5, Noria, is with them. The District 7 and 8 tributes are building a tower out of cookies. Gotha and Bobcat from District 9 are chatting about growing seasons with the boy from District 10, Jutland.

But where do I fit in?

You’ve never really had to make friends before. With as many older siblings as you have, there were always playmates and confidants around. It was effortless. It was safe, it was home.

You glance over at Aemond. He’s sipping champagne as he chats with Mags; she’s explaining something to him as he nods attentively, leaning down to hear her better, her wrinkled hands gesturing emphatically and her grey hair blowing in the breeze. Jackline Humboldt has made his way to Commodore’s table, and they seem to be getting along swimmingly.

Someone is making obnoxious kissing noises. You whirl to see the boy from District 2 leering at you from where he’s slouched in his chair, black sweatsuit, hair like fire. He’s sitting at a table with the rest of the tributes, all seventeen or eighteen: Brookite from District 1, Pluto from District 12, Isla and Montgomery from District 11. Montgomery has crossed out his name with a blue pen and written Monty above it instead. The District 2 boy’s nametag reads: Roosevelt. “You ain’t gonna hang out with the kids still learning their letters and shapes, are you? Circles, triangles, stars, hearts.”

“He’s inviting you to sit with us,” Isla says, smiling. She wears a loose silk dress decorated with oranges and her hair in a cloud-soft plume like a halo. “He’s just intellectually disabled.”

“What the fuck kind of name is Roosevelt, anyway?” Monty asks.

The redhead bristles. “It’s after a boat.”

Your interest is piqued; this is your area of expertise. “What sort of boat?”

“I don’t know, a big one! An important one. A battle boat.”

“A warship,” you correct him, dropping into the chair beside Brookite. She grins, a scrunched nose, perfect white teeth. Her long blonde hair is secured in a braid. Brookie, Roosevelt had called her yesterday.

“You shouldn’t be eating that,” Isla tells you, frowning at your muffins and crepe.

“I’m not really hungry at all,” you confess. You haven’t been since you were reaped. But it’s easier to nibble at muffins than a lobster.

“Yeah, but you need protein. Not sugar.”

“Stop helping her!” Roosevelt says, lighting a cigarette. His lighter isn’t crystal like Aemond’s, only scratched and square and metal.

“Some of these names are crazy, man,” Monty says as he cuts his steak, blood on his plate. “Roosevelt? Bobcat? Houndstooth? How do you hold an innocent baby and say ‘He looks like a Houndstooth to me’?!”

Pluto replies: “I could have sworn I heard one of the District 10 kids talking about having a sibling named Brisket.”

The others burst out laughing, and then you do too, and you think, elated: I have friends!

“No you didn’t,” Brookie says. “No way.”

“I did!” Pluto insists.

Roosevelt puffs on his cigarette. “I’d be tempted to eat a kid named Brisket.”

“There’s been cannibalism in the Games before,” Monty says grimly. “That time when the arena was a deserted island. And the one with all the snow.”

“The tundra,” Roosevelt remembers. “I loved that year. The polar bear mutts…brilliant.”

“Brisket,” Brookie marvels to herself.

“We should do the Hunger Games with just District 10,” Isla says.

“Every year,” Brookie agrees. “Until they’re extinct like the dinosaurs.”

“What are dinosaurs?” Pluto asks sincerely, and the others loudly boo him. He shows his palms in contrition. Pluto has pallid, almost sickly skin and dark hair and is tall and broad, like Monty, although they’d both look small next to Commodore.

“You don’t learn about dinosaurs in District 12?” you say.

“They don’t learn about nothing in District 12,” Roosevelt answers. “Yesterday he asked me what multiplication is.”

“But you don’t know how to shovel coal,” Pluto counters.

“Pluto, buddy, I’d rather be named Brisket than shovel coal.” Roosevelt offers you his glowing cigarette, and you hesitate.

“It’s dangerous, isn’t it?” you say. “Cancer? Emphysema?”

