#morraen

Vaelora had been little more than a pale coil of bone and fury when they placed her egg in your cradle. Gold shell, white veining, warm to the touch. The maesters said it was a good omen, the sort of thing men said when they were trying to sound less afraid. The dragonkeepers said nothing. They only watched the egg and watched you, their faces hidden beneath rough hoods while their eyes reflected candlelight.

For three days, the egg did not move. On the fourth, you began to cry.

Your nurse had tried everything. Milk, blankets, songs from King’s Landing, songs from Old Valyria, a silver rattle shaped like a dragon’s head… nothing quieted you. You screamed until your little fists turned red and the veins in your throat stood out blue. Then the egg cracked. 

Not all at once, and not dramatically like something from a song. Just a thin, ugly split down the side. Your nurse dropped the rattle and the dragonkeepers stepped forward. From the shell came Vaelora, wet and furious and bright as a shard of fallen sun. She was no larger than a cat then, all delicate limbs and translucent wings, her scales the color of pale gold in morning light. A ridge of white horns crowned her narrow skull. Her eyes were darker than any hatchling’s eyes had a right to be, molten amber ringed in black, ancient before she had taken her first breath.

She screamed once and you stopped crying. From that moment onward, people said the gods had made you for each other. You learned later that people loved to call things divine when they were too frightened to call them dangerous. 

Vaelora grew quickly, and so did you. By the time you were five, she could climb the outer walls of Dragonstone with her talons and cling there like a spider, wings tucked tight and tail lashing at anyone who came too close. By seven, she had burned three training posts, one goat, and the hem of your uncle’s cloak. By ten, she had learned your moods better than any living person.

When you were angry, Vaelora grew restless. When you were afraid, she refused food. When you wept, quietly and shamefully into your pillow where no courtier or cousin could see, Vaelora would shriek from the pit below the castle until the walls shook. You were never alone in your grief, that was the first mercy she gave you. The second was fire.

“Dracarys,” you commanded for the first time when you were seven years old, your voice small and uncertain in the dragonpit. 

Vaelora tilted her head at you.

The dragonkeeper beside you murmured, “again, Lady YN. She must hear that you mean it.” 

You had looked at Vaelora, at the pale soft thing she still was, and felt a twinge in your chest. You did not want to command her. Even then, that felt wrong. She was not a dog, or a horse, or some pretty and obedient creature bred for ribbons and saddles and men’s applause. 

She was Vaelora, and she was yours as you were hers.

So you did not point at the bundle of straw as the dragonkeeper instructed. You looked into your dragon’s amber eyes and whispered, “please.” 

The dragonkeeper stiffened, and Vaelora breathed fire.

It was not much, just a quick golden bloom, hot enough to singe your brows and send the dragonkeeper stumbling back with a curse. But to you, it was the most beautiful thing in the world. The straw blackened. Smoke curled upward as Vaelora chirped, pleased with herself. 

You laughed, and that was the first time anyone in Dragonstone heard you sound like a child. After that, they feared what you might become.

You did not know this then, of course. Children did not understand fear when it wore adult faces. You thought the whispers were admiration. You thought the careful distance people kept was respect. You thought your father’s tense pride meant love.

A Targaryen girl with a bonded hatchling was a blessing. A Targaryen girl with a dragon who answered please instead of command was something else entirely. 

By thirteen, you had taken your first real flight.  The sky didn’t welcome you gently, mostly due to Vaelora throwing you into it. The saddle straps bit into your thighs. Wind torre the breath from your mouth, and the sea below Dragonstone opened black and endless beneath you, waves breaking white against stone teeth. For one brutal moment, you thought you were going to die. Not because Vaelora meant to kill you, but because she had never understood the weight of human bones. She was made for the air, the sky. She thought you were too.

“Vaelora!” you screamed, gripping the leather handles until your knuckles ached. “Slower!” 

She did not slow, she only climbed higher into the sky above Dragonstone and the open sea. The castle dropped away beneath you, becoming a dark crown upon the island. Men became beetles and banners became threads. The world grew enormous and small all at once, and terror clawed up your throat so sharply that you nearly choked on it. Vaelora felt it and her wings shifted. The climb gentled, not much and never enough to be called obedience, but enough to allow you the opportunity to breathe.

You pressed yourself low against her neck, cheek against warm scales, and felt the thunder of her body beneath yours. Her heart beat like war drums, her blood ran hotter than yours, and you could feel her joy. Not in words, never in words, but in bright and pulsing flashes that lived behind your flesh. 

Sky. Wind. Mine.

You shut your eyes, and for a moment, you were not nobility, you were not bloodline or bargain or future bride. You were not a piece waiting to be moved across the painted table. You were fire and height and salt and wind. You were Vaelora’s rider. 

When you returned, your father was waiting in the yard with half the household behind him. He did not embrace you, he did not ask if you had been afraid. He did not tell you that he had watched the tiny shape of your dragon rise above the clouds and thought he might never see his daughter again.

He only said, “Again.” 

So you flew again. And again. And Again. And more.

By fourteen, Queen Rhaenyra had returned to the castle with her husband and their children, and Vaelora finally had company in the skies. By sixteen, the realm knew your dragon’s name. By seventeen, they knew yours.

Lady YN Targaryen, rider of Vaelora. Pale Fury, The Sun’s Ghost, The Golden Wraith of Dragonstone.

You hated most of the names. Vaelora hated all of them.

She snapped at singers when they tried to compose verses too near her pit, she burned one man’s lute to a pile of ashes for attempting to find rhymes to your name. You had laughed so hard you nearly cried. The poor singer had fled Dragonstone by morning.

That was Vaelora’s way, quick to wrath and quicker to offense, and utterly impossible to flatter. She loved only three things in the world. Flight, fire and you. That should have been enough. For many years, it nearly was. Then the Velaryon boy returned from the sea.

You were eighteen the year Jeongguk Velaryon came back to Dragonstone with salt in his hair and a dragon below him. You had known him before, in the vague and half-formed way children knew one another at court. He had been a boy from Driftmark then, all dark eyes and restless limbs, always vanishing down stairwells or climbing places he should not. Velaryon through and through, though some old Targaryen marriage in his mother’s blood had given him the right to stand near dragons without being immediately turned to ash. 

As children, you had raced once along the lower cliffs. He had beaten you, and you pushed him into a tide pool for it. He came up laughing, black hair plastered to his forehead and a cut blooming red across his cheek where stone had caught him. 

“You cheated,” you accused.

“You were slow,” he smiled. 

“I am royalty.” 

“And still slow!” He laughed. “Royal blood does not make you faster than everyone else.” 

You had tried very hard to hate him after that, but it did not work. He came back years later taller than memory had warned you he would be, broad-shouldered from sailing and training, his skin kissed warm by sun and sea wind. His hair was longer, tied carelessly at the nape of his neck. There was still something restless in him, but it had changed shape. As a boy, it had made him wild. As a man, it made him look as if he were always listening for something no one else could hear.

He arrived with a lesser Lord Velaryon’s household, a small host of knights, cousins, shipmen, and attendants sweeping through the yard beneath the black walls of the castle. Their sea green banners snapped hard in the wind. Silver seahorses flashed beneath the gray sky.

You watched from above, half hidden by stone, Vaelora’s great head looming over your shoulder. You felt her attention sharpen. Not at the men, but at the dragon beyond them. Morraen.

