You, as was well known, did not fit the mold of the typical Targaryen. You didn't have an evil character, nor were you possessed by the fervent rage of the dragon fire running through your veins. And you weren't detached from the ground like most members of your family, who elevated themselves to the skies, rising up like gods.

For that, the Gentle Dragon, the people would call you. But you were nowhere near being gentle as your father, you believed.

You sure were charming, a seductive force of nature, who had men falling under your spell wherever you went. And you would pretend to be oblivious, brushing off their awful attempts to conquer you as if they meant nothing beyond a bit of fun.

Long before you were old enough to consider wedlock, noblemen and knights had been swarming around you with marriage proposals and negotiations with Prince Baelor for your hand. A castle, they would offer, an ancient treasure, an entire army. But never true and loyal love.

That was, until you met Ser Duncan the Tall.

The first time you saw each other; the afternoon sun was falling heavily on Ashford Meadow. Unlike your cousin and brother, you found no enjoyment in cruelty or status games, but since you were now of age to seek a husband, you had to attend such events, only after much persuasion had your father allowed you to attend with them.

A tournament was no place for a princess; there was blood and carnage everywhere, but blood and carnage coursed through your veins, after all. Your House had been built on that. And your womanhood came with it as well.

You had finally arrived at the place with your family, and your cousin Aerion, impatient and angry as ever, was pulling on his mare's reins with unnecessary force. The animal, a beautiful specimen but exhausted from the journey, whinnied with wide eyes.

You were already on the ground, gratefully petting the horses that had dragged your carriage all the way from King's Landing. Your handmaidens were carefully adjusting your dress and hair, standing all around you in the mud.

“Boy, stop gaping. See to my horse.” Aerion sneered contemptuously at the towering man standing by the entrance to the keep at Ashford Meadow, who was watching the scene with wide, amazed eyes, his lips parted as he kept admiring your dress and your silver hair, long and radiant under the cloudy and somber atmosphere of the place.

And at the sight of the prince addressing him, the tall blond man cleared his throat in discomfort. “I'm— I'm not a stable boy, m'lord.”

Aerion clicked his tongue, unimpressed, “not clever enough?”

Before the hedge knight could give him a proper answer, the Targaryen boy cut him off, waving his hand dismissively. “Well, if you can't manage horses, then fetch me some wine and a pretty wench.”

“Oh, m'lord, pardons,” from your distance, you could hear how the man sounded so small in front of Aerion, in spite of his impressive height. Somehow, that made you feel a sense of sympathy. “I'm n–no serving man, either. I–I have the honor to be a knight.”

His voice was so respectful and patient, and incredibly deep. A tingling sensation coursed through your belly as you somehow recognized it, like a faint and remote reminiscence, yet vividly present.

“My lady, your quarters are all set for you,” a maid approached to inform you, interrupting your little gossip session.

You turned to look at her, bowing your head elegantly in gratitude, “thank you, I will be there shortly.”

Your maids bowed to you and rushed to assist the other girl.

Your expression shifted completely the moment you noticed Aerion walking by your side, his face stone-cold and arrogant.

“Behave yourself, Aerion,” you scolded your cousin as he stormed past you, as angry as a caged lion. “We're not at home.”

He simply shot you a dark look, signaling you to be quiet and to walk with him, but you just rolled your eyes, ignoring him and making your way toward his agitated mare, which had been led away by the kind man from before towards the stables.

“There you are, girl. Far too many people around,” he was speaking gently to the mare, seeking to calm her. “Yeah, I don't like it either”

“Thank you,” you expressed your gratitude to the stranger, approaching him from behind and walking towards the mare, which was visually much calmer now. “She's very skittish.”

The man, taller than the animal by his side, turned toward you and, as he recognized you, his face broke into a look of shock. He let go of the mare's reins so he could face you and offer a clumsy bow.

“Your highness,” his blue eyes were sparkling nervously as they looked at you from his height. “I didn't mean to intrude. I beg your pardon.”

He was used to stables jus like that one, mud-covered roads, and the roughness of hedge knights, but he had never been so close to a member of the royal family. Much less one who looked at him with such kindness instead of disdain.

“It's just me, please,” you rushed to clarify with an embarrassed smile, as you reached out to caress the mare's muzzle and she gave in to your gentle caress. “'Your highness' is for my grandsire or my father or uncle. And you don't have to apologize for having a kinder heart than my cousin.”

He slowly straightened up under your attentive gaze, although he still hunched his shoulders slightly, as if trying to take up less space in order not to intimidate you.

He was absurdly tall, and his hands were so big that you wondered briefly if they would be able to wrap around your entire waist if he clasped them together around you.

And he wasn't ugly at all; in fact, you reckoned that with a good wash and some fresh, decent clothes, he'd be more handsome than any other man you'd likely ever see there.

“I'm— I'm Ser Duncan the Tall.” He stammered his own name as he introduced himself, offering you a weak smile that looked more like an involuntary nervous grimace on his lips. “It is an great honor to meet you, my princess. You are as beautiful as the stories tell.”

You could feel the heat rising up your neck at his sudden flattery.

A second after the words rolled off his tongue, Duncan seemed to realize what he had just said, for his big ears turned scarlet red with embarrassment.

“Why thank you, Ser Duncan,” you smiled, savoring the name on your tongue as if it were sweet honey. You knew you had heard it before, read it somewhere, or perhaps in a dream, but it didn't feel like the first time your lips had shaped the words. “You're very... tall”

As you glanced over him from head to toe, you noticed that he wore no badge on his old tunic, nor jewels on the pommel of his sword. On the contrary, you smiled sweetly when you realized that his sword belt was a mere piece of rope. 

He smiled back at you, blushing. “Heh— I've been told that.”

“Ser Duncan the Tall...” you repeated his name slowly, lost in thought now, and he held his breath when you called out to him, watching you from above with curious eyes. “I believe I’ve heard that before, now that I think about it.”

His auburn eyebrows arched up on his forehead, looking incredulous, “Really?”

“Does that surprise you, Ser?” you asked back, holding back a giggle as you considered his expression.

That made Duncan blush even more. “No! I mean, aye—I have yet to begin my journey as a real knight. I will begin at the tournament here.”

Your head cocked in earnest interest, “Is this your first tournament, then?”

“It is, my princess,” Duncan confirmed, rubbing the back of his neck with embarrassment. “I was knighted not long ago. By Ser Arlan of Pennytree. He passed on the road, and before he died… he made me a knight.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” you said softly, meaning it. “He must have been a good man, if he raised you.”

Duncan swallowed, visibly moved by your words. “Aye. He was good”

“You don’t look like the other knights here,” you observed quietly just after that.

Duncan frowned slightly. “Is that a bad thing, my princess?”

“No. It’s a good thing.”

You took another step closer, ignoring the protocol that dictated that a girl of royalty like you should not be in a dusty stable talking to a commoner like him.

But there was something about him, though, a purity that contrasted with the cruelty you usually saw in the men of your family.

“I know many knights. My cousin, for example, has the temperament of a wounded dragon, but none of its wisdom,” you admitted in a quiet tone, looking toward where Aerion had gone. “Don't take his insults personally. He despises everything he cannot dominate.”

“You don't have to apologize for him, princess. I'm used to that sort of treatment, unfortunately,” Dunk replied, looking down at you.

His blue eyes were clear, deep, and oddly sweet.

As a born empath, his words struck you with a pang of sadness. The idea that someone so noble of spirit and gentle was used to being treated as less than nothing by men who were not even worthy of being considered his equals was beyond your comprehension.

“Well, you shouldn't be,” you declared firmly. “Steel can make a knight, but it is the heart that keeps him standing. And from what I can see, Ser Duncan, you have more heart than half the lords at Ashford today.”

Dunk blinked, overwhelmed by your candor.

“You are... you are very kind, your Highness,” he was able to say, and this time his voice did not falter as much, although the blush remained bright on his cheeks.

From across the yard, you could hear Aerion’s sharp, impatient voice barking orders at some poor squire. The sound made you wince.

“I fear my cousin will make enemies wherever he goes,” you clicked your tongue in disapproval. “He always does.”

Duncan hesitated, then said carefully, bending down just a bit closer to you so he could confide an important truth, “Begging your pardon, but… he doesn’t seem the sort to win many friends.”

You laughed softly, covering your mouth with your hand. “That may be the politest insult I’ve ever heard, ser.”

That earned you a shy grin from him, crooked and boyish.

Gods, he really was handsome now that you were seeing him up close like that, with that little smile on his lips.

His back was broad, and his immense figure blocked your view like an imposing and majestic tower. You could climb him up like a mountain if you could...

The sudden, inappropriate flash of thought made you blush deeply and you lowered your gaze in shame, feeling hot all of a sudden.