“Cancer?! People don’t get cancer here. And the Capitol can give you new lungs if you ever need them.” Roosevelt smirks. “And if you don’t win the Games, well…the cigs won’t be what kills you.”

“Right,” you reluctantly concede. You take the cigarette but don’t really know what to do with it. Brookie plucks it out of your hand and takes a drag instead, giving you a wink.

“That’s why Hawk volunteered,” Brookie says when she exhales smoke, her voice hushed and pitying. “He has something wrong with him, a genetic thing, and his kidneys are going bad. They’ll fail completely in the next few years. There’s nothing they can do for him in District 1, but the Capitol would get him a transplant. They grow organs in labs, they can fix just about everything. A lot of people here live to be over a hundred years old.”

“Bad kidneys, huh?” Roosevelt says as he gnaws on a strip of crispy bacon, gazing across the garden at Hawk and grinning. Brookie looks ashamed, like she has unwittingly betrayed him. She passes the cigarette to Pluto, who takes a drag and then has a coughing fit, his lungs rattling.

Monty sighs. “I should have asked that babe who works on the tobacco farm next door to be my girlfriend. Now who knows if I’ll ever see her again.”

“My girlfriend dumped me when I got reaped,” Pluto says. “Told me we had no future. Not great for the self-esteem.”

“Well my boyfriend is waiting patiently for my Victory Tour,” Brookie says.

“You didn’t break up with him before you came here?” Roosevelt asks her.

Brookie is confounded. “Why would I break up with him?”

“Because I’m going to murder you,” Roosevelt says. “But even in the unlikely event that I don’t, if you win this thing you can have anyone. Anyone in Panem. The hottest, tallest, smartest, nicest, richest guy you could possibly imagine.” That’s not true, you think, but the other tributes don’t know it yet. “Why would you want to end up with some bum from home?”

Brookie chuckles. “He’s not a bum. He’s a gemcutter.”

Roosevelt picks up his butter knife and aims the blade at her. “When I gut you, Brookite, I’ll be a gemcutter too.”

They all cackle; you suppose it’s easy to joke about the Games when they’re still twelve days away, a relative eternity, a distant galaxy. The tributes have longer to live in paradise than they’ll last in the arena. Roosevelt twists in his chair to look at you, twirling the butter knife between his agile fingers. He uses it to point to the filleting knife hanging from the long silver chain around your throat.

“Speaking of gutting, do you really know how to use that thing? Or is Aemond just working his magic?”

Monty groans. “I’ve heard he’s good.”

“He’s very good,” Roosevelt agrees, still watching you. “But I want to see if she is.”

“I know how to use the knife,” you say.

“Okay. Prove it.” He leaps up, so abruptly that everyone recoils. He goes to the koi pond, wades into it with no hesitation, juts one hand below the surface and produces a wriggling, asphyxiating fish, huge, all white, delicate flowing fins. The other breakfast attendees gasp and ogle in horror. Roosevelt brings the koi back to the table and slaps it down on your plate. “Go on. Give us a demonstration.”

In front of you, the misfortunate fish flops around in the soggy remains of your crepe. Roosevelt rests both elbows on the table and laces his fingers beneath his chin as he waits impatiently.

“Well?” he prompts.

You slide your filleting knife out of its metallic sheath. “How long do you think it will take?”

“Two minutes,” Monty guesses.

“One minute,” Roosevelt says, watching you intently with sharp eyes, so murky a brown they’re almost black.

“I’ll count,” Isla offers.

“I’ll move out of the way so I don’t get splattered with fish organs,” Brookie says as she shimmies her chair over towards Pluto.

You smile at all of them, one after the other, the knife clenched in your fist.

“Oh, sweet baby Jesus,” Brookie mutters. Jesus? you think fleetingly. Who’s that?

You grab the koi and bury the blade between its eyes, drag the filleting knife backwards a few inches. The fish goes limp. You turn it onto its side, cut just behind the gills, follow the spine to the tail, do another pass to separate the fillet from the skin. You flip the fish and repeat the process. “Fillets,” you say, laying the two pristine slabs of meat in one stack. “For stocks and stews,” you say next, piling the head, bones, tail, and innards in another.