He landed on the far ridge with a sound like a storm breaking. Smaller than Vaelora, but still large enough to scatter horses and send men ducking under their shields. His scales were a deep blue gray, almost black where the clouds shadowed him, with silver membranes stretched thin between the bones of his wings.

Vaelora rumbled low in her chest. You placed a hand against her jaw, “no.” 

Her amber eye turned toward you. “No,” you repeated, quieter. “You are not burning the guests.” 

She huffed, smoke curling around your sleeve. Below, Jeongguk looked up. 

You hated that you knew him so immediately. Years should have blurred him, they should have been merciful, they should have made him strange to you. But he lifted his face toward the battlements, and your chest did something foolish. His eyes found you, not your father beside the yard. Not the banners or Vaelora first, though gods knew she demanded looking at. They found you. 

For one moment, the sea wind moved between you, and you were twelve again, furious and laughing on the cliffs. Jeongguk smiled, not broadly like he had in the tide pool. Just a small curve of his mouth, private and knowing, as if he remembered exactly what you had done to him and had decided, after all these years, to forgive you for it.

Vaelora growled again. You kept your eyes on him. “Behave,” you whispered,  not entirely certain which one of you the order belonged to.

That evening, the castle filled with Velaryon voices. They were louder than Targaryens in a way you had forgotten, less careful with their laugher. They smelled of salt and leather and ship oil, of lives lived under open skies rather than behind carved doors and painted tables. They made Dragonstone feel different, less like a tomb and more like a living organ.

You sat at your father’s right hand during supper, dressed in black silk embroidered with red thread. Your hair had been braided in the old Valyrian style, silver-gold woven with tiny rubies that caught the torchlight whenever you moved. The dress was armor and the jewels were warning, the name Targaryen sat upon you heavier than any crown ever would. 

Below your grand table, Jeongguk sat amongst his kin. You did not look at him, at least, not often. Not for too long… 

Vaelora was awake in the pit beneath the castle. You felt her like heat under your skin, pacing and turning, claws scraping against stone. Morraen’s presence unsettled her, or perhaps your current state of frustration did.

“Lady YN,” Lord Velaryon said, lifting his cup. “I hear Vaelora has grown into a terror.”

“Only to men who annoy her,” you replied. A few people laughed in response, your father had not. 

Lord Velaryon grinned. “Then she and I shall get along poorly, I fear.” 

“You may keep your distance and live.” 

That earned louder laughter for a second, then Jeongguk spoke, voice calm beneath the noise. “You’re awful merciful, aren’t you?” 

The table shifted, and your father’s eyes moved to him. So did yours. Jeongguk held his cup loosely in one hand, his expression almost innocent. Almost. He had not been given a place near the head of the table, but somehow the hall seemed to notice him anyway. He wore Velaryon blue rather than court black, a silver clasp at his throat shaped like a seahorse. There was a faint scar cutting through his left brow that had not been there since you were children. You wondered who had given it to him. 

“Merciful?” you asked. 

His eyes met yours. “You once pushed me into a tide pool instead of off the nearby cliff,” he shrugged. 

“Both were considered, I assure you.” 

“Undoubtedly.” 

The hall laughed again, but this time the sound felt distant, muffled beneath the rush of blood in your ears. There it was, the old and dangerous thing. Something young and sharp. Perhaps recognition. The strange discomfort of being remembered by someone who had known you before that connection had grown useful. 

Your father turned his cup in his hand. “You two were acquainted as children,” he said, not a question. 

Jeongguk bowed his head. “Briefly, My Lord.” 

“He was very irritating,” you said. 

“I was twelve.” 

“That is no excuse.” 

Jeongguk’s smile returned, softer this time. “No, My Lady.” 

My Lady. The words once might have restored the distance between you, instead they stung. After supper, you escaped. 

You did not wait to be dismissed. You did not linger for courtly conversation or marriage propositions or your father’s silent appraisal. You simply rose, murmured something about Vaelora, and left the hall before anyone could decide whether to stop you or not. 

The corridors of Dragonstone were narrow and black, carved from volcanic rock. Torches guttered in iron brackets and shadows moved like things alive. The castle always moved at night, old and hot and full of secrets. You descended toward the dragonpit. The deeper you went, the easier it became to breathe. Heat pressed against your face and the air tasted of ash and smoke. A dragon snarled in its sleep from somewhere below.

Vaelora was awake. She lay half curled in the largest cavern, milky scales gleaming in the firelight. Her head lifted the moment you entered. The dragonkeepers bowed and moved away without needing to be told. Everyone in Dragonstone understood that Vaelora only tolerated people. She welcomed only you.

You crossed the cavern and pressed your forehead to the bridge of her nose. Her heat soaked into you. 

“There you are,” you whispered. 

Vaelora made a deep clicking sound in her throat, almost scolding. “Yes, I know. I’m late.” Another rumble. “I could not exactly bring you to supper.” Her eye narrowed at you, accusing. “You would have eaten Lord Velaryon and that is not an argument in your favor.” 

You smiled and slid your hand along the curve of her jaw. Her scales were smooth near her face, rougher along the neck, warm enough that your fingertips pinkened against them. When you were little, you had believed no weapon could hurt her, no grief could reach you while she lived, and no world could be cruel enough to make a dragon helpless. You knew better now. That was the trouble with growing older. 

The gods did not make you wiser so you could be happy. They made you wiser so you could understand exactly how much there was to lose. 

Vaelora’s mood shifted, you felt it before you heard the footsteps. Her head rose, and the muscles beneath her scales tightened. A low growl rolled through the cavern, vibrating in your teeth. You turned, and Jeongguk stood at the mouth of the chamber. 

He had changed out of his formal clothes. No silver clasp now, no courtly Velaryon blue. Only dark riding leathers, sea-worn boots, and a loose white shirt beneath a half fastened jerkin. His hair had escaped its tie, strands falling over his forehead. In the torchlight, his face looked older than it had at supper. Less like a memory. 

“You should not be here,” you said. 

His eyes moved from you to Vaelora. He did not step farther into the cavern. 

“I was looking for Morraen.” 

“Did you often misplace your dragon on Driftmark?” 

“Only when he wished to be misplaced. You’ve never…?” 

Vaelora bared her teeth. Jeongguk lifted both hands slowly, “I mean no offense.” 

“She decides what offends her.” 

His eyes flicked to you, and for a moment, neither of you spoke. The cavern felt suspended in time. Then Jeongguk looked fully at Vaelora, and something in his face loosened. It was not fear, you were used to fear. Men tried to hide it, but dragons dragged the truth out of people. Fear had a smell, a posture, a pulse. This was something else, something close to wonder. 

“She is beautiful,” he said. Vaelora did not growl again.

“She knows this,” you replied, glancing toward the entrance behind him. “Morraen is on the eastern ridge. He’s been there since you dismounted.” 

Jeongguk’s mouth twitched. “You know where my dragon is?” 

“Vaelora knows where every dragon is.” 

“And she tells you?” 

“When she feels like it.” 

His eyes returned to you. “So yes.” 

You turned back to Vaelora, hoping the heat in your face could be blamed on the cavern. “You should go before she changes her mind about eating you.” 

Jeongguk did not leave. He had always had a terrible instinct for survival when you were involved. “I thought you would be so different,” he said quietly.

Your hand stilled against Vaelora’s jaw. You didn’t turn to face him, too afraid your face would give you away. “Different how?” 