Ser Duncan noticed it, of course, as he couldn't stop ogling at your face in such close proximity, and he caught sight of the dilation of your pupils as you looked up at him, and that also made him flustered, forcing himself to take a step back and regain his composure.

He cleared his throat, his face flushed with worry, “Are you alright, my princess?”

That emerging connection, so unusual between a princess and a knight, was interrupted by the sound of hurried footsteps on the gravel. A maid, breathless and pale with worry, appeared at the entrance to the stables.

“Princess!” gasped the girl, curtsying quickly but with some trepidation. “I've finally found you. Prince Maekar has been asking for you. He says it's time to go inside the fortress and that it's not fitting for someone of your rank to be out here alone.”

Dunk, on hearing your uncle's name, seemed to shrink a couple of inches in utter fear at your side. The mention of Maekar Targaryen, a man known for his severity and strong hand, was enough to intimidate anyone, especially a knight who barely owned the clothing he wore.

“I must go,” you said with a sigh of resignation, though your eyes remained fixed on the man in front of you. “My uncle is not a man who cares for waiting, much less when it comes to formalities.”

You turned to the maid to indicate that she should follow you, but before leaving, you gave Dunk one last look filled with a warmth he clearly did not expect.

“Ser Duncan,” you bowed gracefully. “I hope to see you again soon.”

“I... I hope so too, Your Grace,” he blurted out, bowing his head as he watched you walk away from him.

“I've told you countless times that you can't just wander off and strike up conversations with the first person you come across, cousin.” Aerion was giving you one of his usual scoldings as he walked alongside you through the main hall of the keep. “It's dangerous for a woman like you to wander around alone. Do you realize what you're exposing yourself to out there? All those men...”

You sighed, crossing your arms over your chest, “I was just comforting your mare, Aerion. She was terrified, and that tall kind knight was— he was just there too.”

The blond furrowed his brow, making a big effort to remember that he too had seen the same man before. “The dirty-clothed beast that was in the stables?” Realization washed over his face as he considered that your silence affirmed his judgment, “don't tell me—”

“He's good, Aerion. And his name is Ser Duncan the Tall,” you rolled your eyes, trying to pacify him. “It's one of the first times in a long time that I've been able to hold a good conversation with a man that isn't about titles or reprimands or power or marriage.”

Aerion let out a dry, humorless laugh, stopping abruptly under one of the stone arches of the fortress. He looked at you with that mixture of possessiveness and jealousy that always made your skin crawl, and not in a good way this time. 

“A good man? That clumsy giant?” he mocked, drawing another step closer to you like a predator to its prey. “He's just cannon fodder, a nameless man who will die in the mud before the sun sets tomorrow. Men of his kind don't have conversations, my sweet cousin; they only have needs. Be careful, lest your ‘kindness’ be mistaken for something more vulgar.”

You felt a spark of indignation ignite in your chest at the offensive remarks aimed at your newest friend. “None of the men I speak to are to your liking, Aerion.”

“You have terrible taste, that's why. All I do is to protect you, my sweet dragon. None of those men are good enough for you, least of all that lout who reeks of horses and despair,” Aerion spat, narrowing his violet eyes. His voice dropped to a hissing whisper. “You must know your position. You are supposed to stand by your family, by me.”

You were about to respond with the sharp tongue you had been given by your lineage, but your uncle's deep, resonant voice cut through the air like an axe.

“Aerion. Stop tormenting your poor cousin.”

Maekar Targaryen strode toward you, dressed in dark clothes and bearing that look of perpetual disappointment that seemed to be carved permanently into his face.

His mere presence made Aerion straighten up, though it did not entirely wipe the smug smile from his face.

“Father,” Aerion greeted him with a lazy bow. “I was just reminding my dear cousin that stables are no place for a Targaryen. Apparently, she has a new friend... a certain Ser Duncan the Tall. A commoner knight with more dirt than honor.”

Maekar stared at you, his dark eyes scrutinizing you with an intensity that made you want to shrink back, though you forced yourself to hold your chin high.

“Is this true, niece?” Maekar demanded, dismissing his own son. “Have you been associating with the commoners?”

“I was tending to the mare that Aerion nearly mistreated to death, uncle,” you came in your own defense in a firm voice, though your heart was pounding. “Ser Duncan was the only one who had the decency to help, unlike the servants who fled in terror from my cousin's temper.”

Your uncle was silent for a moment, looking past you toward the courtyard where the tournament activity continued unabated.

“Ashford Meadow is full of desperate men seeking glory at the cost of our blood,“ Maekar finally concluded. “I don't care if he's a giant or a dwarf; keep your distance, girl. The tournament begins tomorrow, and I don't want any distractions from the fact that you're supposed to be here to seek a husband.”

He noticed the way you exchanged a complicit glance with Aerion, and that made him squint his hawk-like eyes.

“You behave like little children. Go to your chambers now,” Maekar ordered you both, though his tone was a little less stern and more tired. Upon seeing both of you resume your walk side by side, he sighed, utterly exhausted, “separated.”

Aerion’s lips twitched in irritation, but he obeyed. “As you wish, Father.”

Once in your chambers, as your handmaidens helped you out of your gown, chattering nervously about the morrow’s festivities, your mind was elsewhere.

With Ser Duncan.

Your maids spoke of silks and suitors, of alliances and advantageous matches, of which lord had looked at you for too long and which knight had nearly been unhorsed in practice that afternoon.

But you heard none of it.

Ser Duncan the Tall.

You were sure you had heard that name before. And that you had seen that face somewhere. But where?

In dreams, perhaps.

In another life.

Your hands trembled slightly as a maid loosened the last ties of your gown.

“Are you nervous for tomorrow, princess?” one of them asked, curious and enthusiastic. “So many fine knights will ride for your favor.”

You swallowed.

“I am never nervous for the knights,” you replied truthfully. “But for the horses”

They laughed softly, taking it for girlish shyness.

“Tell me something,” you called very softly, as casually as you could manage. “Have any of you heard of a knight named Ser Duncan the Tall?”

The room stilled for just a fraction of a second.

You had never asked for a man's name before. He must've been significant.

One maid frowned slightly, tilting her head. “Ser Duncan… the Tall?”

Another shook her head. “I don’t believe so, my princess.”

Another maid, older than the rest, pursed her lips thoughtfully. “I know most of the notable knights here,” she said. “At least the ones with banners or lands. I have not heard that name.”

“No sigil, then,” a third concluded. “He must be a hedge knight, Your Grace. One of no great standing.”

A hush fell over the chamber as you let yourself drift away into your deep thoughts.

One of the younger maids shifted uncomfortably before speaking. “Prince Aerion will be riding tomorrow as well, Your Highness.”

You did not look at her, but you felt the weight of the words.

“He always does,” another maid added, huffing lightly. “He has entered nearly every tourney since you came of age, princess.”

“For your favor,” a third said, lowering her voice as if the walls themselves might listen. “It is well known at court.”

The oldest maid sighed quietly. “The prince has never hidden it. He rides harder, fights fiercer when you are watching.”

“Prince Aerion will expect your favor,” the youngest maid whispered. “He always does. He will be furious if you deny him.”

“No,” you denied.

The room seemed to draw in a collective breath.

“No?” one maid echoed. “You have never denied him before, Your Grace. Prince Maekar will be displeased as well.”

“I will give my favor to Ser Duncan the Tall.”

The words settled into the chamber like some declaration of war.

A hedge knight.

Against a prince.

“My princess…” the oldest maid said carefully. “Do you understand what this will mean?”

“Yes,” you answered, certain.

Your voice did not tremble.

It surprised even you.

The feeling wrapped around your heart like a promise.

You would simply do what you had already done once in a dream.

They said you had been born at dawn. Not merely in the hour before the sun rose, no, for court never left a simple thing unadorned when beauty might be made from it. They said the eastern sky had opened like a pomegranate, red and gold spilling over Blackwater Bay. They said the clouds had caught fire. They said your first cry had come just as the first light touched the towers, and that Prince Baelor Targaryen, called Breakspear by men who loved courage more than crowns, had wept when they placed you in his arms.

That part was true.

Baelor had been young enough then for wonder still to wound him. He had taken you from the midwife with hands more suited to sword and lance than cradlecloth, and when you opened your eyes, violet as dusk seen through wine, he had gone still. There were men who looked upon their daughters and saw alliances. Baelor looked upon you and saw judgment. A thing so small, so breakable, so entirely his to protect that it terrified him.

“My little star,” he had whispered, and bent his brow to yours as though swearing fealty.

Afterward, songs were made of that too.