“Eleven seconds,” Isla says, stunned. Brookie, Monty, and Pluto are gawking at you.

“Who’s next?” you quip, brandishing the filleting knife, and they laugh. You think again, beaming: I have friends.

Roosevelt shrugs, feigning indifference, chomping on his bacon. “Well, I won’t just be lying there like a fish.”

“I’ll help her catch you,” Brookie says.

You look out at the garden. The other tributes are watching you too, you realize, and the escorts, and the previous years’ victors. Charm is whispering triumphantly to a shocked Citadella. From where he’s still standing with Mags, Aemond raises his champagne glass, like he’s toasting you.

You are in a claustrophobic dressing room, and Salem is pushing and tugging at you. There is harsh artificial light. There are shelves cluttered with sprays and lotions and paints. Through the walls, covered in mirrors, you can hear the crowd outside rumbling like the ocean, omnipotent, omnipresent. You aren’t feeling too panicked at the moment. You’re almost feeling a little hopeful. I still have twelve days until the Games. And I have friends. And I have Aemond.

Abruptly, Salem stops jostling you and says something strange. “You know I have to do what I’m told, right?”

You blink at them, mystified. “Sure. We all do, I guess.”

“Good,” Salem says. Then they start for the door.

You check your reflection, and you feel sick. “Wait!” you cry, and Salem pauses. “You aren’t done, are you?”

“I am.” There is a hint of compassion in their voice, quiet but real.

“No.” You are wearing something to represent your district, just like all the tributes are expected to in the parade. You are draped in silver silk netting and peppered with bejeweled creatures sewn into the fabric, angelfish and seahorses and dolphins and octopuses. Below the waist you are relatively concealed, but the netting is sparse at your chest. Very, very sparse. The most camouflage you have is the filleting knife that hangs in a stripe down your sternum. “You can’t be done yet. It’s not finished. It’s…I mean…the audience…all of Panem…they’ll be able to see everything!”

“Yes. They will.” And the meaning is clear, and you should already know it: the second you climbed that stage and were declared a tribute in the Hunger Games, your body stopped being yours. Your skin belongs to the Capitol now. Your blood and bones will belong to the Capitol if your murder is broadcasted on their screens. And if you win—improbably, perhaps nearly impossibly—everything you are will belong to the people who pay for it.

You’re nauseous, you’re dizzy, you’re shivering so violently your teeth chatter. I’m going to cry. I’m going to pass out. “Can you get Aemond, please?”

“Of course,” Salem says, and vanishes. As soon as they’re gone, you rupture into tears, even if you ruin your makeup, even if it’s pointless and childish and weak.

Why did I think I could survive this? Why did I think I’d want to?

Aemond appears in the dressing room and clicks the door shut behind him. “What’s wrong?” he says, and then he sees your face and he understands.

“I know they’re going to kill me, but do they have to do this first? Do they have to humiliate me and put me on display like this, do they have to show all those men what they could buy someday?”

“No one is going to kill you,” Aemond says, a lie that sounds so honest when it’s colored by his voice.

“I’ve never done anything,” you sob. “And now I’m never going to get the chance to. I’ve never been kissed, I’ve never had a boyfriend, I’ve never had sex, I’ve never even had an orgasm, I’m never going to get married, I’m never going to have children, I’m never going to see my family again, I want to go home, I want to go home!”

And perhaps because he doesn’t know what else to do, Aemond catches you and wraps his arms around your waist, holds you from behind so tightly your heart and lungs are deceived into believing you’re safe, and each time you moan in horror and misery he whispers to you—shh, shh, shh—until you can breathe again and your tears drip slowly, and you aren’t shuddering but still, and for a moment you don’t hear the thunder of the crowd waiting outside to watch the Tribute Parade.

You whisper: “I don’t want them to look at me.”

“Hey,” Aemond says, your eyes meeting in the reflection of the mirror. “I’m looking at you right now. No one else is, but I am. And I’m going to help you.”