“I do not know.” His voice came closer, though his footsteps did not. “Taller. Brighter.” 

“You are taller,” you replied. 

“So are you.” 

“That is what tends to happen when children grow, Jeongguk.” 

“I did not mean it like that.” 

“No,” you said, because the strange ache in your chest had returned. “I suppose you did not.” 

Behind you, Jeongguk was silent for long enough that you thought he finally might have gathered the sense to leave. “You look sadder.” 

Vaelora’s growl returned instantly. You faced him. It was a mistake, you knew it before your eyes found his. Anger would have been easier if he had looked smug, or if he had said it like a man trying to pry into a woman’s heart because he believed himself entitled to what lay inside. Jeongguk only watched you with an awful calm, with a quiet concern you had not asked for and did not want. 

“You should choose your next words carefully,” you said. 

“I am trying to.” 

“Try harder.” 

His jaw flexed. Good, you preferred him wounded to gentle. 

“You were always angry.” he said. “Even when we were children. But you were not always this.” 

“This?” 

“Gone somewhere.” 

The words struck too precisely. For a moment, you were thirteen again, high above the sea, Vaelora beneath you and terror opening your ribs. For a moment, you were six years old, whispering please to a hatchling while grown men watched and wondered what kind of weapon the pair of you would become.

Gone somewhere. Yes, perhaps you had. 

Perhaps every year at court had taken another piece of you. Every lesson in duty, every marriage proposal weighed like livestock, every look your father gave that warmed only when he spoke of your dragon, every whispered reminder that your royal blood meant you did not belong to yourself. 

You looked at Jeongguk Velaryon and wanted to hurt him for noticing it all. 

“You do not know me,” you said. 

His face did not change, but his eyes did. Something shuttered in them. “No,” he said. “I suppose I do not.” He bowed, the movement stiff with formality. “Forgive me, My Lady.” 

There it was again. My Lady. The title did what it was supposed to do. It put distance between the speaker and the receiver, built up stone and locked a door. Jeongguk turned to go. Vaelora watched him with predatory stillness, her great head hovering near your shoulder. Her thoughts burned against yours, not words but instinct and flashes. The urge to follow and repair. 

You swallowed hard. “Jeongguk.” 

He stopped, his name sounded different in the cavern, too soft and too human. He looked back at you, waiting. You should have apologized, you knew that. You were not so proud that you could not recognize cruelty after it left your mouth. But apology felt like kneeling, and you had been taught too young that kneeling was dangerous unless there was a sword at your throat. 

So instead you said “Vaelora likes you.” 

His eyes moved back to your dragon. Vaelora stared back, smoke curling lazily from one nostril. “She has an odd way of showing it.” 

“She still hasn’t eaten you.” 

“Ah.”

“That is nearly affection coming from her.” 

Jeongguk’s smile came slowly. It was not the one from the yard, not teasing or bright. This one was smaller and sadder, as though he understood the words you had not said. “Then I am honored.” 

You nodded once, as if his answer had settled something. He left, his footsteps fading up the tunnel toward open air. Far above, somewhere beyond stone and smoke, Morraen cried out across the eastern ridge. Vaelora answered with a sound that shook the cavern.

Though you didn’t know it then, and no dream or dragon or god was merciful enough to tell you, that was the first time your dragon would call to his. Years later, after the war would swallow half the realm and the sea would take and take and take, you would remember that sound.

You look sadder.

The words still hadn’t left you. They had followed you up the tunnels, into your chambers, beneath the blankets, and into the dark behind your eyes when you tried to sleep. Sadder, as if he had looked through the armor and seen not steel, but the wounds lying beneath. You hated him for it, because hatred was softer than the alternative. 

Your dragon remained restless as ever through the night, her mind flickering alongside yours in hot, gold flashes. The view of Morraen on the eastern ridge after landing, of Jeongguk standing at the cavern mouth and looking back at you with his voice low and careful, his hands lifted slowly to offer no threat… Vaelora remembered it all in vivid detail.

She hadn’t forgotten, and neither had you. 

By the time a maid came to dress you, you were still awake. 

“There will be a morning meal in the great hall,” she said, eyes lowered as she fastened the back of your gown. “Princess Rhaenyra has asked that the Velaryon household attend as well.” 

You looked at her reflection in the bronze mirror. “All of them?” 

“Yes, My Lady. There are whispers that she means to discuss the plans of her rule.” 

You wore a basic gown of black with red embroidery, small dragons littered across your waist and chased the fabric up your chest. The great hall was already awake when you entered. Fire burned in the long hearths and servants moved between tables with fresh bread, stewed fruits, smoked fish and cups of hot spiced wine no one would admit to needing at daybreak. The high windows stood half tall, mist curling against the glass and littered against the glass. The sea moved gray and restless beyond them, throwing itself again and again against the island as if it would crack it open and swallow the lot of you whole. 

Rhaenyra sat near the head of the hall, enthroned in posture even when not sat atop a throne. Her hair was in a simple braid, drawn away from her face. She wore deep red beneath black, one hand resting near her cup, the other near the swell of her belly. Daemon stood behind her chair rather than sitting, which made him seem less like a husband and more like a sword she had forgotten to sheathe. 

Your father stood by the hearth, speaking quietly with Lord Velaryon. Corlys Velaryon had not yet arrived, still recovering from his wound, but several more of his kin had whilst the castle slept. Sea green and silver moved amongst the black and red of your own blood. It made the hall look like a bruised wound that had been doused with salt. 

Jeongguk sat near the lower table, as he had the night before. He was amongst the Velaryons, not quite apart but also not absorbed. His hair was tied back, though a few dark strands had escaped near his temples. He wore blue so deep it nearly looked black, and the silver clasp had returned to his throat. The scar through his brow caught the torchlight when he turned. He was listening to something one of his cousins had said, but then he looked up and spotted you. 

You remembered him again at the dragonpit entrance, saying you looked gone somewhere. You remembered Vaelora’s low growl at your back and his raised brow when he called you “My Lady” like a door closing. 

His eyes moved over your face with quiet care. Not long enough for anyone else to notice, but long enough for you to feel almost indecent. You looked away first. 

Coward, an ugly part of you whispered. Royalty, the rest of you hissed back. 

You crossed to Rhaenyra and bent your head. “My Princess.” 

She looked at you with tired warmth. “Lady YN,” she said. “Did Vaelora settle last night?” 

“Eventually.” 

Daemon made a faint sound. “Meaning she terrorized the pit and the dragonkeepers until sunrise.” 

“She was selective about it.” 

“That poor lute player still asks if his hand will grow back.” 

“I assure you he had both hands when he fled, My Prince.” 

“One never knows with Vaelora.” 

You allowed yourself the smallest smile. Rhaenyra’s mouth curved too, though briefly. The moment was nearly gentle. Lucerys and Jacaerys watched the exchange with wary eyes, Baela and Rhaena next to them.

“I suppose that is to be expected,” Rhaenyra said. “We do have visitors. The last time Vaelora or even Syrax met a new dragon must have been… I can’t even remember now. Seasmoke, mayhaps.” 

You were about to respond when the hall doors flung open, and Princess Rhaenys entered, soaked through, Ser Lorent at her side. No herald announced her, no servant stepped forward with practiced calm to assist her down the stairs as she strode through them. Her shoulders were stiff, and her boots left dark prints across the stone. Her armor dripped as she crossed the large room, eyes searching frantically until they at last landed on Rhaenyra. 

