Lt. Ghostkeeper

My safe space for reposting my favorite fandoms and emotional aesthetics.

[osarina]

YOU KNOW IT'S NOT THE SAME

FEATURING: Jacaerys Velaryon x fem!reader, minor Aegon II Targaryen x fem!reader

SUMMARY: Life changes when you spend years apart from those you care for most, but your love for Jacaerys never does—except his for you does, and not in a way you anticipate. OR, Jace returns to King's Landing after ten years apart, fully intending to steal you from Aegon, and nothing goes according to plan.

WARNINGS: fem!reader. TARGCEST (aunt-nephew, half-sibling). reader is a Targaryen (daughter of Viserys & Aemma)—no physical features are explicitly described (silver hair, purple eyes, etc) BUT it is implied through Jace's insecurity that he does not look like her because he references not looking like "everyone else". forced marriage (reader & Aegon). Reader & Aegon are VERY young when they have their kids (14 & 13 respectively), and reader has some complications/health issues following the birth because she was so young/her body wasn't ready for it. Post-partum depression. Smut. Oral (f!receiving). Jace is very sloppy and very eager and very inexperienced. Overstimulation. Dubcon-ish (not really, but Jace worries in the aftermath that he pressured her). Infidelity (technically—Aegon and reader are both cheating on each other LOL but neither gaf). Jace is wildly unhinged about reader and everybody but reader knows. Codependent relationship. Slight age gap (5 years between reader & Jace)

NOTES: Warning: this is 40k words, please read it anyway, I promise it will be worth it euhuhuhuhhh. ALSO, some of the fic might look as though it's oddly formatted (paragraphs are smushed together when they should be separated) that is because it is formatted oddly—I had to smush together 150 paras so that I could post it all in one post, so unfortunately I feel as though it lost some of the effect </3 but it should still read as I intended. Just know that if you look at it and there are some points where it's like paragraph after paragraph </3 that is not my fault, I had it separated very easily and very readable. Also, I messed up the timeline somehow, suspend thy disbelief, the dance still plays out as its supposed but for some reason it's happening a year earlier LOL. Anyway, love you all! All reblogs & comments are appreciated, especially on this one because 1) it is a lot of writing all at once, and 2) it was literally the most discouraging moment of my life when I tried to post and got an error and had to spend an hour and a half condensing my perfectly structured fic. On that topic, sorry for the lazy description, I fear my heart was not into it after I had to massacre the structure of this fic. If there's any warnings missing, pls let me know and I'll add them!

JACAERYS, 10; READER, 15; 120 AC

Two years have passed, but the ache in your chest has never quite subsided since you parted ways with your sister and her sons.

"How does it feel? That you get to see our sister anddearest nephews again? It has been what? Two years, has it? Are you excited, wife?"

You exhale hard through your nose, turning your face away from Aegon when you see him leaning over the rail trying to make eye contact with you, a shit-eating grin on his face. You do your best to ignore the way your heart sinks at the reminder of the silence you have faced from Dragonstone.

Aegon, naturally, is always quick to rub it in your face. You turn a half-hearted glare onto him when he pointedly shifts back into your field of vision, but you do not even have the energy to snap a snide comment back . Your chest is weak, and your fingers are trembling, nausea eats away at the back of your throat every time you open your mouth. Even just holding yourself upright is an effort—all you want to do is go sit in the captain's cabin, but your pride refuses.

"Leave her alone, Aegon," Aemond says, leaning on the rail of the ship next to you, looking up wistfully as Dreamfyre trills above the ship, spinning in the air before swooping down closer to the water. "Why do you always have something to say?"

Aegon scoffs, folding his arms over his chest as he looks away. "Mind your business, Aemond" he mutters. "I thought she would be pleased to see them again. It is not my fault she remains so sensitive."

Your eye twitches, and a familiar screech cuts through the sea air above.

Every head on deck turns skyward. High above the ship, Zūgaxes circles lazily through the clouds, always close enough to keep you in his line of sight, pale white scales gleaming beneath the afternoon sun as he follows the royal envoy to Driftmark for Lady Laena's funeral. Sunfyre dives after him, always keen on playing chase with the larger dragon, but Zūgaxes is in no mood for fun today, same as you—the moment Sunfyre comes within striking distance, Zūgaxes snaps viciously at his throat, forcing the young dragon to dive away with an indignant shirek, barely avoiding the bite.

"Your dragon is a vicious beast," Aegon mutters, downing another cup of wine, face a bit paler at the sight of his dragon nearly meeting an untimely end at the teeth of yours. "Keep him away from Sunfyre, would you?"

"You wouldn't have to worry about it if you would concern yourself less with your cups and more with my disposition," you reply wearily, rubbing at your temple. "Zūgaxes only takes issue with Sunfyre when I take issue with you."

Aegon looks up at the two dragons, then back at you. "… Right," he replies, clearing his throat and lowering his goblet. "Then I will take care not to bother you today, sister."

"Aegon the Sagacious," you murmur sarcastically, eyes sliding shut as a wave of dizziness hits you.

Beside you, Aegon grins boyishly and agrees, "Aegon the Sensible."

You find yourself smiling, despite how your hand drifts to your chest as your heart flutters weakly. Above you, Zūgaxes makes a noise closer to croon than roar, coming dangerously close to the ship, and Aemond hesitantly looks between the two of you, offering his arm for you to lean on.

You shake your head and say quietly, "I am fine, valonqar."

He stares at you for a moment, unconvinced, but returns his gaze to the sky as Zūgaxes swoops down lower, trying to remain as close to you as he can.

Over a year has passed since the twins' birth, but your body still behaves as though it had happened yesterday. You nearly died giving birth to them—fourteen years old, and the maesters had already begun speaking over your body as though you were no longer there, debating whether to save you or the children when the bleeding refused to stop, ignoring you when you begged them not to let you die. It was your father who stepped in when Aegon fled to the bottom of a flagon, trembling violently at the idea of having to choose between you and the children. The king ordered the maesters to save you first, voice carrying through the chamber with a fury you'd never seen from him before.

Somehow, all three of you had lived, though you reckon death may have been kinder if this is to be your fate. You tire too quickly now, and your hands shake when you hold the children for too long. Some mornings, merely fastening your gown leaves you breathless enough that your ladies insist you sit before attempting the stairs. The maesters tell you that you should be resting every time they catch you up and about, but there is only so much time you can stay abed before you would sooner collapse on the stairs than remain still.

In the beginning, they give you a general range for when they believed your body would return to what it was, but they stopped with that moons ago—you fear that this might be your life now. Even Aegon had stopped arguing with them, no longer laughing when they forbade you from flying or carrying both twins at once.

You hate it. You feel as though you've lost a part of yourself that you do not know how to live without. You have always been up with the sun, running about the castle long after the moon had risen. You were in the yard with Ser Steffon every morning until your hands blistered and your shoulders burned, and in the sky any other given moment, flying recklessly over King's Landing and the Blackwater with Zūgaxes every chance you got. You spent a year with your uncle, Daemon, perfecting your form and skill so that you could be the best—you were determined that one day you would beat him and claim the Valyrian steel sword Dark Sister for yourself.

When the court whispered that you should be gentler or softer, you would toss your hair over your shoulder and laugh, because you were neither gentle nor soft, and anyone who had a problem with it could face blade or dragon—you would be kind enough to give them a choice.

Now, you struggle to leave your bed in the morning and can scarcely make it to the dragonpit, much less climb atop Zūgaxes. There are days you look at yourself through a looking glass and do not recognize the girl staring back at you. Her face is thin, and dark circles linger beneath her eyes that no amount of sleep can erase—there is always a child in her arms and a shakiness to her limbs. She is a wife, a mother, a princess—all of the things the court had wanted her to become.

Yet, you are no longer entirely certain who you are. Somewhere between the wedding feast and the blood-soaked sheets, all of the endless, sleepless nights, you feel as though you lost the girl who spent entire days racing through clouds and challenging knights twice her size simply because she could. The girl once called hāedar and muña, whose greatest worry had been whether Rhaenyra would get upset with you for sneaking Jacaerys more snacks than he ought to have, had slipped through your fingers before you even knew you were losing her.

And no one cared to mourn her besides you. Rhaenyra had not come to your wedding, and Jacaerys had never come to visit. You sent ravens to Laenor asking if you could join him at sea and gifts to Lucerys from Pentoshi merchants who had arrived with the spring, and they had gone unanswered.

When your belly had begun to swell beneath your gowns, and you sent ravens with trembling fingers to tell Rhaenyra that you were scared, you would go to Maester Orwyle, eyes wide with anticipation only for him to give you a disparaging smile as he told you none had arrived for you. When the twins were born and the maestars whispered that the young princess might not survive the night, you cried every night because all you wanted was your sister.

Every morning for the better part of a year, you found yourself glancing toward the skies before you even realized you were doing it, looking for the familiar gold of Syrax or even Vermax's small green wings crossing the Blackwater, but they never came.

At first, you had made excuses for them. Rhaenyra has duties and children to tend to, and Jacaerys is too young to come on his own. But weeks turned to months and months turned to years, and there came a point where no excuse could rid you of the resentment. Because how could they leave you alone when you needed them most? You would never do that to them. Never.

And you had needed them. Not for the wedding—you endured standing beside Aegon in the sept without them after the two of you downed a flagon of wine together—but when the twins came too early, and the world narrowed to blood and pain and fear. You thought your final breath would be spent calling for people who you knew were not there, and the childish part of you had still waited for the doors to burst open anyway.

But every raven had gone unanswered, and every nameday passed without a visit. You wonder if something had happened on Dragonstone—maybe Rhaenyra had wanted to come and could not, maybe Jacaerys still asked after you. Or maybe they had learned to live without you—out of sight, out of mind.

"Driftmark!" the captain shouts from the quarterdeck.

You tense instantly. You do not know if you're ready to see them.

Aemond inches closer to you. "Do you want to come sit in the captain's cabin with Helaena and I, mandia? I become terribly seasick during docking."

You do not think Aemond has ever been seasick before, and concern is plain in his eyes when he glances down at how your fingers tremble on the wood rail. It is more for your sake than his, you realize, but he is courteous enough to allow you a sliver of pride, unlike his brother.

"Aemond the Chivalrous," you say with a small, teasing smile, causing the younger boy to flush when he holds his arm out for you to take.

"Aemond the Gallant," Aegon immediately echoes with a sharp laugh, mocking to your sincerity. "You will be a fine knight, if not dragonrider, dearest brother."

Aemond immediately scowls, gaze dropping to the ground, shoulders hunching slightly. You squeeze his arm lightly and say, "Do not listen to him. I fear a fish has more sense than he does. You will bond with a dragon one day, Aemond, that I have no doubt." He gives you a small smile as he looks up at you, but his violet eyes are still riddled with insecurity. You promptly change the subject and ask, "Did Helaena find the spiders she was looking for?"

"There are five," Aemond confirms. "She is trying to determine whether they might be a family."

Aegon makes a noise in the back of his throat, and you know he is rolling his eyes, but he follows the two of you as you make your way across the deck, hovering at your other arm in case you lose your balance.

Your teeth grind in frustration again. Once upon a time, you would have bounded across the deck three steps ahead of them, laughing when the ship lurched beneath your feet and Aegon lost his balance. Now, Aemond shortens his stride without comment, pretending not to notice when your hand tightens around his arm after a particularly rough swell, and Aegon tosses his cup to nearby servant so that he can catch you in case your legs give out.

Just as you reach the captain's cabin, the ship's bell sounds overhead. A voice calls, "Prepare for docking!"

Your step falters, gaze slipping to the side to settle on the pale stone of High Tide in the near distance. You see Syrax on the hill, golden head lifting when she notices Zūgaxes soaring above the royal envoy—she lets out a familiar trill, but he does not echo it the way he used to, the dread you feel undoubtedly weighing on him as heavily as it does you.

Somewhere on the island is Rhaenyra, Jacaerys, Lucerys, and Joffrey. You have spent two years imagining this moment. You have practiced what you would say in mirrors and anticipated every excuse you would be given for their absence, but somehow, none of it had prepared you for how much it would hurt.

————————————

You have always associated your sister's smile with warmth. Before she left for Dragonstone, seeing her smile could be the difference between a ruined day and a perfect one. It chased away every lingering stare from the court and soothed every anxiety faced. It reminded you that for all the loneliness of the Red Keep, you would always have her.

You're not sure what you expected, you think later, long after the services for Lady Laena had ended, and you are sitting in the chambers Princess Rhaenys and Lord Corlys had set up for you and Aegon as the sun sets across the sea. Your half-brother is nowhere to be found—likely drunk in a ditch or in some whore's bed—you do not care either way. You are happy to be alone, so that you may finally let yourself feel whatever it is you have been holding at bay all day.

Rhaenyra smiled at you when she saw you step off the ship beside Aegon, and you felt nothing.

You had imagined this reunion a thousand different ways over the past two years. You would throw yourself into Rhaenyra's arms, laughing as Jacaerys threw himself into yours, and you would shout at her until your voice gave out. You planned all of the angry questions: why did you never come, why did you never write, why did she let you face your wedding, pregnancy, and labor all alone? Why, why, why?

But you had only smiled faintly at her back and turned your gaze away.

You could feel her occasionally watching you throughout the services—gaze pinned on you, red and black in a sea of green and gold, the twins, the handmaidens that tend to you whenever your body weakens. The longer she stares, the more frustrated you become. Does she not even care to ask how you've been? To learn the twins' names? What had you done to make her so cold?

As difficult as it was ignoring her, ignoring Jacaerys was harder. You forced Aegon to run interference through use of threat of Zūgaxes to Sunfyre, but it was clear that the boy was angry with you. Every time you looked over at him, he was already glaring at you. His brows were drawn together in a furious scowl that you've only ever seen reserved for Ser Criston, and the moment your eyes met, he would raise his chin until you looked away. It was a far cry from the open adoration that you had become used to years ago.

You do not understand it. You had been the one abandoned and ignored. You were the one who had waited for people who never came.

There is a knock at your door, drawing you from your thoughts. You tense, glancing over to where the twins had only just fallen asleep after hours of wailing, but they do not stir.

"Come in," you call, uncertain of who it might be—Aemond or Helaena, you wager, because Aegon does not knock when he barges in.

Your gaze lifts to as the door creaks open, and you falter when you recognize Rhaenyra. You inhale deeply, shifting to sit up straight on the settee as you say quietly, "Sister."

Rhaenyra hesitates before she motions toward the cushions next to you. "May I?"

You almost tell her no. You stare at her so long that you see her visibly falter, looking uncertainly between you and the door as she considers taking her leave. Before she can, your gaze drops and you nod.

When she sits down next to you, she sits close enough that you can smell the faint scent of vanilla in her hair. Your heart aches—you have missed her. You have missed all of them—her and Laenor and Jacaerys and Lucerys—being near enough again to inhale the familiar scent of her hair oils only serves to make that longing worse.

She reaches for your hands, and you let her hold them.

"I…" Rhaenyra hesitates as she gathers her thoughts. "I confess, I have prepared many times what I would say to you when we met again, but I find myself at a loss anyway. I have missed you, sweet girl. I had… been under the impression that our father would wait to wed you and Aegon until your sixteenth nameday. I did not think—"

She cuts herself off abruptly, grimacing as she looks away.

You stare down at your joined hands, trying to push away the hope that rises, because how does this explain anything? A royal wedding is no trivial affair, and she expects you to believe that word did not reach Dragonstone that the King's secondborn daughter and firstborn son had wed? She expects you to believe that word did not reach Dragonstone when you gave Aegon a son and a daughter? That she did not receive any of your ravens?

It's nonsensical. She had to have known.

"I sent ravens," you say, voice clipped. "Dozens of them. More. I was alone, and I did not know what to do, and I—"

I needed you, you do not say—you do not need to say, because Rhaenyra's expression instantly drops as she shifts closer to you. She does not hesitate now when she moves to pull you into her arms, cradling the back of your head so that you can press your face into the crook of her neck.

You tell yourself that you want to remain strong—you want to question her, you want real answers, not excuses—but the next breath you take in breaks over a sob, fingers twisting into the red velvet of her dress as you sink into her familiar warmth.

"I did not receive them," Rhaenyra whispers, pressing her lips to the top of your head. "Hāedar, I would have come. I would have come in an instant, had I known."

You tremble in her arms—you have had your half-siblings over the last two years, but it is not the same. There is always a degree of distance between you and them because of Queen Alicent; they are not the woman who raised you, who snuck you snacks when you were sad and shielded you from the cruelty of the court. That was always Rhaenyra, and two years without Rhaenyra—

"I do not believe you," you rasp. "You had to have known. I do not believe you. I—"

"I knew you had wed," she admits, stroking your back and your hair. For the first time in two years, you feel as though all of the weight that has been bearing down on you lifts from your shoulders. You are hāedar, muña, the girl you thought dead in place of a mother and wife. "By the time word reached Dragonstone, weeks had already passed. I was furious with father. I wrote to you that very night. Then another raven after a week had passed. Then another." She shakes her head. "When none returned, I thought… I wondered if perhaps you blamed me. That you no longer wished to hear from me."

Your stomach turns, breath ragged as you press your face harder into her skin. What does she mean? What does she mean that she sent ravens? What does she mean that she only knew after the wedding took place? You sent ravens weeks before the wedding took place.

"I am a fool, sweet girl," Rhaenyra says softly, pulling back to look at you. There are tears spilling over her cheeks, though she does her best to wipe them away before you notice. You suck in a terrible, choked breath, because you know your sister well enough to know that she is not lying to you. "I should have known better. I should have flown to you the moment you did not respond. Someone must have been interfering with the ravens, I—" Her expression twists into one caught between fury and heartbreak. "—I will figure it out. I swear."

"I was so scared, mandia," you dare to say out loud for the first time now that you are back in your sister's arms, lifting your hand to wipe at your eyes messily. "I thought—"

I thought I was going to die, you cannot bring yourself to say, breath hitching as the fear you felt in that blood-soaked bed finally returns. You have pushed it down for months, pretended it did not exist every time your gaze fell upon a maester or septon who was in the room, and suddenly, you were back in that bed, fourteen and crying, drowning in your own blood while strangers tried to convince Aegon that the children's lives were worth more than yours.

"They stopped talking to me," you say, words tumbling out, because now that you have begun, there is no stopping the avalanche of fear you've held in for the last year. "The maesters and the septons—they were all talking over me like I wasn't there anymore. I kept telling them that I didn't want to die, that I wanted someone to send to you, but nobody listened. I thought—I thought maybe it was my fault. That the gods were punishing me."

Rhaenyra pulls back, appalled. "Punishing you? Hāedar—"

"For mother," you whisper. "They cut her open to save me, mandia. I thought perhaps this was the gods' way of making things right. That they had decided a life for a life was only fair. That they would cut me open and I would die the same way."

"Do not ever say that again," Rhaenyra hisses, eyes meeting yours as she holds your hands tight. "Our mother loved you, hāedar. She sang to you while you were a babe in her womb; she could only sleep when she could feel you kicking against her hand. Her death was not your fault. She died because men demanded too much of her—and they demanded too much of you. You were a child, hāedar."

A wail escapes your lips before you can catch it, hand flying to your mouth to smother it—it is an ugly thing, loud and helpless, far from the silent tears and grief you swallowed every morning when you looked at yourself in the mirror. You crumple against Rhaenyra as she gathers you into her lap, like you weigh no more than you did at eight years old. Your fingers twisting in her gown as months of fear, exhaustion, loneliness, and resentment pour out of you all at once.

"I didn't want to die, and I didn't want to get married, and I didn't want to have children. I thought of you every day. I wanted to go to you, I tried, but I couldn't—I can't—"

Your words dissolve into another cry. Rhaenyra holds you for a long, long time—until your eyes start drooping and the wails turn to sniffles and even the sniffles fade to silence. She holds you still after you've calmed, lips pressed to the top of your head, humming the old lullaby she used to sing when you were a babe plagued with nightmares.

Your eyes linger on the cradles across the room. You have never sung to them.

"I hate them sometimes," you whisper after a few moments of silence pass, voicing the wretched words aloud for the first time now that you are safe in your sister's arms. "It is not natural that a mother should hate her children, I should think."

You regret them as soon as they've left your mouth, heart pounding and fingers shaking as you stare at where they are lying in their cradles, fast asleep, ignorant to the words their own mother has just spoken.

"Hāedar…" you hear your sister start to murmur, and you rush to continue, filled with shame.

"I do," you insist, shaking your head violently. "Sometimes I do. When they cry and cry, and my chest hurts so much I cannot even lift them without my arms shaking… when I wake and my whole body aches before I have even opened my eyes. I look at them, and I hate them."

The words taste sour.

"I hate that they took everything from me," you continue, voice breaking. " I look at them, and all I can think is that I used to be someone else."

You do not dare to look at your sister. You rub your face hard, trying to rid yourself of your tears.

"And then they laugh or reach for me, and they are so tiny, and they never wanted me to suffer." You curl into yourself, voice barely audible. "They deserve a better mother. There is something wrong with me, I think."

You almost expect Rhaenyra recoil, but she only gathers you close, tucking your head under her chin as she strokes your hair.

"You are too hard on yourself, sweet girl," Rhaenyra asks quietly. "All I hear is a little girl who was made a wife before she understood what marriage was, and a mother before she had finished being a child herself. It is not your fault, hāedar."

"But I should not think those things."

"You should not have been put in a position where you could."

"I wanted to love them immediately," you whisper. "The way you loved Jacaerys, but I—"

There is a loud noise from right outside your room, startling the both of you. Rhaenyra immediately stiffens, rising to her feet to stand between you and whoever is there.

She demands, "Who is there? Show yourself?"

The door creaks open, and Jacaerys stands there, tears streaking his round cheeks. He is dressed in his nightgown—your heart sinks. How much did he hear? He must have followed Rhaenyra when he heard her leave their shared chambers to see you.

"I—" he starts to say, voice wobbly. "I wasn't trying to listen, I promise. I—"

He is lying. His nose bunches and he cannot hold your gaze, the same he has always acted every time he tried to get away with a lie. When neither of you reply, Rhaenyra's brows knit together in disappointment and your lips parted in anxiety, Jacaerys shifts uncomfortably on his feet, looking between the two of you desperately before his gaze lands on you, brown eyes big and pleading.

"Nobody told me," he whispers so quietly you barely hear him. "I didn't know. I—"

The anger that had clouded his face throughout the funeral is gone, and in its place is only fear. The same fear you had seen on his face when he was running to you through the Keep after Ser Criston had struck him, the fear from the day you left for Pentos, and the fear from the morning you were forced to remain in King's Landing while he left for Dragonstone. The anxiety drains from you with haste as you let out a soft breath,

"Mandianna," you murmur, holding your hand out for him.

Jacaerys immediately rushes to you. Before you can say anything else, he drops to his knees in front of you, arms tucked around your legs. Your hands settle on the top of his head, fingers absently toying with his dark curls as he buries his face into your lap.

"I'm sorry!" he sobs. "I thought—you didn't come say hi. I thought you hated me because I broke my promise, and that's why you never wrote me back." His shoulders tremble violently beneath your hands as you smooth circles on them. You look at Rhaenyra desperately for help, but she only gives you a small smile. "I wanted to go back for you. I asked mother all the time when we would come, I promise. I asked and asked, and she always said soon, and then—" He hiccups. "Then it was never soon."

"Jacaerys," you start to say.

"I thought you didn't love me anymore," he continues, looking up at you with watery eyes. "Then I heard you saying you almost died, and I—I wasn't there. I should have been there, muña.

You pull back just enough to cup his cheeks. He presses his nose into your hand, still sniffling as you smile at him. You say quietly, "There is nothing you could've done, mandianna."

"It doesn't matter. You don't know that!" Jacaerys disagrees, eyes welling up with tears again as he looks up at you from the floor. "I could have been there. I could have held your hand. I would have told them to save you—" Your eyes slide shut briefly when you realize he heard everything "—I would have made them listen. I knew Aegon wouldn't take care of you. I knew it."

"Jacaerys—"

"What if you'd died?" he blurts. "What if I'd never seen you again? I was angry with you all day. I didn't even come say hi because I wanted you to be sorry, and—but if you had died—what if you had died thinking I hated you? Or that I broke my promise? Muña, I'm sorry, please forgive me."

You lean down to grab him beneath the arms, ignoring the way your whole body aches and screams for you to put him down so that you lift him up to sit him on your lap before he can spiral any further. You wrap both arms tightly around him as he collapses into you. He clings to you desperately, fingers twisting into your gown, face pressed to the crook of your neck, the same way you were with Rhaenyra just moments before.

"I'm right here," you tell him. "It's okay. There's nothing to forgive."

Slowly, his breathing starts to even out. "I don't want you to die," he says at last, sniffling still. "Please don't die, muña."

You laugh lightly and say, "I do not intend to, Jacaerys. Not for a very long time, if I can help it."

Jacaerys sniffles one last time, the tension gradually leaving his small frame as he melts into you. For a long moment, the room is quiet save for the crackling and occasional hitch of his breath, your fingers combing through his hair automatically, just as they had done countless evening before the world ever came between you.

Then, there is a soft cry from the opposite side of the room, and all three of you look toward the far side of the chamber. Jacaerys startles, as though he has just remembered the twins are there at all, and Rhaenyra cannot help the curiosity that slips onto her face as she looks in the direction of the cradles.

"Would you want to… meet them?" you ask hesitantly after a moment, looking between Jacaerys and Rhaenyra.

Jacaerys wipes hastily at his eyes with the heel of his sleeve before nodding frantically. Rhaenyra gives you a soft smile, reaching out to cradle your face briefly as she says, "Of course, hāedar."

You rise to your feet a little unsteadily, feeling a little faint from lifting Jacaerys onto your lap. Before you can take a step, both Rhaenyra and Jacaerys reach for you at the same time.

You tell them with a strained smile, "I'm all right."

Jacaerys's brows furrow as he insists that you hold his arm anyway, so you indulge him, crossing the room carefully with the two of them. You stop beside the cradles and stare down—for the first time since giving birth to them, you are not immediately filled with that familiar knot of dread and guilt.

"This is Maegelle," you say, brushing your fingers against the girl's face, watching as she reaches for your hand on instinct. She is quiet, unlike her brother, who is always babbling one thing or another unless he is asleep, and even then, sometimes. "And this is—"

His name catches in your throat, and your smile falters. Rhaenyra notices, casting you a concerned look.

"Maegor," you say at last, quieter, not daring to look at their reactions to your chosen name for your son.

The name feels different now than it had a year ago. You insisted upon it while still confined to your bed, too weak to sit upright for more than a few moments. Aegon had gone missing after they demanded he choose between you and them, so the choice of name was left to you. The septons had balked immediately, muttering that it was an ill-omened name, cursed by history. Alicent and Otto had looked scandalized. Even your father was surprised, eyes widening in confusion.

But you had not cared—not then, at least. The decision had been born of pure, childish spite—a tiny act of rebellion from a girl who had been denied every greater one. At the time, it had felt like the only decision in your life that had truly belonged to you in a long time, because you had looked them in the eye and, for the first time since your wedding, felt something other than fear and anxiety.

But looking at your son now, asleep and blissfully unaware of the burden his name carried, you feel only regret. You have cursed him to the same fate you have spent your life suffering—the same fate you have tried to shield Jacaerys from—with a single, stupid decision.

Rhaenyra seems to understand, because she always does. She gives you a small smile, leaning down to ghost her lips against your head. She says softly, "It is a strong name. We need not let one man own it forever."

"They are very tiny still," Jacaerys declares. There is an odd expression on his face as he reaches out to touch Maegor's silvery hair—he gnaws at his bottom lip and looks away uncertainly, pulling his hand away. "They are not as fussy as Joff was."

You laugh. "Give it a few hours," you tell him. "When they decide they would rather scream than sleep, you may change your mind."

"Can I help tomorrow? If they're awake?" Jacaerys asks, brown eyes wide and searching as he looks up at you. "Please." When your lips part to tell him to ask you properly on instinct, he corrects hastily, "Kostilus. Kostilus, kostagon nyke dohaeragon?"

Please. Please can I help?

"You've been practicing," you praise, smiling when he preens at the acknowledgment. "I'd like that very much, mandianna."

Rhaenyra watches the two of you for a long moment before she brushes a kiss against your brow, then another atop Jacaerys's curls.

"It grows late," she murmurs. "Lucerys is undoubtedly searching every corridor for his brother by now… Though, I suspect he may not be finding him tonight, so I should go find him."

Jacaerys looks up hopefully.

"May I stay?" he pleads before turning to you. "I'll be quiet, I promise, and I'll help if the twins wake, and I won't steal all your blankets. Maybe some of them."

"Of course, you can stay, silly boy," you murmur.

Jacaerys's face lights up in delight as he turns a questioning look on his mother, who smiles and inclines her head in approval.

"Sleep well, both of you. In the morning, we shall settle this mystery of the missing ravens."

————————————

It is still night when you wake up, and Jacaerys is gone.

One of your ladies in waiting, Lady Melynda Darklyn, sits near the cradles of the twins. She has always been the most dutiful of your companions, checking in when the moon is high to see if the twins are comfortable so that you might get a full night's rest. You push yourself out of bed, ignoring the weakness in your chest, so that you can make your way over to her.

She catches the movement from the corner of her eye and rises to her feet. "Princess," she says, taking a step in your direction and holding out her arm to you, but you hold your hand up to signal for her to stay seated.

"Melynda, did you see Jacaerys?" you ask, an uncertain feeling weighing on you as you glance back at your bed. Jacaerys is a horribly heavy sleeper—you'd once joked to Rhaenyra that the boy could sleep through Doom if given the chance. He has always slept later than you, and you doubt that he has suddenly become a light sleeper after two years apart. "He was spending the night in here."

Melynda shakes her head. "No, princess. Would you like for me to send someone to go search for him?"

"No," you reply immediately, lips pressed together as your gaze sweeps over the large room one last time. "Would you stay with the twins, please?"

"Of course,," Melynda tells you, unable to push the concern from her face when she sees how your hand instinctively lifts your chest when you move toward the door, but she knows better than to push when you have your mind set on doing something yourself. "Be careful, princess. It sounded like there was a bit of a commotion coming from the Hall of Nine."

You glance at her over your shoulder, brows furrowed slightly, but then you nod in thanks before pushing the heavy door open to your chambers to step out into the cool hall. Ser Steffon, Melynda's brother and your sworn sword, is nowhere to be found.