“Nothing belongs to me anymore, not even my skin—”

“Shh. We’ll fix it,” Aemond promises. “Can I touch you?”

He always asks first. He’s the only one who does. “Yeah,” you sniffle.

His hands are light, efficient, swift but cautious. First he tries to adjust the very little silk netting he has to work with above your waist. He averts his gaze as much as he can; his lithe fingers are careful not to brush your nipples. Then he realizes this is a lost cause and goes to the shelves instead. Aemond rummages through the cannisters and jars until he finds something that gives him an idea. He returns to you with a spray bottle, clear liquid in which is suspended a universe of stars, silver flecks that whirl and glimmer. He begins to cover you with it, misting your chest and your arms and your shoulders and your back. The liquid is cold and smells like coconuts; your heartbeat is thudding back into a slow, sturdy rhythm.

“They aren’t looking at your skin,” Aemond says as he works, very calm, very tender, forcing you to believe him. When you breathe, something he’s wearing fills your aching lungs, a scent that’s sweet but dark that you’re too rattled to identify. “They’re looking at the sparkles. And you’re wearing them, but they’re not you. You are beneath them, and you are safe there. Sunlight glittering on the waves. Cool hidden depths below.”

That’s why he wears the sapphire, you realize for the first time. So they see that, not him. When they force him to be a killer. When they pay for him to fuck them.

Aemond coats you repeatedly until the spray bottle is nearly empty and your body is obscured, so the light will rebound off of you and redirect ravening eyes. Then he mists his own hands and uses his thumbs to draw a gleaming semicircle beneath each of your eyes, starving moons, curved hulls of crystalline ships. When you check the mirror again, you can barely tell you’re practically naked. “Better?” Aemond asks.

“So much better,” you manage, smiling embarrassedly. After everything they’ve done to him, after everything they’ll do to me, is this really so bad? “Thank you, Aemond. I’m sorry that…I shouldn’t have…”

“It’s alright,” he says, replacing the bottle on the shelf. “You’re alright. Let’s go.”

The rest of the tributes are already waiting in their chariots, lined up in a row in a long dark tunnel that leads outside. The procession will pass through the center of the Capitol—stands set up for the audience to gawk from as they eat their pastries and guzzle their cocktails, television screens broadcasting the opening ceremony of the 47th Annual Hunger Games across all twelve districts—and end at President Snow’s mansion. The sun has set, but even from deep inside the tunnel you can see the glaring white lights of the parade route. You can hear the booming, reverberating voice of Caesar Flickerman, the host of the Games, hyping up the crowd and reminding them of the tributes’ names and ages and alleged attributes.

All of the mentors, escorts, and stylists are wearing flat black so as not to distract from their tributes. Salem is up on the chariot fixing a snag in Commodore’s netting; he is fortunate to be mostly covered by several large bejeweled sea turtles caught in the silk. Each chariot’s horses matches the tributes’ outfits; the District 4 horses are silver. The District 3 tributes parked in front of you, wearing shiny black jumpsuits embossed with neon green numbers, have glossy ebony horses. Their mentor, Beetee Latier, is making them laugh with riddles so they won’t be too nervous. Aemond goes to pet one of the silver horses while Charm checks her hair and makeup in her compact mirror.

Salem, their job complete, steps down from the chariot and beckons you to climb up beside Commodore. You do, feeling like a herring next to a swordfish. If he’s surprised by the fact that you’re covered in sparkles for some reason, he doesn’t show it. There is rousing music outside, and you recognize it from the Tribute Parades you’ve glimpsed on the televisions in District 4.

But now it’s me, you think dazedly, still wrestling with how that’s possible. You wonder if your family is watching tonight. You wonder if they’ll see you die, or if they won’t be able to bring themselves to witness it.

The chariots begin to roll forward, and Aemond and Charm move out of their way. Charm waves halfheartedly. “Good luck! Have fun!” Then she resumes analyzing her reflection.