Every conversation stopped. The hall went completely silent. Daemon moved first, only one step. 

“The Princess Rhaenys Targaryen,” Ser Lorent announced finally. 

“Thank you, Ser Lorent.” Rhaenyra answered. “Princess Rhaenys, might we hope for news of Lord Corlys’s recovery?” 

“Viserys is dead.” Rhaenys replied. 

No one breathed. King’s Landing had become less a city than a mouth full of lies. King Viserys had been kept alive by milk of the poppy and duty’s cruelty, shown only when useful and hidden when inconvenient. Viserys Targaryen had been dying for years. That was what everyone said. Dying, not dead. Being used, perhaps. Spoken through and draped in gold when court required legitimacy. Held upright by maesters and his wife Alicent, and the stubborn old machinery of monarchy. A corpse with breath enough to sign where someone placed his hand. 

Something so large being revealed in such a vast room should have shaken the walls. The fires should have guttered and the sea should have stopped beating against the cliffs. Dragons should have screamed from every pit and ridge because the last thread holding the realm together had finally snapped. Instead, the words fell into the hall and remained there.

Rhaenyra did not move, not at first. Her face went wholly still. Every part of her seemed to stop so that nothing might escape before she understood what had just been spoken. Daemon’s hand closed around the back of her chair. Your father lowered his eyes and Lord Velaryon went rigid beside him. Jeongguk looked at you. 

“I grieve this loss with you, Rhaenyra,” Princess Rhaenys continued. “My cousin, your father… possessed a kind heart.”

You watched, stepping to the side of the table with practiced care, as Rhaenys continued to approach the now-queen. “There is more,” she added. “Aegon has been crowned as his successor.” 

Rhaenyra looked around the room helplessly, hand tightening on her belly as a whimper escaped her mouth. 

“Lords and dragonriders may remain, everyone else is to leave.” Daemon ordered. 

The hall emptied quickly. You remained with your father, Jeongguk, Lord Velaryon, and the rest of the royals. 

“They crowned him…?” Rhaenyra whispered. 

“How did he die?” Daemon asked. 

“I could not say.” Rhaenys answered. 

“How long ago?” Rhaenyra asked, standing up slowly. 

“A day past, perhaps two. I was made a prisoner in my quarters while the Queen made her preparations.” 

“Viserys has been slain,” Daemon told his wife, shaking his head to himself. 

Rhaenyra remained focused on Rhaenys, eyes filling with tears. “Alicent demanded you declare for Aegon.” 

“She did. I refused her.” 

“And yet you are alive.” Daemon spat. 

“The high septon crowned Aegon in the Dragonpit, I witnessed it myself just before I fled on Meleys.” 

“They crowned him before the masses.” 

“So that the masses would see him as their rightful king.” Rhaenys nodded. 

“That whore of a Queen murdered my brother and stole his throne and you could have burned them all for it.” Daemon hissed. 

“A war is like to be fought over this treachery, to be sure,” Rhaenys said, stepping forward once more. “But that war is not mine to begin. I’ve only rushed this warning to you out of loyalty to my husband and to my house. The Greens are coming for you, Rhaenyra. And for your children. You should leave Dragonstone at once.” 

Rhaenyra remained standing at the head of the hall, one hand still against her belly as her eyes remained fixed on nothing. Then her knees buckled and Daemon caught her. Your father helped, reaching out from the other side with a speed that startled you. The Queen gasped once, harsh and low. Not a sob, but pain. Her hand clutched at her stomach and Daemon’s face changed completely. 

Lord Velaryon sprinted for the large doors, “I’ll grab a maester!” 

Rhaenyra gripped Daemon’s arm hard enough that her knuckles whitened.

“No…” She whispered.

You moved quickly, kneeling in front of her as Daemon and your father kept her partially upright. Rhaenyra looked at you, and for one second there was no queen, no princess, no impending war. Only terror. You took her free hand, wincing as her fingers crushed yours. “It is too soon,” she cried. 

You knew, everyone knew. The maester reached her, face pale. “Your Grace, we must take you to your chambers.” 

She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, she looked at you. “They waited. They waited until after we left days ago and he had died to do what they’d been scheming all of these years. All this time, I thought she was using him and hiding him from me, speaking through him for the sake of other men… I thought– I thought there might still be time to reach her despite it all. To fix it all.” Her grip tightened until your bones ached. “This was their plan all along.” 

There was nothing to say in response, no comfort or promise you could offer her. So you held her hand and let her hurt you. 

Daemon lifted her carefully, and she didn’t argue. Those who remained in the hall parted for them. Your father led them, shouting for space and boiling water, for the maester to move faster. Rhaenyra did not release your hand until the angle made it impossible.  You stood in the hall after they left, your hand pulsing and your palm marked by the crescent bite of her nails. The hall remained silent. Lord Velaryon bowed his head, and one by one, the room followed. Jeongguk came to stand beside you, not touching.

“I understand now,” you said gently. 

His voice was gentle. “What?” 

“What you meant last night.” 

He said nothing. If he had apologized again, you might have shattered. If he had explained himself, you might have hated him for being right about you. Instead, he stood with you in the wreckage of a morning meal that had become history. Below the castle, Vaelora roared. The sound rolled through the floor, up through your feet, and into your bones. It was not rage, or challenge. A dragon’s answer to the grief her rider was feeling.

Jeongguk’s eyes shifted toward the floor. “Morraen will answer.” 

As if summoned by certainty, a deeper roar rose from the eastern ridge. Vaelora called again, and Morraen answered, and more joined. The sounds of Syrax, Vaelora, Morraen, Vermithor, Silverwing, Seasmoke, Caraxes, Vermax, Moondancer, and even little Arrax filled the mist veiled island. The hall remained bowed under the sound.

You looked at Jeongguk. His face was solemn, shadowed in the light, that old impossible gentleness rested around his mouth. He looked less like the boy from the tide pool and more like a man standing at the edge of something that would change him forever.

“He is truly dead,” you whispered.  Jeongguk looked at you, and you swallowed. “I knew he had been dying for years. Everyone knew that. Everyone whispered about Alicent and the maesters and Otto. They whispered about curtains and milk of the poppy and petitions answered by whichever Hightower attended the courts that day… but this–” 

You stopped because your throat had tightened. 

Jeongguk finished softly, “this changes everything.” 

You closed your eyes. When you opened them, Jeongguk was looking at you the same way he had in the caverns. “My father is impossible.” You said. 

Jeongguk’s face turned toward the door your father had gone through. “Most fathers are.” 

“He only remembers my name when he wants obedience or silence.” 

“That is not true.” 

The quickness of his reply startled you. You looked at him sharply, and Jeongguk seemed surprised too, but he did not take it back. “You do not know him,” you said. 

“No,” he agreed. “But I saw his face in this room.” 

“When she fell?” 

“When you moved toward her.” 

You went still. Jeongguk’s voice lowered. “He looked terrified.” 

Your mouth opened. You wanted to dismiss it, to laugh and slice the observation into something harmless. Your father, terrified because you crossed a room, absurd and sentimental. But you remembered him catching Rhaenyra, and his voice shouting for the maester to hurry. You remembered, barely and unwillingly, the way his eyes had found you when Rhaenyra’s grip crushed your hand… as if the sight of a daughter in pain, any daughter, had shocked him into remembering his own. 

“I do not wish to speak of him any longer,” you said. 