You reach back into your room to grab your cloak, sliding it over the nightslip you wear to make yourself presentable before you make your way down the winding hall in the direction of the Hall of Nine. Your body is always weakest before dawn. The maesters say it is because you do not sleep enough—if you remained in bed more and gave your body more time to heal, the weakness would ease—but you have stopped believing them. You have given yourself moons of rest and nothing has changed. You cannot remain abed forever.

By the time you reach the first flight of stairs, your legs are already trembling. You pause long enough to steady yourself against the cold stone wall before continuing onward down to the main level of the castle.

As you round the final corner leading toward the Hall of Nine, you finally hear the commotion Melynda had mentioned.

"He attacked Baela!" / "He broke Luke's nose!" / "They attacked me!" / "He stole my mother's dragon!" / "Enough." / "He was going to kill Jace!" / "I didn't do anything!" / "Enough!" / "It should be my son telling the tale!" / "He called us—"

"Silence!"

"What happened?" you ask quietly when you see Daemon leaning against the door, looking into the Hall of Nine. He tilts his head to the side to look at you, gaze slipping over the cloak you tugged around yourself and the weakness plain on your face. He holds his arm out to you silently, beckoning for you to lean on it; you exhale through your nose as you do so gratefully. "Do you know?"

"It appears your nephews and my daughters have taken the eye of your dearest half-brother," Daemon says flippantly.

You shoot him a wide-eyed look, unsure if you heard him properly, but Daemon only nods in the direction of where Aemond is being tended to by a maester. Your stomach drops at the sight of the stitches running through his eye, and your gaze cuts over to where Jacaerys and Lucerys are standing with their mother, blood running down both of their faces—Baela and Rhaena, too, curled into the dress of Princess Rhaenys. What has happened?

"—legitimacy of my sons' birth was put loudly to question," you hear Rhaenyra say as you focus back on the conversation at hand instead of the blood spilled.

Beside you, Daemon straightens slightly, and your own eyes widen, breath catching as you look from Aemond to Rhaenyra to Jacaerys. Aemond raises his chin as he stares at Rhaenyra and her sons, and Rhaenyra—she looks cornered. Alone. She knows that by voicing this, she will be doing something irreversible, but what choice does she have when faced with a half-brother who has lost an eye and accusations of murder being cast toward Jacaerys and Lucerys? You make a move as though to step forward, but Daemon stops you, shaking his head slightly.

Your father is the first to speak up. "What?" he demands.

Suddenly, all of the fears that have been festering in your gut since you were a child and first realized the whispers of the court had turned on your nephews resurface with a vengeance.

This is what you have feared, this is what you have dreaded—the whispers are about to be given life, and once they are given life, there is no returning to how it had once been. The accusations will haunt Jacaerys, Lucerys, and Joffrey for as long as they live and more.

"He called us bastards," Jacaerys says at his mother's shoulder, voice small, expression twisted. He tries to stand tall under the eyes of everyone in the room, but he cannot help the way he shrinks back slightly when the tension in the room triples after the word is spoken.

And Aemond—Aemond, who has walked you back to your chambers every night since the twins were born because he worried you would grow faint on the stairs, who spends entire afternoons searching the gardens for strange spiders because Helaena smiles whenever he finds one, who has sat beside Maegor's cradle reading aloud from histories he knows the babe cannot possibly understand because you were too exhausted to keep your eyes open—smirks as it is said.

He does not know better, you tell yourself, swallowing thickly. He has consumed his mother's poison like milk. He is only reiterating the filth she spews.

You know that your half-siblings dislike Rhaenyra and her sons. You know that Alicent has spent years cultivating that resentment, just as Otto Hightower has spent years whispering in your father's ear. But this is not childish spite—to openly accuse the crown princess's son of bastardy is to accuse her of treason, it is to declare that the heirs to the Iron Throne are no heirs at all.

To speak such a thing before the king—you know your father has spent years turning a blind eye to what the rest of the court knew as truth, but if push came to shove and he was forced to choose between throwing the Realm into chaos by upholding the lie or condemning his grandchildren, you do not know what he would choose.

And if he should choose to protect the realm, Rhaenyra, Jacaerys, Lucerys, and Joffrey could all lose far more than just their names—they could lose their heads.

"My sons are in line to inherit the Iron Throne, your grace," your sister says, stepping forward in the direction of your father. "This is the highest of treason. Prince Aemond must be sharply questioned so we might learn where he heard such slanders."

Your eyes widen, gaze flicking over to Aemond, who instantly shrinks at the order, looking wildly between his mother, his father, and Rhaenyra. You feel sick to your stomach, fingers tightening on Daemon's arm.

Alicent scoffs, staring at Rhaenyra in disbelief. "Over an insult?" Alicent breathes out. "My son has lost an eye."

The king turns on Aemond and says, "You tell me, boy, where did you hear this lie?"

You feel light in the head again, all of a sudden. It is always worst before dawn, and worse still when you are under stress. Your hand instinctively finds your chest, eyes sliding shut—not here, not now.

Not while Aemond is shrinking in his seat as his father's demands. Not while Jacaerys stands trembling beside his mother with blood dripping down the side of his face. Not while Lucerys cannot breathe properly with a broken nose and tears in his eyes. Not while Rhaenyra stands alone before the king and queen, forced to defend her sons against accusations that could have them all hanged.

You force yourself to breathe slowly, but the room sways. Daemon's gaze cuts back down toward you, hand settling more firmly beneath your elbow.

"Easy," he mutters. "Not now."

As though you do not already know that, you think viciously and shoot him a look in kind that only serves to amuse him. If you could control when your body was weak, you would never be weak at all.

Your eyes turn back to Jacaerys—he is almost as tall as Rhaenyra's shoulders now, but he still looks so small. Only hours ago, he had buried his face into your lap, crying because he thought he had lost you, and now he stands before his grandsire, the king, trying to hold himself strong because he knows what is at stake. Lucerys does not understand the way Jacaerys does, but he knocks his shoulder against Jacaerys's anyway.

"—Aegon!" Viserys shouts, and your gaze lifts again to your half-brother, your husband, the father of your children, as he flinches under your father's demands. "Tell me the truth of it!"

Aegon does not reply right away, staring ahead blankly as though he is not sure what to say. His gaze lifts, meeting yours briefly, and you shake your head slightly, warning him. Do not do it. Do not say what I know you are about to say.

Aegon swallows and looks away, and then he says exactly what you fear: "We know, father. Everyone knows. Just look at them."

Your heart sinks, eyes sliding shut. You hear Daemon let out a breath through his nose just as you let out a trembling one through your mouth. Ten years you have dreaded the day that these words were given voice and life, and it is Aegon who has condemned them.

Your father shouts, but it is terribly muffled—garbled words spoken beneath water. Your pulse pounds, deafening in your ear, and your head aches. The air that reaches your lungs is shallow, not nearly enough to give you what you need to breathe. Your hand creeps up to your chest again—not now, not now, not now.

"—but I cannot restore his eye."

"No, because it has been taken," Alicent says desperately, taking a step toward your father.

"What would you have me do?"

"There is a debt to be paid," she insists, and you find yourself stiffening before you even truly understand what she is saying. Beside you, Daemon straightens, hand dropping to the sword at his side. "I shall have one of her son's eyes in return."

"Is she mad?" you breathe out as the hall erupts into murmurs. You see Rhaenyra push Lucerys behind her, and Jacaerys presses into her shoulder, looking between her and the king and queen uncertainly. "Do something, kepa."

Uncle.

"Not yet," Daemon murmurs, watching the scene carefully, gaze much sharper now.

"Ser Criston," Alicent says, gaze lifting to the knight standing on the opposite side of the room—far too close to Rhaenyra and the boys. You brush Daemon's hand off your arm, alarm subsuming all weakness as you take half a step forward. "Bring me the eye of Lucerys Velaryon."

For a heartbeat, no one moves, because the words seem too monstrous to belong in the same room as children, and then Lucerys lets out a frightened noise in the back of her throat

"Mother," Lucerys cries, scrambling behind Rhaenyra so quickly he nearly trips over his own feet. His small hands fist desperately in the back of her gown as he peeks around her, face drained of all color. Fresh blood stains his doublet where it had run from his broken nose, and now his whole body is shaking.

Jacaerys's eyes are wide as he looks between his mother and Alicent, reaching out to grab Lucerys's hand despite the fear plain in his eyes, and Lord Corlys is there an instant later, pulling Lucerys further behind him, placing himself between the boys and Ser Criston.

"He can choose which eye to keep," Alicent continues, voice breaking with grief and fury alike, "a privilege he did not grant my son."

She cannot mean this, you think desperately. She cannot.

"You will do no such thing," Rhaenyra hisses, voice cold, one hand instinctively reaching for Lucerys until she realizes Corlys has him safely tucked behind him while the other shields Jacaerys.

"Stay your hand," Viserys orders.

"No! You are sworn to me," Alicent says desperately.

For one terrible moment, you cannot tell whether the man standing across the hall is weighing the Queen's command or the King's.

"He is sworn to the blood of the dragon," you say, finally making your presence known, grateful that your voice is louder and stronger than you thought yourself capable of in this state. You step closer to the center of the room, halfway between your sister and the queen. "To protect and serve. To obey the King before all others. It is curious, however, how readily you expect him to forget his oath in favor of your… whims. It does make one wonder whether there is some precedent in place that leads you to believe that a sworn brother of the Kingsguard would draw his blade on a prince of the blood in the presence of his king at your behest. Does Ser Criston often set aside his vows whenever Your Grace asks it of him?"

The hall silences at the implication of your question, but you stand unrepentant, raising your chin and staring at Alicent, who lets out a disbelieving scoff as she looks over you. Daemon makes a noise in the back of his throat—a laugh, you think—as he peels off the wall to pace closer to Rhaenyra, positioning himself in line of Ser Criston.

"Muña!" Jacaerys gasps, moving to take a step in your direction, but Rhaenyra stops him from leaving out from behind her.

"Take care with your tongue, daughter," Alicent says after a moment.

"Gladly," you reply evenly. "As soon as your grace takes care with her commands."

"Enough," your father snaps at you, looking thoroughly exhausted. You press your lips together and look away, trying desperately not to roll your eyes. "Do not make this worse than it already is."

How does he not see what is plain before his eyes? It is Alicent who poisoned the ears of your half-siblings. Alicent, who has caused this terrible divide. Alicent, Alicent, Alicent. But your father proves blind to her true nature every day that passes.

There is a long moment where you think that perhaps that will be the end of it. You have made your bold commentary, and maybe it is enough to pull the attention off of the boys for the time being—you will suffer for it, surely, when you return to King's Landing alone, because your place is with Aegon now, whether you like it or not, but you would suffer endlessly if it spared Rhaenyra's boys even a little more time.

Then, Alicent says, "Then I will do it myself."

Your eyes widen, turning too slow as Alicent darts forward, pulling the Valyrian steel dagger from Viserys's hip sheath and lunging in the direction of Rhaenyra and Lucerys. Lucerys's scream tears through the hall. Everything happens at once.

Before you even register what's happening, Rhaenyra darts forward to meet Alicent, eyes wide, moving on sheer instinct to protect her sons. Lord Corlys draws Lucerys back behind him and Princess Rhaenys with Daemon's girls, but Jacaerys tries to run after his mother, shouting for her as he reaches for her arm.

You grab him by the bicep hard, yanking him out of the line of danger and behind you, panic flaring hot and fast in your chest when you see Ser Criston running down from the steps. You force Jacaerys to stay behind you as you put yourself between him and Ser Criston, ignoring the way Jacaerys tries to break free to get to his mother, but Daemon steps forward before the kingsguard can involve himself in the conflict, a smirk on his face as he press his hand to Ser Criston's chest plate and shoves him backward, daring him to draw his sword and give him a reason to draw his own.

Jacaerys clings to your cloak now, adrenaline fading to fear, as he stares at his mother and Alicent, then looks up at you. Blood streams down his face, crusted over his temple and jaw, eyes wide with unshed tears. You lift your hand to wipe the blood from his skin, and he instinctively presses his face into the palm of your hand. You catch the tears that threaten to fall with your thumb before they can, turning his face away so he cannot see as the blade cuts through Rhaenyra's arm.

Jacaerys jerks in your hold as Rhaenyra gasps in pain, and the nobles around scramble away. He tries to move toward her again, but your grip on him tightens.

"Stay," you order, and he immediately stills, eyes wide and throat bobbing as he stares at you helplessly.

You want to tell him that everything will be okay, but there is a terrible look on Rhaenyra's face that you have never seen before as she stares at Alicent, holding her wounded arm, and you have a distinct feeling that things have only just begun.

————————————

"You should have woken me immediately," you tell Jacaerys firmly as you clean the blood from his face. He shrinks at your words. "I mean it, Jacaerys. I'm furious. How could you go out there on your own with your little brother and cousins? What were you thinking?"

"You were so tired, muña," Jacaerys whispers. "I didn't want to wake you. I wanted to take care of it so—"

"And look how that turned out," you say harshly, pinching his cheeks between your hands until he squirms and pouts. "You cannot be so reckless, do you understand? We are lucky that all that happened was—" You cut yourself off from saying what you were about to say, inhaling deeply. "You could have been killed. You, Lucerys, Baela, and Rhaena. You cannot be so reckless. Say you understand."

Jacaerys's throat bobs as his gaze drops down to your lap. He says quietly "I understand."

You let out a huff, hardly satisfied, but you busy yourself with wetting the warm rag and patting it lightly to his temple instead, grimacing at the blood still dripping from the shallow head wound.

"He's right, isn't he?" Jacaerys says after a few moments, shoulders hunched. "I'm a bastard. I'm Harwin Strong's son, not Laenor's."

You sigh, eyes sliding shut. Your head aches too much to have this conversation with him. The exhaustion of lack of sleep and the excitement in the Hall of Nine weigh your body down terribly. You say tiredly, "Jacaerys—"

"I know it is true," Jacaerys interrupts, voice small. "It is obvious, like Aegon said. I have known for a while, I think. Since we left King's Landing. Luke didn't know yet. I tried to keep it from him."

You do not answer for a long while, busying yourself with gently wiping away the blood crusted at his temple, because you do not know how to respond. Your heart hurts at the idea of Jacaerys knowing all along but trying to shield Lucerys from the truth—having no one to talk to about any of this because even just referencing it in passing could condemn his little brothers to a terrible fate. He has always tried to take more on his shoulders than he should, no matter how often you and Rhaenyra reminded him he was only just a child. His fingers are trembling in his lap, so you reach out with your free hand to hold his carefully; he immediately latches onto you, nails digging into your skin.

You finally tell him, "It does not matter."

Jacaerys whips toward you, brows pinched and lips pressed together. "How can you say that?" he demands. "You know that isn't true."

"What matters, Jacaerys, is that you are your mother's son. My nephew. You are fire and blood, and one day, the Iron Throne will be yours," you say, grabbing his chin to force him to look at you. "The Realm will whisper that Aegon deserves the throne more than you because his hair is silver and his eyes are purple, and you will prove them wrong just by being as you are."

"But what if being myself is not enough?" he asks quietly. "They will keep whispering, even after I am grown and am king. Even if I've done good. What if one day—"

He does not dare voice the question you know he wants to ask. What if one day steel is drawn? What if one day dragons fly against dragons? What if, what if, what if?

"Then, we will show them what we are," you tell him simply, stroking his jaw with your thumb. "They will learn swiftly that every man who rises against a dragon is burned by one."

"We cannot burn everyone who speaks out against us," Jacaerys says quietly, looking away, shoulders hunched slightly.

"Spoken like a true king," you tease lightly, and then lean in to brush your lips against his forehead. "You cannot, mandianna. A king must know mercy before he knows wrath. He must seek peace before war." A faint smile tugs at your lips. "That is why the gods, in all their wisdom, gave you me."

Jacaerys cannot help the giggle that spills from his lips as he rests his head against your shoulder. Your eyes slide shut as you lift a hand to cradle the side of his face, absently running your fingers through the ends of his hair.

You must get stronger again. The girl who once spent every waking hour in the training yard until her palms bled and fought her father, the king, because she sought to wield a sword like Visenya herself, the one who could remain astride Zūgaxes from dawn to dusk and dreamed of once taking Dark Sister from Daemon's hand, still lives somewhere beneath the exhaustion and aching in your bones. You know it. You felt her today in that hall, after two years of uncertainty.

There is no room for weakness anymore—not when steel has been drawn and you could not draw your own, not when Jacaerys looks to you with frightened eyes and Lucerys screams after being openly threatened and you can do nothing to ease their fear, not when your sister's blood has been shed on the pale floors of Hide Tide and you could not spill blood in kind.

"I will see anyone who should seek to raise hand or blade against you answer for it with their lives," you tell him quietly, pressing your lips to the crown of his head absently as you stare at where the twins lie in their cradles, ignorant of the conflict brewing around them. What would become of them, you wonder, if mother and father stood on opposite sides of a war? "Anyone who threatens my family, my queen, or my future king will learn exactly why our words are fire and blood."

————————————

JACAERYS, 18; READER, 23; 128 AC

When Jace was six years old, his mother knelt before him and told him that his muña is very lonely and sad far more often than she allowed anyone to see, even though she has become exceptionally good at pretending otherwise. She told Jace it takes a very skilled eye to see when you are pretending, and Jace insisted that he knows you well enough to tell. His mother had kissed the top of his head with a fond smile and asked Jace to keep you company and try to make you smile in her place, when she could not be there herself.

He had not fully understood what she meant back then. Now he does, he thinks, looking back on all of the times he had caught you staring out windows with dull expressions before you noticed him looking and forced a smile. But he knew that you needed him and his mother had entrusted him with the important task of making you smile when you are sad, and that was more than enough.

Jace had taken that responsibility very, very seriously. From that day forward, every frown became an enemy for him to vanquish and every tear a personal failure. If he caught you looking particularly solemn, he would crawl into your lap or tug insistently at your skirts until you paid attention to him, armed with some ridiculous story or childish joke he had spent all morning preparing solely because he knew it would make you laugh.

Then, two years later, his family left for Dragonstone, and you remained behind in King's Landing, and he was tortured with the knowledge that he had left you alone, surrounded by people who did not know how to make you smile the way he did—who might not even notice when you were sad in the first place.

Now, after a decade away, he has returned, and you are nowhere to be found.

Jace stands toward the back of the throne room, jaw tight, hands locked behind his back as Vaemond Velaryon makes his petition for Driftmark, content—for once—to remain unnoticed.

It suits him better this way today. No one pays much mind to him while others argue over inheritance. They are too busy paying attention to Vaemond's accusation and his mother's reaction to realize the dark-haired, dark-eyed man lingering in the shadows is the heir to Dragonstone, firstborn son of the crown princess. So he is well able to overhear conversations that would shift into syrupy smiles and false pleasantries around his mother and Daemon.

Strong. Bastard. Plain. Lord Fossoway. Lady Ambrose. Ser Roxton.

It is about what Jace expected from a court full of Reachmen. More than half the throne room dons green, Faith heraldry has replaced the three-headed dragon wherever he looks. Jace's memories of the Red Keep are hazy, so in truth, he could not tell whether or not it is truly different from what it had been nigh a decade ago, but he does know for certain one thing is missing—you.

Every memory he has of this place begins and ends with you, and it is jarring that you are nowhere to be seen. You reading to him in the gardens until he fell asleep against your shoulder. You carrying him back to his chambers after he had faked dozing off during his lessons, giggling with him as soon as the two of you were out of sight from Maester Geradys. You waiting at the edge of the yard whenever Ser Criston was leading training, because you knew Jace was uncomfortable around him and would step in if things took a wrong turn. You laughing as Jace tried and failed to get Vermax to listen to him, slinking your arms around him when he pouted and pretended to be angry just so you would give him more attention. He has been to every place he once stood with you, and has found you at none.

Without you, it feels—it feels wrong. Unfamiliar. And it is all he can think about, even though he needs to be paying attention to what is being said around him. He tries to remind himself that what is said today could change everything. Vaemond is not just asking for Driftmark—he is asking the court to declare Lucerys no true Velaryon, and in doing so, to admit what half the realm has whispered since Jace was born with dark hair instead of silver.

And if Lucerys can be stripped of his inheritance because he is not Laenor's son, then Jace can be stripped of his for the same reason. Worse, if the court is willing to question the succession before his grandsire lives, Jace fears what they may do once the Iron Throne stands empty. And yet—

His thoughts invariably return to you.

He thought you would be waiting for him.

He presses his tongue to the inside of his cheeks as he fights the terrible mixture of frustration and disappointment that has been threatening to consume him since he stepped onto the docks and you were nowhere to be found. Maybe he was being foolish. It has been eight years since he had last seen you at Driftmark for Laena's funeral—ten since you were close enough for him to run to whenever you frowned.

Things had already changed in two—just in the time between Laena's funeral and when they had left for Dragonstone and you had stayed behind in King's Landing. Two years of unanswered ravens and sleepless nights had taught him that wanting someone did not mean they would come. More than once, his mother had let him cry into her skirts because he missed you so terribly his chest hurt. More than once, she had promised, soon, Jace, soon we will go to her.

But soon had become two years, and when Jace had finally seen you again at Driftmark, he had scarcely recognized you. Gone was the girl who had chased him through the Red Keep, laughing as he shrieked that she was cheating. Gone was the dragonrider who was more comfortable in the air than afoot and taught him the basics of swordplay so he would not embarrass himself in front of his father and Cole.

In her place was someone Jace could hardly stand to look at without being filled with rage. He thought, at the time, that he was angry at you. Angry at you for changing, angry at you for never answering his ravens, angry at you for abandoning him.

He knows better now—he had never been angry at you.

It had been he who promised to come back for you, he who promised to take care of you, to keep you safe, make you feel loved, devoted to you the same way you'd been to him for as long as he remembered. Instead, Aegon had married you. Aegon had stood beside you when you nearly died and left when you needed him most. Aegon had watched you become a shadow of the girl Jace had loved with every piece of his heart.

All Jace had done was arrive too little too late.

If so much had changed in two years, how much could have possibly changed in another eight? It has been a long time, he acknowledges. Long enough for people to become strangers. Long enough for memories to become distant. But he has never forgotten you, he thinks bitterly. How could you have forgotten him?

You couldn't have, he rationalizes. You exchanged ravens frequently enough that Maester Geradys grew irate every time Jace showed up with another to be sent. Several times a week, Jace had filled pages with every detail he could think to share, recounting the smallest happenings of his days simply because he wanted you to know them, because he wanted some part of himself always with you. And you had always written back with pages of your own, telling him of your days, your thoughts, the twins, all the little things that mattered only because they mattered to you. He had kept every one of them, read them until he knew whole passages by heart—surely you could not have written to him so often, given him so much of yourself and taken so much of him in kind, only to forget him now.

You could not have forgotten him, you are just—late. You are just late.

It does not quell the all-consuming disappointment. He has imagined his reunion with you so many times that he could recite what he wanted to say to you in his sleep. He had a whole plan that he envisioned, and it fell apart the moment he stepped off the ship and realized you were not there on the dock.

He imagined you would be waiting for him, smiling the moment you caught sight of him. He would cross the docks to you slowly, resisting every instinct that urged him to throw himself into your arms as he once had. Instead, he would take your hand in his and bow his head to press a kiss to your knuckles, watching for the moment you realized that the little boy you remembered had grown into a man in your absence.

He imagined that he would steal you away from everyone else after the feast celebrating their return to King's Landing, pressing his lips to your knuckles as his gaze spitefully met Aegon's. He would let you hold his arm, and he would guide you to the godswood, sitting with you as the sun set as you have countless times before, listening as you tell him about the twins and life over the past eight years. It would be different hearing it from your lips, in your voice, than it is reading it on parchment. He would let you rest your head in his lap, and he would absentmindedly comb his fingers through your hair the way you always had to him.

He imagined that he would stay there with you as the moon rose overhead, until the conversation dwindled into a comfortable silence. Then he would turn his head just enough to look at you, really look at you, and he would wonder if maybe you would look at him for him. Not as the little prince forever following at your heels, or the boy who climbed into your bed after every nightmare—but as a man.

One whose shoulder you could rest against without fear of being disappointed, one capable of taking care of you, one who could take your hand before the gods—one worthy of sharing your heart and your bed.

It is shameful, perhaps, to imagine such things with you, but he cannot help himself.

He imagined that he would be nervous as he reached up for your face the first time, brushing a loose strand of hair behind your ear, thumb lingering against your cheek longer than it ought to, and then he imagined closing the distance between you, slowly enough that you could stop him if you wished. He never imagined you would.

He fights a heavy exhale through his nose as he shakes his head, eyes sliding shut. He would tell you that he has become a prince worthy of standing beside you. That he's no longer the frightened little boy who cried himself to sleep because you weren't near. That if you let him, he could finally be the husband he had promised you he could be.

The doors to the throne room reopen, and Jace has to force himself to be present. He can think of you later. He can wonder why you never came to the docks later. He can mourn the reunion that never was later. He can try to figure out a new plan later. He can tell you everything he has carried in his heart for the better part of a decade later.

If there is a later. Because Vaemond's words are not aimed at Luke alone, he reminds himself. They are aimed at his mother—at him. If Vaemond succeeds today and Luke loses Driftmark—if the court accepts the implication buried within his petition—then Jace's own birthright will be at risk. They will come for the Iron Throne, for him, next.

You had told him once that you would see anyone who sought to raise hand or blade to him pay for it with their lives—do you still mean it? Or have eight years of separation pushed you into the arms of Alicent Hightower and your half-siblings?

He cannot think of this now, skin crawling as soon as the question crosses his mind. He forces his mind away and lifts his gaze to see who had arrived. He expects another courtier draped in green, another enemy who will revel in his family's fall, but instead—

—instead it is you.

The throne room, the nobles, the whole petition—everything falls away. Jace forgets how to breathe momentarily as his gaze sweeps over you.

He remembers his mother weeping a few nights after Lady Laena's funeral, clinging to Laenor as she whispered that your hips had been too narrow, too slight, that you had still looked more child than woman when they forced you into a marriage bed to bear twins. But looking at you now, it is almost impossible to reconcile the woman before him with the frail girl who was leaning upon Aemond's arm eight years ago. Your figure has filled out where it once seemed painfully thin, your face has regained its color, and though there remains a weariness about your eyes, you no longer look so dull.

Somehow, impossibly, you are even more beautiful than he remembered. He has spent years trying to preserve your face in his mind, sketching you absently in his free time, terrified that time would blur it beyond recognition.

It had not done you justice.

Eight years have changed you. You are older now, certainly—the softness of girlhood has long surrendered to womanhood, just as the boyhood has left him. You are taller than he remembers, or perhaps he is simply no longer looking up at you from the height of a child. The gauntness left by illness has filled out with time, gown clinging to your body in all the right places as you sweep forward through the throne room, confident even as all eyes in the room turn to you.

You look… like a woman. Like the wife of another man.

Jace hates the thought viciously as soon as it crosses his mind.

You do not look his way, much as he tries to compel you to look at him without calling for you like a fool before the entire court. Your attention is fixed upon the throne—upon Otto Hightower seated where your father ought be and Vaemond Velaryon standing so boldly before the court as though the matter had already been decided—but Jace cannot drag his eyes from you. He watches as you make your way toward the front of the throne room at an even pace, the sea of green parting instinctively before black and red.

He does not remember deciding to move. One moment, he is standing among the gathered lords, hidden in the shadow of a marble pillar, content to remain unnoticed, and the next, he is following in your wake, eyes pinned on the back of your head.

He weaves through the crowd of gathered lords and ladies as you make your way down the center of the throne room, a few paces behind, never losing sight of you. He slips between Lord Caswell and Lady Fell, circles around a knot of Hightower retainers without so much as glancing at him. His feet seem to know where to go before his mind does.

He has spent half his life following you—through the winding halls of the Red Keep, trying to keep pace with your longer stride as you laughed over your shoulder, through the gardens, to the dragonpit, to the training yard, wherever your restless feet happened to lead, Jace was always a few steps behind. Eight years may have passed, but his body remembers the path before his mind even has a chance to question it.

For one horrifying second, it looks as though you're going to bear left—in the direction of Queen Alicent, your half-siblings, your husband—but then you lean in close enough to Vaemond that your lips must brush his ear, mouth tilted up in a lazy smile.

Jace cannot hear what you say to him, heart pounding at the idea of you standing amidst the sea of green instead of alongside black and red where you belong, but Vaemond Velaryon stiffens so suddenly that Jace knows he must have disliked whatever it was. You seem to let out a soft laugh, head hanging forward slightly, before you cross in front of Vaemond to stand next to Rhaenyra, on the opposite side Daemon already stands.

Jace does not think he's seen his mother so relieved in ages, and he can't even blame her because he's just as relieved to see you stand at her side instead of amidst green. For the first time in weeks, it seems, the tension that has been endlessly weighing on her disappears the moment you stand at her side again.

Jace watches you take her hand into yours before lifting it to your lips. You bow your head slightly as you ghost your mouth against his mother's knuckles, and his mother gives you a soft, fond smile—one usually reserved for Jace himself—as she turns her hand to cradle the side of your face briefly.

You tilt your face into her touch momentarily before you stand straight again, casting a look over your shoulder to where Alicent Hightower and your half-siblings are standing before you nod your head once, beckoning.

Jace's brows furrow slightly in confusion as he moves to stand beside Luke, two paces behind you, his mother, and Daemon, until he sees two children instantly dart across the throne room—Maegor and Maegelle, Jace realizes instantly. Maegor busies himself at your side, tucked beneath your arm, while Maegelle positions herself behind you, both of them clutching you as Otto Hightower commences the petition by addressing Vaemond again.

Jace should be paying attention now, but his gaze remains fixed on your children. The last time he'd seen them, they'd hardly been a year old. You have described them in your letters countless times over, but it is different seeing them in person again. Maegor is tall for his age, nearly ten years old and already reaching your shoulder, while Maegelle hardly reaches your chest, nose tucked beneath your arm.

They cannot be more than nine or ten now, all silver hair and violet eyes to Jace's brown on brown—every inch a Targaryen prince, no question about it. Maegor's hand is wrapped around yours, the other fisted tightly in the folds of your skirt as though it belongs there. The sight of it stirs an ugly feeling in his chest, one so irrational and shameful that it embarrasses him, because once, without thinking, he had reached for you the same way.

His jaw tightens before he can stop it. The feeling is petty, even for him. He is a grown man, his mother's heir, standing in the throne room as the fate of his family hangs in the balance, and the boy is your son. Yet all he can do is think the place at your side had once been his, and wonder when he had ceased belonging there.