When you cross through the archway at the end of the tunnel, the noise becomes deafening. The spotlight is so bright you can’t see anything for a moment until your eyes adjust. Then you can identify other tributes on the giant television screens mounted around the stands teeming with spectators and sponsors: Brookie and Hawk in garments made of a myriad of gemstones, Saratoga and Roosevelt wearing form-fitting, greenish-grey military uniforms with silver buttons and an eagle insignia. Then you see yourself, a constellation, a mirrorball, and the crowd thunders like a storm blowing in off the ocean.

Beside you, Commodore beams and waves to the audience, and you follow suit. Then you remember what you did on Reaping Day, and you blow a kiss too; from two chariots ahead, Roosevelt peers back to glower at you. Women cheer, men howl like wolves. Caesar Flickerman’s disembodied voice explodes through the speakers, not talking about any of the other tributes but only you.

Commodore scoops you up into his arms, and at first you’re so alarmed you scream, then you quickly recover and smile for the cameras. He spins you around three times, throws you several feet into the air, catches you easily and sets you back down on your feet. And you know exactly why he did it. Now Caesar Flickerman is talking about both of the tributes from District 4: how tremendously large and strong Commodore is, how brightly you sparkle.

All twelve chariots roll to a halt as they reach the end of the route, horses snorting and pawing at the pavement. On his towering white balcony that overlooks the ceremony, President Snow rises to the podium. He is about the same age as Mags, in his fifties and grey-haired, but there is nothing kind or soft about him. You can see on the screens that his blue eyes are clever and charismatic but icy, the lines in his face not carved by smiling but determination, fierce focus, resentment, rage. He raises a white-gloved hand and the raucous crowd falls silent.

“Tributes,” President Snow says, smiling coldly down at you and the others, his eyes lingering on no one in particular. This must be muscle memory for him, you think. After all these years. “We welcome you. We salute you. We celebrate your courage and your sacrifice. We wish you a very happy Hunger Games, and may the odds be ever in your favor.”

The audience applauds again, and whistles, and shrieks, and sponsors are murmuring to each other about the betting odds, and cameras are zooming in on the tributes for one last look tonight. Then as the chariots begin to circle back around, President Snow’s gaze falls on you. And it must not just be muscle memory after all, because he grins down through the glaring lights, and then with his pale lips and his white gloves he blows a kiss.

“What the hell was that?!” Aemond roars at Commodore when the chariots return to the tunnel. Other tributes peek over, some simply curious, some opportunistic, smelling blood in the water. “Did I say you could do that?!”

“I thought it was delightful,” Charm trills, and she has that overly-animated look she gets in her eyes when she’s snorting her white powder, and she’s shifting her weight restlessly from foot to foot, and she keeps wringing her hands and making her onyx bracelets clatter. You and Commodore dismount from the chariot. He goes to stand beside Charm; you stay near Aemond.

Aemond shakes his head, incensed. “It makes her look small, it makes her look weak.”

Charm flourishes her hands erratically. “Or it makes her look like a damsel in distress! Men love that. She’ll get sponsors.”

“That’s not for him to decide, Charm!”

“Jack said I could do it,” Commodore says.

“Jack isn’t your fucking mentor! I am!”

“She’s your favorite,” Commodore accuses bitterly, and now his deep-set brown eyes are slick, a rare show of emotion from him. “You aren’t going to help me.”

Abruptly, mortally, Aemond is wounded. “Of course I’m going to help you.”

“Well I don’t want your help,” Commodore says. “I want Jack. And Charm, and Mags. Not you.”

“Fine,” Aemond snaps, turning away. “Do whatever the fuck you want.”

As he leaves, Charm pats Commodore’s colossal bicep reassuringly. “Ignore him, my dear landbound blue whale. Tensions are high. Tempers flare. He’ll apologize in the morning…”

You follow after Aemond, and although he’s walking very quickly, he slows down so you can catch up.

It’s late, no stars outside only city lights, and their constellations glow stark and cruel. You stand at the window in your long silk nightgown, and your reflection is a cipher, dark and vague. How many tributes have stood in this same spot before they were released into the arena to be gutted, roasted, exsanguinated, frozen, flayed, mauled, macerated? There have been forty-six female tributes from District 4 before you, and how many survived? Why would you be special? Why would the odds be in your favor?