Jeongguk nodded. No argument or push. He was learning too quickly where your locked doors were. The hall slowly began to empty, not because anyone wished to leave, but because no one knew what staying was doing. Servants cleared the untouched and now cold food, and you remained until the table was bare. Jeongguk remained beside you. Eventually, Daemon returned. Alone. 

The room stilled again, only the two of you, Lord Velaryon, and a random servant were around to witness it. His hair was disordered, one sleeve dark where Rhaenyra had gripped it with a damp hand. There was blood on his cuff. 

“How is she?” you asked. 

Daemon looked your way, and for once, his face gave nothing away. “The maesters are with her.” 

“And the babe?” Lord Velaryon asked. 

Daemon’s eyes went dead, and no one asked again. He looked your way then, and you did not know why. Maybe it was because you had taken Rhaenyra’s hand, or because Vaelora had called from beneath the castle and the rest of the dragons had answered, or maybe because you were useful and Daemon never stopped noticing what could be used even when blood was still fresh.

“The queen will need her people.” He said flatly. 

Your spine straightened. “She has them.” 

Daemon’s mouth moved faintly. Not a smile, but something sharper. “Does she?” 

“Yes.” 

Jeongguk moved beside you, and Daemon’s eyes flicked between the two of you with a spark of interest and calculation. Before he could speak, a scream tore through the castle. Not dragon, human. The sound stopped every living thing in the hall. It came again, muffled by stone and distance, raw enough that your own body flinched. Not queenly or controlled, but the sound of a mother with a body at war with itself. 

Jeongguk’s hand moved, and you felt the near touch like heat. You stood beside Jeongguk Velaryon as the dragons cried around you again, while Rhaenyra Targaryen screamed in another room, begging for the husband who now exited the hall and called for a meeting with the Lords in the painted table room.

Jeongguk’s fingers brushed against yours. Not in a grasp or comfort that anyone else could see, just the backs of his fingers against the backs of yours for the length of one breath. You didn’t pull away.

The funeral took place beneath the cloudy sky. The sea did enough speaking for all of you, throwing itself against the rocks below, because it did not know that a king was dead, and that a crown had been stolen, and that Rhaenyra Targaryen had lost a father and a child in the same terrible turning of the world. It simply kept crashing.

You stood behind her with the others, bearing witness. That was what was demanded of everyone. Not comfort, just to be a witness. Rhaenyra stood before the small funeral pyre in black. The color made her hair look almost white. She looked like a woman who had discovered her body could stay standing long after her soul had been shoved to its knees. Daemon stood a little behind her, not touching her. You noticed that. He had not left her since the birth, or the loss, or whatever name anyone dared give it when they spoke quietly in corridors and stopped speaking altogether when Rhaenyra passed. He stood close enough now that if she swayed, he could catch her, but far enough that she would not feel his presence unless she chose to. It was a rare mercy from him. 

Your father stood near you, face set in hard lines. Lord Velaryon and his kin stood to your left. Jeongguk was among them, still and solemn, sea dark cloak shifting in the wind. He didn’t look at you when you arrived. You had tried not to look at him either, but you had failed. Vaelora watched from the ridge above, no chain nor dragonkeeper nor whispered command had convinced her to remain below the mountain. She stood high against the morning, milky scales dulled by mist. Her wings were tucked tight and her head lowered toward the gathering, present and watching. 

Syrax stood nearer to Rhaenyra with a grief that was not human and not less for it. Her yellow body shifted against stone, low sounds vibrating from her throat as if she wished to challenge death itself and could not find where he had gone. 

The ceremony was brief, no singer and no flourish accompanied the sound of the wrapped body being placed on the pyre. No speech was made because none was heavy enough for the emotions that stood on the cliff face that morning. The maester murmured few words, and the wind stole half of them. Rhaenyra did not seem to hear them. 

You kept your eyes on her empty hands. 

The realm had filled them with so much. A father’s promise, a throne, a title, a claim, a war waiting… and this morning, her hands held nothing. Syrax lowered her head, and Rhaenyra’s voice, when it came, was quiet enough that most of the gathered lords likely did not hear it. “Dracarys,” she spoke. Fire answered.

The pyre went bright. The heat reached you even from where you stood. It pushed against your face, tugged tears from your eyes before the ground or your dress could claim them. Smoke lifted toward the flat morning sky. Syrax screamed once, a sound so raw that several men flinched outright. Vaelora answered from above with a low mourning call that rolled down the ridge. 

Morraen answered from somewhere beyond the western rise. Jeongguk’s head turned slightly towards it. The sound of the dragons moved through the mourners like a second funeral rite, older than the maester’s words, older than crowns, and older than painted tables and every war named around them. Rhaenyra didn’t turn towards the noise as you and Jeongguk had, but her shoulders trembled once.

Footsteps sounded on the stone behind you all, and each guard present turned. Two of them drew their swords, standing between the lot of you and Rhaenyra and Daemon. 

“I mean no harm, brothers,” the new white cloak said gently, removing his helm. The knights before you sheathed their swords as he stepped forward again and went to one knee. You watched as he reached into the bag around his waist and pulled out a golden crown. Your father stiffened beside you as the crown of King Viserys Targaryen caught the gray morning light. 

“I swear to ward the Queen,” Ser Erryk Cargyll announced, “with all my strength and give my blood for hers. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children,” he continued as Daemon took the crown gently from his grip. “I shall guard her secrets, obey her commands, ride at her side, and defend her name and honor.” 

Daemon turned towards Rhaenyra then, crown in hand, and waited. It looked wrong in his hands, not because he coveted it, though maybe some part of him always had, but because Daemon’s hands were made for swords and reins and violence, not crowns and compassion. Rhaenyra stepped up slowly, and you watched as your father’s last remaining brother placed the crown on the head of the rightful heir to the iron throne.

Rhaenyra Targaryen stood on the black shore of Dragonstone in smoke and mourning, crowned with her father’s crown while the remains of one child burned behind her and the betrayal of another child, Aegon, waited across the water in stolen splendor. 

And then Daemon Targaryen kneeled. “My Queen.” 

One knee to stone, head bowed, dark cloak shifting around him. The rogue prince kneeling to his queen in front of every eye that mattered. The rest of you followed, rocks biting into knees at jagged angles.

“My Queen,” voices murmured around you. 

Jeongguk knelt several paces to your left. You saw him from the corner of your eye, head bowed, one hand braced against his thigh. His face was dark, turned partly away. You wondered if he was thinking of kings, or of boys dying. 

Rhaenyra looked over all of you. Her people, her witnesses. Her first casualties, though no one knew yet which names the gods had already laid claim to.

“I will have my throne.” 

No one cheered, it would have been obscene. Instead, every bowed head remained lowered, and the vow moved through the gathered bodies like a current through water. The war had begun before that morning, of course.

It began in whispers and ravens and closed rooms. In the moment Alicent and Otto decided a dying king’s body could be turned into a wall between Rhaenyra and the crown promised to her.

You lifted your eyes only when Rhaenyra turned away.

Her face was wet and she did not move to wipe it dry. That was the part you remembered later. The queen letting tears remain visible because she had already been robbed of too much to give the world the satisfaction of hiding those too.

Two days passed

Time behaved strangely after coronations and funerals. It folded in on itself. Morning councils stretched into night. Ravens came and went until the rookery smelled of feathers, ink, and panic. Men who had knelt beautifully spoke less beautifully when asked for ships and swords. Every hallway held a whisper. Every meal tasted of ash even when the food was fresh.