A sharp elbow catches his side. Jace startles, finally tearing his eyes away to find Luke staring up at him with a look caught somewhere between confusion and outright disbelief, following his brother's line of sight before slowly turning back to him as if silently asking whether he has forgotten where they are and what is happening.

Jace flushes and looks away.

The rest of the petition is a blur. Vaguely, he remembers his grandsire entering the throne room, the argument escalating, the rage and dread he felt as bastard and whore rang through the hall, Daemon spilling blood before the whole court as soon as the words are spoken. He hears the collective gasp of the nobility and the sickening thud of Vaemond's body and severed head striking the floor, but his gaze finds you again and again, as though the rest of the room has dissolved into little more than noise around your silhouette, gaze incessantly dropping to where your hands rest on your children.

Protective. Shielding them. It is the same hand that once rested on the back of his neck whenever he was frightened, that pulled him behind you when Alicent drew steel on he and his family. The same absent touch that soothed nightmares and bruises before he had ever needed to learn how to hide them.

It belongs to someone else now, he thinks bitterly, and then feels ashamed for even letting such a thought cross his mind when it is your children on the receiving end of it.

Aegon's children, his mind traitorously reminds him—his eyes, his hair, his blood. Jace wonders, before he can stop himself, what they might have looked like had fate been kinder. Would a son of yours and his have inherited your hair or his dark curls? Would—

Luke elbows him again hard, and this time, Jace shoots him an irritated look, but Luke doesn't even acknowledge it, raising his eyebrows pointedly before flicking his eyes ahead. Jace follows his gaze, attention dragging ahead to where his grandsire descends from the Iron Throne, his mother and Daemon standing close beside him, speaking in hushed voices that Jace cannot make out over the murmurs still sweeping through the hall. And you—

You are looking at him, finally.

Jace's eyes meet yours, and for one long moment, he is eighteen and ten all at once—a prince standing in his grandsire's throne room and the little boy who used to search every corridor of the Red Keep until he found you.

He is not breathing, he realizes as he stares at you. His lungs are burning as he waits for you to say something—anything. He has imagined this moment a hundred, a thousand, a million times before. He has scripted what he would say to you—practiced it in his room as soon as his mother told him they would be returning to King's Landing at last—but now that he is finally in front of you again, his throat is dry and his heart is beating so loudly that he is certain you must hear it.

Then, you smile, and Jace can suddenly breathe again.

"Jurnegon rȳ ao, mandianna," you breathe out softly, taking two steps in his direction, hands lifting to cradle his face between your palms, "emā mazverdagon sīr olvie."

Look at you, nephew, you have grown so much.

Jace's breath leaves him, lashes fluttering shut. The warmth of your hands against his cheeks is achingly familiar, so familiar that his body responds before his mind has the chance to. He sinks into your touch, turning his face into your palm as though he had been starved for your touch. Your thumbs sweep slowly along his cheekbones, catching the dampness he hadn't realized was gathering on his lower lashes.

Then, you frown and say, "I hate it."

Jace stared at you for a moment, heart pounding, freezing between your hands—you hate it?

Luke snorts loudly somewhere behind Jace, and you tilt your head and give his brother an easy smile as you say, "Do not laugh, you know what I mean, Lucerys."

Jace does not know, but you pull him closer, hands sliding from his cheeks to the back of his head so that you can tuck his face into the crook of your neck, and all offense disappears in an instant.

He melts into you with the same ease he did ten years ago—as though no time has passed at all—and a ragged breath escapes him. His forehead presses against the warm skin of your neck, hiding his face there the same way he always had whenever he was frightened or overwhelmed as a little boy.

He inhales greedily, familiar lavender filling his lungs for the first time since you parted all those years ago—he had tried buying similar perfumes at the harbor market on Dragonstone, lingering over every vial the merchants swore carried notes of lavender, but none of them had ever healed the ache in his chest the way a single breath against your neck does now.

His arms find your waist, drawing you against him until there is scarcely any space between your bodies, and you thread your fingers through the curls at the nape of his neck and press your lips to his temple.

He should be embarrassed, he thinks. He spent the entire voyage convincing himself that he would return to King's Landing as a man for you. He imagined standing proudly before you, kissing your hand, speaking with the confidence expected of the heir to Dragonstone. He would show you that he was no longer the frightened little prince forever trailing at your heels.

Instead, the first thing he has done is hide his face in your neck. He ought to pull away—loosen his grip on your waist, straighten his shoulders, meet your eyes and greet you with whatever slivers of dignity remained, but he cannot bring himself to when your fingers are carding so gently through his hair, lips lingering at his temple.

He wonders if you can feel the frantic beating of his heart through the layers of his tunic and your gown—if you notice how tightly he is holding you, how shamelessly he has folded himself into your embrace. But if you do and think less of him for it, you give no sign.

"You look well, niece," Daemon says as he approaches you, and irritation flares hot through Jace's chest at the interruption, jaw tightening when you pull away to look at Daemon. Your hand slides from the back of his head to his upper arm, and Jace feels electric beneath your touch, even as you turn to face your uncle. "Much better than you looked back on Driftmark, certainly."

Daemon takes your free hand to ghost a chaste kiss against your knuckles, gaze briefly landing on Jace. A curious expression crosses his face before he huffs out a laugh and takes a step back—Jace frowns at him, but Daemon's lips curve up into a knowing smile before he looks back at you again.

"I have you to thank for that, I suppose, kepa," you say with a ease smile. Jace cannot smother the sheer giddiness he feels when he realizes you have no intention of dropping your hand from his arm. You have missed him, he realizes, throat bobbing, you have missed him perhaps as much as he has missed you. "It was proper motivation, I'd say, threatening to send assassins after me to ensure I… ah, how did you phrase it? That I stopped feeling sorry for myself and climbed out of bed?"

Jace is immediately torn from his lingering thoughts, blinking once, unsure he heard you properly. He gives Daemon a furious look, but Daemon only laughs, tilting his head back. "Did it work?"

"Wonderfully," you say dryly. "I found the prospect of being assassinated while abed was an excellent cure for lingering weakness."

"Then all is well," Daemon says dismissively. "No need to stare at me so murderously, Jacaerys."

Jace flushes immediately when you glance up at him, embarrassed that Daemon called him out so plainly, but you only give him a fond smile, and Jace's heart flutters dangerously in his chest.

You have missed him, he thinks again, more desperately this time, because all of the time he has spent away from you, he had half convinced himself that you'd simply learned to live without him—out of sight, out of mind.

Have you ached for him the same way he has for you these last eight years? Have you thought about him? When you sat in the godswood to read, would you find yourself waiting for him? When you dined amidst the sea of green during feasts, did your gaze wander the crowd in search of him? When you lay abed with your husband, did you ever close your eyes and imagine it was him instead? He needs to know.

Before the thoughts can consume him entirely, your hand drops from his bicep, and Jace feels terribly cold again.

You reach your hands out to Maegor and Maegelle, and Jace realizes that they've been standing next to Baela and Rhaena, big violet eyes flicking between you and Jace curiously. They immediately rush over to you, each diving into your side.

Maegor looks up at Jace with a sharp, accusing look that he takes immediate offense to. Why is he staring at Jace as though he is the one who has wandered uninvited into someone else's home? Jace was here first. Long before anyone else had called you mother or wife, he had called you muña—he had known you first, he had loved you first, he had been the little prince forever tucked at your side. It was widely known throughout the keep that if someone sought him, they only needed to find you.

Jace is not the interloper here, because you were his first.

The childish part of him is bristling furiously, and shame follows it almost immediately. The boy is not even ten, and he has done nothing besides love his mother, and Jace is angry about it. He should be glad that someone in this keep cares about you enough to be wary of the strangers surrounding you.

Maegor's hand tightens around yours all the same, chin lifting ever so slightly, as though he's challenging Jace to say something, violet eyes fixed upon Jace with open suspicion. The prince edges a step closer, his shoulder pressing into you with unmistakable intent: it is territorial.

Jace almost scoffs. The little wretch is trying to stake a claim on you. Stake a claim from him. You finally notice it too, lips twitching up into a smile.

"Maegor," you say gently, resting a hand atop his silver hair, fingers threading through the silky locks absently. "There is no need to glare."

"I wasn't glaring," the young prince mutters, glaring.

"You were."

"I was looking."

"You were looking rather fiercely."

"I was making sure he wasn't upsetting you."

Jace blinks, but before he has the chance to become even more offended by the presumption that his presence might upset you, you laugh, and Jace is breathless. His lips part as his gaze fixes on your bright smile, the way your hair falls slightly in your face as you lean down to press a brief kiss to the top of Maegor's head.

You are beautiful, he thinks for the millionth time in his life—seeing your smile, hearing your laugh, it has always made the difference between a ruined day and a perfect one. Jace has always thought you were the most beautiful woman in the world—even when you were both children, he had thought no lady at court could ever compare to you, forever offended whenever singers insisted another lady was the fairest woman in the realm. They simply have never seen you laugh, he would tell them, full of righteous anger.

His gaze lingers on your smile too long—you look happy, he realizes, and it settles strangely in his chest.

For years, he had imagined your life here in King's Landing as… dark. Miserable. Lonely suppers eaten in silence, wandering the halls with no one to keep you company—a marriage endured rather than cherished. He was plagued by thoughts of you in Dragonstone, and they had always been riddled with guilt, because he had left you here alone, surrounded by enemies and—

—and it had comforted him, in some shameful way.

If you were unhappy, then perhaps you missed him as fiercely as he had missed you, perhaps you were waiting for him the same way he waited endlessly to return to you.

He had not imagined this. A daughter tucked beneath one arm and a son standing guard at your side as though protecting you were the most natural thing in the world. You love them, it is clear, and they love you the same.

Have you grown to love Aegon, too? Jace suddenly feels dizzy.

"Raqiarzy," you say fondly, smoothing an errant strand of silver hair away from Maegor's face before looking back up at Jace again. "This is Prince Jacaerys Velaryon. He is my nephew—your cousin. He will be our king one day after his mother."

Your words settle restlessly inside him. He will be our king one day after his mother. He has heard those words his entire life—from maesters, and lords, and his mother, and you. But it feels—it feels different now. He has fantasized standing beside you as your husband more times than he dares to admit, but—but as your king?

His throat bobs, breath catching, heart racing, mind shifting as his gaze slides up to the throne not a dozen feet away, then drifting to you, thoughts spinning and spiraling, enough to make him dizzy.

"Do you remember the plushes you two were gifted for your fourth nameday?" you ask the twins suddenly, drawing Jace from his mind, pulse hammering in his ears, shame crashing over him in devastating force.

—and what in the Seven Hells is he thinking?

He can see Luke giving him an odd look from the corner of his eye, and Jace desperately tries to compose himself, dragging in one slow breath through his nose as though it might somehow banish the treacherous images from his mind. His face feels unbearably hot.

Maegelle lights up beside Maegor. "Stuffed Hūraxes and stuffed Vēzarrion?" she asks, leaning into your arm and looking up at you with adoring eyes.

"Mhm," you confirm, running your fingers absently through her hair. "Do you remember who sent them?"

The twins exchange a thoughtful look, and then Maegor's eyes grow round as he looks at Jace, no longer accusing. "It was you!"

Jace clears his throat, grateful for something else to occupy his thoughts. He says faintly, "I hope they survived. I wish I could have been there for the celebrations."

"How did you know what they look like?" Maegor demands, leaning forward now. "You even knew about the little white patch on Vēzarrion's wing!"

"I keep stuffed Hūraxes in my room every day." Maegelle nods, excited. "He protects it!"

"We wanted to keep real Vēzarrion and real Hūraxes in our rooms, but mother wouldn't allow us," Maegor frowns. Then he asks again, "How did you know what they looked like? You've never seen them before."

Jace's eyes instinctively drift to you, but you only smile.

"Your mother writes to me often," he admits. "She is very thorough, as I'm sure you know."

You squint at him. "What does that mean?" you ask, but Jace only grins and holds his hands up in faux-surrender. You tilt your head and say, "Jacaerys."

Maegelle giggles, and Maegor immediately nods, brows knit together as he frowns, nodding in agreement.

"She knows everything," he complains. "I can never get away with anything. I try to skip lessons, and she knows. I try to sneak snacks, and she knows. I hid a frog in Maester Orwyle's desk, and somehow she knew that too."

Jace's smile widens a bit as he huffs out a laugh. He says, "Once I tried to hide beneath your mother's bed so I wouldn't have to attend sword training. I thought I was clever because certainly the last place she would look was right beneath her nose. She found me within ten minutes."

You laugh at the memory, and Jace's heart skips a beat when you lean slightly into him, head resting on his shoulder as you look down at Maegor and Maegelle, both of whom suddenly seem thoroughly delighted.

"You skipped lessons too?" Maegor asks excited.

"Frequently," you answer before Jace can.

Jace's lips part in mock offense. "I hardly think frequently is fair."

"Jacaerys," you say dryly, head tilted to the side as you give him a lazy smile. "You once convinced Luke that you had been kidnapped by pirates because you wished to avoid histories. He had the entire keep in a frenzy."

Luke snorts loudly behind him, finally taking a step forward to greet you. He leans in to ghost his lips against your cheek before he says, "I forgot about that."

"I was seven," Jace mutters, ears burning.

"You were a little menace," you correct.

Maegelle hides her face in your gown as she laughs, and Maegor stares at Jace with newfound admiration.

"Mother always said you were clever," he says, scrutinizing Jace carefully. Jace flushes slightly at the idea of you telling your children about him. "She did not mention you were also troublesome. You will have to share some of your tricks with me."

"He was dreadful," you confirm, "and if he knows what's good for him, he will share nothing."

"I protest," Jace says immediately, looking down at you. "You, too, were troublesome, muña. Do not cast the blame all on me."

Maegor and Maegelle gasp as though they were just handed gold.

"You used to adore me when you were little," you sigh wistfully. "You never used to talk back like this."

"I still adore you," he murmurs quietly, far more sincere than the teasing he aimed for.

You tilt your head up to look at him, and Jace cannot breathe again, because you are so close, so close that if he only leaned in a smidge then—Luke pinches his side hard, and Jace grimaces, shooting him an irritated look. Luke's expression is one of naked disbelief: what are you doing? it seems to say without a single word being spoken.

Heat crawls up Jace's neck, and he follows Luke's pointed glance across the Great Hall.

Aegon is watching him. Aemond, too.

The elder prince lounges against a pillar, but the amusement on his face is far too sharp to be entirely genuine. Beside him, Aemond stands with his hands behind his back, one violet eye fixed upon Jace with a type of scrutiny that makes him feel he's been caught doing something he ought not.

Jace's stomach drops, suddenly very aware that he is standing before half of the court and you, whether he likes it or not, are someone else's wife. It is one thing wanting you so desperately that it makes his heart ache—it is another entirely to put you in a position where your honor could be questioned.

He straightens immediately, subtly putting a bit of distance between the two of you. Your brows scrunch slightly, giving him a confused look, but luckily, Baela and Rhaena beckon you for a conversation, and you busy yourself with doting over them, pressing your lips to their hair as you fawn over how beautiful they've become.

He exhales, ears still burning as he chances another glance toward Aegon. The older prince tilts his head, the corner of his mouth curling upward ever so slightly. Jace's eye twitches in irritation. Then he looks down at Maegor as the boy grabs his hand, tugging insistently until Jace gives him his full attention.

"Will you tell us stories?" the boy asks hopefully. "About mother?"

Jace blinks, and his gaze flicks across the hall once more. Aegon is still watching. A curious, vindictive thought slips into Jace's mind, and a slow smile curls at the corners of his mouth. He intends to marry you one day—the thought comes as naturally as breathing, he has never doubted it once. One day, you will be his wife and his queen, and when that day comes—well, that would make your children his too, wouldn't it?

He kneels before Maegor and smiles as he agrees, "As many as you want."

Aegon can keep his goblet and his smug little smile. Jace will take everything else.

————————————

"What in the Seven Hells was that, Jace?"

Jace blinks as he looks at his brother, making his way across the outer edges of the training yard a few hours after the petition.

Soon, they will have to return to their mother's apartments to prepare for the supper the king wishes to host for his mother's family and Alicent's. Luke wanted to go down to the dragonpit and stay there until it was time, because he loathed to be around the vicious nobles of the court longer than he had to, but Jace thought it best that they show themselves a little longer. Prove to the court they are not afraid, that they are the rightful heirs—that they are Rhaenyra's sons and they will cower in the face of green schemes.

"What was what?" Jace asks, tilting his head to the side to look at Luke over his shoulder.

Luke stops walking altogether, and Jace stops with him. Luke says dryly, "You cannot be serious."

Jace squints at him questioningly.

"What?" he asks again, gaze flitting across the training yard. He sees Cole in the distance, and he frowns, trying to look over the crowd to see who else might be there—if you might be there—but he can't see over all of the heads. When Luke doesn't immediately reply, Jace glances at him again, raising his eyebrows, beckoning. "What was what?"

"Seriously,?" Luke hisses, grabbing his arm and forcing Jace to look at him. Jace frowns when he feels his brother's fingers digging into his upper arm, a pinched expression on his face. "You were practically climbing into her lap in front of the entire court."

Jace's face flushes, attention snapping fully to Luke once the mortifying accusation registers. "I was not."

"Yes, you were," Luke accuses. "In front of everyone."

"I was embracing my aunt," Jace denies, voice hushed as he pulls Luke to the side. "What are you talking about?"

"You were embracing her for an awfully long time," Luke whispers back, giving him an incredulous look. "What were you thinking? She's married, Jace. You do remember that, right?"

"Of course, I do," Jace snaps, bitter over the fact that his own brother is throwing it in his face. He does not need to be reminded that you are married. It has haunted him every day for the last eight years. "I was only acting as I always have. We have always been close. You know this."

Luke does not believe him. Jace can tell as much from the sidelong glance his younger brother gives him, but he does not care. He was acting as he always has—it is the truth. You have always welcomed him into your arms, and he has always gone willingly. He has always buried his face in your shoulder when he needed comfort, touch lingering a little longer than propriety perhaps allowed. He has always called you muña, has always reached for your hand without thinking, has always smiled whenever you smiled.

None of that has changed, only his intentions. That, Jace decides stubbornly, is not something anyone could have possibly seen.

"You're lucky Aegon found the whole thing amusing instead of making a fuss over it," Luke finally says, and Jace's expression hardens, jaw tightening as he inhales and stares ahead, fighting a shake of his head. "He won't be laughing forever."

"Perhaps she won't be his forever," Jace snips before he can stop himself, raising his chin and looking away. Luke's eyes bulge as he casts a disbelieving look toward him. Jace raises his hands in faux surrender. "I'm only saying."

"Jace," Luke hisses, "have you lost all sense?"

Jace shakes his head, staring ahead as he says simply, "No."

"I'm going to tell mother," Luke threatens.

Jace gives him a sharp, irritated look.

"What is there to tell?" he scoffs. Then, more aggravated, "Why must you tattle like a child? You are ten and seven now, act like it."

He does not need his mother knowing that he's infatuated with you—not that she would have much room to speak, all things considered.

"Bold coming from someone on the verge of throwing a fit for not getting his way."

"You—" Luke barely dodges as Jace tries to shove him hard, and Jace inhales sharply to calm himself down, shaking his head as he grabs Luke's bicep to pull him close. He says quietly, "I have loved her for as long as I can remember. I simply grew old enough to understand what that means. How do you propose I sit back and watch her be mistreated by Alicent's pig sons? What would you have me do, Luke?"

Luke sighs and looks away, chweing the inside of his cheek. "We are already under scrutiny, Jace. Look at what just happened—if grandsire hadn't shown, we would have been–" Luke cuts himself off, looking away. He does not need to finish the sentence for Jace to know what he was going to say: they would have been declared bastards before the whole court. "We need to tread carefully."

Jace knows this. He does. He knows he will be playing a dangerous game if he moves forward as he wishes—knows that it could backfire profusely, not just on him, but on you. But—but how is he not supposed to try?

"What do you even plan to do?" Luke continues, forcing Jace to look at him again. Jace rolls his eyes and turns away, but Luke steps in front of him again. "I'm serious. Do you plan to ask the High Septon to annul her marriage to Aegon? Approve of a divorce? They have two kids, Jace—it will not be so easy. And do you even know if she feels the same? Or does she still see you as the little boy who followed her everywhere?"

"I am a man grown," Jace scoffs. "I am not a little boy anymore."

"The last she saw of you, you were."

Jace rolls his eyes again, jaw tightening as he shakes his head. His chest aches as Luke's words settle over him—do you feel the same? Did you miss him? Ache for him how he ached for you? Or have you made a life for yourself that you are content with? His throat spasms as he swallows, uncertainty clawing at his chest.

"I liked you better when you couldn't speak," Jace snaps because he has nothing else to say. After a few moments pass, he says quietly, "I have to try. If she tells me that she—" He can hardly bring himself to push the words out. "—that she loves Aegon, if she tells me that she is happy and wants nothing more than the life she has, then I will leave it alone."

Luke squints as he searches his brother's face, as though he does not believe him. Jace presses his lips together, throat bobbing as he swallows.

Jace has wanted you for so long that he scarcely remembers what life felt like before the wanting began. It has become instinctive as breathing, woven so tightly into the foundations of who he is that he cannot imagine untangling himself from it. He has imagined futures with at his side, as his wife, his queen; he has imagined children, and children of children, and a long reign in his name and yours.

But he wants your happiness more. Preferably with him, of course. He wants to be the one who makes you laugh until tears sting your eyes. He wants to be the man whose children cling to your skirts, whose bed you crawl into after long days, whose name you breathe in throes of pleasure. He wants to grow old at your side and spend the rest of his life thanking the gods that they had finally been merciful.

But if that happiness belongs elsewhere—if, somehow, you have found it with Aegon… Then what right does he have to tear it away?

"I would never ask her to give up a happy life for me," he says quietly, gaze shifting to the ground, "but I need to hear it from her."

"Get him Maegelle! Hah!"

Your daughter? What is your daughter doing in the training yard?

Jace's gaze cuts to the side when he hears Aegon's obnoxious voice coming from the crowd on the opposite side of the training yard. He tilts his head to the side, sharing a look with Luke before he makes his way over. He grabs Luke's arm to keep him close as he pushes closer to the front of the people gathered, curious to see what has drawn so many knights and squires away from their drills.

Then he sees you.

You stand at the edge of the sparring ring, arms crossed over your chest, lips curved down as you watch the twins spar in the center with wooden practice swords and surprising enthusiasm. Your brows are knit together with the same concentration you always had whenever you were watching him and Luke train years ago.

Jace almost finds himself smiling, until he realizes Aegon is standing behind you, one arm slung comfortably around your shoulders, letting you rest your weight on him, a fresh goblet of wine dangling from his hand. The gesture is so effortless that it makes Jace's stomach turn, as though he's stood with you there a thousand times before.

Worse, you do not pull away.

Jace's jaw tightens. He can feel Luke looking at him to his side, and it's a distinct effort not to let the discomfort—the pain and uncertainty—show on his face. Could you be happy here? Without his mother? Without him? It has been eight years, he reminds himself. Eight years is a long time—long enough to build a life one can be content with, even when dealt a poor hand. Aemond, too, is on your opposite side, he realizes dully. He is leaning back against the wall, head tilted as he watches the twins spar with one another.

He says something to you that Jace cannot hear, and you snort and reply, giving Aemond an easy smile. He has to stop himself from physically shrinking from the sight of it.

He wonders, have you found in your half-siblings the home you once had in him, his mother, and Luke? When did Aegon's arm start resting there so casually? Do you seek him out at feasts the same way you once sought him? Do you instinctively drift toward his side after long days? Has that same hand, so casually resting upon your shoulder, held you through sleepless nights? Wiped away tears? Tucked loose strands of hair behind your ear? Every answer he imagines hurts.

He has always imagined Aegon to be a worthless cur undeserving of your hand, an absent husband who drowned himself in wine and whores while you tried to keep your family afloat—but he is here, a random evening watching as the twins spar with one another, one arm around your shoulders as though it belongs there. Like a husband. Like a father.

He had been pained for years at the thought of you being neglected, but—but it also brought him a semblance of comfort, because he would be able to swoop in and rescue you. He would show you love, he would take care of you, hold you, be with you.

Somehow, the idea of Aegon treating you properly feels infinitely worse, and he feels ashamed for it.

He watches a delighted expression cross your face at something Aegon says, and then you toss your head back and laugh. For the briefest instant, the prince grins—not the careless smirk he wears before the court, but something softer, almost boyish, that makes Jace nauseous.

"Jace," Luke says quietly.

Jace only shakes his head slightly, forcing a smile on his face as he glances over at his younger brother. His lips part to speak, but the smile freezes on his face when someone speaks somewhere to his left.

"I hear she entertains both of the brothers," an unfamiliar voice murmurs. "The princess."

Jace stares ahead blankly, the words taking a heartbeat too long to register. The blood beneath his skin simmers faintly. What did he just say? Is he talking about you?

"Aye," another answers with a snort. Jace tilts his head to the side, gaze focusing on the red-haired squire standing in the small crowd of onlookers—not much older than Jace himself. "The elder first. The younger whenever her husband is too deep in his cups. Makes you wonder whether those twins favor their father after all. Runs in the family, I'd say."

How dare they?

"What did you just say?" Jace asks coldly, turning to face the small group of men.

The red-haired one has the audacity to look annoyed at the interruption, gaze flicking up to meet Jace, and for a moment, his vision tints red—they wouldn't look at him like that if he looked like Aegon or Aemond. They would see his hair and eyes, and they would know who they were speaking to—instead, they look at him and see him as an equal.

"I asked you a question, you mongrel. What did you just say?" Jace repeats, taking a step forward, head tilting slightly. He can hardly think straight—he can hear his pulse pounding in his ears, drowning out everything else around him. "I dare you to repeat it."

For a second, it seems as though the squire is going to step forward, an indignant expression on his face, but before he could make a treacherous mistake, one of his thick-headed friends grabs his arm and bows deeply.

"My prince," he says quickly, stumbling over his words. The red-haired squire's face whitens, and the two behind him immediately follow suit, heads bowed so quickly they nearly collide with one another. "Forgive us. We meant no offense. We—we did not realize, truly—"

"I did not ask what you meant. I asked you what you said."

There's a long moment where all four of the squires remain silent, heads bowed—Jace can see that their hands are shaking, and his lip curls up in disgust.

"We said nothing, my prince."

Jace exhales through his nose—a laugh or a scoff, he's not sure. How dare they? He is furious in a way he has not been in a long, long time, nails digging so deep into his palms that he might draw blood.

"You had no difficulty finding your tongue when you believed no prince was listening," Jace says coolly. "Find it again."

They stand trembling now, heads bowed, hoping that if they pretend the words had never left their mouths, they might escape the consequences of speaking them. His fists curl tight at his sides—they do not know you. They have no right to speak your name or stain it with their filth.

He takes another step forward when they do not speak. "No?" he questions, and then huffs out a laugh, shaking his head. "Then count yourselves fortunate that I do not take your heads for the insult. Get out of my sight."

Jace exhales shakily as the four squires stumble to their feet and rush away. His eyes slide shut as he wills himself to calm down, and just as he's about to turn to Luke, he feels a familiar hand brush against his lower back. He knows you are standing there before he even turns and opens his eyes.

"Is everything okay?" you ask quietly, and Jace lets out a wavering puff of air as he turns to look at you. Your brows are furrowed slightly in concern, eyes roving over him carefully as you try to figure out what's wrong. "Mandianna?"

Do you know what they say about you? Are these common whispers, the same as the topic of his birth had once been? Did they turn on you again once Jace and his brothers left? Is there any truth to them?

The more treacherous question makes his stomach turn. He does not want to know the answer to that. He has imagined you abed with Aegon too many times to count over the past few years, each time agonizing in a way he could never quite explain, a private form of torture he inflicted upon himself whenever his thoughts grew particularly cruel. He would picture Aegon's hands where he wanted his own to be, mouth wandering your skin, arms wrapped around you beneath the sheets, body pressed into you in way Jace has only ever been able to dream about. Your face buried into his neck, breath pitching every time his body moved against yours, fingers tangled in silver hair instead of dark curls.

Each imagination had been enough to leave him sick with jealousy. He does not need another uncle added to them.

"Everything is fine," he lies.

You know instantly he is not telling the truth—you have always been able to catch him in a lie before he's even spoken a word—but he presses on anyway. His hand drops to yours, fingers tingling as he lifts it enough so that he can bend his head down and ghost his lips against your knuckles. He wonders if he imagines the way your breath hitches.

"Luke and I should go," he tells you. "We need to prepare for supper."

Your lips part slightly, and Jace thinks you are going to press him—to give him that look you always did when he was a boy, the one that pulled every secret from him without you having to ask twice. Instead, your gaze drops to where his fingers remain curled around yours.

"Of course," you say softly.

Jace realizes he is still holding your hand. He should let go, he thinks distantly, but instead, his thumb glides along your knuckles once, lingering, before he finally forces his fingers to loosen. The loss of your warmth leaves his palm strangely cold.

"We'll see you there?" Luke asks from beside him.

You wink at him. "Of course."

You glance at Jace again, an unreadable expression on your face, Jace's lips part to question you, but then your hand comes up, fingers briefly smoothing one of his dark curls away from his forehead. Jace's breath hitches, smile freezing.

"Go," you tell him fondly. "Before your mother sends someone looking for you and blames me for your absence.

He swallows thickly and then inclines his head obediently, "Yes, muña."

Jace turns away before he can do something foolish. Luke has the decency to wait until they have crossed half the yard before speaking.

"You are hopeless."

"Shut up."

————————————

Jace has spent the better part of the last fifteen minutes pretending not to watch the doors, nodding along absently to whatever Baela is saying beside him while his attention strays toward the entrance every few breaths.

You are late.

Not late enough to warrant the growing impatience twisting inside his chest, but late nonetheless, and every moment that passes where you remain out of reach only serves to further agitate the restlessness that has plagued him since the moment he saw you again.

"Can you please stop tapping your foot?" Baela finally asks, letting out an exasperated puff of air as she glances at Jace.

He immediately gives frowns at her, confused, and then she looks down pointedly at Jace's left leg, rapidly bouncing against the floor. He stills it immediately, face flushing slightly.

"I have yet to eat today," Jace lies, because he does not want to admit that he's antsy waiting for your arrival. "I'm merely hungry."