The realm adored making songs of you. It had begun before you could walk, before you could speak, before you understood that adoration was only another kind of hunger. You were Baelor Breakspear’s daughter, and that alone would have been enough to turn eyes toward you. But you had also been born with the old Valyrian beauty in its cruelest form, the kind that made people forget themselves. Pale silver and gold hair, soft as poured light. Eyes dark violet and bright together, changeful as twilight over a blade. Skin the court ladies called pearl, though pearls were duller. A face too composed in repose, too vivid in anger, too radiant when you smiled.

By the time you were twelve, singers had compared you to moonrise, maidenhood, dragonfire, and dawn. By the time you were fourteen, men old enough to have sons your age had begun watching your hands at feasts. By the time you were flowered and marriageable, half the realm had learned to say your name softly, as though gentleness might disguise ambition.

They wanted you beautifully. That was the trick of it. No man ever said plainly that your hand would bind him closer to Baelor, that your father’s honor would gild his house, that your blood would strengthen his children’s claim to old Valyria’s vanishing glory. No lord confessed aloud that to marry you would be to marry a song, a banner, a promise, a piece of the realm’s faith in better princes. They spoke instead of admiration. Of devotion. Of courtly reverence. They begged for dances, favors, glances, permission to wear your color in the lists. They knelt before you with the faces of worshippers and the appetites of wolves.

You learned early that beauty was not softness. Beauty was coin. Beauty was command. Beauty was a gate men pressed their mouths to while dreaming of conquest. Beauty could quiet a hall more quickly than a drawn sword, if worn correctly. Beauty could excuse cruelty when cruelty smiled. Beauty could make silence seem like innocence and calculation seem like grace.

Your father knew this. Baelor Breakspear knew court too well to trust it. He watched you be praised as other men watched borders.

When knights bent too low over your hand, Baelor’s gaze cooled. When a lord’s compliments grew too warm, Baelor interrupted with courteous murder in his voice. When letters arrived from houses too proud, too hungry, too close to old grievances, he set them aside unread until morning, when temper had less chance of ruling him. He did not lock you away, for he was not a fool and you were not a jewel to be kept in a box. He let you shine. He let the realm love you.

But he stood always between you and the part of love that devoured. Or he tried. There was one hunger he had never been able to turn aside.

Aerion Targaryen had been born ten months before you, and from the first moment he was old enough to understand the insult of those months, he made a kingdom of them. Ten months, to him, was seniority. Ten months was wisdom. Ten months was a crown, a sword, a divine decree. When you were both children, he would remind you of it whenever you defied him.

“I was here first,” he would say, chin lifted, silver hair falling into eyes too bright with malice for any nursery.

“You will die first too,” you told him once.

He had stared at you, then laughed until the nurse crossed herself.

You were first cousins. Your fathers were brothers, though little else in them seemed made of the same substance. Baelor was the noble dream of the dynasty, honor given flesh, a prince who made lesser men ashamed and better men braver. Maekar was iron where Baelor was light: stern, proud, sharp edged, a man who loved his children as he loved his sword, by keeping them hard.

Aerion was Maekar’s son in bone and temper, but there was something in him that had outrun even Maekar’s severity. Something theatrical. Something fevered. Something that looked at the world and did not see people, only fuel.

The court said you and Aerion had been bound from the cradle.

That was true too, though not in the way the court meant.

When you were still swaddled and sleeping in carved wooden cradles near one another, Aerion would scream whenever you were taken away. Not cry. Scream. He had a prince’s lungs and a demon’s persistence. Wet nurses came and went with bloody bitten fingers. Maids whispered that the little prince knew when the little princess left the room even in his sleep. If your cradle was moved nearer, he quieted. If it was moved farther, he raged. If you stirred, he stirred. If you wept, he shrieked as though your grief were theft from him.

“Charming,” the ladies called it.

“Dragon children know their own,” said men who enjoyed prophecy when it cost them nothing.

Baelor did not call it charming. Even then, he watched.

You were no gentler. That was the secret everyone took years to learn, and some never learned at all. You were quieter than Aerion, but quiet was not mercy. He was flame leaping openly from dry wood; you were the coal hidden under ash, waiting for breath.

When he stole your painted wooden dragon, you did not cry. You waited three days, smiling sweetly through lessons and prayers, until you found his favorite ivory horse unattended beside a window. Then you dropped it from the tower stairs and watched it break upon the stones below.

Aerion found you there, looking down.

“You broke it,” he said.

“You stole from me,” you answered.

His face twisted, not with grief, but with furious delight.

“I shall tell.”

“Tell,” you said. “I shall weep. They will believe me.”

He lunged at you then, small hands clawing, and you struck him across the mouth with your little fist hard enough to split his lip. Blood shone red against his teeth. A nurse shrieked. Aerion touched his mouth, looked at the blood on his fingers, and smiled at you as if you had given him a jewel.

“There you are,” he said.

He could not have known what the words would become. He was a child then, beautiful and wicked and half formed, with blood on his mouth and wonder in his eyes. But some phrases are born older than the mouths that speak them. Some vows choose children before children know the shape of vows.

After that, he followed you everywhere. Not gently. Never gently.

If you walked in the gardens, he appeared between the hedges with burrs in his hair and mud on his boots, accusing you of abandoning him. If you sat with your septa, he found ways to ruin the lesson, dipping quills in ink and drawing little black dragons along the margins of your prayer book. If a page made you laugh, Aerion tripped him before supper. If a lordling offered you a sugar plum, Aerion snatched it from your hand, took one bite, and crushed the rest beneath his heel.

“You cannot eat what is given by sheep,” he told you.

“You are very tiresome for someone so grand,” you said.

“I am a dragon.”

“You are a boy with dirty fingernails.”

He shoved you into a rosebush for that.

You came out bleeding from three scratches along your forearm, your gown torn, your silver hair caught with thorns. The gardener gasped. The nurse began to cry. Aerion stood very still, perhaps realizing too late that he had damaged what the court treated as sacred.

You looked at the blood. Then at him. Then you laughed. Not because it did not hurt. It did. But pain, you discovered, could be made into a throne if one refused to kneel before it. Aerion’s face changed. The fear vanished. Something hotter took its place.

You pulled a thorn from your sleeve and pressed it into his palm until he hissed and bled.

“Now we match,” you said.

For years, that was the shape of you.

The court saw two dragon children, wild in the way noble children were permitted to be wild before decorum was strapped upon them like armor. They saw silver heads bent together over cyvasse boards. They saw you racing through halls where kings had walked, your slippers silent and Aerion’s boots loud behind you. They saw him tug your braid and you smile like a saint before stepping on his foot hard enough to make him curse. They saw quarrels. They saw laughter. They saw blood sometimes, yes, but royal children were strange, and Targaryen children stranger still.

They did not see what Baelor saw.

They did not see the day Aerion found a beetle with a cracked shell and declared himself its king because it could not flee him. He placed it in the center of the nursery table and built a court around it from broken toys. A headless doll for a queen, a wooden knight without legs, a cracked cup for a throne. He commanded the beetle to bow.

“It cannot hear you,” you said.

“Then it is treasonous.”

You were seven. He was nearly eight and carried those ten months like a drawn dagger.

He lifted his hand to crush it.

You caught his wrist.

For a moment the two of you only stared at each other, violet eyes against violet eyes, old blood looking into its own dark mirror.

“Do not,” you said.

Aerion sneered. “Have you grown tender?”

“No.” You plucked the beetle from the table, carried it to the open window, and let it fall into the garden below. “I only wanted to be the one who decided.”

Aerion went silent. Then he kissed your knuckles. Not with sweetness. Not with innocence. With ceremony. As though you had done something worthy of homage.

The nurse, entering too late, saw only a prince bowing over a princess’s hand and clasped her own hands to her breast.

“How dear,” she whispered.

You and Aerion looked at each other and smiled.

When you were nine, you dared him to climb the broken outer wall above the training yard after rain had slicked the stones dark. He climbed because he would rather have fallen and cracked his skull than let you call him afraid. Halfway up, his foot slipped. For one sharp moment he hung by both hands, face white, boots scraping empty air. Below, boys shouted. A master at arms cursed. Someone ran for help.

You stood nearest, looking up at him with your heart hammering so hard it felt like joy.

“Beg,” you called.

Aerion bared his teeth. “Never.”

“Then fall.”

He laughed, wild and breathless, and hauled himself up by sheer spite. When he reached the top, soaked and shaking, he looked down at you as though he had conquered a kingdom. You climbed after him before anyone could stop you, your skirts torn to ribbons, your palms rubbed raw by stone. Baelor arrived just as Aerion pulled you over the parapet.

Your father’s face was the color of death. The rage came later. First came fear, and fear in Baelor Breakspear was more terrible than anger in lesser men. He did not shout before the guards. He did not strike Aerion, though for one moment his hand flexed as if it remembered every sword it had ever held. He only lifted you down from the wall himself, set you upon the ground, and cupped your face between both hands.