I can’t win, you think. You felt better in the daylight, but when the sun vanishes there aren’t as many distractions, and you can hear the ever-ticking countdown plummeting towards zero in your skull. I can’t kill those people.

And even if you did somehow…you know exactly what would happen next.

You glide your knife out of its sheath and contemplate the blade, long and thin and slightly curved. The mother of pearl hilt fits perfectly in your palm. Then you look down at your wrists and instantly wince. No, you don’t have the stomach for that.

Your gaze returns to the window. Tentatively, you tap the hilt of your knife against the glass. Surely the Gamemakers have already thought of that, and there is a forcefield outside and the glass is impenetrable anyway, and sure enough no spider-leg cracks appear. But still, you envision yourself breaking it, and free-falling through the cool night air, and ending your life swiftly and painlessly and on your own terms.

“That won’t work,” Aemond says from the doorway, and you startle, almost dropping the knife.

“I wasn’t going to do anything.”

“Sure,” he says, and crosses the bedroom to meet you by the window. He extends a hand and waits for you to surrender the knife. Eventually you do. Then he asks, his voice low and gentle: “What are you most afraid of?”

You’re ashamed; you look through the window instead of at him. “I guess I’m scared that I’m going to get trapped somehow, and I’ll have a horribly painful death, like I’ll get boiled alive or slowly ripped apart by mutts, and there won’t be anything I can do about it. I feel like I have no control. I feel like I’m doomed not just to die but to suffer.”

In the glass, you see Aemond’s reflection nod. He understands. “Can I touch you?”

What? Why? You turn back to him. “Of course.”

Using two fingers, Aemond feels along the side of your neck until he finds a place that is rigid and throbbing. He lays the point of the blade against your throat, then puts your hand on the hilt, just on top of his. “This is the carotid artery,” he says. “It’s not instant, and it’s not painless, but it is very quick. If you’re in the arena, and you’re absolutely sure there’s no chance, that’s your escape hatch.”

“Okay,” you whisper, grateful and horrified and realizing you don’t want him to stop touching you. He’s the only person you feel that way about here.

Aemond lifts the chain holding the sheath from your neck, slides the knife inside, and doesn’t give it back to you. “Go to sleep now.”

“You don’t get attached,” you observe. You’re not sure how he doesn’t; it seems impossible.

“Every year, children are sent here, and I try to save them,” Aemond says. “And I begin to hope even though I swear to myself I won’t do it again. Then I watch them die. Every year, it’s the same. I lost almost every single kid. One survived, not because of any exceptional talent of mine but because he was already well on his way to becoming a monster, and the Capitol has finished the job. And another made it out of the arena but couldn’t cope with what she’d done and what came next. She was a baby, barely fifteen, and it wasn’t…it was very different than it is with you. She seemed even younger than she was. She was like a little sister to me. I did everything I could to get her through the Games, and it worked, and she lasted a few years. But maybe it would have been kinder to let her go sooner. The Capitol said it was a car accident, but…” Aemond closes his eye for a moment, flinches, shakes his head. “All the rest were killed. I saw their blood flow, I heard the sound of the cannon. So yes, maintaining some emotional distance is wise.”

The nightmare never ends. Even if you win, you never leave the Games. “That makes sense.” Does that mean you could never care about me?

“Go to sleep,” Aemond says again, and then he’s gone.

There is a party being held to revel in the opening of the Games, and to give sponsors an opportunity to mingle with the tributes, to size them up, to decide whether to devour them like butchered fish laid out on ice in the marketplace. Tonight, District 4 is a seemingly united front, all in red. You wear a gown of crimson crabs and sheer silk, and a generous application of sparkles from a spray bottle so you shimmer under the lights. Now that’s something people expect to see from you.

Each year a different mentor hosts this event, often arranged to take place at a museum or a ballroom. But for the 47th Hunger Games, Aemond was chosen for the honor, and his home is opulent enough all on its own. He lives in a mansion with glass walls, rambling and immense, high ceilings, frigid marble floors. The rooms are bizarrely empty: a couch here, a table there, a bookshelf, a food dish for one of his silent skeletal dogs, each surrounded by oceans of colorless echoing space.