Baela rolls her eyes as she takes a sip from her goblet, and Jace gives her an indignant look, because what is what supposed to mean?

"I'm sure," she agrees dryly, "because it is food you are waiting for to come through that door."

Jace blinks once, lips parting in offense, but he does not get the chance to question her before Luke snorts and agrees, "It is not food he is hungry for."

Jace gapes, face hot as he stares at Luke in sheer disbelief, but Baela and Rhaena burst into laughter as though they know exactly what Luke is talking about, and Jace feels the distinct urge to sink into his seat. Did he tell them? Did they already know? How obvious was he being about it?

He spares a glance over to the opposite side of the table where the Queen and the Hand sit with Aemond and Helaena. Alicent is looking directly at them—so is Otto—and neither appears particularly amused.

Jace's stomach drops. The Queen's brows are drawn together in suspicion, gaze moving slowly between Jace and the rest as though attempting to decipher what could possibly have been said that inspired such an outburst. Beside her, Otto raises his chin slightly, eyes narrowed in that calculating way Jace remembers all too well from Driftmark as he watched the accusations of Jace, Luke, and Joffrey's legitimacy finally be given life.

They could not have heard, surely. Luke had spoken quietly, and the distance between them was too great for his voice to carry over the conversation filling the room.

Still, Jace sits up straighter. "Stop laughing," he hisses through clenched teeth, but it only serves to make the three of them laugh harder. Jace exhales hard, shaking his head before he straightens in his seat and looks away, doing his best to ignore them.

He's about to drive his foot into Luke's shin when the doors finally open again, and Jace's heart thuds painfully in his chest as his gaze cuts toward them just as you enter the room. There is an unsettlingly dull expression on your face when you walk in, and Jace's brows furrow slightly in confusion until you seem to shake your head and the expression off of your face right with it.

Your lips curl up into a smile that is distinctly bland compared to the ones he's used to as his mother and Daemon rise to their feet to greet you.

Aegon is with you, Jace realizes bitterly—it does not hurt as much as it did to see you in the training yard with him. He expected him to walk in with you when he saw that Helaena and Aemond had already arrived with their mother and grandfather, but he still does not like it. Maegor and Maegelle trail closely behind the two of you, dressed in fine reds for supper, and the sight of them manages to soften some of the irritation tightening Jace's jaw, because Maegor immediately brightens at the sight of him, waving his hand in a quick greeting.

You exchange a few quiet words with his mother before ghosting your lips to her cheeks, and Jace finds himself watching your face closely, trying to catch another glimpse of that strange expression you had worn upon entering the room. What was that? Are you unhappy? Are you only pretending to be content? Jace cannot tell, and it is gone now, carefully tucked away beneath smiles and pleasantries.

Then your eyes find his, and the smile changes, warming and softening in that familiar way that makes his heart flutter. Jace is on his feet before he realizes that he has moved, taking one of your hands in his.

"Muña," he greets softly, pressing a kiss against your cheek, lingering perhaps a heartbeat longer than necessary before forcing himself to straighten. "Ao jurnegon gevie."

You look beautiful.

He is wistful as he looks over you, a tight feeling in his chest as he looks over the deep red gown you wear. The velvet fabric hugs your figure, spilling elegantly against the floor, and Jace cannot decide whether it is the gown that makes you radiant, or you simply are yourself—for he is fairly certain he would have found you the most beautiful woman in the room even had you arrived dressed in plain linen instead.

You smile at him lightly, a pleased expression on your face as your gaze roves over him once. Jace is giddy from it—he has always preened beneath your praise, seeking out that particular look of pride in your eyes. Even now, perhaps especially now, some part of him still desperately wants to impress you, to do something—anything—that might make you look at him as though he is everything you hoped he would become.

"Emā issare gūrēñare aōha Valyrio," you murmur. Jace loves the way High Valyrian sounds rolling off your tongue—it is musical and natural in a way he has never been able to make it sound on his, much as he tried. "Iksan biare."

You have been practicing your High Valyrian. I am glad.

"Hen rhinka," he replies easily. Of course.

He is still holding your hand, he realizes, pressing his luck and letting his fingers ghost up along the inside of your wrist just to feel the way your pulse flutters beneath his touch. Do you want him the way he wants you? Jace cannot tell, but the slight quickening beneath his fingertips sends a dangerous flicker of hope through him nonetheless.

"Mother!"

You both startle. Jace's hand falls away from yours as Maegor suddenly appears at your side, entirely oblivious to the moment he has interrupted. He does not have to look at Luke to see the disbelief plain on his face, and he does not dare glance over at Aegon or Aemond—or worse, the Queen or the Hand—to see their reactions to what just transpired.

It is fine, he tells himself. He was only greeting you.

The boy reaches for the back of your chair with both hands and pulls it out with such enthusiasm that the wooden legs scrape loudly against the stone floor. Once he's pulled out the chair, he stands beside it tall, gesturing proudly toward the seat.

"For you, mother."

Your lips curve up into fond smile. "How gallant of you, byka dārilaros. You are such a gentleman—your father could learn from your lead."

Maegor positively beams, and you reach down to smooth a hand over his silver hair before leaning forward to press a kiss to the crown of his head. The boy bounces on the balls of his feet beneath your affection, eyes wide and adoring as he looks up at you, and your lips curve up as you stroke his hair gently before nodding in the direction of the two empty chairs near Luke.

"Go on. You and your sister are sitting beside your cousin tonight. Be sure to torment him properly."

Luke gives you an alarmed look, but you only wink at him in response. Maegor grabs Maegelle's hand and drags her over to the empty seats, already reaching for Luke's arm and babbling about a story you read him last night. Jace snorts and looks over at you, breath catching slightly at the soft expression on your face as your gaze lingers on the two of them for a moment longer.

You finally begin to sit, and Jace moves without thinking, giving the servant waiting to push your chair in a sharp look to back off. His hand catches the back of your chair, gently pushing it forward beneath you so that you can sit properly at the table.

You turn your head to the side to look up at him, smiling lightly. "Thank you, mandianna."

"Of course," he murmurs, pleased with himself—until he feels someone staring at him, that is.

His gaze lifts to your opposite side, where Aegon has taken his seat. He is watching Jace with narrowed eyes—the amusement from earlier in the day long gone. For a long moment, neither prince looks away. Jace's hand remains on the back of your chair, and Aegon's gaze drops pointedly toward it, then back up at Jace.

Jace understands the message perfectly, but he tightens his fingers around the carved wood instead, stubborn, until Aegon tilts his head and straightens in his chair, irritated. Then Jace gives him a pleasant smile and releases your chair, moving to take his own seat beside you.

Maybe Luke was right—this is a dangerous game. But as he settles into the chair at your side, close enough that the sleeve of his tunic brushes lightly against your gown, he finds that he cannot bring himself to regret it in the slightest.

"I am a gentleman," Aegon finally complains, leaning his elbow on the table, head resting in his hand as he gives you a lazy smile.

"You are neither gentle nor man, valonqar," you drawl, leaning back in your seat to look at him. "I could not think of a word less fitting if I tried, and my vocabulary is vast."

Jace cannot even bring himself to feel pleased by your insult, because there is a casualness in the way you tease him that tells him this is familiar. The type of insult born from years in one another's company, where neither party has to wonder whether the other will take offense.

Aegon only grins. "How cruelly my own wife wounds me," he sighs. Then his smile sharpens, eyes meeting Jace's instead of yours—Jace is so focused on whatever Aegon is about to say that he almost forgets to stand as the kingsguard carries his grandsire through the door to sit at the center of the table. Aegon continues quietly, "Though you know better than most that I am very much a man, and as I recall, you rather prefer me when I am anything but gentle."

"Aegon the Crude," you roll your eyes and mutter.

Aegon winks at you and says in response, "Aegon the Generous. At least, that is what I have been told."

Jace flushes immediately, gaze averting to the side, trying to focus as Alicent leads a prayer and his grandsire begins a toasts to his brother and Rhaena's betrothal and failing miserably.

He hates the image that Aegon's words conjure almost as much as he hates the man for deliberately putting it there. You beneath him, back arched as Aegon's hands roam where Jace aches to place his own, his mouth tracing the bare skin of your throat while his body presses yours into the mattress, you panting his name as he stretches you open, silver instead of brown, pale, unblemished skin instead of sun-kissed freckled.

His stomach twists. The jealousy is vicious, burning through his veins with enough force to make him want to reach across the table and wipe that smug expression from Aegon's face. Under the jealousy is something far worse—hotter, more shameful, awakened by the very image he wants desperately to banish from mind. Because the thought of Aegon with you is unbearable, but the thought of you—

That is the problem. He cannot picture you in such a state without imagining himself taking Aegon's place. His hands, his mouth, his body, his name, his hair. Is that how you like it? he cannot help but wonder, tongue darting out to wet his lips.

Whenever Jace has imagined being with you—far more often than he would ever confess, one hand wrapped around his cock, head tilted back against his bed frame—it had always been different. Slow and tender, he would take his time with you, kissing you as though he has eight lost years to make up for, touching you with a reverence bordering on worship. He has imagined your arms wrapped around him and your forehead pressed to his, breathy words exchanged in the darkness as the two of you lost yourselves in one another.

But maybe that is not what you want. Maybe you prefer something less tender.

He swallows thickly, warmth creeping higher beneath his collar as the question takes root. What would you want from him, then, if tenderness alone would not satisfy you? His imagination betrays him at once: his chest pressed firmly against your back, his mouth at your ear, one hand sliding up to curl around your throat as he holds you close to him. He imagines turning your face toward his, mouth finding yours messily, panting, gasping, soft moans and ragged cries of his name.

Would you like him that way? Is that what you would want from him? He has never pictured it happening like that, but he could do it, he thinks—he could do anything you want, be anything you want.

Jace shifts in his seat, exhaling hard through his nose as he tries to focus on what his grandsire is saying—he should be ashamed, having thoughts like this at supper while you are sat at his side, oblivious. What is wrong with him?

Once he is certain that his mind is clear of the disgraceful images circulating through his head, he dares to spare a glance back at you. You are leaning back in your seat, head tilted back slightly so you can look up at the ceiling, looking as though you would rather be anywhere else.

It is horribly rude, he thinks, fighting a smile, considering your father, the king, is across from you, attempting to address the entire table, and you have apparently decided that whatever intricacies decorate the ceiling are infinitely more deserving of your attention.

Then, his gaze traitorously slips down the slope of your neck. He catches himself before it can wander any farther, eyes snapping dutifully back to your face, but the damage is already done. His mind drifts back to where he had only just freed it from—to the weight of his hand there, palm curved against your throat, thumb resting beneath your jaw.

Jace swallows thickly, suddenly wondering whether you would still look so carelessly bored then. Whether that distant expression would finally disappear as he leaned close behind you, breath warm against your ear, and demanded your attention in full for himself. He catches himself before his mind can go down another spiral.

What the fuck is wrong with him?

Then, your eyes slide sideways and meet his. Jace immediately realizes he has been caught staring and flushes. One of your brows arches. You ask silently, what?

Jace shakes his head quickly, jaw tightening. Your eyes narrow, and he looks away. He sees you tilt your head curiously from the corner of his eye, and then, he feels your foot brush against his ankle beneath the table.

His entire body goes rigid, gaze snapping toward you. You are still watching him, curiosity flickering in your eyes, and Jace knows that this was an innocent touch. You were only trying to get his attention after he so pointedly looked away from you—he should move his leg away and that should be the end of it, but… but instead, something reckless takes hold of him.

He inhales deeply before he shifts his leg beneath the table until his knee presses against yours. Your brows lifts, and his heart pounds as he waits for you to pull away. You do not.

Emboldened, Jace lets the contact remain, the length of his leg resting deliberately against yours beneath the cover of the tablecloth. It is such a small thing—hardly anything at all, really—but with the thoughts that had been consuming him only moments before, the warmth of you against him feels unbearably intimate.

He wonders, do you think anything of it? Is the reason you do not pull away because this is no different from the countless casual touches you shared when the two of you were young? Or is there some small part of you that is as aware of the contact as he is? That feels the warmth of his leg pressed against yours, that knows there is a distinct lack of innocence behind the touch, but you do not move away because, perhaps, you want him close too?

Jace turns his attention forward as though nothing has happened, and from the corner of his eye, he sees you glance down toward the tablecloth and then back at him.

"You know," Aegon suddenly murmurs, leaning over you to address Jace. Jace's heart skips a beat, wondering if he noticed the contact hidden beneath the table, but Aegon's gaze betrays nothing. "It's a shame your younger brother was betrothed before you. I'd rather hoped that marriage might finally afford you the opportunity to discover what it is like to share a woman's bed."

Jace scoffs under his breath, tongue pressed to the inside of his cheek. He glances at Aegon, and then his gaze drifts toward you—you are staring forward, face refusing to betray whatever thoughts are running through your mind with his leg pressed to yours the way it is.

Jace finally looks up at his uncle with a faint curve of his lips and asks easily, "What makes you think I haven't discovered it already?"

Your attention immediately snaps toward him, brows furrowed and gaze sharp, and Jace is thrown off momentarily by the intensity in it. There is something there, he realizes—surprise, certainly, but something that looks suspiciously like displeasure flickers across your face before you manage to smooth it away.

His pulse quickens. Are you jealous?

The thought is so hopeful and self-serving that he immediately tells himself he has imagined it. Why should you care whether he has shared another woman's bed? You are married—you have been married for eight years. Surely, you cannot expect him to have spent all that time—

Well, he has, but you do not know that.

Aegon catches a laugh before he can make a scene while the king is still speaking, grin sharpening as he looks at you pointedly and then tilts his head to the side to look at Jace more head on. "Oh? Have you now? Has our lovely little nephew wet his cock at last?"

Jace drags his attention from you with considerable effort and says, "I don't recall my private affairs being any concern of yours."

"They aren't," Aegon says easily, leaning back in his chair with a grin. "I am merely curious."

"Then remain curious, uncle."

"And let us toast to Prince Lucerys as well," his grandsire says, a tired smile on his face as he lifts his goblet to Jace's younger brother. Your gaze drifts over to Luke briefly, and he forces himself to follow, giving his brother a small smile when he sees how he stiffens beneath the attention of the full room. "The future Lord of the Tides."

Jace races his cup to his brother, ignoring as Aegon's grin widens when he leans in again. He can feel your gaze still fixed upon the side of his face, far more distracting than anything your husband could possibly say.

Then Aegon murmurs to you, "See, wife. It seems your perfect little prince may not be so perfect after all."

Aegon sounds openly bitter, and you make a noise in the back of your throat—a scoff or a laugh. Jace pauses. Your perfect little prince. The words warm some silly, childish part of his chest. Do you really talk about him, praise him, so much around Aegon that your husband is resentful over it?

Then he hesitates. Does the thought of him seeking pleasure in another woman's bed sit uneasy with you because, somewhere in your mind, Jace is still the sweet little boy you raised years ago? Or does it disturb you because you do not want him in another woman's bed at all? He finds himself deflating slightly, because one option is far more likely than the other. He needs to know.

Your eyes flick toward him, and he holds your gaze this time. There is an expression on your face that he cannot decipher. Something about it makes him feel strangely guilty, any delight he might have felt over the prospect of you being jealous trickling away.

It is absurd. He has done nothing. The entire insinuation is a lie of his own making, a careless remark offered only because he refused to let Aegon embarrass him. Yet suddenly, Jace feels as though he has disappointed you somehow—as though the perfect little boy you have apparently preserved in your memory all these years has returned to you a man, and, within the span of a single evening, revealed himself to be just as capable of vice as the brother you married.

Except he is not, he wants to tell you desperately. There have been no women. There has only ever been you.

His attention drifts to the side when the low murmur of conversation around the table begins to fade, the scrape of silverware against plates quieting as his grandsire struggles to his feet to speak. Jace reluctantly tears his gaze from you.

"It both gladdens my heart and fills me with sorrow to see these faces around the table," Viserys begins, voice strained with exertion, breath shuddered. "The faces most dear to me in all the world… yet grown so distant from each other in the years past."

He hears you make a noise in the back of your throat, leaning back in your chair again as you share an unreadable look with Aegon. Jace hates it, fingers tightening in his lap as he wonders what passed between you in that single glance—what understanding eight years together has afforded the two of you that he cannot hope to decipher.

Then, your leg shifts against his. He thinks you might be pulling away, but you only press the side of your leg harder against his. Jace's breath catches, nostrils flaring slightly as he inhales, gaze cutting to the side, but you are still looking at Aegon, talking to one another without speaking.

Was that an accident or intentional?

"My own face… is no longer a handsome one, if indeed it ever was," he distantly hears his grandsire continue, but his pulse is roaring in his ears again, throat bobbing as he tries to figure out if he should press his luck. Would it be too much to shift his leg beneath yours, to nudge your feet apart, spread your legs a little just to see how you react? The thought alone sends a wildly inappropriate rush of heat through him. "But tonight, I wish you to see me as I am. Not just a king… but your father, your brother, your husband… and your grandsire. Who may not, it seems… walk for much longer among you."

Would you startle and pull away, finally realizing there is nothing innocent about the game he is playing beneath the table? Or would you let him? Would you glance at him with that same unreadable expression and leave your legs parted at his behest? How far will you let him go before you stop pretending not to understand what he's doing? Or have you already?

Gods, has he lost all sense? His grandsire is speaking of his death, of a house broken nearly beyond repair, and Jace is sitting at his table contemplating how far he might push the boundaries of your affection before you finally push back. Shame burns hot across his face, and he forces himself to remain perfectly still, ridding himself of all thoughts to slide his foot between your legs to nudge your knees apart.

"Let us no longer hold ill feelings in our hearts," Viserys continues, his labored voice drawing Jace's attention forward again. "The crown cannot stand strong if the House of the Dragon remains divided. But set aside your grievances. If not for the sake of the crown… then for the sake of this old man who loves you all so dearly."

Jace hears you inhale, looking away from Aegon at last, and his gaze drifts back to you. The boredom gone, along with whatever had passed between you and your husband, and you stare at your father with something far more complicated written across your face. Jace watches as your jaw tightens and brows furrow as you look down at the empty plate in front of you.

In Jace's defense, when his hand settles on your thigh beneath the tablecloth, he really, really does mean it only as comfort.

But your entire body stills and everything between the two of you changes. Jace feels it happen in the span of a single hitched breath—the moment the touch ceases to be innocent, when the warmth of his palm against your leg, fingertips pressing into the plush skin of your thigh, becomes something neither of you can reasonably mistake for the affection of a nephew comforting his aunt. His fingers remain perfectly still, but every nerve in his body is suddenly alive and tingling.

He does not dare to look at you now, attention pinned ahead as his tongue darts out to wet his lips, heart pounding in his chest, pulse roaring in his ears.

Somewhere beyond you, his mother rises to her feet. He distantly hears her speak of Queen Alicent, hears the scrape of a goblet being lifted, and the answering murmur as Alicent stands in return. The entire table seems to be listening as the two women raise their cups to one another after years of tension and resentment. Jace hears almost none of it.

His fingers tighten around your thigh slightly, accidentally, really, but when you still do not bat his touch away, his hand slides up slightly, thumb stroking over the fabric of your gown. Your breath catches again as you stare ahead, lashes fluttering slightly, and Jace's stomach clenches, heat rushing downward so quickly that he has to stop himself from shifting in his seat.

Then, Aegon rises. Jace watches warily as the prince steps out from his chair, subtly drawing his hand back into his lap. Aegon makes his way around you in Jace's direction, moving with the lazy confidence of someone already well into his cups. He stops behind Jace's chair and bends slightly, obnoxiously reaching across the table for the wine.

"I see it, you know," Aegon murmurs beneath the swell of conversation. Jace goes rigid. "The way you look at my wife."

Jace's jaw flexes as he forces himself not to react to Aegon's words. He stares ahead blankly. He cannot afford to lose grip of his temper—not here, not ever, but especially not here with the Queen and the Hand and both of his uncles watching him keenly for any and every mistake.

"Like a loyal hound, aren't you? Ten years is rather impressive," Aegon says quietly with a widening smile. "If you're so desperate to know what she's like, I'd be willing to give you a demonstration sometime. Save you all the trouble of wondering what pleases her."

Jace is on his feet in an instant, fist slamming so hard against the table that conversation silences and all eyes swivel to him.

"Jace," Baela hisses quietly, eyes wide.

"Don't," you say under your breath, quiet enough that only he can overhear.

On the far end of the table, Aemond rises to his feet slowly, head tilted to the side as though daring Jace to raise a hand to Aegon. For one terrible moment, Jace wants to. Damn the consequences—he'll put his fist into Aegon's jaw and knock the smug smirk right off of his face. He does not care that he'll walk right into the trap—angry and reckless, humiliated before the entire family—not if it means getting to watch him stumble back, bruised and bloodied.

Then, his gaze drops down to you, and he sees the severe expression on your face, expression hard and gaze sharp with warning. Jace exhales hard through his nose, glancing back slowly at Aegon.

The older prince grins shamelessly, leaning back again—the audacity to look amused as though he had not just spoken of you like some common whore whose intimacy could be displayed for another man's entertainment. He has never deserved you, Jace thinks furiously. Jace would never talk about you like this to another man, would never treat you with anything less than the devotion you deserve. It is infuriating that Aegon gets everything Jace has ever wanted and does not even have the decency to be appreciative of it.

Jace presses his tongue to the inside of his teeth, forcing the white-hot fury at bay as he smiles, strained. He says at last, "You should mind your cups, uncle. It is only the beginning of the evening, and you are already speaking in twisted tongues."

Irritation flashes across Aegon's face; he barely withholds a roll of his eyes, realizing that not only is he not going to get the reaction he wants, but Jace was able to get in a public dig at his drinking habits. Jace's smile is a little less forced and a little more mocking as Aegon makes his way back to his seat.

Then, his gaze shifts down to you. Your eyes meet his, and you tilt your head to the questioningly, wondering why he's still standing. He holds his hand out to you and murmurs, "Would you do me the honor of a dance, muña?"

"Yes, yes," his grandsire suddenly says, leaning forward and waving his hand. "The music."

You give him a small, indulgent smile before placing your hand in his and allowing him to help you to your feet. Your husband has settled back into his chair, sipping at his refilled goblet, but the careless amusement from moments before has vanished. His eyes follow Jace as he steps closer to you, releasing your hand only to settle his palm against the small of your back.

Jace hold's Aegon's gaze momentarily as he guides you away from the table, and he cannot help the faint satisfaction that curls in his chest—childish and vindictive and spiteful, but he does not care.

Behind him, another chair scrapes against the floor. Baela calls brightly, "Helaena—cousin. Dance with me?"

Jace glances back in time to see Helaena blink in surprise before a hesitant smile spreads across her face as she rises to her feet, lifting her skirts slightly as she shuffles over to Baela.

Maegor and Maegelle are quick to steal Rhaena, working in union to each grab a hand to drag her out of her seat, despite her vocal protests and pleas for her father and Rhaenyra and you to get them to release her. For the first time that evening, laughter begins to spread naturally around the table, and Jace turns his attention back on you, lips curled up into a small smile.

Your smile matches his as you say with a short laugh, "The last time we danced, you were half the height and I led."

"Well," Jace says, voice lower than he intends. "I am a man grown now. Perhaps it is time you let me take the lead."

Your brows lift, and Jace realizes what the words sound like only after they have already left his mouth. Heat creeps up the back of his neck—perhaps it is time you let me take the lead. After his lingering touch at your thigh and the thoughts that had plagued him at the table—wondering how you like to be touched, what you might want from him, what it would be like to take you in full—the words suddenly sound far less innocent than he intends for them to be.

Did you hear it too?

He cannot tell. The corners of your mouth curl upward, and Jace swears he sees something knowing flicker in your eyes before you question, "And what makes you so certain I would enjoy letting you do that?"

His pulse jumps. Surely that was intentional, wasn't it? You could have phrased that a hundred different ways that did not sound so—

Is he just reading too much into it? Jace cannot tell and it's driving him crazy. He swallows thickly. There is still time to retreat—to laugh it off and make some jest about how much his dancing has improved since he was a boy—but instead, he lifts his chin slightly.

He leans his head in slightly. "You should give me the opportunity to prove myself," he replies, finding himself growing bolder. "You might find I have learned a great deal since you last had me in your hands.

Your gaze searches his face for a moment before you tilt your head in acquiescence and step closer, allowing him to guide you into position.

"Very well, mandianna," you murmur at last. "Show me what you have learned."

Jace's heart pounds. He cannot tell whether the conversation is still about dancing.

The musicians start the opening of the song, and Jace takes your hand properly in his, his other settling at your waist as he leads you into the first steps. He remembers enough not to embarrass himself, thankfully, despite the fact that he has hardly danced at all over the last few years, but he is far too conscious of you to focus fully on the rhythm—your palm is warm against his, and you let him guide your body as he pleases.

"There," he says when you follow him through a turn without resistance. "This is not so difficult, is it?"

Your eyes narrow playfully. "Do not become arrogant, Jacaerys. You have only just begun. I'm hardly impressed yet."

Jace's mouth curves upward. Bolder, he says, "Then I suppose I shall have to pace myself, so that I may keep going until you're satisfied."

You inhale sharply through your nose, gaze more calculating now as you stare at him. His heart pounds as he waits for you to reply, because there is no ignorance to the twofold meaning to his words this time.

"Careful, mandianna," you murmur. "Someone might misunderstand you."

Jace's hands tightens at your waist as he pulls you closer for the next step of the dance. He lowers his voice as he says, "That depends entirely upon what you believe I meant."

You squint at him, and Jace slows with the music as the kingsguard prepares to return his grandsire to his chambers. He stands at your side, one hand still resting lightly on your mid back, as they gather around the king's chair and carefully lift it from the floor.

You both incline your heads dutifully as they carry him past, remaining silent until the guards disappear beyond the doors. Jace feels you draw a slow breath beside him, the playful tension between you momentarily forgotten as you stare to where your father had left.

You tell him quietly, "You are testing your luck, Jacaerys."

"Am I?" he questions, searching your face. Is this your way of warning him that his attention is unwanted, an attempt to draw a boundary he has been too blinded by hope to see? Or is it the opposite? The not knowing is enough to drive him mad. "Then let me know where my luck ends, muña. Speak with me tonight."

He hates that it comes out pleading when he was going for confidence.

You let out a soft puff of air, but before you get the chance to give him an answer, Aemond slams his fist against the dinner table and rises to his feet, cup in hand. Jace startles at the noise, glancing at Luke, who is still sitting at the table and looks closer to frightened fawn than man, and realizes he must have done something to set off Aemond. Jace stiffens, hand dropping from your back as he braces himself for whatever is about to be said.

"Final tribute," Aemond drawls,raising his cup to Luke and then to Jace. Baela and Helaena pause from where they were dancing around each other, laughter fading. Even the twins share a look with one another, slowing in their chaotic dance with Rhaena. "To the health of my nephews: Jace, Luke, and Joffrey. Each of them handsome, wise… Strong."

"Aemond," Alicent says carefully.

Jace exhales hard through his nose, fists tightening at his side as he tilts his head. He knows what Aemond wants—the knowledge should make it easier to ignore him, but somehow, it only makes the anger worse. Only hours ago, Vaemond had stood before the entire court and called his mother a whore, naming Jace and his brother bastards. His body has scarcely grown cold, and now Aemond stands beneath the same roof, moments after his dying father pleaded for unity, as he renews life to the accusation.

Aemond's lips curl up into a smug smile as he continues louder.

"Come," he announces, louder this time, ensuring that every person in the room hears him clearly, "let us drain our cups to these three Strong boys."

He should let it go. He should not give Aemond the reaction he wants.

"I dare you to say that again," Jace says before he can stop himself, raising his chin as he stares at Aemond.

Aemond raises his eyebrows with faux innocence.

"Why? It was only a compliment." Jace feels your fingers close around his wrist the moment he starts to move forward, and for a fleeting second, the touch stops him from doing something he cannot take back. Then Aemond meets his eyes directly and asks, "Do you not think yourself Strong?"

Jace tears his wrist from your grasp and drives his fist into Aemond's face before he can think better of it. Pain bursts across his knuckles, but the satisfaction Jace expects never comes. The moment his fist connects, the room erupts around him. Chairs scrape hard against stone as Rhaenyra, Daemon, and Alicent rise to their feet. Aegon slams Luke's face hard into the table when he rises to help Jace. Someone shouts Jace's name, telling him to stop. The twins scream in surprise. Jace hardly hears any of it, lunging forward again, only to be yanked backward.

"Enough, Jacaerys," you hiss, fingers digging hard into his bicep as you pull him back, shoving him hard when his gaze flits above your shoulder back to Aemond.

He turns toward you, chest heaving, because why is it he that you are telling enough? It is Aemond who started this, Aemond who all but called him and his brothers bastards for all to hear, Aemond who stands there smugly. Betrayed, he wonders, how could you take his side? Was he misreading everything after all? The shared look with Aegon, his arm around you in the training yard, entertains both brothers—

"Take Maegor and Maegelle back to their chambers," you say coolly, "before you make this worse than it already is."

For a moment, he can only stare at you in disbelief. He knows you are right to an extent—he is making a scene, and the last thing his family needs right now are more whispers circulating about them. Somewhere beneath the fury and betrayal, he knows it perfectly well, but the dismissal still burns with Aemond standing there watching, bloodied mouth curling into the start of another insufferable smile.

Then Daemon steps forward, gaze meeting his momentarily, as though daring him to defy you, before he steps between him and Aemond, his attention turning to the older prince instead.

Jace scoffs, looking away, and just as he is about to turn on his heel to leave, you reach out again, thumb pressing briefly against his pulse. You lean in this time as you speak, voice low enough that only he can overhear what you say: "You and I will talk later."

His anger falters, gaze searching yours before he finally nods, swallowing his pride and whatever protest is left lingering on his tongue as he obeys without argument.

————————————

Jace stands outside your door for nigh an hour trying to work up the courage to knock.

Ser Steffon Darklyn watches him with open curiosity from where he stands vigilant at your door. Every time Jace throws a vicious glare in his direction, the man averts his gaze back to the sprawling corridor leading to your chambers, and then he returns to observing Jace, not moments later, the next time he lifts his hand to knock and drops it back at his side.

Is it true? Do you favor Aegon and Aemond now? Have years away—

"My prince," Ser Steffon finally says, clearing his throat, and Jace's gaze lifts to the older man, cold. "Would you like me to announce your arrival to the princess?"