You had blood on your palms. Mud on your cheek. A torn sleeve. A smile you had not yet remembered to hide. Baelor saw it. That was the first time you understood that your father’s love had eyes.

“My star,” he said softly, and the softness made you look away. “There is no courage in courting the Stranger for sport.”

“It was only a climb.”

“It was a test.” His gaze flicked to Aerion, who stood rigid under Maekar’s grip. “And tests are not harmless because children name them games.”

Aerion’s mouth curled. “She wanted to climb.”

Baelor did not look away from you. “I know.”

That hurt worse than if he had blamed Aerion alone.

Later, in your chamber, as the maester wrapped your palms in linen, Baelor sat beside you and told you of dragons. Not the way singers told it, with wings blotting out suns and kings kneeling in ash. He told you of reins. Saddles. Commands. The bond between beast and rider. The discipline of guiding fire.

“A dragon left to hunger becomes a ruin,” he said.

You watched his hands. Broad, scarred, gentle. “I am not a dragon.”

“No,” he said, after too long a pause. “You are my daughter.”

That should have been answer enough. It was not. Because Aerion heard the same stories and learned the opposite lesson. To him, dragons did not require reins. They were not meant to bow beneath saddles, nor answer little men with little laws. Dragons took. Dragons burned. Dragons proved themselves by leaving marks upon the world. He grew beautiful in that belief, as poisonous flowers grow beautiful by drinking from graves.

By twelve, he had learned courtesy well enough to insult without consequence. By thirteen, he knew which servants feared him and which could be made to fear him. By fourteen, he smiled like a prince before fathers and septons, then turned in private with cruelty still warm beneath his skin. He was not mad in the way fools were mad. He was worse. He understood enough of the rules to know when he was breaking them.

And you understood him. That was the sin beneath all the others.

You understood the thrill he took in making the world flinch. You understood why obedience bored him, why gentleness offended him, why a person who would not resist seemed hardly alive at all. You despised his clumsier cruelties, not because they were cruel, but because they lacked art. Aerion was a torch thrown into dry straw. You preferred candles placed carefully beneath silk curtains, so that by the time anyone smelled smoke, the room was already doomed.

Once, when a young lady of House Darklyn mocked the Dornish cut of one of your gowns, you did not answer. You lowered your eyes. You let your mouth tremble. The court saw wounded sweetness and gathered around you in outrage. By sunset, the girl’s mother had apologized twice, her father had withdrawn a petition, and the girl herself stood red-eyed beside the fountain while you kissed her cheek and forgave her before half the court.

Aerion found you afterward in the godswood, though the Red Keep’s heart tree was pale and carved and strange beneath southern skies.

“You should have slapped her,” he said.

You adjusted the fall of your sleeve. “Then she would have been pitied.”

“She cried.”

“Yes.”

“You liked that.”

You looked at him. He was leaning against a tree, dressed in black and red, silver hair loose at his forehead messily, his face almost too lovely to belong to anything human. That had always been the trouble with him. Aerion looked as a prince in a tapestry ought to look, bright and dreadful, the sort of figure maidens dreamed of before waking afraid. His eyes shone when he was amused. They shone brighter when he was cruel.

“You would have made her bleed,” you said.

“I still might.”

“How vulgar.”

His smile widened. “There you are.”

You hated when he said that. You loved when he said that.

No one else spoke to the hidden thing in you so directly. The court praised your grace, your beauty, your modesty, your perfect courtesy. Your father praised your wit, your discipline, your strength when strength was yoked to honor. But Aerion looked at the pretty mask the realm had painted upon your face and laughed as though he could see your teeth beneath it.

You were not a fool. You knew what he was. You had seen him order a stableboy to hold a coal in his bare hand because the boy had laughed when Aerion slipped in mud. You had seen him draw his dagger over a table during supper, carving wings into the polished wood while an old lord pretended not to notice. You had seen him smile and laugh when men grew uncomfortable. You had heard him speak of smallfolk as though they were weather. You had watched his pride swell into something deformed whenever the word dragon left his mouth.

And still, when he entered a room, some part of you woke.

Baelor saw that too. Your father’s protection changed as you grew. When you were small, he shielded your body from falls, blades, fevers, careless hands. When you became beautiful, truly beautiful, the kind of beautiful that moved through court like a drawn curtain revealing fire behind it, he shielded your future.

Suitors came first in trickles, then in tides. A Baratheon cousin asked for permission to wear your favor in a melee and looked at your mouth instead of your eyes. Baelor refused him so politely the boy thanked him before realizing he had been dismissed. A Hightower lord sent pearls the color of milk and a letter praising your virtue with such oily precision that Baelor burned both. A Lannister wrote from Casterly Rock in phrases polished bright as coin. A Tyrell sent roses enough to drown your chamber in perfume.

You smiled over them all. Sometimes you enjoyed it. That was another truth too ugly for songs. You liked watching proud men become reverent. You liked choosing who might hope and who would be made ridiculous by hope. You liked the way ladies stiffened when their brothers stared too long. You liked knowing that your hand could alter the balance of great houses, that your glance could stir envy, that your silence could be mistaken for maidenly innocence when it was often judgment.

Baelor did not scold you for that enjoyment, which made you feel worse. Instead, one evening, he walked with you along a gallery where the dragon skulls slept in shadow below, vast and black and eyeless. Torches burned along the walls. Outside, rain tapped at the windows like fingernails.

“Power is not sin,” he said.

You glanced at him. “Have I been accused?”

“Not by others.”

You smiled faintly. “By you, then?”

“By your own face when you think no one is watching.”

That silenced you. He stopped before the skull of Meraxes, great and ruined, her empty sockets wide enough for a child to hide inside.

“You are loved,” Baelor said. “You are admired. You are desired. Those are three different things, and court will spend your life trying to confuse them.”

You looked at the dragon skull rather than him. “And what does Aerion feel?”

Baelor’s jaw tightened. There. There it was. The name neither of you had spoken, though he had walked between you from the beginning like a drawn blade.

At last your father said, “Aerion wants.”

You waited.

“He wants as fire wants,” Baelor continued. “Without gratitude. Without conscience. Without end.”

“He is my cousin.”

“Yes.”

“We are Targaryens.”

“Yes.”

That word hung there, silver and red, ancient and accursed. In other houses, blood was a wall. In yours, blood was a road. The histories were full of it. Brother to sister. Uncle to niece. Cousin to cousin. Dragonlords preserving dragonblood, kings wedding queens with the same pale hair and violet eyes, the realm protesting until victory or beauty or fear made it quiet again. You had been raised among portraits of ancestors who looked like reflections marrying reflections, their hands joined beneath painted dragons, their eyes solemn with destiny.

So Baelor did not say what another father might have said. He did not call the thought impossible. He did not pretend the blood between you and Aerion made desire unthinkable in a house built upon blood’s own vanity. That was not what frightened him.

“Aerion thinks blood absolves,” Baelor said. “He thinks being born of the dragon means never needing to become worthy of it.”

“And you?”

“I think the higher the blood, the deeper the duty.”

You looked at him then. Truly looked. He was not old, your father, though grief had not yet claimed him and Ashford had not yet opened its red mouth. He was strong still, handsome in the plain and noble way men trusted before they understood they loved him. His eyes held a gentleness that court had failed to kill. There were lines at their corners from laughter, from squinting beneath tourney suns, from worrying over the realm and over you.

“You think he will ruin me,” you said.

Baelor’s expression changed. “No.”

“No?”

“I think he will ask you to ruin yourself and call it freedom.”

You hated him a little then, for knowing. You loved him more for the same reason. That was the cruelty of Baelor Breakspear’s love. It was not blind enough to be easy. He did not worship the perfect princess as the realm did. He saw your vanity and did not turn away. He saw your temper, your hunger, your secret pleasure in being obeyed. He saw the sharpness under the silk. Yet where Aerion saw that hidden self and grinned as though finding treasure, Baelor saw it and grieved, not because he despised you, but because he believed you could master it.

Aerion never wanted you mastered. He wanted you revealed.

The year you came fully into the court’s gaze, the Red Keep changed around you. Or perhaps it had always been so, and you had only grown old enough to see the knives beneath the flowers. Feasts became theatres. Dances became negotiations. Every gown chosen by your ladies sent some message, whether you meant it or not. White made you maidenly. Red made you bold. Black made you dynastic. Blue softened you. Gold turned every singer witless. Pearls made old women sigh. Rubies made young men stupid.

You learned to enter halls slowly. Not timidly. Slowly. There was power in letting silence arrive before you reached the center of a room. Power in permitting people to look. Power in appearing unaware of the effect you had while measuring every last breath of it. You were Baelor’s daughter, yes, and the court loved you for his sake. But increasingly they loved him for yours too, because beauty rewrites loyalty in ways honor cannot.