You did not see much of Jeongguk. He was everywhere and nowhere, which made him impossible to avoid properly. Sometimes you caught sight of him in the yard with Lord Velaryon, going over ship routes with a captain. Sometimes he stood near Morraen while dragonkeepers examined him. Sometimes you saw him at council, silent and listening, his gaze dropping whenever yours threatened to meet it too publicly. Once, late at night, you had gone to Vaelora and found Morraen sleeping in the adjoining cavern and had expected Jeongguk to be nearby… he was not. 

On the second morning after Rhaenyra’s crowning, a servant found you before breakfast and told you your father wished to see you. You considered pretending you had not heard. Unfortunately, your father had raised you too well in the worst ways. You knew a summons from him was not optional unless you were prepared to make it a war of its own. You were tired, not too tired for any war, but too tired for his. 

He received you in a small chamber overlooking the eastern yard. The windows were narrow, letting in strips of hard morning light. The small hearth burned through the room even though the room was not cold enough for it. Your father stood near the table with a sealed letter in one hand and a cup of wine untouched near his other. 

You closed the door behind you. “You sent for me.” 

He looked up, and did not immediately answer. You wondered what he saw when he looked at you. “You were expected at the early strategy council,” he said. 

“I was checking on Vaelora.” 

“You were expected at council.” 

“They survived without me, I’m sure.” 

“That is not the point,” he snapped.

“Then what is?” 

His mouth tightened. The familiar rhythm reared its head, almost comforting in its ugliness. The two of you knew these steps so well you could have danced them blindfolded. 

He set the letter down. “The Queen is gathering strength. Daemon presses for Harrenhal soon, Corlys has awoken and shall be pressing for the Gullet. Ravens return with half promises and veiled insults. Every person in this castle is about to be measured by their usefulness.” 

“I am aware.” You snapped.

“Are you?” Your eyes narrowed as he moved around the table slowly. “You have been absent minded.” 

You laughed once. “Is that what we are now calling grief and fear?” 

“We are not speaking of grief!” Your father stepped in front of you, eyes venomous. “We are speaking of Jeongguk Velaryon.” 

Your face warmed, and your father’s expression hardened. “There.” 

“There what?” you asked. 

“That. You.” 

You folded your arms. “You will need to become more specific if you intend to accuse me before I have had my breakfast.” 

“This is not amusing, YN.” 

“No. But you become very dull when you’re afraid of addressing something and someone should improve the conversation.” 

“YN.” You hated when he said your name like that. So final. “You will attend council,” he continued. “You will listen. You will speak when wisdom demands it, not pride. You will learn which lords are frightened and which are greedy. You will learn which are waiting to be courted by the first side foolish enough to overpay them. You will understand the war you are standing inside before it puts a blade in your hand or at your throat.” 

“I understand war.” 

“You understand your dragon.” His voice lowered. “They are not the same thing. Do not mistake them as such.” 

Vaelora stirred under the castle. Your father saw something shift in your face. 

“You think because Vaelora answers you, men will,” he said. “They will not. Men are worse than dragons. Dragons are honest about their hunger.” 

“That may be the first sensible thing you have said to me.” 

His eyes flashed. “And you will not let a Velaryon boy with pretty eyes and a dragon become the soft place where this war finds you first.” 

Your voice came out dangerously calm. “Careful.” 

“No.” He snapped, shaking his head. “No, you will hear this. You think I do not see it? You think everyone in that hall does not see it when you move toward him before you move toward your proper table? You think Daemon does not see it? Rhaenys? Rhaenyra herself?” 

Your throat constricted, and he continued. “This court was built from observation. Every glance is counted. Every silence is weighed. Every softness is named by someone who might want to use it.” 

“You know a great deal about usage.” 

“Yes,” he yelled. “I do.” 

It scared you, not because he stepped closer or raised his voice. It scared you because he sounded, for half a breath, ashamed. Then it was gone. 

“You are my daughter,” he said. “You are a Targaryen dragonrider. You carry blood that men will try to buy, bind, bed, threaten, praise, and destroy depending on which profits them first. If you think infatuation is harmless because it is hidden behind a thin shroud of privacy, then you are more foolish than I thought.” 

“Do not call it that,” you said. 

“You do not deny it.” 

You laughed softly, and it sounded fiendish. “Would it matter if I did?” 

“YN.” 

“You have decided what you saw. What everyone has seen—” 

“I know what I saw.” 

“No,” you said. “You only know what you fear.” He stared at you. “You fear many things,” you continued. “You fear the Greens, and Daemon’s impatience, you fear Rhaenyra’s grief, and you fear Vhagar. You fear Vaelora when she is not pointed where you want her. And now you fear Jeongguk because he looks at me and does not first ask what use I serve. What I cost. Do not presume to know anything beyond your fears as I’ve listed them, father.” 

“It is not love,” he continued.

You flinched. “I did not say it was.” 

“No, you are too clever for that.” 

“And you are too merciless for this. You speak of softness like it is a wound, and perhaps that is because every soft thing you ever held died or left you or became something you did not know how to handle. But I am not my mother, I am not Rhaenyra, and I am not some dead girl in a song who could have been saved if her father locked her away sooner or married her to a man from Dorne or Winterfell or Casterly Rock. I will attend council when I choose,” you said. “I will speak when I choose and ride when I choose. And if Jeongguk Velaryon is beside me when I do, perhaps that is because he understands better than any man in this castle or outside of it.” 

Your father struck the table with his palm, and the sound cracked through the room. You turned toward the door. 

“YN.” 

You did not stop. 

“YN!” 

When you looked back, your father was standing in the hard line of morning light, one hand still braced on the table. He looked older than he had ever looked, tired in a way you never got to see. 

“I am trying to keep you alive,” he said. 

“Stop making it feel like obedience and perhaps then, dear father, I will listen.” 

You left before he could answer. The halls of Dragonstone blurred around you. Servants flattened themselves against walls as you passed. A guard opened a door before you reached it, avoiding the delay of you having to ask. By the time you reached the lower yard, the wind had torn half your braid loose and your hands were shaking inside your sleeves. 

Vaelora was awake. You felt her in your ribs, a bright and savage attention turning toward you from the pits. She had bullied the keepers into opening the lower gates again. The old dragonkeeper nearest to her looked exhausted and resigned. “Lady YN,” he said as you entered the yard. “She would not settle.” 

“I know.” 

Vaelora crouched low on the black stone, tail lashing dangerously close to a rack of spears. Her amber eyes fixed on you the moment you appeared. She knew, not the words but the wound. You crossed the yard and pressed both hands to her snout. “He is impossible,” you muttered. She huffed smoke into your hair. “Yes, my father. No, you may not bite him.” Her eyes narrowed. “Not even a little, Vaelora.” 

A sound came from the far gate. Morraen. The dark dragon moved through the mist with quiet grace, his blue-gray scales almost black. Jeongguk walked beside him with one hand resting against his dragon’s neck. He saw you and stopped. Vaelora growled and Morraen answered with a chirp. Jeongguk approached slowly. “Lady YN,” he said. 

There was formality in it, too much of it. Your father’s voice still burned in your ear. 

Infatuation.

You lifted your chin. “Velaryon.” 

“You are angry.” 

“Brilliantly observed.” 

“At me?” 

“No.” 

“...Should I be relieved?” 

“You should be quiet.” 