A sharp no is about to fly off his tongue when he hesitates, glancing at the door to your apartments one last time before he nods once, raising his chin and looking away.

He ignores the amused expression on Ser Steffon's face out of courtesy for you, because he knows that you have long favored the man for being the first to indulge your requests to learn the sword.

Ser Steffon knocks politely twice before he pushes the heavy door open and says, "Princess, the prince Jacaerys has been waiting outside your chambers for some time now. Would you see him?"

Jace flushes hot and fast, all courtesy for you disappearing as he glares wildly at the knight's back, because there was no reason for him to say he's been waiting for some time.

"Oh," he hears you say. The anger drains into nerves instantly as he raises his chin and stiffens slightly. "Let him in."

Jace exhales hard through his nose, gaze flicking up as Ser Steffon inclines his head before stepping to the side to allow Jace past. He gives the older man a serious side eye as he steps forward, but Ser Steffon ignores it, letting Jace into the room before shutting the door behind him.

Jace knows exactly what he's going to say: he's going to demand to know why it was him and not Aemond you told to back down earlier, he's going to ask if you are happy, he's going to tell you to let him know where his luck ends as you promised at supper.

Then, his gaze meets yours and you are wearing thin, silk night slip at your vanity, a platter of fruits before you, and every thought drifts away like dust in the wind. His lips part as he stares at you—the soft black fabric inching up your thigh, the strap threatening to slide down your shoulder, the way you tilt your head to the side curiously when you see how his pupils are suddenly blown wide as he stares at you.

Aggravation hits him just as swiftly as desire, because were you really dressed like this for that kingsguard of yours to see? Jace flushes hot as he looks around wildly before his gaze falls upon a robe draped over your dresser, he grabs it furiously and then tosses it at you.

"Put it on," he hisses. He hates the amused look you give him as you rise to your feet and slide the robe of your shoulders. It is hardly better, but Jace can actually bring himself to meet your eyes now. He demands, "You let your sworn shield see you dressed like that?"

You tilt your head. "It is not my fault you came to me when I was getting ready to sleep. I waited for you for three hours, mandianna—I resigned to bed because I figured you were upset and would not come."

Petulantly, Jace crosses his arms and raises his chin as he asks, "And why would I be so upset that I would not come?" simply because he wants to hear you say the answer.

You tilt your head with an amused smile. You say easily, "Because I sent you to your chambers after Aemond antagonized you."

Jace instantly points at you, vindicated. "And tell me, why should I be the one chastised when it was your half-brother who purposely reignited the rumors that were just put to question not hours before?"

"Because the realm expects more of you, Jacaerys," you say dryly without hesitation, taking a seat on the edge of your bed and motioning for him to join you. Jace falters at your words, shoulders slumping slightly, feet shuffling against the burgundy carpets as he makes his way over to you. "These rumors will be ignited and snuffed continuously throughout your life and reign. Do you plan to strike every courtier who dares reference your strength?"

Jace's eye twitches. "If they mean it as a slight concerning my—" His jaw tightens over the word parentage, unable to force it out. He finished simply, "Perhaps."

When you immediately give him a sidelong glance, he bristles in defense. He demands, "Do you think I forgot that you, yourself, said that we would meet such accusations with dragonfire, and you chastise me for striking?"

You raise your eyebrows, hand lifting to grab his chin firmly. Jace silences beneath your touch, breath catching when he feels how the blunt tips of your nail dig into his cheeks.

"No, you stupid boy," you say sharply. Jace thinks he should be offended by the insult, but he can hardly focus on anything besides the feeling your fingers hot against his skin and the fact that beneath the robe he handed you, you only wear a thin night slip. "I said that I would meet such accusations with dragonfire. You cannot afford such—”

You do not finish whatever you're about to say, hand dropping back to your side with an exhale, but Jace can imagine, swallowing thickly as he remembers your fury following the prank he, Aegon, and Luke played on Aemond. Shame coils low in his gut as he looks away.

"I should not have struck him," he finally says quietly, "but he deserved it."

You huff out a laugh through your nose. "He deserved far more than a strike," you say at last. "He is insolent. Alicent coddled him after what happened in Driftmark. He has become insufferable."

Jace hates the familiarity with which you speak of him. It makes his stomach turn, sourness building in the back of his throat. It is he and Luke and Joffrey you should be speaking of with such familiarity—not your half-brothers.

You do not even know Joffrey, Jace realizes, a lump in his throat. You do not know his favorite color or his favorite story, that he dislikes sweets and has taken to High Valyrian better than Jace ever did. You do not know Joffrey, or Aegon, or Viserys. It is not fair—none of this is fair.

"He is a prick," Jace mutters.

"That too," you agree, and Jace cannot help the smile that tugs at the corner of his lips as he looks down.

You rise to your feet. Jace's gaze shifts up questioningly, but you're making your way across the room to a table, you lift a flagon of wine and then look over your shoulder at him, lifting it and motioning toward him. Jace hesitates before he nods—you have never offered him wine before. The last time he remembers, Aegon had tried to slip him some as a joke at Lucerys's eighth nameday celebration, and you had slapped the back of his head so hard that his uncle had nearly cried.

"I have grown fond of it over the past few years," you say absently as you turn two goblets right side up and fill up both generously. "Wine, I mean. The gods know the twins drive me to it."

Jace is grateful for something to begin with, because he had struggling with how to approach the conversation he wants to have. He fixes his posture as you finish pouring the glasses and make your way back over to him.

He says, "They have grown." He winced at the observation—it has been eight years, obviously, they have grown. "You—" He cuts himself off abruptly, unsure how to phrase what he realizes he's about to say. Finally, he finishes, "You appear to have a good relationship with them."

I hate them sometimes, he remembers you crying to his mother nearly a decade before when Jace was not supposed to be listening. I wanted to love them the same way you loved Jacaerys—

You hum lightly as you pass him his goblet, and he fights a shiver when your fingers brush his. You do not respond right away, sitting back down carelessly at the top of the bed, relaxing back against the pillows.

Jace's throat spasms as he swallows a large gulp of the sweet Arbor Red. He has sat in bed with you hundreds of times before, but never with this type of intimacy—always two children curled up with one another, now you are both adults, sipping on wine, close enough to feel the heat on one another's skin. His chest is tight with nerves.

He could imagine this—life with you, life like this. Returning to his chambers after long days at court to you lounging in your robe against the pillows, smiling when you see him, a glass of wine in hand and another poured for him. He wants it desperately—more than he has ever wanted anything in his entire life.

"Children do tend to grow in eight years," you reply dryly as you take a long sip of your wine, not acknowledging the second half of his statement for a long moment. After what feels like an eternity, you finally smile wryly and tell him, "I struggled the first few years—to be a mother for them, that is."

"You were only a child yourself," Jace notes quietly. "You cannot be blamed."

Something softens in your face at his words—he wonders if anyone has ever acknowledged that beside his mother, or if they had simply placed two infants in your arms and expected you to be a mother for them, as though bringing two children into the world had somehow made you cease to be one yourself. Jace hates it—the idea of you being alone, struggling, drowning beneath expectations and exhaustion and no one around you willing to do everything Jace would have done without hesitation had he been allowed to be there.

"I was angry at them for a time," you admit after a long silence, staring into your wine. "I knew it wasn't their fault deep down, but I was—I was so weak after they were born, Jacaerys. I could barely walk without someone helping me. I could not climb stairs without feeling as though I might collapse. I could not ride. I could not fly. Zūgaxes would call for me, and I could not even get to him."

Jace knows this, but he doesn't dare interrupt you, gaze focused on the pinched corners of your mouth and the way your gaze lowers to your dark sheets.

He remembers seeing you at Driftmark during Lady Laena's funeral, remembers the way you could barely hold yourself up, the way your dresses were hanging from your shoulders, what you said to his mother when you thought the two of you were alone. He remembers the weariness in your eyes and the exhaustion plain on your face when you thought no one was looking, but he was always looking at you.

"Everyone kept telling me how fortunate I was," you continue, exhaling through your nose as you look away. "Two healthy babes. A son and daughter. They would place them in my arms and tell me how much I must love them, how happy I must be, and all I could think about was everything I could no longer do."

He wants to reach out for you. His fingers twitch in his lap as he holds his goblet carefully. Your free hand is not too far away—he could take it in his, entwine your fingers, squeeze it lightly.

I'm here, he wants to tell you, and if you want me to stay, I won't leave again.

"I tried to leave them behind and fly to Dragonstone once—after the birth," you tell him, drawing him from his thoughts. His hand settles back in his lap as his gaze lifts to the heavy expression on your face. "I did not even make it to the Blackwater before I fell unconscious upon Zuzu. I hadn't even been strapped in properly, because my fingers weren't strong enough to clip myself in. I would have fallen to my death had he not sensed when I lost conscious and turned around. I think I knew it was a risk when I was climbing atop him. I think a part of me would have preferred it."

He does not think you mean to say that last part aloud, because your expression immediately twists, and Jace feels sick. The wine he just sipped threatens to come up as he imagines you alone in the sky, barely conscious and too weak to properly secure yourself. What would have happened if Zūgaxes had not been able to get you back safely? Before he can stop himself, he imagines your hands slipping from his saddle, your body falling through open air. He imagines his mother receiving word on Dragonstone, and him—

"Do not say that," he whispers, jaw so tight that it is almost painful. "Do not say you would have preferred to die. I—I cannot—I do not want–"

Jace does not know a life without you. His first memories are of Vermax's green scales and the warmth of your arms around him. You have been the center of his life for as long as he can remember, and he has loved you just as long. You are as essential to him as air, water, food—there has never been a version of his world in which you did not exist somewhere within it, even during the two years of silence before Driftmark.

He would think of you every day, crying incessantly into his mother's skirts, demanding to know why you would not answer his ravens, what he had done to make you stop loving him. Rhaenyra would hold him while he sobbed himself sick, rubbing his back as he clung to her and begged her to bring you back. It had hurt, and not in the vague, aching way that people often spoke of missing someone, but in a way that manifested physically. His chest ached until it became difficult to breathe, and his stomach turned whenever he thought too long about the possibility that you had forgotten him. More than once, his mother had summoned Maester Geradys because she had been convinced Jace was falling ill. Those two years had nearly ruined him; he cannot imagine an eternity without you.

"Please," he finally says quietly, unable to even bring himself to meet your gaze. "Just—"

"Come here, mandianna," you murmur.

Jace comes without need for any more prompting, eyes sliding shut as you take the goblet from him and place it on your bedside table. Then your arms are around him, and Jace folds into you with a quickness that is more instinctual than anything else. For a fleeting second, he is ten years old again, small enough to bury himself against you and believe nothing terrible could happen as long as you held him tightly enough. His arms wind tightly around your waist, face pressing into the crook of your neck as you draw him closer, one hand settling against the back of his head.

He breathes you in—the familiar lavender and the faint trace of wine—his throat is painfully tight as he sinks into you.

"You have always been so sweet," you sigh into his hair, gently combing through the dark curls at the back of his neck, nails scratching his scalp lightly. Jace can hardly keep his eyes open as he presses his forehead to your warm skin. "So terribly sensitive."

Jace's eyes snap open as he pulls back just enough to frown at you, indignant. "You just spoke of—" He cannot finish the sentence, shaking his head as he protests, "I am not sensitive."

"Mm," you say, and you clearly do not believe him from the amused smile on your lips. "Of course not."

The amusement in your eyes is mortifying, suddenly painfully aware that he is still clinging to you with his face tucked to your neck. He releases you reluctantly, clearing his throat as he sits upright.

"You do not sound as though you believe me," Jace scowls, looking away.

This is not how this was supposed to go. He had come here determined to make you see him differently. He had spent the entire evening testing the boundaries between you, trying to prove that he was no longer the little boy who followed you everywhere and pretended to be asleep so you would carry him around. He wanted you to look at him and see a man—a man capable of protecting you, loving you, satisfying you, a man worthy of being called your husband.

Instead, within half an hour of entering your chambers, he has nearly cried in your arms. Wonderful.

"Pouting does not befit you, mandianna," you tease, leaning in to press your lips to his temple briefly before you reach for the goblet of wine you put to the side so that you could comfort him. He reaches for his own too, desperately in need of something to numb the embarrassment he feels. "Anyway, it has been a long time since then, Jacaerys. You do not need to worry; I do not feel that way anymore."

"What changed?" he asks you quietly, not daring to ask the question he really wants to know: are you happy now?

You stare at him inexplicably for a moment, as though you do not know how to answer, and then you smile lightly and turn your back to him, shuffling through the drawer near your bed to pull out two pieces of parchment.

The one you first show him is familiar—his cheeks heat up when he recognizes the drawing you set before him. He had forgotten it, or, rather, he had simply assumed it had been discarded years ago. The parchment is faded now, worn and yellowed with time, but the childish figures drawn across it remain unmistakable.

You stand at the center, a mess of scribbles and a big smile. Luke stands on one side of you and Jace stands at the other, both of them holding your hands with arms so long that it would be unsettling in reality. Rhaenyra and Laenor are squeezed into the remaining space, Rhaenyra little more than a head with an enormous crown and legs beneath her, and Laenor drawn absurdly tall, his smile taking up nearly half of his face. Above the five of you, several messily drawn dragons circle beneath a violently yellow sun.

Jace vaguely remembers making it. He and Luke had found you crying in one of the gardens after you thought everyone had gone to dinner. Neither of them had understood why, and you had wiped your face the moment you saw them, insisting nothing was wrong, but Jace had known better, so he and Luke had disappeared into his chambers armed with parchment and charcoal to make a gift for you.

Luke had drawn himself and Laenor, and Jace had drawn himself and Rhaenyra. They had argued terribly over who would draw you until Luke accidentally snapped his charcoal in half and solved the matter entirely. He remembers presenting it to you with Luke and telling you the same thing you had told them both dozens of times before: it is okay to be sad, so long as you are never sad alone.

"You kept this?" he asks with what he intends to be a laugh, but comes out too weak. "After all this time?"

"Of course," you say quietly, an unreadable expression on your face as you stare down at it. "Whenever I felt alone, I would take it out and remind myself that somewhere, there were people who loved me enough to draw me wildly disproportionate." Jace laughs, swallowing thickly as he looks up at you, heart fluttering at the soft expression on your face as you stare down at the picture. "It made me smile, even when I was sad."

He wants to reach out for you again, fingers twitching at his side. After a moment's hesitation, he does, slipping his hand into yours and entwining your fingers. His pulse pounds, half expecting you to pull away, but you do not, squeezing lightly as you finally show him the other piece of parchment.

"That's—" he begins, surprised, cutting himself off.

It's a replica of his and Luke's drawing, except a bit more sloppily drawn with two more tiny figures wedged on either side of you, each with a wild scribble of silver hair and big smiles.

"Maegelle said that I only smiled when I was looking at your drawing," you say quietly. "She and Maegor did not even know who any of you were then—I… I rarely spoke to them outside of when it was absolutely necessary. They only knew that these people made their mother happy, and they decided if they added themselves to the picture, perhaps they could make me happy too."

Jace does not know how to reply to that, staring down at the two little figures crudely squeezed into the new version of the drawing. He imagines the two children studying the first drawing, trying to understand why a bunch of scribbled strangers they had never met could make their mother smile when they could not, and rather than resent those strangers for possessing some piece of you that remained beyond their reach, they had simply decided to join them.

"I was awful to them, Jacaerys," you admit, voice breaking, and Jace hates seeing you like this. Hates seeing you sad. Hates the reminder that you have spent ten years alone, suffering, and he was stuck across the Blackwater, unable to do anything about it. He wants to wipe away your tears and hold you close the same way you did for him for years, but he doesn't know if you would let him. "When Maegelle cried, I would hand her off to Melynda and tell her to leave the room until she stopped crying. When Maegor reached for me, I would walk away. They didn't understand why I kept pushing them away, no matter how hard they tried to be near me, and they still only ever wanted me to be happy."

"Are you?" he finally dares to ask, voice little more than a breath. "Are you happy?"

You stare at him for a long moment, lips parting as though to answer, but no words leave them. Jace's heart is pounding again. What answer does he want to hear? Selfishly, he thought he wanted you to say no, so that he could be your knight in shining armor, your prince from a fairytale who would swoop you off your feet and carry you off to a brighter future.

Now, he isn't so sure, because the idea of you being unhappy for a decade, forced to content yourself with life so that you do not climb back onto Zūgaxes's back, knowing you might fall, makes him terribly sick.

"I love the twins," you finally say, thumb pressing over the little silver-haired figure that Jace assumes is Maegelle, if only because the hair is slightly longer than the other. "Even when they drive me mad. I have Zūgaxes. I can fly again. I can walk without someone hovering behind me—most days at least. Some days are still… difficult."

But are you happy? Jace wonders, a treacherous flicker of hope stirring inside him when he realizes you didn't mention Aegon.

"And Aegon?" he finally asks. His uncle's name tastes bitter in his mouth, and Jace feels your fingers tense between his. He watches you carefully, thumb stilling against your hand. He forces himself to press, "What of him? Does he make you happy?"

There it is again—that calculating expression you had worn earlier when his double-meaning words edged on too plainly spoken. Jace feels as though he has stepped onto dangerously thin ice, but instead of retreating, he finds himself leaning closer.

"Does he treat you right? Does he love you?" he murmurs, watching your face carefully. "Does he make you feel wanted?"

"Jacaerys," you start to say, voice low with warning.

Jace is undeterred. Perhaps it is the wine you gave him, the light buzz finally reaching his head, giving him all the confidence he needs to press the subject, or perhaps he is just desperate after having been plagued with uncertainty all day and all evening, but he cannot bring himself to back down.

"It is a simple question," he tells you quickly.

"No," you say quietly. "It is not."

His heart begins to pound. "Tell me," he insists. "Tell me that he loves you as he should. Tell me that he makes you happy. Tell me that you have never wanted for anything from him."

"This is none of your business," you tell him firmly, slipping your hand from his instead of answering. His skin tingles where yours had once been flush against his, and Jace's throat bobs as he tries to figure out what to do—should he press? Should he drop it? "You have no right to question me about my marriage."

"Why not?" he asks boldly, making his decision the moment he sees that dull expression from earlier in the night briefly cross your face again as your gaze flicks away.

"Why not?" you echo, giving him a disbelieving look.

"Yes," he says, agitated and unrepentant. "Why shouldn't I care whether or not you are happy?"

"That is not what I said," you sigh, shaking your head. "You are being deliberately obtuse."

"Then why don't you answer my question?"

"Because I do not owe you the details of my marriage, Jacaerys."

"I'm not asking for the details."

"Then what are you asking for?"

"I am asking for a simple answer," he tells you, reaching for your hands again, taking them both in his. He shifts onto his knees and leans in slightly, forcing you to look him in the eye. "Tell me. If he loves you, if he makes you happy, if he gives you everything you want, then it is an easy answer. I will never ask again."

It is a lie—he knows it the moment the words leave his mouth. He would ask himself every day for the rest of his life. He would lie awake wondering whether Aegon had touched you gently that evening, whether he had made you laugh, whether Jace might have had he been in his position instead. He would torture himself with knowledge that another man possessed everything Jace has wanted since he was old enough to understand wanting at all.

But he would leave you alone. If you told him that Aegon made you happy, Jace would bury whatever foolish hope had begun to take root inside of him today. He would accept that whatever he wanted from you could never be his and content himself with whatever place in your life you were willing to give him.

"What does it matter?" you finally ask him, shaking your head. He can see your defenses dropping in real time as you consider his question, a hopeless expression settling over your face as you look away from him again, but you do not pull your hands back. "What would it change, Jacaerys? If I told you that this marriage isn't what I'd wished, what would you do with that answer?"

Jace stares at you, and for one terrible moment, his mind goes completely blank of all of things he would do, everything that would change if you would just tell him what he needs to hear.

"Everything," he finally breathes out, pulse pounding, breath unsteady as his fingers tighten around yours. "I would do everything. Anything. I would—I could make you happy, muña."

"Jacaerys—" you start to say.

"I could," he insists. The words come louder this time, almost frantic, as though if he can only make you understand, everything will suddenly become simple. "I know I could. I know a part of you still looks at me and sees the boy I was when you left, but I'm not. I know I could be what you need."

"You do not know what you're saying," you say, shaking your head, but Jace's grip on your hands tightens. He shifts closer, desperate, knees pressing against yours as he tries to force you to hear him. "Jacaerys—"

"I do," he insists. His chest rising and falling too quickly, every shred of caution he possessed earlier in the evening abandoning him now. He has spent hours wondering how far you would let him go, months preparing for this moment, years fantasizing it. He cannot hide it anymore. He breathes, "I would be good to you. I would make you feel wanted. I would make certain you never have to wonder whether you are loved. I would never speak of you the way he did tonight. I would never treat loving you as though it were some burden I had been forced to carry."

Your lips part as you stare at him. He is so close to you that he can almost feel your breath on his lips, can see the way your pupils widen ever so slightly as you stare at him.

"I would choose you. Every day, I would choose you," he tells you softly, hands tightening around yours. "So tell me, what I am supposed to do, how I am meant to sit beside you and watch you be unhappy when I know—when I know that if you would only just let me—" He stops, swallowing hard. "I could make you happy."

You pull your hands away from his, and Jace feels cold, rejection spreading like ice through his veins as you shake your head and rise from the bed, stepping away from him.

"You do not know what you're saying," you say again, quieter.

Distantly, he recognizes that there is a distinct lack of conviction in your voice, that it seems more like you are trying to convince yourself than him, but it does not quell the rage that suddenly rises in his chest.

You still see him as a child.

"I am not a child anymore," he hisses, frustrated, rising to his feet, quick and angry.

"I did not say you were."

"You do not have to," he snaps, following you when you turn away from him. He grabs your wrist and forces you to face him again. He can feel your pulse hammering beneath his fingers when they circle your wrist. "You still look at me and see the boy who I was. I want you to look at me and see me."

"Jacaerys," you say, pleading for him to listen. "It would not change that I am married. It would not change that Aegon is my husband. What is it you want from me?"

"You," he answers before he can stop to think if maybe there is a better way of phrasing this. You stare at him, expression unsettlingly blank. "I want you. Gods, what do you think I have been trying to tell you?"

You swallow thickly, lips parting, but Jace barrels on before you can shut him down.

"I know that you are married." His voice rises with his frustration. "I know he is your husband. I know all of it, and I have spent years knowing it, and it has not made me want you any less."

"I do not know what you expect me to do."

"I don't know either!" The admission bursts from him, raw and almost angry. Jace drags a hand through his hair as he turns away for half a heartbeat to take in a shuddered breath before facing you again. A part of him had thought that once he confessed what he felt for you, everything would fall into place—that you would know what to do, as you always have."I don't know. I thought—I don't know." He laughs once, shaking his head, breathless and bitter. "I thought if I told you, perhaps I would know what came next. Or you would. Gods, I don’t know. But I cannot keep pretending that it does not ruin me to see you with someone who does not deserve you. To stand there and watch him take for granted what I have wanted for as long as I can remember and act as though it does not tear me apart. And then tonight—everything I felt before it was worse—stronger—because he was insufferable, and you kept looking at me like—" He stops himself, shaking his head. "You let me touch you. You knew what I meant when we danced. You knew what I was doing."

"I should have stopped you," you rasp, voice weak, catching over the words. "I—"

"But you didn't," Jace interrupts, taking a step closer, taking your hands in his again, "why didn't you?"

You stare at him so helplessly that Jace knows your answer without you even having to say anything.

"Muña," he breathes , trying to get you to listen to him. "Let me make you happy. Please. Kostilus."

Your eyes are wide, lips parted around a breath that never seems to come, and Jace waits, heart beating rapidly in his chest. He waits for you to tell him no, waits for you to order him from your chambers and finally draw the boundary he has spent the entire evening recklessly searching for.

You do none of those things. Instead, his tongue darts out to wet his lips, and your gaze drops to his mouth. It is only for a heartbeat, perhaps less, but Jace sees it nonetheless, and whatever remains of his good sense abandons him entirely.

It all happens too quickly, all that desperate courage he has gathered over the course of the evening propels him forward before he has the slightest idea what he is doing. His nose bumps awkwardly against yours, and his mouth catches the corner of your lips instead of landing properly upon them.

Jace freezes, mortification washing over him. Neither of you moves for a horrible second, and he thinks, humiliated, that of all the ways he imagined this moment over the years, never once had he considered the possibility that he might fuck it up.

Then, you inhale sharply, turning your face toward his just enough that your lips brush his, and Jace stops breathing. His world narrows to that single point of contact between the two of you.

His hand rises to your cheek, trembling as his palm settles against your warm skin. This time, when he closes the distance, he does it slowly, eyes remaining fixed upon yours until his mouth presses to yours, your lips soft and sweet against his own. He braces himself for you to pull away, for you to tilt the lower half of your face out of reach. You do not.

Jace kisses you properly now. It is still too clumsy for his liking. He cannot figure out how to pace himself for the life of him. Too hesitant at first, then too eager when the realization finally crashes over him that this is you beneath his hands, your lips against his. He can taste the wine on your tongue, and the fruit from the platter you were picking at before he arrived.

Years of longing and an entire day of restraint unravel in the space of a heartbeat as he tilts your head back to kiss you deeper. His other hand finds your hip by instinct, drawing your body closer to his, and your breath hitches against his mouth. Jace kisses you until his lungs burn and his head feels light, and even then, he kisses you still, terrified that the moment he stops, you will send him away.

"I am sorry," he breathes when he is finally forced to part his lips from your, forehead resting against yours, breath ragged as he tries to catch it. He does not know what he's apologizing for. Kissing you? He is not sorry for that, and you certainly know it from the way he's holding you. His eyes are wide and searching as he tries to figure out where your mind is at. His thumb strokes helplessly along your cheek, gaze dropping back to your lips. "I should not have—I only thought you—"

His words dissolve into a low moan in the back of his throat when you press your lips against his this time. Jace's whole body feels hot and shaky. Your hands find his waist, and his lashes flutter when your lips move slowly against his, easing them open so that you might trace your tongue along the inside of his mouth.

Jace wonders if he is dreaming—a pleasant, wine-induced dream, and he would wake up in the morning hot and aching desperately for you, cursing himself for allowing his imagination to conjure something so terribly convincing.

But then your fingers tighten on his waist, and you pull him closer until his slim body is flush to yours, and Jace knows that it is real because no dream has ever felt like this before.

A shuddered breath escapes him against your lips, something between disbelief and relief, and whatever hesitation had seized him moments before disappears. You are kissing him. You are kissing him. He had stopped, apologized, given you every opportunity to push him away, and instead you closed the distance yourself.

He has imagined this dozens, hundreds of times before, but nothing could have prepared him for the reality of having you like this, of having your lips on his, feeling your chest heaving and pulse pounding. Jace is dizzy with need—it is not enough, he has to have you in full.

His hands lift to your face, cupping your cheeks, tilting your head back as he kisses you again. A second time. A third. Needy and eager, you can hardly keep up with him, hands curled around his tunic, holding him close as he presses his mouth to yours like he wants to devour you. It is not enough.

"Muña," he breathes into your mouth, pulling your body closer so that he can feel you flush to him. He walks you backward until your back hits the cool stone wall of your chambers, and his lips slide messily from yours to your cheek, along the line of your jaw until he can kiss down your throat. "I just want you to be happy. I want to make you feel good."

The words aren't meant to come out as desperate as they do, pleading, begging you to just let him help you be happy, but you shiver against him all the same.

"Jacaerys," you gasp, breath hitching as he slides your robe off your shoulders, letting it drop to the ground at your feet. He lets out a low moan into the skin of your neck, fingers toying with the thin strap of your night slip. "I—"

"I will stay, if you'd let me," he continues, lashes fluttering as his teeth graze your collarbone. One hand lifts to entwine with your hair so he can tilt your head back gently, kissing back up the line of your throat until his lips hover above yours, eyes searching as he continues, "My mother plans to return to Dragonstone with the rest in the morning, but I will stay. With you. As I promised all those years ago. You only need say the word."

He does not know what the look in your eyes means as you stare at him. He hates that—hates there was once a time where he could look at you and know what you exactly what you were thinking, and hates that the privilege now seems to belong to Aegon.

He kisses you again, harder this time, deeper—if he cannot convey himself in words, he will do it through actions. He will kiss you hard enough that anytime you kiss another, you will only think of how perfectly his lips slotted against yours, deep enough so that you will taste him on your tongue when your husband tries to take your bed.

He lets out a low moan into your mouth as he drags his tongue along the roof of your mouth, the inside of your lips, gliding along your tongue. It is messier than he has imagined it in times past—when he would fist his cock pretending your lips were on his, he was kissing you slow and careful. Now, spit slicks around his lips and yours, and each breath of his is wet and ragged. He sucks your bottom lip into his mouth and rolls it between his teeth.

It is not enough, he thinks, kissing sloppily down your neck again, arms winding around your waist. He needs more.

"Jacaerys," you breathe his name again, and his gaze lifts to your face.

There is a haziness to your eyes that drives him crazy, a need that is only reflected in his own.

You want him, he thinks, inhaling shakily as his fingers bite into the skin at your waist. You want him as desperately as he wants you.

Before he can lose his courage, his hands slide up the curves of your body to shift the thin straps of your nightslip over your shoulders. His throat bobs, breath not reaching his lungs as he leans back just enough to watch as he lowers the slip from your body. The fabric catches briefly on your arms before sliding lower, and Jace's hands still, eyes sliding shut.

For all the times he has imagined this, he suddenly finds himself terrified to look.

It is ridiculous. He has conjured half a hundred different versions of you in the privacy of his chambers, pieced together by his traitorous imagination, but none of those fantasies had ever accounted for the sheer enormity of actually standing before you now. Of being allowed to see you. Of knowing that when he finally lowers his gaze, it will no longer be something imagined.

"Mandianna?"

His eyes reopen at last, and all the breath leaves his lungs in one fell swoop.

You are beautiful. The thought is almost painfully inadequate. He steps forward just enough to reach out for you again, fingers skimming along the bare skin of your waist, the curve of your hip. He has always known you were beautiful. He knew it when he was young and possessed no understanding of why he couldn't stop himself from giggling and hiding his face whenever you smiled at him. He knew it when he would have fits of irritation whenever a bard implied any noble lady other than you was the most beautiful woman in the room. He knew it in Driftmark, even when your eyes were tired and your body was weak and everyone around him said you looked closer to corpse than woman. He knew it when he saw you in the throne room earlier today, and for one humiliating moment, he had forgotten how to breathe. This is different.