At a harvest feast beneath a ceiling hung with red silk, Prince Valarr himself danced with you first.

Golden Valarr, your father’s son, your brother, bright with all the promise the realm had fastened upon Baelor’s line. He was courteous, handsome, beloved in that easy way Aerion hated most, as though admiration had simply come to him and laid itself at his feet. He smiled when he took your hand, brotherly or princely or both, depending on who watched and what they wished to see.

“You are causing unrest,” Valarr murmured as he led you into the dance.

You tilted your head. “By standing?”

“By standing beautifully. It is a grave offense.”

“I shall try to limp.”

“That may make it worse. Half these men would compose tragedies about the wounded swan of House Targaryen before sunrise.”

You laughed, and the hall warmed around it. Across the room, Aerion watched. He had been drinking, though not enough to blur him. Aerion never liked to be blurred. He preferred the world sharp, so that he might cut himself on it or cut others first. He stood with one shoulder against a pillar, a cup loose in his hand, black velvet at his throat, rubies like drops of hard blood along his collar. Firelight made his hair gleam white-gold. His eyes did not leave you once.

When Valarr turned you beneath his arm, Aerion smiled. It was not a pleasant smile.

Later, a Fossoway knight begged a favor for the morrow’s riding. He was young, freckled, earnest, and doomed by the hope in his face. You let him kneel. You let him speak. You let the watching ladies lean close behind their fans.

Then you drew a narrow ribbon from your sleeve, pale as moonlight, and held it just beyond his reach.

“You may wear it,” you said, “if you remember that a favor is not a promise.”

His face flushed scarlet. “Princess, I would not dare presume—”

“Men dare many things once cloth is tied around their arm.”

He swallowed. The court smiled. You tied the ribbon yourself. It meant nothing. That was why you did it.

You felt Aerion’s gaze like heat between your shoulders for the rest of the night. He waited until the feast had spilled into its softer hours, when wine had deepened voices and the musicians played slower songs. Baelor had been drawn aside by a lord with maps in his hands and worry on his brow. Valarr had gone to speak with friends. Your ladies had relaxed just enough for you to slip away beneath the pretense of air.

The terrace beyond the hall was cold. Below, the city breathed in darkness. Torches moved along the walls. Far off, the Blackwater carried moonlight in broken pieces. Above, the stars were pale and indifferent, all those cold little witnesses Baelor loved to name you after.

You had only taken three breaths before Aerion spoke.

“Did you enjoy it?”

You did not turn. “The feast?”

“The worship.”

Now you looked back. He stood in the archway, half shadowed, half lit. Beautiful as sin in a sept window. His cup was gone. His hands were empty, which made him seem more dangerous.

“I enjoy many things,” you said.

“Yes.” He stepped onto the terrace. “That is what they never understand.”

You faced the city again. “Go back inside, Aerion.”

“No.”

“I did not ask.”

“I know. I refused anyway.”

He came to stand beside you, close enough that his sleeve brushed yours. You could smell wine on him, and smoke, and the faint sharpness of the oils he used in his hair. For a moment neither of you spoke.

Then he said, “You gave him your favor.”

“I gave a ribbon to a boy who asked prettily.”

“You tied it yourself.”

“Was I meant to throw it at him?”

“You were meant not to give it.”

You laughed once, softly. “Because every ribbon in the realm belongs to you?”

His head turned. You felt it more than saw it.

“Everything of yours concerns me.”

“That is a sickness.”

“That is blood.”

You looked at him then, and there it was between you, ancient and breathing. Blood. The word that excused kings, doomed queens, built dynasties, warped cradles, joined hands, spilled brothers, crowned monsters, and made the realm swallow what it would have spat from any lesser house. Blood had placed you in the same nursery. Blood had made your fathers brothers. Blood had made your faces mirrors of old Valyria. Blood had taught Aerion that wanting you was not trespass but inheritance.

“You mistake relation for right,” you said.

His eyes glittered. “You mistake denial for virtue.”

“You are my cousin.”

“Yes.”

The word was not shame in his mouth. It was claim.

“You have been mine since before you knew words,” he said.

Your pulse struck hard once, then again.

“No,” you said.

Aerion smiled as though you had answered exactly as he wished. “You screamed when they took you from me.”

“I was an infant. Infants scream.”

“I screamed louder.”

“You still do.”

His smile sharpened. “Careful.”

“Or what? You will push me into roses again? Frighten another servant? Poor Aerion, forever proving himself fearsome to people too low to answer.”

The air changed. It always did when you cut too near the bone.

His face stilled, and the boy from the nursery looked out through the prince’s beauty: the child with blood on his teeth, the little tyrant commanding beetles, the creature who had hung from wet stone and laughed rather than beg. Only now he was taller than you, stronger, nearer to manhood than boyhood, with malice refined by years of practice.

“You think yourself above fear because men kiss your hand,” he said.

“I think myself above you because I do not need to announce I am a dragon every time I enter a room.”

His hand closed around your wrist. Hard enough to bruise. Hard enough to remind. You looked down at his fingers, then up at him.

“Let go.”

“No.”

“Aerion.”

He leaned closer. “Say it again.”

“What?”

“That I am not a dragon.”

You should have stopped. You knew the shape of the precipice. You knew Baelor’s warnings. You knew Aerion’s pride was not armor but a wound dressed in scales. You knew, too, with a thrill that made you hate yourself, that no one else in the world would let you be this cruel and call it truth.

So you smiled.

“You are a prince desperate to be a dragon,” you said. “That is not the same thing.”

For one heartbeat, you thought he might strike you. Instead, you struck him. The sound cracked across the terrace, small and bright and vicious. His face turned with it. Your palm burned. A red mark bloomed along his cheek, stark against the pale perfection of him.

Inside the hall, no one noticed. The music swelled. Laughter rose and fell. The court went on worshipping itself.

Aerion slowly turned back to you. His eyes were alight.

“There you are,” he whispered.

You hated the words. You had always hated them, because they reached past gown and jewel and courtesy, past Baelor’s little star, past the realm’s perfect princess, past every song ever made to cage you in beauty. There you are. As if he had hunted you through yourself and found the door unguarded. As if the cruelest, proudest, truest part of you had lifted its head at his call.

“You know nothing of me,” you said, but your voice had changed.

“I know what they do not.” His fingers loosened from your wrist only to rise to your face. He did not touch you gently. He touched you as though testing whether silk could burn. “I know the look in your eyes when men kneel. I know you smiled when that girl cried by the fountain. I know you wanted me to fall from the wall before you wanted me saved. I know every pretty lie they tell about you, and I know the thing beneath it that listens.”

“You know what you want to see.”

“I see you.”

“No.” The word came quickly. Too quickly. “My father sees me.”

At that, something ugly passed through Aerion’s face.

“Baelor sees a star,” he said. “Something distant. Bright. Untouched. He would hang you in the sky if he could, where no hand could reach you and no desire could stain you.”

“He loves me.”

“Yes.” Aerion’s mouth curved. “That is his weakness.”

“And what is yours?”

His gaze dropped to your lips.

The answer was there before he spoke it.

“You,” he said.

It should have sounded soft. From another man, perhaps it would have. From Aerion it sounded like a threat made before witnesses, though the stars were the only witnesses and they had seen worse from your house.

“You do not love,” you said.

“I do not love like sheep love.”

“You do not love at all. You claim.”

“Yes.”

The honesty of it robbed you of breath. He moved then, sudden as flame catching oil, and kissed you.

It was not sweet. Nothing about Aerion had ever been sweet except his face when he wished to deceive. The kiss was anger, recognition, conquest, punishment. His hand slid to the back of your neck, not pleading but holding. You should have pulled away. You should have thought of your father. You should have thought of the ribbon tied around some foolish knight’s arm, of Baelor’s careful warnings, of blood as burden rather than permission.

For one moment, you thought of nothing. Or no, that was not true. You thought: so this is fire. And worse, far worse, you answered. Not softly. Not innocently. You answered with the same violence with which you had once broken his ivory horse, the same pride with which you had laughed bleeding in the rosebushes, the same secret hunger you hid beneath pearls and lowered lashes. Your hand fisted in his doublet. His breath caught. Aerion, who made servants tremble and boys bleed and lords uneasy, trembled once beneath your touch. That pleased you. The knowledge of your pleasure frightened you more than the kiss.

When you tore yourself away, both of you were breathing hard. The mark of your hand still burned on his cheek. His mouth was red. His eyes were almost black.

“You see?” he said.

You wanted to slap him again. You wanted to kiss him again. You wanted to run to your father and confess like a child with bloodied palms. You wanted to stay exactly where you were until the terrace burned down around you.

Then Baelor called your name. Not loudly. He did not need to shout. Your father stood in the archway.