His mouth nearly curved, but he seemed to think better of it. Vaelora snapped her teeth in Morraen’s direction and Morraen lowered his head in greeting. She ignored him with violent precision. Jeongguk watched the dragons, then you. 

“Were you going to fly?” 

“I was considering burning down part of the castle first.” 

“That route seems insufficient.” 

“It would make me feel better.” 

“Briefly.” 

You glared at him and he accepted it with calm composure. You gathered the edge of Vaelora’s saddle strap and tugged it into place with more force than necessary as Jeongguk watched.

“What happened?” he asked quietly.

You did not answer. The strap tightened beneath your hand.

“YN.”

Your name in his mouth nearly undid you. You looked at him sharply. “Do not.” He stilled and the hurt that passed across his face was brief and controlled. “I am sorry,” you said. He hadn’t been the one to hurt you, so you would not be wicked in return. “My father,” you said, looking away. 

Understanding moved through him when you looked back. If it had been pity, you might have climbed onto Vaelora and flown straight into the sea. “He spoke of me,” Jeongguk said. 

“He spoke around you in that lordly way he often enjoys.” 

“That sounds a great deal worse,” Jeongguk sighed, leaning against Morraen’s wing.

“I can assure you, it was.” 

“What did he say?” 

You tightened another strap, ignoring the question completely. 

“YN…” 

You turned on him. “He said I am infatuated.” 

The yard suddenly felt too open for the words you’d just released. Too full of ears, despite how hard the guards and servants appeared to try not to listen. Jeongguk’s face had gone very still, and you wished you hadn’t said it. Or that you’d said it better.

“He said every softness is named by someone who wants to use it,” you added bitterly. “It was humiliating, and yet it was true. War is… it is unkind and I am young. You are young.” 

Jeongguk looked down, not in shame, but in thought. “He sounds afraid, My Lady.” 

You laughed. “His fear does not absolve him, Jeongguk.” 

“It does not. But it explains his usage of the cruelest word he could use without facing the cruelty.” 

“He does not know you,” you whispered. “He hardly knows me.” 

“It would seem many do not,” Jeongguk replied just as quietly.

You turned to face him directly, Vaelora huffing behind you. The corner of his mouth lifted just barely, and for once, yours nearly followed. The anger simmering under your flesh like fire did not fully extinguish itself, but it shifted into a thing you could breathe around. Vaelora lowered herself impatiently, reminding you that human conversation was just a distraction for you and entirely below her, and flight was the only suitable cure for whatever idiocy had infected the morning. Jeongguk looked toward Morraen. The dark dragon stretched his wings in response, chortling at his rider.

“He wants to fly,” Jeongguk said.

“So does she.” 

“So do you,” he smiled. You met it and he did not look away.

There was no flirtation in it, no teasing. Only the same cursed seeing, the thing that had started the entire mess in the caverns when he spoke to you so freely about sadness and forced a truth into the light before you had given permission. 

“Yes,” you said. An honest word that felt like stepping from a ledge. 

Jeongguk nodded toward the open gates of the yard. “Then fly.” 

“You are not invited,” you told him, brow raised. 

“I assumed, yet Morraen still aches for the open sky and I would never deny him,” he replied, and there was a little of the tide pool boy in him then, the one who had called you slow and laughed while bleeding.

Your eyes narrowed and Vaelora made a pleased rumble. You shot her a look that was not met at all by her large eyes. Jeongguk mounted Morraen with care, settling into the silver saddle and testing the straps. He spoke low to his dragon, pressing a gloved hand to Morraen’s neck in a touch so private you felt wrong for having seen it. Then you mounted Vaelora.

The world always made more sense from her back. Even before she left the ground, something in you settled back into place. Your boots found the grips of your ebony saddle, your hands closed around the saddle handles. Vaelora’s heat rose through the leather and fabric, through skin and every angry human thing in you until the noise of your father’s chamber began to burn away entirely.

The sea wind rushed in through the open gates, and Vaelora leapt first. The yard vanished below you. For a heartbeat, there was only the drop from the cliff edge, stone falling away and air slamming into your lungs like you were thirteen all over again. The saddle pulled at your legs as Vaelora’s wings spread wide and caught the morning air. Then the sky claimed you and your thoughts scattered into the wind.

Dragonstone shrank into near nothingness underneath you, black and miniscule through lifting mist. The crowned queen’s castle, the mourning island, the place where daughters learned that fathers could die before they were dead, and fathers learned too late that daughters would not be safer by being solitary creatures.

Vaelora climbed hard, because she always wanted height. So did you. Morraen rose behind, slower at first, then steadier as his wings caught the full wind current. Jeongguk did not push him, he kept the dark dragon in a smooth, controlled ascent. Vaelora noticed him gaining, and her offense was immediate. 

“No,” you warned, smiling. She beat her wings harder. “Vaelora.” 

Morraen drew level at a careful distance, and Jeongguk looked over. The wind pulled strands of hair around his face rapidly. He looked alive in the sky in a way men rarely looked alive on land. Less contained and less careful. Still controlled, but by different laws.

“Still angry?” he called, just barely discernable over the wind. 

“Yes!” 

“At me?” 

“I’m deciding!” 

His laugh broke across the sky, and Vaelora surged ahead. Morraen followed, not racing, not truly. Vaelora was a force and had the bigger size of the two of them, wingspan included. Morraen was still fast, cutting through the air with lean precision, but Vaelora always flew like a bright beam hurled at the clouds. They moved along Dragonstone’s eastern cliffs, then out over the water, skimming above waves that flashed silver under the sun. 

Vaelora wanted to dive, you could feel it from the way she continued to gaze at the water. You let her take one, only one. She folded her wings and dropped, and the sea rushed upward to meet you. Wind screamed past your ears and for some glorious seconds, there was no crown, no father, no council, and no word sitting like a stain on your skin spoken from the lips of your father.

There was only speed, only trust, and only Vaelora’s fierce joy burning through you. She pulled up close enough to the water that spray burst cold across your face. You laughed before you could help yourself, breathless and wild. Morraen banked above, refusing the dive because Jeongguk had sense. 

When Vaelora climbed again, Jeongguk was watching you. You felt the look this time and refused to flinch from it. 

“What?” you shouted. 

He shook his head. 

“What?” you demanded again. 

“You look less sad,” he called back, and you finally pulled your eyes from his.

Vaelora steadied her gate, sensing the shift. Morraen drew a little closer, close enough that the space between the dragons narrowed to something familiar. 

“You should stop telling me how I look,” you called. 

“I have tried.” 

“If that is your display of trying, Jeongguk Velaryon, then you should try harder.” 

“I am not very good at it.” 

“You are good at many things. Pick this one.” 

Jeongguk’s smile came slow and small. A private thing between you in the open air.  “That sounds an awful deal close to faith, My Lady.” 

“It is criticism.” 

“From you, surely the two are as close to the same thing as they possibly could be.” 

You laughed and Vaelora’s joy flared through the bond between you, bright and possessive, pleased by your laughter and perhaps by Morraen’s nearness too, though she would rather have eaten a saddle than admit to that. She was much like you that way. 

You flew for an hour, maybe more, time always thinned in the sky. The island curved beneath you, the sea turning into a mirror. Fishing boats scattered at the sight of dragons overhead, though one brave fool waved a cap until Vaelora snapped her teeth in his direction and sent him falling into a coil of rope on his deck. Jeongguk laughed hard at the sight, and you carried the sound with you. It was dangerous, you knew it even then. Small happinesses were so easy to steal, to lose.