"Gods," he whispers.

You tilt your head. "Is something wrong?"

"No." The answer comes so quickly that you laugh, and Jace flushes. "No, I—"

He fumbles for words. His hands continue their absent exploration, tracing the lines of your body with reverence. His gaze flicks up to your face, searching for the slightest sign you want him to stop, but you remain where you are.

"Iksā gevie," he breathes at last, and your expression softens.

You are beautiful.

Jace leans forward and kisses you again, gentler now. There is none of the frantic desperation from moments before, only the lingering wonder that you are really here, really allowing him to do this.

Then, the moment is ruined.

Aegon has seen you like this. The thought strikes him with enough force that his stomach twists, and he has to tilt the lower half of his face away from yours, parting from you as his jaw tightens. He cannot even relish in the fact that you find yourself chasing after his lips before he catches himself grimacing.

But now that the thought has crossed his mind, he cannot push it away. It sours inside him, curdling the sanctity of this moment.

Aegon has stood where he stands now. Aegon has known every part of you that Jace is only now discovering. Aegon's hands have been dozens, hundreds of times, where his only just touched for the first time. Eight years of marriage in which his uncle has been permitted an intimacy with you that Jace had only allowed himself to dream of.

"What is it?" you ask him, one hand coming up to his chin, tilting his face up so that he is looking at you.

"Nothing."

You tilt your head with an indulgent smile. "Jacaerys."

He exhales sharply through his nose, scowling as he looks away. It is foolish. He has you in front of him, bare and wanting, as he has dreamed, and instead of savoring in the moment, he is allowing your wretched husband to invade it.

"Does he tell you?" he asks you quietly. "That you're beautiful? Does he even know how fortunate he is to call you his wife?"

He would, Jace thinks darkly, if he knew the lengths Jace is willing to go to call you his.

Your lips part as you stare at him. Before you can dismiss the question with another shake of your head, he leans to ghost his lips against yours, relishing in the way you falter.

"Tell me," he murmurs against your lips. "Please, muña. I need to know."

"Enough of this, Jacaerys," you finally say roughly, turning your face away from his. Jace does not mind. He kisses you still, trailing his lips gently along your cheek, to your ear, down the length of your neck, easing the words from you. "He prefers whores. He only comes to me when he has indulged in a cup of wine."

Jace's mouth stills against your skin. He does not know why the words both anger and please him. He is glad that you do not lie with one another as frequently as he feared, you do not seek each other for pleasure as you do in his nightmares, but—but how dare he prefer whores to you? How dare he have the right to call you his wife, the right to your bed, arms, and cunt, and he still seeks out other women? If it were Jace—

If it were Jace, if it were Jace, if it were Jace.

"How often?"

"Jacaerys," you warn, voice low.

"Please, muña," he says again, glancing up at you. "I just want to know."

You relent when he looks up at you with beckoning eyes. You have always been weak for him when he looks at you like that, always struggled to deny him anything when he turns his eyes up to you, wide and pleading—he has taken advantage of it for as long as he could remember, and he takes advantage of it now.

You press your lips together and say, "Often enough."

Jace's blood runs hot. "And when he does?"

You sigh, tilting your head back against the stone, patience waning, and Jace quits while he's already behind, not wanting to risk an argument while you're bare and wanting in his arms for the first time. He busies himself at your neck again, kissing down the length of your throat slowly, fingers stroking the skin at your hip.

"It makes me angry," he admits, voice muffled slightly against your skin as he nips and licks at your neck. He continues lower, lashes fluttering as he trails open-mouthed kisses between the valley of your breasts. "Worse, really. There is no word that can articulate how it feels knowing that mongrel has everything I have ever wanted and treats you with such—" He cuts himself off abruptly, resting his forehead against your collarbone. "I only wish to see you treated as you deserve. I—"

I wish to be the one to treat you that way.

He does not give you the opportunity to respond again, lips finding your skin, mouth wandering lower. He presses lingering kisses along your skin—an apology for every careless touch you have endured because he was too young to do anything when your father handed you off to Aegon. He wants you to understand the difference without having to put it into words—that there is nowhere he would rather be, there is no woman in the world he would prefer to be abed with than you.

Your fingers slip uncertainly into his dark curls when he lowers himself to his knees before you.

"Jacaerys," you say hesitantly, and Jace glances up. The sight of you looking down at him with furrowed brows nearly steals what little courage he has managed to build up. "What are you doing?"

Jace does not fully know himself. The only experience he has comes from the poorly written romances he'd managed to sneak from Rhaena when she wasn't paying attention and the increasingly indecent conversations he had overheard from the men around him as he grew older, boasting crudely over cups of lovers beneath them, thighs closed tight around their ears—the pleasure a man can give with naught but his mouth—but he had always flushed and looked away, feigning disinterest. He wishes now that he had listened more.

Once or twice, he had considered visiting a pleasure house. He had even convinced himself it would be sensible—to learn what he was doing before he ever found himself in the position he is now. But every time he seriously entertained the idea, his stomach turned. The idea of touching another woman, of kissing her, of sinking inside her and pretending it was you beneath his hands, made his skin crawl.

So he has remained hopelessly inexperienced, despite what he might have implied at supper earlier.

"Trust me," is all he says, hoping you cannot hear the uncertainty behind the words. He press another soft kiss against your skin, a second to your inner thigh as he eases your legs apart. He cannot breathe at the sight of your cunt so close to his face, half-convinced this might be a dream. "I just want to make you feel good. Let me try, muña."

He does not wait for you to second guess him, dragging his lips from your skin to the apex of your thighs, warmth breath ghosting over you. Your breath hitches, entire body tensing, and before he can lose his nerves, Jace buries his face between your thighs. His breath hitches the moment his mouth is on you, savoring in the taste of you, the scent of you, the warmth of you. His fingers bite deep into the plush skin of your thighs to hold you still, and Jace's lashes flutter as he drags his tongue between your folds, lapping at you desperately before he presses the tip of his tongue to your hole.

"Oh," he hears you breathe, thighs tensing beneath his touch, hips jerking against his face. His eyes slide shut momentarily as he relishes in the sound of the soft noises spilling from your lips above him—gasps and moans and whines caught in the back of your throat. "I—What—what are you—"

Instead of answering, he shifts one of your thighs so that it rests on his shoulder so that he might bury his tongue deeper inside of you, and you choke on your words. His eyes flick upward, wide and searching, to watch the way your chest heaves, head tilted back against the stone, lips swollen and slick from Jace's own mouth, trying to figure out what you like.

Jace has spent years dreaming of this, he thinks for the dozenth that night. Years imagining the moment he could touch you, hold you, kiss you, lay with you; none compares to having you writhing against his mouth, cunt grinding on his tongue.

How could Aegon ever be with another after seeing you in the throes of pleasure like this? Jace would suffocate between your thighs if it meant he would die with the sound of your pretty moans in his ears.

Unless—unless Aegon has never seen you like this?

Heat rushes low—his trousers have been painfully tight from the moment his lips first touched yours, but he aches now, lungs burning as his hips jerk slightly, rutting against air as he seeks out friction. He parts his lips from your cunt just long enough to suck in a gulp of air to his lungs before latching back onto you, tongue sweeping between your soaked folds, lapping at your slick before he sucks the small little bud at the front of your cunt into his mouth.

The cry that spills from your lips is music to his ears, gaze flying up as your back arches against the wall, hips rocking against his face, your heel digging into his mid-back. The hand you buried in his hair twists at the dark locks painfully, your other scratching at the stone behind you, and his eyes half-roll back at the stinging to his scalp.

There is no way, he realizes, the image of you writhing on his tongue seared behind his eyelids as his eyes slide shut so that he can focus on eating you in earnest. He groans into you, one hand tight around your thigh, the other fisting your ass to pull you impossibly closer. There is no way Aegon has ever seen you like this, had you like this, because if he had, he would never go to another.

Jace is the only one who gets to see you like this.

Jace is the only one who gets to have you like this.

"Jacaerys," you gasp, voice breathy, hitching over his name, thighs trembling around his head. "Please."

Jace's gaze snaps back up toward you. He's panting as he pulls his mouth from your cunt, savoring the keening noise that spills from your lips.

Distantly, he knows that this is reckless. He knows that Ser Steffon is right outside your door, and he can likely hear everything happening behind your doors. He knows that you are married, and he knows the consequences for both of you would be dire if someone walked in while his face is buried in your cunt.

Still, he says hoarsely what you have told him dozens of times before, "Ivestragon ziry drējī."

Say it correctly.

You stare at him, eyes wide and lips parted in disbelief, and a thrill runs through him, grip tightening on your thighs, breath ghosting hot over your cunt. He wants so badly to drown himself in the taste of you again, tongue darting out to lap at the slickness on his lips and chin, but he refrains, waiting.

"Kostilus," you finally breathe out, voice shaky, fingers trembling in his hair. They slip down the slope of his nose, resting on his lips, and Jace's lips part instinctively, lashes fluttering as he takes your two fingers into his mouth. "Kostilus, Jacaerys."

Jace's vision flashes white as he moans around your fingers, hips rutting forward against air again. Your fingers slip from his mouth so he can dive forward again, sloppily dragging his tongue between your folds, fucking it deep into your hole before he kisses messily up your cunt to the sensitive bud that makes you writhe.

He's mortified when his abdomen tightens and his hips jerk one final time, and he recognizes the familiar, sticky warmth suddenly seeping through his trousers, but he's so lost in the taste and feel of you that all he can do is hold you tighter, panting as you grind your hips against his face and he desperately tries to kee up.

You're keening above him, pretty, pitched moans that make him dizzy—because he's making you feel like this. He is. Not your husband, not Aemond, not anyone—only him.

He wants to feel you fall apart on his tongue, wants you to grab his hair and rock your hips against his face, use him—he wants you to use him however you see fit. Take him for everything he has and more.

Jace knows that you are married. He knows he cannot ask you for what he wants yet because he does not know how to achieve it, cannot yet find the courage to tell you how desperately he needs to be the man you choose before all others. He wants to be your husband—he wants to be your husband so bad that it kills him sometimes to know that the path getting there will be a long, difficult one.

But Jace is patient. He has waited a decade to be reunited with you, he will wait a decade more to wed you, if need be.

If this is all you can give him for now, he will take it. He will accept being something can only exist in stolen moments behind closed doors, beneath sheets in the dead of night, in sweat slicked skin and breathy moans, if it means that one day he might have the right to love you openly and call you his wife.

"Hah—" you gasp, thighs trembling on either side of his head. Jace suddenly understands why men always sounded so proud of themselves when they spoke of having their women wanton and writhing on their tongue. He is so drunk off the taste of you, the sound of your pleasure, that he hardly cares that his lungs burn. "I'm—I think—I'm going—"

Jace's gaze cuts upward, jaw falling half slack as he watches you come undone above him. You cry his name, fisting his hair and grinding your cunt against his mouth, and Jace thinks he finishes a second time untouched, cock twitching in his trousers, seed dripping down his thighs.

His fingers loosen on your thighs, thumbs easing circles into your skin as he returns to lapping at your cunt, careful not to let a single drop of you go to waste. His lashes flutter as he dares to suck your bud into his mouth again, only for you to start squirming and tugging at his hair.

"Jacaerys," you gasp, trying to pull your hips away, but Jace follows, tongue swirling circles, dragging between your folds. He dips it back into your hole to feel the way it tightens around him, and his mind goes blank as he imagines his cock in its place. "J—mandianna, stop—hold on, it's too sensitive. Jacaerys!"

Jace only pulls back when your voice sharpens and your heel kicking hard into his back twice, eyes a bit hazy as he looks up at you. Your expression softens at the sight of him. He wonders how much of a mess he must look right now—on his knees before you, chest heaving with every breath, face flushed, lips swollen and chin slick, hair a tangled mess from where your fingers had been tugging it.

One of your hands, still trembling, drops to his face, cradling his cheek gently. You tilt his face up, and Jace leans helplessly into your palm, turning his face just enough to press a kiss to the center of it.

"I meant what I said," he tells you, voice hoarse, eyes searching your face. "I'll stay. You need only say the word, muña. You do not have to be alone anymore."

It would be a dangerous game, he realizes. One day with you—in the throne room, at the training yard, during supper—had been enough for him to nearly expose the two of you before there was even anything to expose.

What would become of the two of you after days of stolen glances and nights spent slipping unnoticed into one another's chambers? How long before his hand lingered where it should not, before someone noticed the way his eyes followed you through every room, before the whispers that already plagued the family found fresh fodder?

Jace watches the same realization cross your face and his heart sinks. Your expression turns distant and calculating as you consider every risk he has been too desperate to care about.

"Say something," he murmurs.

Your eyes meet his again at last. "We will talk in the morning."

His heart sinks. "Muña—"

"In the morning, Jacaerys," you repeat, softer this time, thumb brushing once across his cheek. "When neither of us has wine in our blood, and you have had time to consider what you are asking of me."

Jace wants to protest that he has had eight years to consider it. Instead, he presses his lips to your palm again and nods, rising to his feet so that he might guide you to the bed.

Perhaps it is for the best, he thinks, that despite everything that has transpired tonight, the two of you have not gone any further. His gaze drops briefly before returning to yours.

"We should be careful," he murmurs. "If this is to continue."

Your brows lift slightly. "You have only just discovered caution?"

Jace almost smiles. "I mean it. I will not make the same mistake my mother did." His expression sobers. "I will not put a child in you who bears my face and leave you to answer for it."

Your entire expression changes. "Jacaerys."

He mistakes the sharpness in your voice for offense—perhaps he was being too presumptuous, you could very well tell him this will never happen again come morning. The thought makes his stomach turn violently.

"I only meant—"

"You were not a mistake." Jace goes still, throat bobbing as he stares down at you. "Do not speak of yourself that way—or your mother, for that matter."

Jace makes a bitter noise in the back of his throat—a scoff, maybe a laugh, and then he speaks out loud the words that have haunted him for as long as he's known he does not look like his father. "You cannot tell me that no one thought it. That there was not some immediate disappointment—regret—when I came into the world with brown hair and brown eyes instead of silver and violet."

You have the nerve to laugh at him, and when he shoots you an accusing look, you only grab his hand so that you can ghost your lips to his knuckles.

"Mandianna," you say fondly. "Tomorrow morning, I want you to ask your mother what my reaction was when I saw you for the first time. She will tell you."

Jace falters, fingers tensing against yours as he gives you a questioning look, but you only raise your eyebrows, signaling you will say no more.

He sighs and looks away, "I only mean to say that I do not want my son to go through what I have. Nor do I want you to go through what my mother has."

"I know," you soothe, running your thumb over his knuckles before releasing his hand. "We will talk in the morning. I would ask you to stay, but the twins rise with the sun and enjoy waking their disgruntled father with them, so Aegon tends to appear at my door shortly after sunrise to deposit them here so that he might return to his own bed. I would rather not risk him finding you in mine."

Jace's jaw tightens at the reminder of your husband, hating the domestic image that comes to mind—Aegon with sleep trussed hair and tired eyes, two children at his heel, showing up to your door with a yawn so he might return to sleep.

It should be him, he thinks despondently. It should be him with your children, him who can be with you when the sun is high, him as your husband. Not Aegon.

"Of course," he finally says, voice strained. Then he swallows as his gaze lifts to yours, tone softening as he tells you, "I missed you a lot, muña."

"I missed you too, mandianna," you say quietly. "Go rest. We will figure everything out."

Jace does not think he's going to get a wink of sleep, but he nods anyway, inclining his head slightly before he makes his way to your door.

He takes one last lingering look at you, hesitating when he sees the distant expression on your face as soon as you think his back is turned, and then he inhales deeply before lowering his gaze and leaving your chambers, an ache in his chest that already feels unbearable.

If Ser Steffon heard anything from the other side of the door, he gives no indication of it beyond the faintly awkward look that crosses his face when Jace steps into the corridor, wiping at the lower half of his face.

Jace answers it with a vicious glare before hurrying away.

————————————

"Jacaerys," his mother demands when he finally makes his way to the courtyard, where she, Daemon, his brothers and cousins are all waiting. It is hours past dawn—they were supposed to leave for Dragonstone as soon as the sun breached the horizon. "Where have you been? We've been waiting for you."

Jace's jaw tightens as he walks past his mother without a word to the horse the stable boys readied for him. He has been trying to rationalize your absence for hours. He had waited in the godswood and the gardens, lingered near the training yard and the library; he was desperate to catch so much as a glimpse of your familiar smile. He did not dare go to your chambers.

You had promised. You had sworn to him that you would speak in the morning, and Jace had hardly slept because of it. He alternated between wild hope and sickening dread as he imagined every possible outcome of the conversation awaiting him. He paced the corridors of the keep and stared up at the moon above until his eyes were heavy and circled, but he could not bring himself to return to his chambers.

Finally, morning had come, but you were nowhere to be found. You are avoiding him.

The thought has been festering inside him for hours, growing uglier each time he searches another part of the keep for you. Perhaps sobreity had brought regret with it, he thinks with a lump in his throat. Perhaps you had wakened this morning and remembered his mouth upon yours, his hands against your skin, and realized with horror what you had allowed to happen.

What has he done? He had pushed all evening, testing every boundary you placed before him until eventually there had been none left to cross. He had kissed you. He had put his hands on you. He had—

His stomach twists so violently that he almost retches. What if he had mistakken hesitation for invitation simply because he had wanted you so desperately? What if you only kissed him because you have never been able to say no to him? What if—

"Jacaerys," his mother snaps, grabbing his wrist before he can sit astride his horse. Jace inhales sharply, raising his chin and straightening his shoulders, refusing to turn around until she forces him to. When she sees the expression on his face—the tears wetting his eyes, and the way his lips tremble faintly—fury drains into concern. Her voice softens immediately, hand rising to cradle his face as she asks quietly, "Jacaerys, what's wrong, sweet boy? What has happened?"

Jace swallows thickly, gaze averting up to the sky as he desperately tries to swallow the lump in his throat. He shakes his head once, but his mother is persistent, tilting her head, lips pursed as she waits for an answer.

"I cannot find her," he finally admits, and he hates how small his voice sounds. Rhaenyra's brows draw together, confused.

"Who?" she asks, and Jace gives her a look that makes the question unnecessary. Understanding flickers across her face. "I am sure she is just busy with the twins, Jacaerys. I—"

"She said she would speak with me in the morning," he continues, words coming faster. "She promised me, and I have looked everywhere, and she is nowhere, and I think–" His voice cracks. His lashes flutter as he forces himself to stop and swallow, clearing his throat. "I think I have done something terrible."

"Jace—"

"I should not have pushed her." His eyes squeeze shut. "I should have left things as they were. Everything was finally right between us again, and I ruined it."

His mother stares at him, concern deepening into confusion. "Jacaerys, what exactly did you do?"

Jace stares at his mother helplessly. He cannot very well stand in the middle of the courtyard and confess that he spent half the night with his mouth pressed to his married aunt's cunt while Daemon, his brothers, cousins, and half a dozen stable boys stand within earshot. Rhaenyra's brows furrow slowly, glancing at him once before her gaze draws back to the direction of the keep, a calculating expression on her face.

"It does not matter," he rushes out before she can put two and two together. "It does not matter. I just—I need to speak with her."

Rhaenyra studies him for another long moment, and Jace struggles not to squirm beneath her scrutiny, afraid she can see everything that he had done with you the night before. At last, she finally says, "Then come back with me."

Jace blinks. "What?"

"We will see the others safely to Dragonstone, and then you and I can return on dragonback. If you are so desperate to speak with her, I see no reason you cannot."

Relief loosens the tension in his shoulders. It is not ideal—he had wanted to speak with you this morning, had spent hours imagining exactly what he might say, loathes the idea of not knowing what terms the two of you are on for days on end—but at least he does not have to return to Dragonstone wondering when he might see you again.

"Yes, that—" he starts to say, voice catching. "I would like that."

Rhaenyra gives his cheek an affectionate pat before releasing him, turning to make her way toward the carriage.

"Mother," he calls after a moment, and she pauses. Jace hesitates, remembering what you had told him to ask in passing the night before. Jace shifts awkwardly on his feet, feeling strangely foolish now that he has to ask. "What did muña do when she first saw me?" His mother's eyes narrow, and Jace is flustered, feeling as though he needs to explain the sudden question. He defends, "She told me to ask."

Understanding dawns across Rhaenyra's face, and then she immediately starts to laugh, hand lifting to her mouth to stifle her giggles. Jace flushes the longer she laughs and does not answer, fighting a scowl.

"She wailed," his mother finally says through her a sigh as she calms her laughter. "Quite inconsolably, actually."

Jace stares at her, unsure how this was supposed to make him feel better. "She cried?"

Rhaenyra hums in agreement, and Jace's face falls. She notices immediately and gives him a small, fond smile, tucking a dark curl behind his ear.

"Sweet boy, not because she was disappointed. When I put you in her arms the first time, she refused to let you go. I, too, thought something was wrong at first, because she wept so hard that I could hardly get her to answer me when I asked her why she was crying. Finally, she told me that you were perfect—" Jace's throat bobs terribly, and Rhaenyra tilts her head slightly as she cradles his face again "—her exact words, mind you. Then she asked quite sweetly if she might keep you."

"Keep me?" Jace echoes.

"You must understand, she was very young." Rhaenyra laughs again, hand dropping from his face to adjust Viserys against her shoulder. "She seemed to believe that because I had made you, I could simply make another if I wished. I spent the better part of an afternoon explaining that you were my firstborn son and heir, and no, she could not keep you merely because she asked so sweetly."

Jace cannot help the smile slowly spreading across his face.

"That did not discourage her, of course, spoiled little thing. She does hate being told no. She asked for you again on her next nameday, and the one after that, if memory serves. Every year for quite some time." Jace's ears burn as he flushes and looks away. His mother reaches out to hold his hand gently. He wonders if she understands what prompted you to tell him to ask this, because she gives him a soft smile and says, "She loved everything about you, but your eyes were always her favorite. She used to hold you in the sunlight because she swore they looked like pools of honey when the sun caught them right. I had to tell her to stop more than once. She would have kept you there all afternoon if I let her, and I was afraid the sun would burn you if you were kept out there too long."

"Oh," Jace says quietly, swallowing thickly as he stares down at the ground.

Her expression softens, more serious now as she tells him, "You know, she was lonely before you were born, Jacaerys."

His smile fades slightly, gaze lifting to meet hers. His mother has mentioned this before in passing when he was younger, but never elaborated on it, simply sent him off to go spend time with you.

"I tried to be there for her. I loved her dearly, but I was fourteen years her elder. By the time she was old enough to want someone to play with, I had already grown beyond such things and had courtly duties to attend to." Rhaenyra looks toward the keep, something wistful passing over her face. "She tried to befriend Aegon when she was young—" Jace's expression twists at the mention of your husband. "—but Alicent—the Queen—kept her children away from me and mine, and your muña was always lumped in with us. Sometimes I would find her watching the other noble children in the garden and training yard. They would be running about together, playing their games, and she would simply stand at the edge and watch them."

Jace swallows thickly, voice hoarser than he intends as he asks quietly, "Why didn't she join them?"

"I do not know," Rhaenyra admits. "Perhaps she did not know how. Perhaps she was scared. She was always a little apart from everyone else. You know well that she had her own whispers following her. Many thought she was—" A bitter expression crosses his mother's face. "—thought she was cursed because of the manner she came into this world. The manner in which she claimed her dragon only made people believe it more."

Jace chews the inside of his cheek, chest aching at the thought of you younger, smaller, standing alone as you watched other children laugh together. He cannot imagine it.

For as long as he could remember, you have always been bright smiles and pretty laughter, the difference between a perfect day and a ruined one. He cannot stand the idea of you small and alone, desperate for friends but unable to make any. He thinks of the dulled look on your face as you entered the throne room, the emptiness in your eyes when you first arrived to supper—worst of all, the distant one you wore last night before he left.

He has ruined everything.

"So when you were born," Rhaenyra continues, looking back at him with a small smile. "I was happy for more reasons than one. I had my sweet son, and she finally had someone who belonged to her as much as she belonged to him. I knew that once you were old enough to toddle about after her, neither of you would ever truly be alone."

Jace swallows around the sudden tightness in his throat, head hanging forward slightly. Tears sting at the corner of his eyes again, and he blinks them away before his mother can notice.

"Jacaerys," his mother says quietly, beckoning him to look at her. He lifts his head reluctantly, eyes heavy. "Whatever happened between the two of you, she has loved you from the moment she first laid eyes upon you. There is nothing in this world that will change that."

Except she does not know that, Jace wants to say, fists curling at his side. What if last night had cost him the one thing he had spent eight years desperate to have back? What if, in his selfish desire to have more of you, he had destroyed the chance to simply have you at all? What if—

"She really asked you to give me to her?" he asks instead, voice rough as he tries to joke to change the subject, hoping that his mother does not see the doubt swirling in his eyes.

He thinks she does, because her smile is a bit sadder as she says, "Repeatedly."

"What did you tell her?"

"That she could borrow you." Rhaenyra laughs softly, reaching up to brush an errant curl from his forehead. "I'm afraid she never did learn to give you back. Come, sweet boy, it is time for us to bring your brothers and cousins home. We will return on dragonback soon after."

————————————

"What is the meaning of this?" you demand, slamming your fists against the doors to your chambers. "Ser Steffon—who is out there? Let me out this instant, you mongrels, I will feed you to my dragon if you do not unbar my chambers immediately."

You had woken late to find your doors barred from the outside and Ser Steffon conspicuously absent from his post. At first, you had assumed some drunken foolishness on Aegon's part—a poorly conceived jest that you would make your half-brother regret the moment you were free—but nearly an hour has passed, and no one will answer you.

You pace the length of your room, agitated, furious, terrified. Something is terribly wrong.

Had they figured out what you had done with Jacaerys? Were they locking you in your chambers so you might not flee before they bring you before the High Septon to humiliate you? You would not put it past them—Alicent has always held a particular disdain toward you, and you have been at odds with the Faith ever since the septons tried to convince thirteen-year-old Aegon to let the maesters cut you open to save the twins.

No, if they knew what happened, there would be much more noise. It is the silence that is unsettling. The Red Keep is never silent in the afternoon. You should hear servants rushing through the corridors, bringing meals to the lords who do not wish to leave their chambers, guards changing their watch, absent chatter and laughter. But there is nothing.

"Aegon," you call loudly, slamming your fist against the door, because he had not come by with the twins this morning either. He always comes by with the twins. "Who is out there? Answer me now!"

You press your ear to the door. For several heartbeats, you hear nothing. Then, there is the faint scrape of armor shifting beyond the door, and you tilt your head to the side, stilling as your focus narrows in on the sound.

"I can hear you," you say, voice dropping dangerously low. "Open the door immediately, and I might grant you the privilege of choosing how you are going to die."

"Forgive me, princess. I cannot open the door."

The voice is unfamiliar. Your stomach drops. What is happening? Fear curdles low in your stomach, skin itchy with anxiety. Your gaze flicks from the heavy door to the bars on your window—your apartments are too high to climb from, and there is no way for Zūgaxes to free you lest risking bringing the entire tower down with you in it.

"Where is Ser Steffon?" you demand. "Who are you? Where are my sister and my nephews? Where are my children?"

Where are Maegor and Maegelle? Where are Jacaerys and Lucerys? Rhaenyra, Daemon, everyone else? What is happening? Why are you locked in?

"Your children are safe, princess," the guard says simply.

"Where are they?"

"I have been instructed only to assure you that Prince Maegor and Princess Maegelle are unharmed."

What? Unharmed? Why would they be harmed?

"Instructed by whom?" you hiss, only to be met with more silence. You strike the door again, fury beginning to overwhelm your fear. "Where is my husband? Answer me, you worthless dog!"

"I cannot say."

"My sister?"

Your heart begins to hammer when the guard does not respond. Rhaenyra and the boys were supposed to leave for Dragonstone at dawn—Jacaerys was supposed to leave with her.

Jacaerys, who would be waiting for you. Jacaerys, who you had watched leave your chambers only with the assurance that when the sun rose, the two of you would speak about what had transpired between you and what in the Seven Hells you intended to do next. Jacaerys, who would undoubtedly assume the worst when you did not show.

Your stomach twists as you imagine him waiting somewhere for you, watching the hours pass with no sign of your arrival. You know exactly where his mind will go. He will convince himself that you regret everything that happened between you, that you had woken sober and ashamed and had broken your promise because you could not bear to face him after what you had allowed him to do.

He will think he had done something wrong. The thought makes panic claw at your throat. You slam your fist against the door again, and again, and again, tears of frustration pricking at your eyes.

He had been so uncertain when he left you. He had searched your face for reassurance, and his confidence crumbled the moment you told him the two of you must wait until morning to speak. You should not have sent him away. You do not even know why you sent him away. You had just been—you had been scared.

You had been scared for what you'd done, of what you'd allowed him to do, of how easily you'd forgotten everything else as soon as his mouth was on yours—your husband, children, his mother, the realm. Every consequence that should have been enough to make you push him away had disappeared the moment he touched you, and you'd been terrified of how desperately some part of you had wanted him to stay.

When he offered to remain in King's Landing with you, some reckless part of you had wanted to say yes before he even finished speaking. You'd wanted to pull him into your bed and keep him there until morning, consequences be damned. For one night, you had wanted to forget that you were Aegon's wife, that you have been alone, desperately trying not to drown for a decade, that war was most likely on the horizon and your children would be at the center of it.

So, you had sent him away and told yourself that morning would make everything clearer. Instead, morning has come and gone, and Jacaerys is somewhere far beyond these walls believing you had abandoned him again.

What is happening? Why are you locked in your rooms?

"Let me out," you demand, voice rising, furious, slamming your fists against your door again and again and again. "Let me out! Let me out, let me out, let me out!"

Halfway across the Blackwater, Jace startles from the deck of the ship, head lifting and turning back in the direction of King's Landing as Zūgaxes's distant roar carries over the water. He stares at the distant silhouette of the city, unease prickling along the back of his neck and cannot help but feel as though he has made a terrible mistake by getting on this ship.