For a moment, the world narrowed to three Targaryens beneath the moon: Baelor in the light from the hall, noble and still; Aerion beside you in the cold, smiling with your handprint on his face; and you between them, beautiful enough to be forgiven, proud enough to be damned.

Baelor’s eyes went first to your mouth. Then to Aerion’s cheek. Then to your face. He did not speak Aerion’s name. Somehow that was worse.

“My daughter,” he said, and the tenderness in it cut deeper than accusation. “Come inside.”

You went. Of course you went. Each step toward him felt like waking from one dream into another. The warmth of the hall touched your skin. Music returned. Voices rose. The court was still there, jeweled and hungry, unaware that anything had shifted. Men still watched you and thought you perfect. Ladies still measured your gown. Knights still hoped for favors. Singers still prepared to make you into something simpler than flesh.

Baelor offered his arm. You took it. His hand covered yours, warm and steady. For a moment you were small again, palms wrapped in linen, listening to him speak of dragons and reins. You wanted to tell him everything. You wanted to say that he had been right, that Aerion was fire without conscience, that the danger had teeth and violet eyes and knew your hidden name. You wanted to say you were sorry. But sorry for what? For the kiss? For wanting it? For being seen?

Baelor bent his head slightly, his voice for you alone.

“My little star,” he said.

The name broke something in you. Because stars were distant. Stars were pure because no one could touch them. Stars burned alone where men could admire them safely.

But across the hall, Aerion had followed. He stood at the terrace arch, the red mark of your hand bright upon his cheek, his eyes fixed on you with a look older than desire and darker than love. When your gaze met his, he lifted a cup from a passing servant’s tray and raised it slightly. Not in apology. Not in farewell. In vow.

And in that glittering hall, beneath dragon banners and candleflame, with your father’s loving hand closed over yours and Aerion’s claim burning from across the room, you understood the first cruel truth of your life. You were Baelor Breakspear’s daughter.

But Aerion Brightflame was the first person who had ever made you feel like a dragon.

You were born in the shadow of Dragonstone’s smoking cliffs, the daughter of Rhaenyra and Daemon, though half the realm whispered otherwise. Your father was far across the Narrow Sea with Laena when you came screaming into the world, and by the time he returned, the truth had already been wrapped in layers of courtly half‑truths and political convenience.

So you grew up as Rhaenyra’s quiet, sharp‑eyed daughter, the one who preferred the company of scrolls and dragonkeepers to the court’s endless, poisonous chatter. And from the moment you could walk, you walked toward Vermithor.

The Bronze Fury had not taken a rider in generations. He was older than the halls of the Red Keep, older than the songs sung about him. Yet when you approached him—small, unafraid, your hand outstretched—he lowered his massive head and breathed you in like a long‑forgotten memory.

And he chose you.

The court never forgot that.

---

Aemond was twelve when he first saw you truly—standing in the training yard, your hair wind‑tangled, your cheeks flushed from a morning flight. Vermithor circled overhead, a bronze shadow blotting out the sun.

Aemond stared at you with something too intense for a boy his age.

Not admiration.

Not envy.

Something deeper.

Something hungry.

You laughed at something Jace said, and Aemond’s jaw tightened. He didn’t understand why it bothered him. He only knew that it did.

He watched you everywhere after that.

In the library, where you read Valyrian histories with your lips moving silently.

In the courtyard, where you practiced High Valyrian with your mother.

In the stables, where you fed Vermithor charred goat meat with gentle, steady hands.

He memorised you the way other boys memorised battle tales.

---

When he loses his eye, you are the only one who doesn’t look at him with pity or horror.

You look at him like he is still whole.

“Does it hurt?” you ask quietly when you visit him, your voice soft as ash.

“Yes,” he answers, because lying to you feels impossible.

You sit beside him, close enough that he can feel the warmth of you.

“Then let it hurt,” you say. “Pain is a forge. It makes us stronger.”

Aemond never forgets that.

He never forgets you.

---

You spend two years away—training, studying, learning the old ways of Valyria from the keepers who still remember them. When you return to King’s Landing at sixteen, you are no longer the quiet girl with ink‑stained fingers.

You are a dragonrider in truth.

Vermithor lands in the Dragonpit with a roar that shakes the stone, and you dismount with the confidence of someone who knows exactly who she is.

Aemond is waiting.

He shouldn’t be—he has no reason to be—but he is.

And when he sees you, something inside him snaps taut.

You are taller.

Stronger.

Your eyes burn like molten gold.

Your hair whips around you like a banner.

You look like fire made flesh.

And Aemond feels the heat of you like a physical thing.

“Cousin,” he says, bowing his head slightly.

“Aemond,” you answer, your voice steady, your gaze unwavering.

He feels seen.

He feels chosen.

He feels undone.

---

He seeks you out constantly

In the library.

In the training yard.

In the godswood.

On the ramparts overlooking Blackwater Bay.

He asks questions he never asks anyone else.

“What do you read?”

“What do you dream of?”

“What do you fear?”

And you answer him.

Because with Aemond, you never feel the need to hide.

---

During a late‑evening flight—Vermithor restless, Vhagar ancient and irritable. The two dragons spiral around each other above the cliffs, their roars echoing like thunder.

Aemond lands first, sliding off Vhagar with practiced ease. You land moments later, Vermithor’s wings kicking up a storm of dust and heat.

Aemond approaches you, breathless, exhilarated.

“They respect each other,” you say, watching the dragons settle. “Old power recognises old power.”

His gaze flicks to you.

“Is that what this is?” he asks softly. “Recognition?”

You meet his eye—his one remaining eye, sharp and bright and burning.

“Perhaps,” you say.

The wind whips your hair across your face. Aemond reaches out—hesitates—then gently tucks the strand behind your ear.

His fingers linger.

You don’t pull away.

---

It happens in the library, late at night, candles burning low.

You’re reading. He’s pretending to read.

“You are the only one who ever looked at me without seeing a monster,” he says suddenly, voice low.

You close your book.

“You are not a monster, Aemond.”

He swallows hard.

“You make me believe that.”

You step closer.

“You should believe it.”

He looks at you like you are the only light in a world full of shadows.

“I think of you,” he says, voice trembling with honesty he cannot stop. “More than I should.”

Your breath catches.

“Aemond…”

“I know,” he whispers. “But I cannot help it.”

---

The revelation happens during a council meeting—whispers, accusations, a slip of the tongue from someone who should have known better.

Daemon is your father.

Aemond hears it.

Aemond freezes.

You find him later in the training yard, sword abandoned, chest heaving.

“You lied,” he says, not angry—hurt.

“I didn’t know,” you answer. “Not until recently.”

He looks at you, searching your face for something—betrayal, distance, regret.

He finds none.

“You are still you,” he says finally, voice rough. “And I am still… whatever I am to you.”

You step closer.

“You are Aemond,” you say. “And that has always been enough.”

His breath shudders out of him.

---

You stand together on the cliffs above the sea, Vermithor and Vhagar curled below like sleeping mountains.

Aemond turns to you, the wind tugging at his cloak.

“Tell me,” he says quietly, “that I am not alone in this.”

You look at him—truly look—and realise you have been walking toward this moment for years.

“You are not alone,” you say.

Aemond exhales like he’s been holding his breath for half his life.

He steps closer.

You don’t move away.

His forehead rests gently against yours, a gesture intimate in its simplicity.

“Good,” he whispers. “Because I would burn the world before I lost you.”

You close your eyes, letting the warmth of him settle into your bones.

“You won’t lose me,” you say. “Not now. Not ever.”

Below, the dragons rumble in their sleep—ancient, knowing, approving.

And above them, two Targaryens stand together, bound by fire, forged by fate, and finally—finally—no longer afraid to choose each other.

ᴀʟʟ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇꜱᴇ ᴡᴏʀᴋꜱ ᴀʀᴇ ᴍʏ ᴏᴡɴ - ɪ ᴅᴏ ɴᴏᴛ ᴀʟʟᴏᴡ ᴀɴʏᴏɴᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴄᴏᴘʏ ᴍʏ ᴡᴏʀᴋ.

A/N: Hey yall I'm finishing up the full story, so here's another section of it, most of the details are in the show, and ones that aren't shall be posted later. I'm posting today to mourn the death of my husband 😭.

“Aunt… Aunt…!”

She stirred in her bed at the hushed urgency of the voice. Aegon stood beside her, half-shadowed by the dim glow of the embers.

“Hm…Aegon?” she murmured sleepily, pushing herself upright. “Are you well, Egg?”

“I am well,” he replied in a low voice. “But Daeron and I will be leaving. Only for a short while, I guess. If my father should grow anxious, pray tell him we are safe. We shall return for the tourney.”

“What…?” She frowned, still caught between waking and dreams. Before she could question him further, he slipped from the chamber, the door closing softly behind him.