Charm is dragging Commodore around so the sponsors can poke and pinch at his gargantuan bones in person, but you have escaped. You hate the way the sponsors smile at you, not listening to a word you’re saying, imagining how you will be murdered, picturing you lying naked underneath them. Brookie is good at this part, and so is Isla, they’re able to endure it for a chance at a life-saving delivery to them in the arena. And they don’t really know what winning means.

You take your glass of champagne—that’s the other thing, the sponsors keep trying to get the tributes drunk—and click in your red heels through forlorn, fantastical rooms until you find one that is presently unoccupied. It’s bare except for a glass case that takes up a whole wall, all the way up to the ceiling and brightly illuminated, full of bewildering valuables: gemstones, fossils, relics, paintings, sculptures, coins, pieces of jewelry, pocket watches on chains. You are still trying to figure out what this room is when Aemond wanders in, stands beside you, contemplates his own dazzling treasury.

“I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable with any of the things I said yesterday,” you tell him. “Right before the Tribute Parade, I mean. I was…well, I was really upset, obviously.”

Aemond smiles, perhaps bashfully, blood in his cheeks, his rain-blue eye on the marble floor, his hands in his pockets. He wears a maroon suit, immaculately tailored as always. “That’s perfectly alright. I’ve heard all sorts of outbursts from tributes. It’s a singularly stressful situation.”

“I’m glad I didn’t offend you.”

“No, I was just a bit surprised. By one disclosure in particular.”

You’re pretty sure you know which one. Not the never having a boyfriend part, not the never having been kissed. He knew about those already. What he didn’t know was that you’ve never had an orgasm either. I can’t believe I said that, you think, mortified. “I mean, I’ve tried.”

He chuckles nervously, still not looking at you. “I’m sure you have.”

“But no dice. And now I have less than two weeks to live and I’m not really in the mood, so…it seems pretty hopeless.”

He nods, studying the artefacts in the tall glass case, or at least pretending to. Multicolored flecks of light dart across his flushed face. “It can be tricky for women.”

“We don’t have any secrets,” you remind him so you’ll feel less embarrassed.

“No,” he agrees. “We don’t.”

To change the subject, you point to the transparent box of treasures. “These are all yours?”

“Gifts,” he says. “From fans, friends, Gamemakers, victors I’ve done favors for. And clients, of course.”

The red phone, you realize suddenly with dismay. You don’t want to make him think about that. “What’s that one?” you ask, tapping the glass where it covers a blue-violet stone the shade of a bruise and the size of a fist. Not your fist. A huge one, like Commodore’s.

“Tanzanite.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“It’s only found in one location in the entire world, at the base of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. That’s why it’s called tanzanite.”

“Which district is Tanzania in?”

Aemond smiles. “It’s not in any of the districts. It’s in Africa.”

“What’s Africa?”

“A place beyond Panem.” A place with no President Snow and no Hunger Games, he means, although he cannot say it out loud. Someone is always listening, even if you cannot see them. Everybody everywhere knows this. In Panem, at least.

“How many other places are there?”

“A lot,” Aemond answers.

Next you indicate a dragon head carved out of stone, large eyes that are insentient and yet expressive somehow. “How about this?”

“A piece of Aztec ruins from Mexico.”

Another place you didn’t know existed, more names you can’t attach meaning to. But you can tell Aemond is enjoying this, so you keep asking questions. “What about the skinny black creature with the big ears and the golden eyes?”

“That’s from King Tutankhamun’s tomb in Egypt.”

“Now you’re just making up words.”

He laughs, like he’s just a normal person and so are you, and you met on a fishing boat or in the marketplace. “No, I swear. It’s real. That’s a shrine to Anubis, the god that guards the dead. It’s over three thousand years old.”

“He’s a dog?”

“He’s a jackal.” And then, more encouragingly: “But sort of like a dog, yes.”