[osarina]

@noble-17 @xxvelvetxxxx @chiefcrownland @gracesalvatore @Bl3ssedp0etry @salinaiacono6 @asweetblueberry2 @strangersunghoon @infirebaby @justanotherkpopstanlol @soyelfleureon @indigo491 @lov3blond777 @ripmornings @glitterfartz08 @worstendingever @anyiahsbookshelf @luv-aurora @solarrandom @leeahl @harry19potter-blog

[e-m-christina]

EAT HER UP | A.T

Requested: Yes Like this? Check out my masterlist. I apologise for any mistakes. I wrote this half-asleep at 2am

Pure filth, featuring a morning wake-up from a certain silver-haired prince's tongue (18+)

Sunlight streamed through the large stained-glass window, like a river of colour washing over your sleeping form. The first thing you felt was the morning sun's rays enveloping your skin like a soft hug.

The Red-Keep was slowly coming alive; the sounds of servants' footsteps and chattering in distant halls filled the air, and the scent of fresh bread, sweet apple-cakes and roasted morning meats wafted into your chambers. A soft sigh escapes your lips, but you don’t open your eyes yet, too content to bask in the gentle morning serenity. 

The second thing you felt? Him.

“Good morning.” You whisper, dipping your fingers under the silk sheets to trail through his silver hair. The heat of Aerion’s mouth trailing against the tender skin of your inner thighs was a familiar one; you did not need to open your eyes to know it was your husband. 

“Took you long enough.” The vibration of his voice,  thick with the remnants of sleep and lust, sent a shiver down your spine. His teeth nip against your skin as his wet kisses trail higher. “Feeling lazy today, are we?”

“Shut up.” Your voice comes out breathy as his fingers tighten around your thighs, spreading them a little wider as he worked his teeth, lips and tongue over the already hickey-painted skin, placing fresh dark marks over the faded ones. 

“Feisty this morning, wife.” Aerion’s fingers travel up your thighs, scratching and squeezing as they go before settling on your soft hips. “I’ll make you regret that insolence.”

Before you can even think of a retort, he teasingly ghosts his lips over your already slick-heat, making you gasp. It was only a whisper of a touch, yet it drove you crazy, and the worst, most infuriating part? He knew it.

“Open your eyes,” His silky voice demands as he squeezes your hips. “I want you to look at me.”

Your hips roll instinctively towards the familiar allure of his lips. He would not ask a second time. He never asks a second time. Your eyes flutter open, blinking against the soft morning light…and your breath catches in your throat.

You had seen him like this almost every morning of your marriage, yet the sight never failed to make you squirm. Aerion's usual perfect silver hair was a mess from sleep, his pale cheeks flushed, and his lips were swollen from kisses as he lay between your legs, basking in the golden rays of light. Yet it was his eyes that made your fingers clutch the sheets just a little tighter.  They bore into yours; the usual violet was almost completely blackened with want as he stared up at you, challenging you to look away. You never did. 

“Good.” It was a simple praise, but from Aerion? It made your chest swell. You watched him gaze up at you for a few more achingly long moments. “You look pretty like this.” He whispers, before finally slipping his tongue against your heat in a slow, teasing drag.

“Fuck.” You gasp, hips jerking foward but his grip tightened, forcing you still.

“...Taste pretty too.” Aerion murmurs, drawing his tongue back into his mouth for a moment to savour your taste with a satisfied groan. It was sinful, the sight alone of him dipping his tongue back against you, licking and sucking as he stared up from between your thighs, could undo you.

It did not take long for Aerion to lose interest in teasing; he was not a patient man after all. Your hips struggled against his firm grip, needy and desperate as his lips planted hot, sloppy kisses against your heat. 

“Eyes. On. Me.” He growled, wrapping his lips around that sensitive little bundle of nerves that he just knew drove you crazy. You couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think; the only thing you could do was bite back a stream of curses that threatened to fall from your lips and try your best to keep your hips still for him.

A familiar ache tightened in your lower stomach, like an ever-burning and desperate heat as he flicked his tongue against you.  You whimper, propping yourself on your elbows as you look down at your husband make a mess of you with his lips. Your breath hitches as he dips his silver head lower, teasing your needy entrance with his hot tongue…before slipping inside. 

Immediately, your head falls back, and a cascade of gasps escapes your lips as you feel him drag inside you, slipping in and out in the most languid way, forcing your hips to chase him. Aerion's thumb pressed against your bundle of nerves again, rubbing in slow circles, guiding your pleasure closer as he fucked you with his tongue. The tension in your lower stomach tightened further, and you could feel your climax begin to build. When your moans of pleasure hit a new volume, and your hips began stuttering against his tongue, he knew you were close.

Just when you were going to come undone, Aerion abruptly withdrew his lips and tongue, pulling a needy whine from your lips as your hips buck, searching for him. A grin danced on your husband's lips, which now glistened with your wetness, as he watched you writhe and jerk in need of his touch. 

“Cruel.” You frustratedly choke out, the ache between your legs making you whimper, desperate to finish. 

“That I am, dear wife.” Aerion slowly licks your slick from his lips with a low hum. “But I did warn you, you would regret your insolence.”

--

Apologies for mistakes, or if this is not my best work. I wrote this in 15 minutes at 2am and did not proofread it. Thanks for reading!!

[e-m-christina]

part 2 coming - turning into a series 🤭🤭🤭

[anxietyproblem]

[grishaxverse]

they’re happily married ever after BECAUSE I SAID SO

[captainzutara]

has this been done yet?

I'm the same Zutara trash 20 years apart 🙂‍↕️

[silverwingxox]

born to marry him, forced to read fanfics about him

[ivmaruva]

Wedding Bliss 💐

[chuluoyi]

dear of his heart

- aerion targaryen x wife!reader

the time has come for your prickly prince to prepare for fatherhood! what awaits you as the days tick down to the arrival of your first child?

genre/warnings: suggestive, fluff, pregnancy, protective!aerion who will burn the masses if they ever do you wrong, quarrels here and there, lots of kissing too bc he is ravenous, attempt at poisoning, hurt/comfort, childbirth, overall very self-indulgent, lannister!reader

notes: another part of the dragon and the lioness series. fluff, protective aerion and uhhh a sprinkle of drama? yeah that's the plot <3

“Every part of you… is mine to taste, wife...”

Once, the very idea of being the Bright Prince’s wife was unfathomable to you. But now...

You had grown to savor the way Aerion kissed you with shameless greed, and most of all, the rare moments when his sharp features softened for you alone while he held you against him. Even his temperament, dramatics, and the irritated arch of his violet eyes whenever something displeased him had somehow become… lovable in your eyes.

Gods, when had that happened?

When had Aerion Brightflame ceased to be your insufferable husband and become the man whose embrace you sought without thinking?

“Mmh…” You blamed the babe growing within you. Surely that had to be the reason, you thought, as you kissed him back with equal fervor, fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt while his arms lowered you to your marital bed.

“Heh,” Aerion chuckled under his breath, watching your screwed-shut eyes as you chased his lips, incredibly wanton to him.

Strange, wasn’t it? The way life could twist bitter enemies into lovers before either of them even realized it themselves.

Your breath hitched as his hands slid beneath your knees, spreading your legs apart. He broke the kiss then, drinking in the sight of you— and you became self-conscious, only then realizing that he had made a quick work of your dress and you had been left in nothing but your lace undergarments.

“Y-You can’t...” You pressed your lips together, instinctively touching the swell of your belly. “That won’t… be good for the babe.”

Aerion’s lips curved with visible amusement.

“Oh?” he drawled, violet eyes glinting as they swept slowly over you. “Then why, pray tell, are you dressed like this, sweet wife?”

He was right, this was your own doing. Why would you have chosen such a racy, provokating thing to wear tonight?

Perhaps because—even if you wouldn’t admit it—a part of you had already suspected the evening would end with his hands on you and that dangerously pleased look in his eyes.

“A lesser man might say you want to tempt him,” Aerion mused, tracing a slow finger along your cheek, his smile still unbearably wicked.

“So you are not tempted?” you questioned boldly, meeting his gaze, despite the furious heat blooming across your face.

“No.” He shook his head, leaning closer until his lips nearly brushed yours, his voice smug and smooth as velvet. “I am, after all, a man blessed with extraordinary restraint.”

He said that, yet the way his sharp violet eyes focusing on your lips and the way his fingers drifted between your legs said otherwise.

Really, what man could resist the sight of his wife beneath him— soft, flushed, thoroughly marked as his with a babe in her belly while pretending innocence with those wide, coy eyes?

Your husband decided you were playing with fire, so you would get burned. Aerion suddenly slipped two fingers inside your underwear, before pushing one into your folds that made you wide-eyed and suck in a sharp breath—

“You just boasted about restraint!”

“And I possess it. I’m just choosing not to neglect my good wife,” he countered, his cruel grin returning as he inserted another finger, making you gasp in process.

Perfect. You were unraveling by the second, and he had barely even begun.

“There are, after all, many ways to pleasure an expecting wife like you... without compromising the babe.”

Such was your marital life now— with your prince bringing you pleasure nights after nights with the same greedy devotion he seemed to reserve only for you.

And somehow, this was merely the beginning of your happily ever after.

Ever since the word got out that you were with child, Aerion had become more protective of you.

Suddenly, servants were reprimanded for allowing sharp objects near your chambers, guards trailed several paces behind you whenever you wandered the gardens alone and healthy meals appeared at exact hours, prepared according to whichever elderly midwife had most recently filled Aerion’s head with warnings.

And once again, you noticed it most that afternoon when you merely tried to descend the stairs.

Your husband had been halfway through a conversation with his steward when he abruptly stopped speaking altogether, violet eyes narrowing upon you as you placed a hand against the railing.

“…What are you doing?”

You turned to him, blinking innocently. “Walking.”

Not that he would admit it or realize it himself though.

The steward wisely lowered his head, pretending sudden fascination with the floor tiles as Aerion strode towards you with an irritated frown.

“You nearly slipped yesterday,” he hissed, sliding an arm around your waist as he carefully guided you down the stairs.

You rolled your eyes, remembering how you stepped on a parchment the night before. “It was a harmless accident— and for the last time, no, I wasn’t slipping!”

Truthfully, beneath your outward annoyance, deep inside, you were sort of delighted. Because truly, who would have imagined that the arrogant dragon prince would express concern in ways that were somehow endearing?

Or more like, inconveniently endearing.

“Huzzah,” you declared with the flattest tone the moment your feet reached the bottom step, folding your arms dramatically as you turned to him. “I have survived the dreadful staircase, lord husband. Thanks to you.”

Aerion leveled you with a scathing look.

. . .

Soon, it was evident before the rest of Summerhall too.

You lifted your chin, eyes flashing with righteous indignation. “You dismissed a maid yesterday because she served me tea that was slightly too hot. Aerion, this has become ridiculous!”

The Bright Prince, however, remained unmoved, believing his actions were perfectly sensible. “She had one job yet failed to perform it properly. It could have scalded you.”

“You also confiscated my riding boots!”

“You are not riding, wife—”

Behind the half-open door of the solar across the hall, two spectators to your marital quarrel were your husband’s brothers. Daeron raised an eyebrow while young Aegon looked moments away from bursting into hysterical laughter.

“You are enjoying this far too much, Egg,” Daeron muttered dryly.

“Can you blame me?” he whispered back. “This is Aerion we are talking about. Aerion!” He gestured dramatically towards the door with both hands. “The same brother who once claimed affection was ‘a weakness designed by the gods to humiliate men’!”

Well, neither Daeron nor Egg had ever imagined they would witness their notorious middle brother reduced to hovering over his wife. This was indeed a sight.

“I have ridden since childhood!”

“And now you are carrying my child, woman—”

Daeron gave up at last, a chuckle escaping him too. “I never thought I would live long enough to see Aerion become a mother hen.”

“A dragon hen,” Egg corrected conspiratorially, as he strained his ears, thoroughly enjoying your marital dispute.

Another moon passed by, and the maester advised you to get more rest from now on as later moons will prove far more taxing on your body.

However, a royal summons arrived from King’s Landing not long after. The King himself intended to host a grand celebration tourney in honor of the birth of your first child—and both you and your husband were commanded to remain at court for the remainder of your confinement.

You were leaving Summerhall behind, but that was the least of your concerns.

Aerion would be entering the lists.

You had known he would before he even said it aloud. Aerion Brightflame would sooner stop breathing than ignore an opportunity to prove himself before the realm. Under ordinary circumstances, you would proudly bestow your favor upon him and watch him ride with your head held high, but—

Your labor pains could begin while he was in the field. He would be absent from the birthing chambers. Worse, he could get injured—

The thought should not have affected you as much as it did. Men rode in tourneys, princes fought for glory, and discomfort in childbed is how women served the realm.

And there was also another matter that occupied your mind—

“The shape sits high,” the midwife in King’s Landing had declared while measuring your belly, now heavier and more pronounced than ever in your seventh moon. “And my lady craves salted meats more than sweets. It should be a boy.”

Everyone seemed most pleased by the possibility. Aerion himself made it clear he favored a son. You, however, found yourself uncertain what to feel.

. . .

“Where is my lady wife?”

Contrary to what most might have assumed, Aerion was not particularly pleased to be back in King’s Landing.

The long journey from Summerhall had exhausted you so thoroughly that you had scarcely risen from bed for several days. Sure, the grand tourney stirred his excitement— his grandsire honoring the birth of his firstborn with such spectacle was a distinction not even his cousin Valarr had received.

But King’s Landing was still where rumors of another Blackfyre uprising drifted through like smoke, and with your confinement only weeks away, Aerion found himself increasingly ill at ease. These days, peace only came when you were somewhere within his sight.

“The Lady Lannister is bathing in the royal spring, my prince.”

The spring behind Aegon’s High Hill had long since become property of the royal family, secluded from common visitors and hidden behind walls of stone and tangled greenery. It was meant to be a place of relaxation— but still not somewhere his heavily pregnant wife should be wandering unattended.

His irritation simmered all the way through the winding path. The afternoon sun filtered through the trees overhead as Aerion pushed past hanging branches with impatient steps. He had half a mind to rebuke you the moment he arrived—

But every thought dissolved into dust the instant he saw you.

You stood waist-deep within the pristine spring waters, your body half-submerged in the cool waters. A white shift covered your breasts, but the generous swell of your stomach was exposed under the sunlight. Layers of skirts floated around you like scattered clouds, preserving your modesty while doing very little to dull the breathtaking sight before him.

The sight of you beneath the open sky, drenched in sunlight and water was ethereal. He was rooted near the edge of the spring, spellbound.

At nights, he had worshipped that divine body of yours with greedy hands and wandering lips, had learned every sigh you tried to hide, had savored the softness of your thighs, and the sleepy way you clung to him.

But, in the light of day, the temptation of you felt almost cruel.

His gaze lowered shamelessly over the curve of your figure, lingering upon your barely concealed breasts first, before trailing lower. Pride unfurled hotly in his chest at the sight of your rounded belly, heavy and almost ripe. You carried his blood there.

Aerion exhaled slowly through his nose, though it did little to calm the sudden heat crawling beneath his skin.

You noticed him then.

Your eyes lifted towards to him, and the moment your face softened at the sight of him, whatever remained of his irritation died completely.

“Well?” you asked with a coy smile, tilting your head slightly. “Are you merely going to stare, husband… or are you going to join me?”

Like some bewitched mortal lured by a river nymph from old Valyrian tales, the Bright Prince descended the stone steps without hesitation. His boots scraped against damp stone as he shrugged off his doublet with careless impatience, dark eyes never once leaving you.

By the time he stepped into the spring, he was clad only in his dress shirt and breeches, the cool water curling around him as he crossed towards you and drew you effortlessly into his embrace from behind.

“Standing there as though the Maiden herself rose from the spring,” Aerion murmured against your ear, lips brushing the damp skin beneath it. A faint smirk tugged at his mouth. “Did you intend to torment me in broad daylight?”

“I needed time to think,” you countered softly, though your breath caught when his wandering hands settled upon your chest beneath the wet fabric.

“To think? About what?”

You bit your lower lip as the waters lapped gently around the two of you. The way your face now marred with a frown made him click his tongue.

“Speak, wife. I dislike that look upon your face.”

“You are going to join the tourney,” you admitted at last, turning to face him. “While I may very well be laboring alone.”

“I shall return victorious,” he vowed, his violet irises blazing with conviction. “I shall place every honor I win before you and our child, just as it should be.”

Yet he could feel how you were unsatisfied with his answer. Aerion sighed quietly before lowering his mouth to your shoulder, brushing a kiss against your damp skin.

“You fret too much. The midwives will attend you day and night. You have nothing to fear— I will make certain of it.”

You pursed your lips, feeling foolish for being sullen knowing his presence would be demanded in the field regardless, but you just couldn’t help it.

Aerion fell silent for a moment, his hold around you tightening almost instinctively beneath the water.

“Look at me,” he commanded suddenly, and you did reluctantly, your lips still puckered in dissatisfaction.

Gods, how sweet could you be?

“Stop filling your little head with nonsense. I will return to you unscathed. Your task is to rest, eat whatever strange cravings seize you, and carry my child safely.”

His thumb traced the line of your jaw, tilting your chin up so you couldn’t stray from his gaze.

“Aerion—”

“I’m not finished.” His tone sharpened, though the hand cradling your face remained gentle. “I have ridden in tourneys since I was barely tall enough to hold a lance. I have been thrown from horses, split open, battered, and yet I remain standing before you now. And you think some hedge knight or a lordling’s second son could best me?”

A ghost of arrogance curved his lips. “I think not.”

His violet eyes swept over your face then. Gods, you looked painfully sweet like this— so soft with vulnerability.

“You carry blood of the dragon,” he murmured, his palm spreading over the curve of your belly beneath the water. “Do not insult either of us by imagining I would fail to return to you. And if your labor does begin while I am away...”

The thought seemed to sour his expression. “Then you will endure it exactly as I know you will. Know this, I will return to your side the moment I am able.”

You frowned faintly. “That is hardly comforting.”

Aerion snorted, his lips curling into a smirk. “You married the wrong man if you expected sweet comforts from me, wife.”

You let out a soft scoff despite yourself, some of your spirits finally lifting seeing his infuriating confidence.

“There,” he murmured smugly, poking your cheek when you broke into a little smile. “Are you done sulking now?”

“Perhaps not for long,” you countered lightly, throwing him a look. “If my husband fails to comfort me properly, perhaps I ought to find another man willing to do so.”

Aerion’s expression hardened at once, violet eyes narrowing as his grip around your waist tightened beneath the water.

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“I would.”

A dark look crossed his face, then—

He devoured your lips, one powerful arm locked securely around your waist while his other hand tangled in your hair, cradling the back of your head. The cool spring water rippled sharply around you as he deepened the kiss with blatant possessiveness, as though determined to remind you exactly who you belonged to.

When he broke the kiss, you breathlessly clutched his body for support. Breathing heavily against your lips, his voice dropped to a fiercely low growl—

“I wouldn’t let another man touch you while I still draw breath... oh sweet wife of mine.”

“My lady, I trust you are well?”

House Targaryen hosted a grand luncheon several days later within the halls of the Red Keep, gathering notable lords and ladies from across the realm.

You had been navigating the crowd with practiced grace when a warm, familiar voice cut through the ambient noise. Turning, you found yourself facing your cousin-by-law, the Prince Valarr Targaryen.

“Your Grace,” you greeted with a bright smile and slight curtsy. “Yes, I have been well.”

The Young Prince had arrived from Dragonstone with his wife. From where you were, you could see the princess consort mingling with other guests with radiant smile and perfect decorum.

She truly is beautiful, you often thought to yourself. Delicate features, graceful bearings, eyes that seemed almost luminous beneath the candlelight— it was easy to understand why bards wrote songs about her beauty.

Valarr’s gaze dipped towards the unmistakable swell of your stomach, far too prominent now to be concealed beneath your dress.

“Good to see you, really. How far along are you now?”

A wistful smile came to your lips. “Near enough that everyone has begun hovering over me as though I might break apart at any moment.”

That earned a quiet laugh from him. “Still, you are in your most delicate state now. I imagine my cousin can’t stay still as well.”

“Well, one can hardly blame the prince!”

You were still smiling when another voice suddenly joined the conversation. You turned to find Lord Manderly, stout and red-faced from the midday wine, waddled over with an easy grin, goblet in hand.

“With a wife as lovely as you, oh lady—” he slurred, “I imagine Prince Aerion guards you like a dragon atop treasure!”

“You flatter me, my lord,” you answered politely.

Lord Manderly waved a dismissive hand, laughing boisterously. “Not at all, not at all! Though I confess, recalling how the Prince Aerion making quite the spectacle of himself—” he turned to Valarr, “with you, my prince, years ago...”

Ah, that story you once heard in a passing too. The tourney in King’s Landing, in which Valarr and Aerion fought each other in a contest of arms, supposedly, over pride.

Valarr’s expression shifted almost immediately. “My lord—”

But Lord Manderly, either oblivious or too deep in wine to notice, continued on cheerfully enough—

“For a long time, everyone was talking about how the Bright Prince was quite captivated by Her Grace’s beauty! Enough to demand her favor and fight her husband!”

You blinked, realization settled over you with sudden, uncomfortable clarity.

“My lord, if I may.” Valarr cleared his throat, a restrained but cross look on his face. “Words are wind. A tourney floor is full of grand gestures and exaggerated flattery. I assure you, everyone would do well not to concern themselves with such baseless rumors.”

Lord Manderly’s red face drained of color all of a sudden as the weight of his social blunder finally registered.

“Oh Seven— forgive me, my lady!” he said quickly, turning towards you with genuine embarrassment. “A foolish old man’s rambling, is all! My deepest, most sincere apologies— I meant absolutely no disrespect to you, nor to Prince Aerion!”

“Think nothing of it, Lord Manderly,” you replied smoothly, your voice a perfectly crafted mask of composure. “The wine is indeed potent today.”

Relieved to be dismissed, Manderly excused himself with hasty bows, and Valarr quickly steered the conversation back to safer waters before he also excused himself from you.

You appeared to be smiling, but deep inside, you were perturbed.

Your eyes involuntarily scanned the crowded solarium, searching through the sea of silks and velvet until they landed on your husband standing amongst a cluster of knights and courtiers.

And right in that moment, you caught how his gaze followed not you, but the princess consort at the far corner of the hall.

Something inside your chest curled unpleasantly, but you decided not to dwell in it. Whatever might have existed between them once, they meant nothing now, you assured yourself.

So, to distract your wandering thoughts, you reached for the tea the server had offered to you, thinking to calm your nerves—

Until the citrus scent suddenly turned rancid in your senses, so putrid it made your stomach lurch violently that you spit it out and let go of the porcelain cup.

. . .

When a loud crash rang through the solarium, Aerion’s attention snapped instantly toward the disturbance.

And much to his surprise— in the middle of it stood you.

Standing amidst shattered porcelain, you had one hand covered your mouth while the other clutched at your abdomen, your face drained of all color as though you might collapse where you stood.

He immediately dashed towards where you were, nearly sending one poor lord stumbling aside in his haste. The crowd parted instinctively for him as he crossed the hall at frightening speed.

By the time he reached you, his hands were already on you.

“What happened?” he demanded immediately, gripping your arms as his eyes swept frantically over your form.

You swallowed hard against another wave of nausea. “T-The tea…”

“What?”

You shook your head weakly, leaning into him. “It tastes so foul—”

His gaze snapped toward the shattered mess beside your feet. Without hesitation, Aerion crouched and snatched up what remained of the broken cup from the floor. The pungent scent hit almost immediately, and his expression darkened in realization.

Moon tea. He recognized it instantly—it had once been his most reliable safeguard during his years frequenting whorehouse before he wed you. He had forced it into those unkempt women after he was finished with them.

However, even a single sip could have made you miscarry. Someone has intended exactly that.

Aerion surged back to his feet at once, turning towards you so quickly with wild eyes.

“Did you drink any of it?” he demanded harshly. “Did you?”

You shook your head immediately. “No—”

Relief struck him so violently it almost looked painful.

Aerion closed his eyes briefly before gripping the back of your head, pulling you to his embrace. You breathed in his scent, your nausea receded somewhat.

Around the two of you, the solarium had begun to descend into chaos. Voices overlapped in alarm while guards moved swiftly through the hall. Servants looked petrified, several nobles already retreating from the tables entirely as whispers of poison spread like wildfire.

Moon tea. At a royal luncheon. You. When Aerion lifted his head again, the relief in his expression had vanished entirely, and in its place was pure fury.

“Seal the hall,” Aerion ordered sharply, but at first, no one moved quickly enough for his liking. “I said seal the fucking hall!” he roared, his voice cracking through the hall.

Kingsguard immediately surged into motion. Doors slammed shut. Panic rippled through the gathered guests as guards began seizing servants and blocking every exit from the hall.

“No one leaves this place,” Aerion continued, drawing you protectively against his side while his vengeful gaze remained fixed upon the crowd.

“I want every servant, cook, and miserable soul here questioned. One step forward— and I will have your head severed and hung to rot in Flea Bottom for all to see.”

You could feel the hammering of his heart in your ears. His expression still murderous, it was only when he looked back down at you did some fragment of restraint finally return to his face.

“You are certain you swallowed none of it?” he asked again, quieter and softer this time.

You looked up at him, eyes wide and glassy. “I am certain.”

Aerion searched your face carefully, as though trying to convince himself you truly stood unharmed before him.

And in that moment, you found yourself clinging to him instinctively—your steadfast protector amidst the chaos.

The entire castle remained in uproar long after you had been escorted back to your chambers. The server who had handed you that accursed tea was apprehended with ease, and Aerion had gone personally to beat the fear of the gods into him in the dungeons.

Yet another Blackfyre loyalist hidden amongst the castle’s walls like a serpent. No one told you exactly what became of him, but when your prince returned not long after, there had been blood across the cuffs of his tunic that certainly had not belonged to him.

By then, relief and exhaustion had finally overtaken you, dragging you into a light and restless sleep. You awoke sometime later in his arms, to the soft crackling of the fire.

His deep violet eyes were fixed on you, dark shadows under them as if he hadn’t been resting at all.

“You’re not sleeping...?”

“Was about to.”

Though he tried to conceal it, exhaustion lingered plainly across his face. It was rare to see Aerion so bare and vulnerable like this.

The memory came rushing back all at once then. The putrid stench, the panic in the hall, the horrifying realization that someone had wanted you and your child dead before they had even drawn breath—

A tremor ran through you before you could suppress it and your husband engulfed you in his embrace, holding you tightly.

“Cease this at once, wife,” he whispered in your ear, sounding almost irritated despite his obvious and clumsy attempt at comfort. “So long as I draw breath, no one will harm you.”

Your eyes burned. “What did you do to him?”

“What? You expected mercy from me tonight?”

“No.” You shook your head against his chest, your voice small and bitter. “Make him suffer first, and only then do you give him a painful death.”

That actually managed to pull a dark smile from him. “No,” he murmured, his chest rumbling against you. “I will make him rot first. Death is a mercy he has to earn.”

A faint smile tugged at your lips when you pulled away from his hold, though worry still lingered beneath your ribs.

“There.” Aerion brushed a stray tear from your cheek with his thumb, his violet eyes warmer than you had ever seen before. “Better already.”

How both of you reached this point astonished even you. The mad boy who had terrorized your childhood, your enemy who had become your destined husband— Aerion Brightflame was your greatest bane of existence too.

Yet here you were, trusting him more than anyone else alive in Westeros. You knew his cruelty, but you also knew his loyalty—and you knew, just as surely as he would make anyone who ever came close to harm you rue the day they ever did, he would guard you like a dragon atop treasure.

And because of that, the doubt in your voice was softer than it might have once been when you finally asked:

“…What if the babe is a girl?”

Aerion’s brows furrowed immediately, as though the question itself puzzled him.

“A princess,” you explained, fingers drifting protectively over your stomach. “You value a son and heir above all else. But who could have known the will of the gods?”

Aerion stared at you for a long, unreadable moment, as though carefully weighing your words before at last letting out a scoff.

“Mark my words now, wife, for I will not repeat them. I require that this child, boy or girl, survives.”

You blinked, caught off guard by his words. However, his expression hardened slightly afterwards.

“And the same goes for you. If you don’t, I will never, ever forgive you.”

In that moment, you thought you would willingly give everything of yourself to place this child safely into his arms. You would give him a son too, gods willing.

You reached for your husband then, pulling him down into the purest and sweetest of a kiss.

“Be welcome, noble knights and lords of the realm!”

Commoners and nobles alike buzzed with excitement for the grand tourney, their cheers echoing throughout the stands. High up on the royal dais, King Daeron stood, his voice amplified by the roaring acoustics of the arena as he opened the games with salutations.

“...and this glorious day has been made all the more blessed by joyful news,” the good king proclaimed proudly. “My beloved granddaughter has begun her labors! May the Seven grant fortune to every combatant this day!”

Down on the field, however, the King’s words brought no celebration to the man affected most.

Aerion sat atop his warhorse, motionless. Beneath his dark armor, his chest rose and fell in sharp, shallow breaths. While other knights waved jovially at the crowd, his gaze was locked entirely on the opposing end of the lists.

Your pains had started since last night. Through the early hours of midnight, you had endured them in silence, determined to hold yourself together a little longer, yet occasionally curling into him for comfort. By dawn, however, you were in tears, and every hour after that became a new torment for you.

But when it came time to see him off this morning, you had refused to look weak. Sweat clung to your face, and your eyes were glistening, but a fierce light burned right through them. Gripping his armor, you had hissed a command through gritted teeth:

“Win that fucking tourney, and only then are you allowed come back to me, husband.”

“Son of Prince Maekar of Summerhall—”

A violent, dark impatience overtook him.

“Grandson to King Daeron the Good—”

If he had to tear through every knight in the Seven Kingdoms to get back to your side, he would do it. And he would do it quickly.

“Prince Aerion Brightflame of House Targaryen—”

Lowering his visor with a sharp, echoing snap, Aerion gripped his lance. He would come back as a victor, exalted and feared, and you would give him his child.

Your child too. He knew already they would be sweet, just like you.

“—will choose his first opponent!”

. . .

The air inside your birthing chambers was thick by midday, smelling heavily of copper, sweat, and the sharp scent of crushed lavender oil the maids used to soothe the air.

But there was no soothing the agony ripping through you.

Another of your heartbreaking wails filled the air when another violent contraction hit, seizing your spine and twisting your abdomen with a malice that stole the breath straight from your lungs.

“Push, my lady! You must push!” the midwife urged, her hands busy prodding you beneath the heavy linens. “The child is close, but you cannot lose your strength now!”

Your body felt broken, torn apart from the inside out. Your eyes were rimmed with tears of pain and pure exhaustion, blurring the stone walls of your chambers into a hazy nightmare.