She stared after him.

“What the fuck in the seven hells was that?” she muttered.

After a moment, she lay back against her pillows with a weary sigh. “A dream, no doubt. I have been sorely pressed of late.” She drifted once more into sleep.

Not long after, at sunrise, her chamber doors burst open.

“My princess,” her maid exclaimed, breathless and pale. “Prince Daeron and Prince Aegon are nowhere to be found!”

She groaned, rubbing her face. “What?”

“They are gone, your grace-””

She shot upright. “Gone”

“Their chambers are empty. No guard claims to have seen them leave.”

The haze of sleep vanished at once.

And then she remembered: the whispered words in the dark.

She cursed softly. “Fucking me”

“Have they taken leave of their senses?” she muttered. “The whole royal household prepares for the tourney today…”

Her expression shifted as the truth settled upon her.

“Seven save me,” she sighed. “Daeron is a man grown, older than I, acting like a stableboy with wine involved by taking his brother to gods know where.”

She rose from her bed, exasperation plain upon her face.

“Fools, utter fools” she said under her breath.

The royal procession reached Ashford Meadow beneath a sky bleached pale by summer heat, banners snapping in the wind like restless birds. The fields beyond the castle walls had already been claimed by pavilions and tilting lists; silk and steel glittered side by side.

She endured the formal welcomes with patient grace, then slipped away whenever courtesy allowed. In the solar, she entertained Lady Gwin Ashford with idle speculation about which lords were handsome beneath their helms and which knights looked finer from horseback than at table.

By afternoon she had traded silk for wool, jewels for a plain cloak. Disguised as any other girl of the town, she wandered the bustling lanes where bakers shouted, children darted between carts, and minstrels scraped bright notes from battered fiddles.

A roar drew her toward the commons.

Two teams strained against a thick rope, boots grinding into the dust. The crowd bellowed encouragement, coins exchanged hands, and wagers were shouted over the din. She slipped into the press of bodies, laughter rising in her throat-

Then she saw him.

A smooth, unmistakable bald head gleamed in the sun.

Aegon.

He was planted at the end of the rope, jaw set, thin arms trembling with effort. Dust streaked his tunic. He looked more stableboy than prince.

“This boy…” she muttered, brows knitting.

The rope lurched; the opposing side stumbled. Aegon’s team toppled backward in a triumphant heap. Cheers exploded around them. Before she could even sigh properly, an enormous man—broad as a gatehouse—swept Aegon off his feet and spun him in a dizzy circle of victory.

She exhaled sharply through her nose.

“Idiot.”

She returned to her chambers without further spectacle. The Ashfords had given her a guest suite dressed in tapestries and fresh rushes, modest but comfortable enough for royalty. She removed her borrowed cloak and stared at her reflection a moment longer than usual.

“Sofie,” she said at last, voice cool and measured, “bring me some coal.”

When the day of the tourney dawned, the stands brimmed with color. Trumpets sang. Knights rode past in bright surcoats, lances upright like a forest of spears.

She was meant to sit beside her brothers in the royal pavilion—silk canopy overhead, guards at either side, all eyes turned dutifully toward her.

Instead, she moved through the lower stands, blending among farmers and tradesmen until she found what she sought: a gleaming bald head and the same towering man seated beside it.

She situated herself next to them.

The giant man was mid-sentence, speaking low to Aegon, who listened with an attentiveness rarely shown to maesters.

“Are you a knight as well, ser?” she asked lightly.

The man startled, nearly rising from his seat. “Y—yes. I am.”

His voice was deep, hesitant. Up close he seemed even larger—hands rough, shoulders immense.

She tilted her head. “And that is your squire?” She indicated the boy beside him with deliberate innocence.

“You could say so…” he answered, glancing down uncertainly.

She allowed herself a soft laugh.

Aegon froze.

He turned slowly, dread dawning in his eyes.

“Aunt!?!”

The knight blinked between them. “Aunt…?”

She reached up and pushed back her hood. Raven-dark hair spilled free, catching the sunlight. “Yes,” she said pleasantly. “I am. What happened to your hair, boy?”

“I cut it off”

“And you must be…?” She sighed before turning to the man.

“Dunk,” he said quickly, then corrected himself. “Ser Duncan the Tall.”

There was nothing false in him. His embarrassment was almost painful to witness.

“Good morrow, Ser Duncan the Tall,” she replied, offering him a smile warm enough to steady him, though mischief lingered at its edges.

Then she turned her gaze to her nephew.

“And you,” she said, voice sharpening just a touch, “clever stableboy—vanishing without a word?”

Aegon scratched at his smooth scalp, suddenly fascinated by the dirt beneath his boots. “I did leave a message,” he mumbled. “Sort of. While you were asleep. Your room was easiest to sneak into.”

She stared at him.

“Dumbass,” she said softly, though the relief in her eyes betrayed her. “I was worried sick!”

He winced.

Her attention shifted back to Duncan. “And you,” she added more gently, “have been saddled with him, I fear. I hope he has not proven too much trouble.”

Ser Duncan straightened at once. “No—” He caught himself, unsure whether to speak her title among commoners. “He’s no trouble.”

His eyes caught hers—clear blue against uncertain brown. Color climbed slowly into his ears.

“Well,” she said lightly, as though unaware of the effect she had, “I trust you will take proper care of him. At least for the present.”

She reached for his hands without hesitation, lifting them between her gloved fingers in a gesture that was half gratitude, half inspection.

Duncan stiffened at the contact. His hands were enormous around hers, roughened by reins and steel. “O-of course,” he managed. “It’s no trouble at all.”

Her lips curved. A soft, knowing sound escaped her before she released him and turned her attention back to the tilting field.

Duncan stared at the lists with heroic determination, though he could feel the heat still burning in his face.

Egg leaned toward him sharply. “No,” he hissed under his breath. “You cannot develop a crush on my aunt. You are entirely outmatched. Apologies in advance. Sorry not sorry!”

He punctuated the warning with a slap to Duncan’s bicep.

Duncan grunted. “Mind your own business.”

“I am minding it. That is precisely the problem.”

Duncan muttered something indistinct and fixed his eyes on the joust as though it had personally offended him.

After prince Aerion stabbed his opponent’s horse’s neck, the crowds went wild, pushing through the barrier.

“Stupid arsehole” she mumbled as the three of them left the field.

By dusk, they found themselves within the sprawling pavilion of Lord Baratheon, where torches guttered against the gathering dark and ale sloshed freely across trestle tables.

At the center of the tent, Lord Lyonel Baratheon—massive and red-faced—was stomping in rhythm to a bawdy tune, his booming voice leading the chorus in verses far too crude for noble company.

The three of them claimed a quieter corner, content with cups of watered wine and pressed fruit juice.

She folded her hands neatly in her lap. “Ser Duncan,” she began with polite interest, “to which house do you owe your service?”

He hesitated only a fraction too long. “I… once squired for Ser Arlan of Pennytree. But I'm a hedge knight now.”

There was pride there, and loss.

She inclined her head in acknowledgment. “Then you ride in the lists?”

“Yes.” His voice steadied. “I mean to.”

She glanced toward Egg. “And this is the mighty squire you have chosen? A bold and fearsome stableboy?”

Egg folded his arms with exaggerated offense.

Duncan chuckled. “He’s sturdy enough. Eats like three boys and runs like five.”

Egg scowled but did not deny it.

The warmth of the moment fractured suddenly.

A crash split the air. Shouting erupted near the center of the tent—harsh, drunken voices colliding. A bench overturned. Someone cursed loudly as fists began to fly.

She turned her head just as the press of bodies shifted violently toward their corner.

Before she could rise, a firm hand closed around her arm.

“Hey—!” she snapped instinctively, wrenching against the grip. “Unhand me, you fuckin’ cunt!”

Duncan had already moved.

He stepped between her and the chaos in a single stride, pulling her sharply behind the shield of his body. His other hand caught Egg by the collar and dragged him back as well.

They did not stop running until the noise of the feast had dulled to a distant roar behind canvas and torchlight.

Only then did she withdraw her arm from Duncan’s grasp.

“My thanks, ser,” she said, smoothing the crease in her sleeve as though nothing at all had occurred.

Duncan inclined his head, still slightly breathless. Egg looked between them, suspicious and knowing all at once.

She offered them both a brief nod and then turned away, vanishing back toward the Ashfords’ towers where torchlight burned steady against the stone.

Within her chamber, the disguise was shed. She dressed again in Targaryen red and black, the fabric falling in sharp, deliberate lines. The coal had done its work well—her hair now dark as a raven’s wing, the pale silver hidden entirely.

By the time she stepped into the corridor, she was once more every inch a princess. And promptly wished she were not.

At the far end of the hallway stood Aerion, leaning with theatrical leisure against a carved pillar. His smile was sharp enough to cut.