Eventually, you guided Vaelora toward a high shelf of black rock above the western water, far from the yard  and every pair of eyes waiting to make a meal of whatever was passing between the two dragons in the sky and between you and Jeongguk Velaryon.

Morraen landed after Vaelora with care, rumbling once, low and amused. Vaelora turned immediately toward the sound, and you expected her to snap. Instead, she lowered her head and nosed his wing with a soft huff. Morraen tolerated her prodding for all of three seconds before growling. Vaelora growled louder. The growling stopped after that. 

You dismounted, legs aching pleasantly from the ride. Wind had completely dismantled your braid. Your cheeks were frozen, your gloves damp from seaspray, and for the first time in days, your body felt like something that belonged to you instead of your banner. Jeongguk went to stand beside you. The dragons settled near the cliff edge, and you both watched them for a while. The silence was not easy, it was better than that. 

“Your father is not entirely wrong, you know.” 

You closed your eyes. “You are choosing a bold path at the present.” 

“He is right that court will notice things.” 

You opened your eyes and looked at him, and he kept his own on the sea. “He is right that softness is dangerous where people trade in weakness,” he said. “He is right that my name near yours gives men something to whisper about.” 

“And?” 

“And he is wrong if he thinks that naming it something so cheap makes it cheap.” Your throat tightened and he looked at you then. The wind moved between you, cold and salt sharpened. “I am not infatuated with you,” he said. The words opened under you, and where you should feel something soothing, you did not. “Infatuation is too careless a word for something I spent time trying not to remember.” 

You stopped breathing, and Jeongguk looked almost angry with himself for saying it. Yet he didn’t take it back. He never took back anything that mattered. You turned toward the sea because looking at him directly would have been too much. The water below struck black stone violently. 

“We were children,” you said. 

“Yes.” 

“I nearly drowned you in a tide pool.” 

“You shoved me,” he corrected with a smile. 

“I made you bleed,” you reminded him. 

“You did.” 

“And then you insulted me and called me slow.” 

“You were slow.” 

You looked at him sharply, seeing it again. The boy, the sheer audacity, and the terrible timing. A laugh worked its way out of your mouth before you could stifle it, and Jeongguk’s expression softened so quickly it hurt you. Then his softness did what it always did and made room for your fear. You looked away again. 

“My father thinks everything can be prevented if one sees it early enough,” you told him. 

Jeongguk was quiet for a moment. “Can it…?” 

“No,” you whispered. Too quickly. You swallowed. “No. Some things are seen early and still happen. Some things are seen early because they’re already happening.” 

He understood, and you hated it. Loved it, too, though not in any way you were willing to name on a cliff with your dragons listening. Jeongguk stepped closer, just a single and small movement. Your eyes closed. “I do not wish to be a weakness or a wound for you, Lady YN.” 

Too late, you thought. But that was cruel and even crueler still was the truth. “You may not get to choose,” you told him gently. 

“I know.” 

There was no self pity in his voice. You opened your eyes and found him watching you. Not with the look from the caverns, though it was close, not like you were sadder now. He just watched you like you had not disappeared behind silk and title and temper. Watched you like if the whole realm became smoke, he would still find the silhouette of you inside of it. Your hand moved, the tiniest of inching. A mistake of muscle, some could say. Jeongguk saw, and he did not take it. He waited. Always that, the choice placed back in your hands like something fragile and dangerous.

Your fingers curled into your palm. Not yet. You didn’t have to speak the words for him to hear them. Behind you, Vaelora let out a soft, irritated huff. You let out a breath that might have been a laugh, “She judges me.” 

“That sounds like a dangerous honor.” 

“It is.” 

Morraen lowered his head near Vaelora’s shoulder, and she snapped once near his jaw. He did not shrink away from it. Jeongguk watched them, then said quietly, “They make it look so simple.” 

“They are dragons. Their simplicity is as instinctual as their fire breathing.” 

“Still.” 

“Yes,” you admitted. “Still.” 

The wind shifted, and Dragonstone waited below. Councils waited. Your father waited, likely already regretting his ‘tenderness’ badly disguised as command. Rhaenyra waited under a crown she had received by a funeral pyre. The war waited most of all, patient and greedy and already counting the places it would cut. 

You looked at Jeongguk. “We should return.” 

“Yes.” 

Neither of you moved, and for one more moment, you let the cliff hold you outside of everything. Vaelora beside Morraen, Jeongguk beside you, and the sea below with all of the secrets it had ever swallowed.

You walked back to Vaelora slowly. She lowered herself for you, rumbling as you climbed into the saddle once more. Morraen rose, stretching before he allowed Jeongguk to mount. Before you launched, Jeongguk looked across the space between the two dragons. 

“YN.”  You turned, taking him in… his face was serious now, wind touched and not young. “Come to council.” 

You stared at him, of all of the things you had expected, that was not one of them. Your mouth twisted, “You sound like my father.” 

“No,” he said. “I sound like someone who wants you in the rooms where men are deciding what dangers to put in your sky, especially when your dragon is one of them.” 

That silenced you. Vaelora shifted beneath you. 

Jeongguk continued, “Do not let your anger keep you from hearing the war before it reaches your shores.” 

You hated good advice, always had. Especially from beautiful men on dragons. “I will consider it,” you said. 

“You will ignore that I said it, then decide for yourself later.” 

“You are learning.” 

His smile came, and you tucked it somewhere unsafe inside you. Vaelora launched before he could say anything else damning atop the cliff’s edge. The flight back was slower, not because Vaelora longed for it, but because you did. Morraen kept pace, dark wings steady against the brightening afternoon sky. When the castle rose before you, black and severe under the uncovered sun, you felt the shape of the choice waiting inside it. 

Council, war, your father, and Rhaenyra. Rooms full of men who would count your dragon before they counted you unless you made them do otherwise. You thought of Jeongguk’s words on the cliff. His annoying, correct, and devastating words. Vaelora felt the reluctant turn in you and rumbled with amusement. 

The yard came up fast below you. Men looked skyward as Vaelora and Morraen descended together, pale gold and storm dark, sunlight and sea shadow. You saw your father at the edge of the steps, still as stone. He watched you land, then looked at Jeongguk, then back at you. You could not read his face from the distance. Vaelora touched down hard enough to crack a thin like through the stone under her claws. Morraen landed beside her, smoother. You dismounted before any of the knights could approach. Your father started toward you, and you lifted a hand. It wasn’t done rudely or gently, just enough to stop him. To your surprise, he did. You removed your gloves slowly, tucking them beneath one arm. The old leather was warm from your grip on the handles. Jeongguk dismounted nearby but did not walk up to you, again letting you choose. 

You looked toward the castle, then to your father. “I will attend the council,” you told him. His expression shifted, relief dancing across his face, followed by slight suspicion. He was still your father. 

“Good,” he replied. 

You held his gaze. “I will also speak.” 

A muscle moved in his jaw. Then, after a very long moment, he nodded once. “As wisdom demands.”

“As I demand,” you corrected. 

His mouth tightened again, but he did not argue. You walked past him toward the castle. Behind you, Vaelora and Morraen rumbled low to one another, shadows overlapping across the cracked black stone. Jeongguk’s footsteps did not follow immediately,  but when you reached the doorway and glanced back, he was watching you. He looked proud.