You ponder the relic, crouched on a golden altar. “I’d like to think there’s someone to watch over us when we go to whatever’s next.”

“It’s cursed,” Aemond says, hushed and mischievous, grinning. He’s leaning in close to you, his hands clasped behind his back. You can feel the warmth of the blood rushing beneath his skin, breathe in the remnants of his soap and cologne and aftershave, something like vanilla but darker, woodier, something that makes you think of the boardwalk from home on a scorching summer day, dry sand sieving through the splintering planks when it falls from your sandals.

“Is it?”

“The Ancient Egyptians had complex burial rituals, especially for their kings, called pharaohs. They would preserve the body and put it in a tomb filled with their earthly possessions so they could take everything with them to the afterlife. Sometimes they’d even kill their pets and servants to keep them company. And then…” He demonstrates the shape with his hands. “They’d bury the pharaoh and his treasures in a pyramid, a massive stone structure. They’d leave warnings carved into the stone: do not disturb this place, do not open this tomb, do not steal the pharaoh’s riches, if you do you will be cursed. Then thousands of years later, when explorers found the tombs and opened them to see what was inside, they died in all sorts of strange ways. They got infections. They wasted away. People called it the curse of the pharaohs, their revenge from the grave.”

Your head is spinning, and not just from the champagne. This is a lot to process. Egypt? Pharaohs? Pyramids? Curses? “How do you know about all that?”

“I read a lot. I have lunches with university professors. I enjoy history and science, and here in the Capitol, we have much more access to information than the districts.”

“Is that why you don’t live in the Victors’ Village in District 4?” you ask. “Mags does, with her family. Jack is there a lot too. And I’ve heard that your parents and siblings have lived comfortably in the village ever since you won the Games. But you never come home.”

Aemond shrugs. “District 4 isn’t my home anymore.”

“Why not?”

“The things you have to do to win the Games, and then the things you do afterwards…” He pauses, and when you look at him you can tell he’s very far away, distant, mournful. “Your family won’t understand. There are these vast, cold spaces that open up between you, even if you don’t want there to be. They watch you murder people on tv, and then they try to forget you’re a killer, but they can’t because they’re reminded of it every year. And you feel ashamed, and you want to change who you are, you want to take steel wool and scrub away all the parts of yourself you’ve ruined, but even if you tried the Capitol would just kill you and everyone you’ve ever loved. You’re not at home in the Capitol. But you’re not at home wherever you came from either. You just…” He skates his hand across an imaginary window. “Float. From year to year, from Games to Games. Surrounded by things that sparkle. Never touching what’s underneath.”

You reach over and take his hand, and at first Aemond startles, like he’s not used to it. Then he relaxes, and you offer a half-joke. “I sparkle. But you’re touching me.”

And Aemond smiles, he glows, all the way up to the eye he has left; then he is determined. “There are ways people can get out,” he says, very quietly now. “If you’ve served enough time, and you can pay. I’ve been here for a decade, I’m not shiny and new anymore. Other victors are younger. Other victors have more clients, and there’s always a new one every year to reinvigorate their fantasies. The Capitol doesn’t want me as badly as they used to. I’ve been saving up these gifts for ten years, and I almost have enough. Soon I’ll be able to buy my way onto a ship, and I’ll leave Panem, and I’ll never come back.”

You’re astonished. “You would disappear?”

“Wouldn’t you want to do the same thing?”

“That sounds very risky. That sounds almost impossible.” It sounds like a mirage, something to keep him from slitting open his blue veins in the desolate dark of the long nights. And I don’t believe the Capitol would ever let you go, Aemond.

“There’s another world out there somewhere, and I’m going to find it.”

“There is no other world. We have to make the best of this one.”

Aemond gazes at you. He’s still holding your hand. The clock ticking in your skull falls silent; the grains of sand stop tumbling through the throat of an hourglass. “I’m sorry. I lied to you before.”

“Really?”

“I do get attached.”

“What?”

“When I meet the new tributes each year,” Aemond says, a confession, a curse. “I do get attached. To some more than others.”