She lowered her gaze at once and exhaled quietly, praying to every merciful god that he might, for once in his life, fail to notice her.

“Ah!” His voice rang down the corridor. “Is that not my favourite aunt?”

“As if I am not your only aunt, stupid.” She silently cursed.

She turned with a radiant, entirely fabricated smile.

“Why, nephew,” she exclaimed brightly, “you look fantastic!” She took two steps closer, examining him with exaggerated admiration.

“With a stupid brain after doing such a dishonorable act in front of the biggest crowds you can find!”

His smirk did not falter. “’Tis merely an accident.”

“Accident my arse,” she snapped, already turning on her heel and striding in the opposite direction.

He fell into step beside her easily, longer legs erasing the distance in seconds.

“What the fuck happened to your hair?” he demanded, eyes narrowing.

She shrugged, not breaking stride. “A magical witch poisoned me with a hair colour-changing potion.”

“Well did she or did she put a fucking dreaming potion in your food because you are blabbering fucking nonsense,” he sneered.

She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Whatever.”

There was a beat of silence before he spoke again.

“You want to go out for some fresh air, favourite aunt?”

She shot him a look sharp enough to flay skin. “If you won’t fucking embarrass me or the royal family by killing off someone just because your teenage hormone levels skyrocketed for some reason, sure.”

Aerion threw his head back and laughed, the sound echoing against the stone.

“Perhaps I will, perhaps I will not, and that’s a deal.”

Before she could sidestep him, he slung an arm around her shoulders and dragged her forward down the corridor with infuriating ease.

“Let go of me, you stink of shit,” she groaned, shoving uselessly at his side.

He only laughed harder, hauling her along as though she weighed nothing at all, their bickering voices trailing through the torchlit halls like sparks waiting for dry tinder.

Night had settled fully by the time they stepped beyond the castle walls. The tourney grounds glowed beneath scattered torches, canvas tents rising like pale ghosts against the dark. Laughter drifted between them, mingled with the scent of roasted meat and spilled ale.

As they passed, smallfolk noticed Aerion at once—his bright silver hair unmistakable even in low light. Some bowed hastily, heads nearly touching the dirt. Others lowered their eyes and turned away altogether.

She noticed that.

They approached a particularly large tent, its entrance flung open to reveal a roaring crowd within. Cheers thundered from inside.

Aerion slowed, peering through the parted canvas.

“What now,” she muttered under her breath.

Inside stood a massive manmade dragon—painted scales, jointed wings, a grotesque wooden head snapping on hidden hinges. Flames burst from its mouth in a controlled plume, the audience gasping in delight.

Aerion’s lips curled.

He stepped inside.

“A fucking puppet show?” she groaned silently before following him. “You know you can just order actors to the castle and avoid the burden of walking right?” she whispered.

He sneered but said nothing.

They pressed toward the center of the audience. The dragon roared again, fire licking toward the rafters. The main actress—a woman clad in mock armor—drew a gleaming stage sword and charged. With dramatic flair, she plunged it into the dragon’s painted neck.

The beast shrieked theatrically and collapsed in a grand tangle of canvas and wood.

The crowd erupted in applause.

Beside her, Aerion went rigid.

She could feel the tension radiating from him. His jaw tightened. His nostrils flared. He had always fancied himself dragon-born in more than name—had worshipped the lost creatures as though their extinction were a personal slight against him.

His ego is shattered, she realized.

The actress turned and met his stare.

He was already breathing hard.

“You dare to disrespect the sigil of royalty?!” he roared.

Steel flashed. He drew his dagger and lunged for the stage.

The tent dissolved into chaos. Screams split the air. Benches overturned as people shoved toward the exits. The Kingsguard forced their way in almost immediately, white cloaks cutting through the confusion, seizing performers at random.

She grabbed Aerion’s arm. “Stop—”

He tore free effortlessly.

He vaulted onto the stage and seized the actress by the wrist.

A guard, failing to recognize her beneath her cloak and raven-dark hair, grabbed her from behind.

“Let me go now!” she snarled.

Without hesitation, she swung the heavy candelabrum in her hand and struck him across the head. He staggered, cursing, and released her.

A scream rang out from the stage.

Aerion had twisted the actress’ hand violently.

There was a sickening crack.

He fucking broke her finger.

Before she could reach him, a massive figure burst through the tent entrance.

Duncan.

He moved like a storm. One powerful fist connected with Aerion’s jaw, sending him sprawling to the wooden boards.

Damn that’s gallant, she thought despite herself.

Guards rushed in at once, grappling Duncan from behind. He kicked out once more—his boot catching Aerion square in the mouth—before he was dragged down and pinned.

Aerion rose slowly, wiping blood from his lip. He spat red onto the stage. He started his mighty speech.

“You loosened one of my teeth,” he said coldly, advancing. “So we’ll start by breaking out all of yours.”

The guards forced Duncan flat against the boards, hands gripping his arms, another pressing his head down. Aerion calmly sat down.

She felt something hot snap inside her.

“Don’t you dare fucking touch him!” she shouted, charging forward with the candelabrum still raised.

Then another voice rang out.

“Hey! Don’t hurt him!”

Egg.

He burst through the crowd, breathless, eyes wide.

Aerion turned sharply. She lowered the candelabrum instinctively.

“You stupid boy, shut up or they’ll hurt you! And you, milady, please leave me be!” Duncan shouted, struggling beneath the guards.

“No they won’t dare to! Wake, Yorkel, let go of him!” Aegon commanded, voice suddenly carrying far more authority than his size suggested.

The guards hesitated.

Aerion scoffed, glaring at Egg. “You impudent little rat, what happened to your hair.”

But the tension had shifted. Recognition dawned in the guards’ faces. Hands slowly released Duncan.

The knight pushed himself up, breathing hard, bruised but upright.

She did not wait another moment.

She marched straight to Aerion, seized his ear between her fingers, and twisted sharply.

He yelped.

“You will come with me,” she hissed, dragging him off the stage like a misbehaving child.

As they passed the guard who had grabbed her earlier, she jabbed a finger into his face.

“I will deal with you later, shitty face!”

She did not slow.

Backstage at last, out of immediate view, she released Aerion only to smack the back of his head.

“You stupid cunt!” she snapped. “What in the seven damn gods were you thinking in your brainless mind!”

Aerion huffed, touching his loosened tooth with a wince. “They disrespected the dragons, fucking treason! They fucking deserve to be dead by now! And that fucking rat—”

“Karma’s a bitch, isn’t it?” she shot back. “You are a prince yet you act like a hormonal lad! I just want to scratch your damn face off!"

Before Aerion could retaliate, another presence entered the tent.

Baelor.

Calm. Composed. Radiating quiet authority.

He surveyed the wreckage, the frightened performers, the restrained knight.

His voice was even when he spoke. Duncan was to be taken to the dungeon.

She stood rigid as Duncan was led away, jaw tight, the scent of smoke and blood still clinging to the air.

Next part

The night didn't get better when it came time to share a bed. If it had been up to Jacaerys, it would never have touched you, but Corlys Velaryon knew him well, so part of the council was present to witness the marriage being consummated. It did not matter that Jacaerys protected your body with his and the sheets or how much he tried to make it easy and pleasurable for you. It was humiliating and it was horrible, as soon as the council left the chambers Jacaerys joined in your silent crying.

When Jacaerys thought his guilt couldn’t get any worse, you got pregnant. The entire council was happy because the king would finally have an heir, but he felt sick seeing how miserable you looked. At least, before you would leave your chambers and occasionally he could see you smile—never at him, of course, always at Jaehaera—now you spent all your time in bed as if you had no energy for anything else. Sometimes Jacaerys would come to feed you and read you some book he remembered you liked in your youth. Your ladies took care of cleaning you and feeding you, on the days the king couldn’t come to eat with you because he had a meeting or was busy.

Jaehaera's cries got worse because you weren't comforting her anymore, you weren't talking to her anymore. And more than once Jacaerys thought about ending it all, giving you the moon tea himself so that your body would rid itself of the creature that caused so much misery. He preferred things to be the way they were before even though you barely tolerated it.

But the kingdom and the throne were more important, he needed an heir. If Aegon's prophecy was true then from his blood would come the prince that was promised.

Jacaerys prayed that you would have a child so he would never have to touch you again and make you suffer again. If the council asked for a replacement he would say it would be Aegon, his brother. He couldn't bear to see you pregnant again, he didn't want to see you so isolated from the world ever again, he didn't want the only thing you did was cry, that the only thing you seemed to feel was pain and sadness. He hoped that once you gave birth and were free of the creature, things would get better.

But he had to have been more specific in his prayers, he had to have asked the gods that the child would look like him because when he held his son in his arms for the first time all he saw was Jaehaerys.

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