Your prince was out there tearing through the realm’s finest knights just to earn the right to return to your side. He was conquering the field for you. For this child.

And you would not fail him on your own battlefield.

“Again!” the midwife commanded when that familiar, iron grip curling and seizing your womb once more. “Now, my lady!”

But the next wave was the most terrible pain you had ever experienced, and your voice cracked into raw scream as you pushed with every last shred of strength left within your body.

You could feel the crushing pressure, the burning fire, the blinding and unforgiving sensation of your very body being split apart—

The midwife cried, her voice rising in triumph over the distant rumble of the arena:

“I see the head! One more, my lady! Give me everything you have!”

. . .

“The Prince Aerion wins!”

He had done it. The second he threw the other knight off his horse and he yielded, he had ridden his warhorse, torn his helmet off, and marched towards your chambers like a specter of death.

In his frantic rush to end his final foe, he had made one careless mistake though— leaving his guard down just enough for a lance to slice a deep gash down his forearm, and now crimson blood dripped steadily onto the pristine floors with every step towards your chambers.

He had been told that you had tethered between life and death—shivering before falling unconscious the moment the child was born.

“My prince! You cannot go in there!” a maid cried, stepping in front of the heavy oak doors, her hands raised in horror. “You are covered in filth! The lady must be kept clean, the babe—”

“Get a maester to dress my wound,” he spat viciously, making the poor girl recoil. “Now.”

The maester came soon, scrambling to pour a wine over the wound to cleanse it, hastily wrapping a fresh linen binding over the gash. It was a rushed job, done in mere seconds. The white linen instantly bloomed with a fresh patch of red. His attendant quickly wiped the sweat and grime from his face and helped him out of his armor as fast he could.

Aerion shoved them away after they were done, turning back to the heavy doors, but the midwives still stood there, hesitant between duty and fear.

His arm burned, exhaustion and blood loss leaving him half-delirious, and they knew better than to deny him his right. Aerion stormed into the chambers, drawing gasps from the wet nurses and your maids. Instinctively, every gaze in the room flickered toward the small bundle wrapped in linen within the cradle beside the hearth.

They expected him to demand his heir. They expected him to look for the son he had so desperately coveted—

But to their surprise, he didn’t even spare a glance at the cradle. Instead, he crossed the room in a few long strides and went straight to where you lay still.

“Wife,” he breathed hoarsely, reaching for you at once. “I am here.”

You were deathly pale. Your eyes fluttered open weakly, as if you were pulling yourself back from a long, deep sleep.

Then, you looked up and smiled at him— so beautiful and tender it nearly broke him.

He gathered you into his arms, engulfing you in a fierce, crushing hug— pressing a hard kiss to the crown of your head. You let out a watery laugh, clutching at him too.

“It is a son,” you told him with pride. “He looks just like you.”

Aerion let out a quiet, disbelieving chuckle at that. In truth, the idea of a daughter didn’t seem terrible to him at all right now.

In fact, now that the thought had crossed his mind, he found himself wanting a pretty little girl too... one who had your eyes and your smile.

History would fondly remember the romance between the bitterest enemies who found the truest of love, for the realm had borne witness to that auspicious day—

The dragon prince has won his triumph, and so has his lion princess.

tagging @marianntorres2611 @starkleila @huntmewithdogs @pinkfunland @dauntlesshereticleviathan @laylavynna @dabishou @ireneisbored @menacing-pfeffernusse @xxvelvetxxx @icebearcucumber as per request! thank you for reading if you have reached this far <3

[atreyius]

Kaine Ferron and Helena Marino

Part I

"- Do I know you?

- I suppose you do."

Alchemised by SenLinYu

[osarina]

ঌ IKSAN AŌHON, IKSĀ ÑUHON

FEATURING: aerion targaryen x fem!reader

SUMMARY: Aerion has the opportunity to return to Lys briefly for a supply run. He has missed you desperately—have you missed him the same? Or are you already halfway gone?

WARNINGS: fem!reader. reader comes from Valyrian lineage but no physical traits are mentioned/described. Dubcon (reader was drinking, but they’ve fucked drunk before). Brief somno. Blood play. Knife play. Aerion POV — probably the most unhinged we've had so far LOL. switch!reader, switch!aerion (as always). Mentions of underage sex. Mentions/implications of child abuse (reader's childhood). Mentions/implications of grooming (reader's childhood). A bit more of reader’s past is divulged and she is meant to be struggling mentally (especially when she was younger) but was constantly forced into high-functioning behavior and had insane expectations/responsibility so it was never really addressed and she kind of just dismisses it as normal (it is not normal). 

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Omg I'm sorry this part took me so long </3 This was supposed to be a brief interlude for before he returns to Lys and it is not brief at all LOLLLLL I really enjoyed writing this part because 1) we get a POV of a new character and get to see more of our girl's past, and 2) Aerion is just so fun for me to write IKHDFAHSUFAUH he is so unhinged and the more he accepts that he loves her, the worse it gets. HAHAHAH Anyway, comments and reblogs always appreciated! I hope you guys enjoy!

READ: STARFALL

Aerion is going fucking insane.

It has been two months since he left Lys with the Second Sons—two months since he left you—and there is no end in sight. From the little news that he is able to gather from his fellow sellswords, who become increasingly incensed with Aerion’s badgering, the Golden Company has brokered a contract with the magisters until a pirates’ den in the Stepstones is duly dealt with. Thus, they have settled in the city for the time being. 

Aeiron thinks that it is fucking ridiculous, and if there is a pirates' den to be dealt with, then the magisters should have just contracted the Second Sons to do so. They have a long-standing relationship with the other mercenary company anyway, and in Aerion’s opinion, it is wildly disrespectful for them to turn so quickly to a rival company, but none of the captains seem to share his sentiment, because he is only met with a dismissive shrug when he raises his complaints.

He is sick of it. 

It was entertaining enough at first. The first few weeks, he could almost pretend that he hadn’t fled Lys with his tail between his legs because of the Golden Company. It was familiar, something closer to what he had been raised for—steel in hand, blood slicking his face and soaking the ground beneath him, men screaming and dying around him. There was something intoxicating about the way the company veterans looked at him after, eyes wide and a little afraid.

A dragon among mutts. It should have satisfied him—it almost did, for a time. He loves the violence, loves the reputation he has built, and the whispers that follow him through camp. He fights harder than he needs to, stays longer in the thick of it than is wise, and takes risks that make even the captains side-eye him when they think he isn’t looking. He likes the way it felt—how it drowned everything else out.

There was a clarity in it that he had not felt in a long time. No politics or having to watch his tongue, no pretending to be less than what he is. Just violence, clean and honest, and the undeniable truth that no one could stand before the dragon and live to tell the tale. He carved through men twice his size without a second thought and laughed when anyone had the nerve to ask for mercy. 

But the unfortunate thing about battle is that it ends, and when it ends, there is nothing left but the quiet, and the quiet is unbearable, because then all he has are his thoughts, and his thoughts are plagued of you. He lies awake more often than not, staring up at the top of his pavilion—he tries to find whores to occupy his time, but even with someone to warm his bed, it is your name he breathes, your face he sees when his eyes slide shut.

He hates it. 

What are you doing? What are you thinking? Are you alone? Are you thinking of him? Do you miss him? Do you remember him? Are you with the Blackfyres? Have you grown fond of them the same way you did him? Are you going to accept their deal? Do you think of him? Do you still love him? Do you—

He rolls onto his side with a sharp exhale, dragging a hand down his face, fingers catching in his hair as though he might tear it out just to feel something other than this awful ache in his chest. 

He hates it. Hates that there are things happening to you and around you, and he is not there to see, to remind you that he exists. He feels sick every time he remembers the way people spoke about you and him, as though he were just a fleeting distraction that would soon be spent. There is a real chance that you moved on the moment he was out of sight and reach, and Aerion just does not know. Will not know until he returns to Lys and either finds you there waiting for him or long gone. 

The whore beside him—he doesn’t know her name because he didn’t bother to ask, and isn’t sure why she had the nerve to stay the night instead of fleeing the moment he was done with her—shifts slightly when he moves, murmuring something soft and drowsy as she presses closer to him.

Aerion goes still. For a fleeting moment, in the dim flicker of lamplight, he almost lets himself pretend. The curve of her shoulder beneath his hand, the warmth of her breath against his chest—he could close his eyes again and pretend that it is you. Pretend that when he turns his head, he will find your gaze waiting for him, glittering and knowing and far too amused for his liking.

He almost does. His eyes slide shut, and then—

Return to me, dragon prince. That is an order.

Aerion lets out a vicious hiss, the illusion shattering so violently that it almost makes him dizzy. He cannot be free of you—he will never be free of you. 

What are you doing? Who are you with? Are you thinking of him? Does he haunt you the same way you haunt him?

He shoves himself upright, and the woman beside him jolts at the sudden movement. She reaches for him, confused, but Aerion is already on his feet, pacing the length of the pavilion like a caged animal.

“Get out,” he says coldly, hardly sparing her a second look as his temper wanes. 

He tugs at his hair as he shakes his head, barely noticing as the woman scrambles to grab her clothes, fleeing his pavilion before she’s fully dressed. His name on your lips, your breath on his skin, the way your fingers feel tangled in his hair, and the warmth of your body sliding against his. Aerion misses you desperately. He feels fucking insane. What is he supposed to do if you are not there when he returns? What is he supposed to do? 

He knows what he is supposed to do. He will hunt you down. He will fucking hunt you down until the end of the world, if he has to, because you have no right to leave when you told him to return to you. If you make him out to be the fool, he will hunt you down, and he will kill you, because he would rather you dead than with anyone else. 

Furious with himself, he shoves aside the flap of his pavilion and steps out into the night air, chest heaving. The camp is quieter at this hour, though not silent—there’s always someone awake, always the low murmur of voices, the crackle of fire, the distant clatter of steel being cleaned or sharpened. The smell of sweat and blood and smoke hangs heavy in the air. He used to enjoy it, he thinks bitterly, now he finds himself longing for that sickeningly sweet perfume and thick incense, because he knows it’s where he will find you.

“Couldn’t sleep, prince?”

Aerion’s head snaps toward the voice, irritation already spiking before he even registers who it is. One of the captains—lean, dark-haired, perpetually unimpressed—leans back against a post, arms crossed as he watches him. 

Navario, Aerion recalls—a Braavosi who has been with the Second Sons for almost a decade now. He’s never crossed paths with him directly until now. 

Aerion’s lip curls up in disgust. “If I wanted commentary, I would have asked for it.”

The man huffs a quiet laugh, unbothered. “You’ve been like this for weeks. Thought maybe you’d finally burned yourself out.”

“I am a dragon. I do not burn out,” Aerion says coolly, the words immediate and instinctive. “I am not one of your half-trained mongrels who needs to be dragged off the field before he keels over.”

“Naturally,” Navario drawls. “You know, I hear our lovely lady exile took a liking to you before we departed Lys. Is it true?” 

Aerion physically falters, gaze cutting to the side to focus on him, but before he can respond, he notices movement further down the line of tents. Lanterns bob in the dark, a cluster of men moving with purpose rather than the idle drift of camp settling for the night. Steel glints at their sides and packs are slung over their shoulders—a departure?

“What is that?” he asks, already moving before the man answers. “Where are they going? I was not told there would be any departures tonight.”

“Why exactly would you have been made aware?” Navario drawls, and when Aerion shoots him a vicious look, he shrugs carelessly. “If you’re curious, go ask.”

Aerion shoots him a cold look over his shoulder, half-tempted to remain behind and demand to know who exactly he is and why he refers to you so casually—if he’s familiar with you, if he’s heard from you, because you have not sent him a single raven in the two moons he’s been gone. He tries to tell himself it’s because you cannot be caught in communications with him if someone manages to intercept your raven, but he will be seriously incensed if you’ve been in contact with anyone else. 

Curiosity gets the best of him, though, so he doesn’t waste another breath on a retort, boots crushing the packed earth as he cuts through the camp to figure out what’s happening.

There’s a ship moored just beyond the shallows, its dark shape rocking gently against the tide, lanternlight catching along the edges of its hull. A smaller boat sits closer in, men already wading through the surf to load it with supplies.

“You,” he snaps, grabbing the nearest man by the arm before he can step into the water. “Where are you going?”

The sellsword startles, twisting to look at him, clearly not expecting to be manhandled. “The fuck—get off—”

“Answer me,” Aerion cuts in, grip tightening just enough to make the point.

The man scowls, but there’s a flicker of recognition when he takes in Aerion’s face—the reputation that’s followed him these past weeks does half the work for him.

“Supply run,” he mutters. “Couple of us are heading back toward Lys, pick up contracts, see what’s shifted. Now let go.”

Lys. The word hits Aerion like a gut punch. He goes very still, throat bobbing as he realizes what this means. If they’re going back to Lys, then—

“Back to Lys,” he echoes. 

“Aye,” the man says, jerking his arm free with a sharp tug. “Won’t be long. Just a day trip there, then back here. Why?”

Aerion smiles thinly. “I will be coming with.”

—then he will get to see you again.

—————————

Jaenys Saenor has been called many things: cruel and whorish, vicious and violent, a pretty little knife with too sharp of an edge for someone to hold without bleeding (he took this last one as a compliment, even though Laena certainly didn’t mean it as one; he likes being called pretty, and anyone who complains about sharp edges is too boring to have a place in his life anyway). Men curse his name in one breath and beg for his attention in the next, because he has always known exactly where to press to make it hurt—and how to make them come back for more anyway.

He has never been called helpless, and he has not felt helpless in almost two decades.

Until now, at least. 

It is an unwelcome thing. He leans back against the carved stone of the balcony next to your favorite courtesan, wine in hand, gaze fixed not on the city below, but on you, lounging on red velvet cushions, entertaining whores and Blackfyres with empty eyes and careless laughter that rings hollow compared to the laugh he knows so intimately.

“You are staring,” Caelyx murmurs beside him, amused.

Jaenys takes a sip of his wine, but it is not enough to wash away the bitterness in the back of his throat. He asks dryly, “Am I?” 

He is. He knows he is.

You are surrounded, as always. Silk and incense and gold, bodies draped across cushions, voices low and indulgent, wine spilling freely and lips brushing bare skin. One boy is at your feet, half-draped across your lap, and there is a girl at your side, fingers tangled lazily in your hair. Haegon Blackfyre, who took a quick liking to you and you have indulged more than the rest, sits on your left, arm draped along the back of the cushions behind you, mouths meeting in slow, lazy kisses.

Jaenys’s lips curl down before he can stop himself, brows furrowing.

“Indeed. Like you want to kill someone,” Caelyx drawls.

“I do enjoy bloodshed,” Jaenys muses absently, trying to figure out what about this situation bothers him so much. He tosses a wink at Caelyx, but a distracted one, and then he returns to studying you. “And I am quite skilled at causing it.”

It is a familiar sight—you have always surrounded yourself with people, even back in Volantis, so he should not be bothered. If you were not with Viserys, then you were with Jaenys and the others, and if not them, then Aenys (though you liked to pretend your affair with the snake-eyed Elephant cunt was a secret), and if not Aenys, then whores. You were always the center of something—Volantis’s own personal sun, Visedor liked to joke—so he is not bothered because of that.

He is bothered because it is different. 

The decadence and excess, that has always been you, but the absence beneath it that leaves a poor taste in his mouth. You have never been so—so dull. Like a shell. You have always been loud and bright, so full of life that people naturally gravitated toward you. You never did anything halfway. When you wanted something, you took it whole, burning through it until there was nothing left to take, and you cast it aside without a second thought.

That’s not to say you were never bored; you were frequently bored, but only because you exhausted things too quickly. This is—it’s different. Because however bored you were back home—however frequent and however terrible—you were always hungry for something new to capture your attention. 

Now, you do not seem to hunger for anything at all.

There is an absence of fire in the way you move that unsettles him. You let people touch you, let them kiss you, let them press close like it means something, and you give them just enough to keep them there, but there is no bite to it, no indication that you’re enjoying anything happening around you.

It is wrong. It is so terribly wrong that it makes Jaenys’s stomach twist. You have always wanted. Even your boredom had teeth, restless and searching, always reaching for the next thing to sink into and tear apart. You were never empty like this. 

Is this how your exile has been? Is this what those Elephant cunts did to you when they cast you out? Stripped you of the fire and brilliance that made you who you are?

“Is this what she’s been like?” Jaenys forces himself to ask, voice quiet. He’s almost afraid to know the answer, gut twisted, chest aching, because this is not you. Not the you he knows, not the you he loves. Caelyx doesn’t immediately answer him, so Jaenys shoots the boy a cutting look, stomach flipping when he sees the soft frown on his face. “Answer me.”

Caelyx’s gaze flits over to him briefly. “For a while,” he finally says simply. “Until the dragon prince showed up, at least.”

That’s even worse, Jaenys thinks miserably, because that means he cannot blame this on the Elephants for casting you out. That means this is his fault—that you were happy, that you had found something to hold on to in spite of the circumstances, and Jaenys had been the one to rip it away. Jaenys is the reason that you are miserable and drifting, hollow in your laughter and quick to find the bottom of a bottle.

It infuriates him to know he has played such a large role in this, but how the hell was he supposed to know you’d gone and acquired a Targaryen prince for yourself? You’d always mocked the dragons back home—their inheritance disputes, their dead dragons, all of it. You were the last person Jaenys ever expected to fall in love with one of the Andal cunts, so he thought this would be an easy way to bring you home.

And it is love, Jaenys knows that. You have only ever drawn your blade on him for Viserys before, and you did it so unhesitatingly for this western prince that, for a brief second, Jaenys wondered if you would actually kill him. Not only that, you gave the cunt your Valyrian steel, not knowing if you’ll ever see him again—Jaenys begged you to let him borrow it for a few hours for the Syranaelia six years ago, and you threatened to throw him from the top of the Black Walls if he ever asked you such a stupid question again.

It is love, and Jaenys might have destroyed it.

A few years ago, before you were exiled, he would have been smug. He loved watching you spurn people in favor of him, loved it even amongst friends. The others were always fine with sharing each other, and he was too, to an extent, but he could never rid himself of that vicious glee he felt whenever he was the one chosen—that’s why he could understand the Targaryen’s apparent disdain for both Jaenys and your favored courtesan that night before he left Lys. 

Now, the thought sits heavy and sour in his stomach, because you are his friend, and you lost everything once already, and now you finally found something to hold onto again, and he took that from you too. 

Across the room, you tilt your head back, laughing at something Haegon says. Your gaze flicks in Jaenys’s direction, as though you can sense that he’s talking about you, thinking about you, but it is like watching someone else wear your face, because there is nothing behind your eyes or the faint curve of your lips.

Haegon leans in to brush his lips against yours again, and you hold Jaenys’s gaze for a moment longer before redirecting that vacant attention onto the boy next to you.

His teeth grind together.

Jaenys has known you for a very, very long time. He has known you since you were thrown into the 209th Cohort together at the age of four, and he has loved you just as long, and he has never seen you like this before. Not in all the years he has known you—not in your worst moods, when you were all teeth and temper and violence, spilling blood before asking questions; not even in your worst boredom, when you would float about in the public baths for hours, drunk and fully clothed, wasting away until you could think of something to do. 

You have always wanted, he thinks again. You have always burned too brightly for the rest of the world to keep up, and it sickens Jaenys to think that you have finally burned out. 

That he is the reason you have finally burned out.

When you were all children, he remembers thinking you were the cruelest creature he had ever met. Cruel and radiant; even when you were young, the adults talked about you like you had been born for greatness, and everyone was waiting for you to grow into yourself. He had thought himself unlucky at the time, being thrown into a cohort with you, Aenar, and Naera—the three of you were everything he was not. Brilliant, brutal, and untouchable in ways that made the rest of the cohort orbit around you like lesser stars. Aenar with his strength, Naera with her skill, and you with your sharp mind and that relentless will that made even the elders hesitate when you set your sights on something.

Jaenys had been smaller then, quiet and easy to overlook when placed beside the three of you. He had almost accepted it—a life at the edges, pretty and pleasant and forgettable. He wasn’t meant for the blood and glory the other Tiger heirs were bound for, as much as he longed for it. 

Then you set his world on fire. Literally.

Jaenys’s lips twitch faintly at the memory—the 4th moon’s war game in 193. The stables had gone up in flames before he had even realized what you’d done, the scent of burning hay thick in the air, smoke clogging his lungs and stinging eyes as he stumbled out of the building. You stood outside on the garden wall, arms crossed over your chest, eyes meeting his, and you told him to conquer Aenar’s territory for you or die trying, because he and Naera had teamed together to bring an end to your unending win streak, and you refused to accept defeat. 

For one long moment, he was trapped in the blaze of you—it was the first time he ever was, and he knew he never wanted to be anywhere else.

All this to say, Jaenys loves you—he has loved you since the moment you set his territory on fire, maybe even before that, too, like many other hapless fools who fell in love with you from afar. You may have laughed in his face when he told you this, but he still means it all the same, and because he loves you and because he knows you, because he has stood in the blaze of you and felt what it was like when you burn, he knows that this is not right. That there is something seriously, seriously wrong, and he needs to figure out how to fix it. He has seen you furious and bored, bloodied and laughing, ruthless and brilliant and cruel in ways that made men fear you and love you all at once, but never empty. Your fire has never burned out, even when it’s been dampened.

Expect now.

He downs another glass just to rid himself of the bitter taste, tongue darting out to lap at the beads of the sweet cherry wine on his lips as he tries to figure out what the hell he should do. 

Naera and Aenar would know, Jaenys thinks pitifully—Aenar is always good at knowing how to fix things, and Naera is always good at getting things done. Jaenys has never pretended to be anything but what he is—cunning where others are strong, ruthless where others hesitate. He is good at strategy and tricks and schemes, and he has a taste for violence and cruelty—he is not a fixer. 

But there is no clever angle here, no hidden weakness to exploit, no knife he can slip between the ribs of the problem and twist until it resolves itself. There is no war he can plot that will give you back what he has unwittingly taken from you. This is not a game he can outmaneuver.

His shoulders slump as he sighs, unsure what to do. 

“Fuck me,” he sighs, putting his goblet of wine down on a nearby table a tad too harshly. Next to him, Caelyx raises his eyebrows, but Jaenys waves him off and makes his way over to you and Haegon Blackfyre. 

He flops down on the cushions on your opposite side, slinking an arm around your shoulder to tug you away from Haegon. You let him move you without resistance, and it makes his stomach flip uncomfortably. Jaenys receives a dirty look from the Blackfyre in response, and he tosses him a wink and a smug smile before leaning in to ghost his lips against yours, waving the boy off with his free hand to silently tell him to leave the two of you be.

You hardly kiss him back—it would fool anyone else, the way you move your lips just enough to feign interest, but not him.

He pulls back to look at you, gaze searching yours, and finds nothing waiting for him—not the sharp amusement he’s used to, not the lazy indulgence he typically finds, not even irritation at being interrupted. Just that same distant stare that has been haunting him for two moons. 

Jaenys’s smile falters. “Gods,” he murmurs under his breath, thumb brushing along your arm as though he might coax something out of you by touch alone. “You look positively dreadful.”

You blink at him, slow and unfocused, like it takes a moment for you to place who he is at all, and something ugly twists in his chest at that. Then your lips curl up into a sharp smile, but it still doesn’t reach your eyes. 

“Do not be cruel because you’re jealous I’m giving Haegon attention,” you say, head tilting to the side, familiar and playful, but off. Enough to fool anyone else, but not him. You lean in to whisper, “You know you’re my favorite.”

Jaenys lets out a soft huff of laughter at that. “Jealous,” he echoes, voice a low drawl, brows lifting as his thumb presses more firmly beneath your jaw, forcing your gaze to stay on him when it starts to drift. “You wound me. We both know that if I were really jealous, he’d already be bleeding on the carpets. I’m good at sharing—when I need to be, that is.”

Something flickers in your eyes at that—disappointment, maybe? And he understands why instantly, because only ten minutes with that volatile little dragon told Jaenys that the boy would quickly and gladly spill blood if someone so much as looked at you the wrong way in his presence.

Ugh, Jaenys thinks, withering a bit. 

The dragon boy is troublesome; Jaenys does not like feeling guilty. It is a foreign feeling—he does not know if he’s ever felt guilty before these last two moons, and he resents it. Jaenys has never been the sort to dwell on the consequences of his actions, not when he’s always been so good at staying one step ahead of them by using his sharp tongue and quick mind to free himself of them, but this lingers in a way that’s impossible to ignore. 

He rests his thumb over your bottom lip, pressing down enough to get you to part them slightly for him. You raise your eyebrows at him, and he leans in. He continues quietly, thumb dragging idly along your jaw again, “Is that what you want? Someone to snarl and bare their teeth every time another man breathes too close to you.”

Your gaze is flinty now, jaw tightening beneath his fingers as you try to figure out if he is mocking you. For a second, your fire returns, and Jaenys is almost able to bask in the heat of it again. He exhales through his nose, eyes sliding shut briefly before he leans in close enough to press his lips against your ear, his forehead to your temple, speaking low enough so that Haegon cannot overhear what he’s about to say.

“I will fix this,” he says softly. 

When he hears you let out a confused huff, he presses his lips to your temple, because Jaenys has known you since the two of you were children, and he has loved you just as long, but as much as he wants you to come home, he is terrified to bring this version of you home. He left Volantis to fix things—to bring you back where you belong, back to something that looks like before everything went wrong—but not like this. 

Jaenys has never been afraid of a problem before—not a person or a war, not even when faced with insurmountable odds and an expectation of failure. 

But this—this scares him.

This is something that has already sunk its teeth into you, and he does not know if he, or Aenar, or Naera, or Visedor, or even your brother, will ever be enough to pry it out completely. If he brings you home like this, whatever part of you that is lost and drifting now after losing the dragon boy might be killed off entirely, and he cannot bear a world where you are forever longing for something you can never have. He cannot bear a world where you are not—where you are not you. Where you are not radiant and brilliant, and all teeth and knives and cruelty, a sun that burns too hot and drags everyone in too close, but no one ever cared what it cost them if it meant standing close enough to feel your heat.

Jaenys will fix this, even if it means waiting a little longer to get you home. He might be more prone to violence and cruelty than anything beneficent, but he has always been lucky—he was lucky that it was him you turned to during that war game when you were all children, luckier still when everything just fell into his lap after that. He might not know how to fix it right now, but Jaenys is the smartest person he knows, so he will figure it out when Lady Luck inevitably smiles in his direction again, even if it goes against his very nature. 

“Avy jorrāelan,” he murmurs against your temple, just for you to hear. “Iksan vaoreznuni. Īlen mērī sylugon naejot mazverdagon ra paktot, se eman mērī vēttan mirre qubykta. Shijetra nyke.”

I love you. I am sorry. I was only trying to make things right, and I’ve only made everything worse. Forgive me.

When you pull back to look at him, Jaenys’s throat bobs when he sees the warmth in your eyes as your lips curl up into a small smile. You say quietly, “Gaomagon daor sagon iā mittys. Konīr iksis daorun naejot shijetra.”

Do not be a fool. There is nothing to forgive. 

Jaenys exhales and replies, “Sesīr sīr.”

Even so.

A huff of laughter slips from your lips, this one sounding more real than any of the louder ones he’s heard you let out over the last two moons. “Pār nyke shijetra ao. Māzigon, ivestragī īlva jikagon vīlībagon isse se tistālion se orgoz hen se dārōñe vali arlī.”

Then I forgive you. Come, let us go spar in the market and piss off the magisters again.

Jaenys laughs, rising to his feet and holding his hand out to you. 

You take it. 

“Mērī lo mazemā se qilōnarion bisa jēda,” he tells you with a sharp smile.

Only if you take the blame this time.

“Deal.”

—————————

Jaenys is a pain in your ass, and five years apart made you forget just how much of one he was. 

Luckily for you, he was very quick to remind you the moment the two of you were reunited. 

You roll your eyes as he laughs wildly, dodging a strike that nearly takes his ear off; you circle one another in the market, ignoring merchants who are all tossing gold at one another, bets flying for first blood, first to the ground, and first to yield, voices rising in a chaotic chorus around you as steel strikes steel. 

“You have gotten slower,” Jaenys mocks, and your eye twitches, irritation swallowing the void that has been steadily consuming you these past two moons. “I noticed it the first time we sparred, but—”

He yelps when you drive your foot hard into his abdomen, sending him stumbling back; a chorus of boos rises from the crowd when he regains his footing before hitting the ground. You give him a taunting raise of your brows, and he lets out a huff of laughter, the tension bleeding from his shoulders as the two of you settle into a familiar routine. 

You do not know if it’s a blessing or a curse that Jaenys was the one to slip away from Volantis to come find you. He is somehow both the best and worst person who could’ve found you like this. These… moods didn’t happen often back home because there was no reason for you to really lose yourself in the way you’ve lost yourself without Aerion, but some days you just—you were just tired. Inexplicably so. You were tired and angry and bored, and you would get so wound up about it that you thought it was the end of the world and couldn’t stand anyone near you, so you would find the public baths and float for hours until it passed. 

Sometimes it did, sometimes it didn’t.

Aenar and Naera never pushed, even if they were concerned, if only because they knew better when you were five seconds from self-destruction. They would linger on the edges of the water, not coming in, because you would bristle when anyone came too close to something you considered your territory, but they would wait. They would wait and watch and circle until you came back on your own terms. And you did come back on your own terms—usually, at least. That or Viserys interfered.

Visedor—he only really stepped in when it didn’t pass that first day, when these stretches of boredom and anger and helplessness would last for days at a time, so he would distract you by fucking or fighting or causing trouble and forcing you out for your head long enough to deal with it.

Jaenys is different. 

He is not like your brother, because Viserys would pull you out by force, because he could. He was the only one who could. He would find whatever bathhouse you usurped for yourself, glide into the water, and drag you out kicking and screaming if he had to. It was never often that he was the one who had to step in for you, but he always did when necessary—covering for you with your father when you didn’t show up to meetings or training because you were too busy floating in a bath, causing a scene to pull the attention from you when your father started to realize something was wrong, because failure was expected for Viserys, but it was entirely unacceptable for you. If your father ever got wind that something was wrong with you, he would have had you beaten until you learned not to be wrong at all. 

But Jaenys—

Jaenys schemes. He schemes, and he pushes, and he calculates, and he always gets what he wants in the long run, and it makes you suspicious. 

He is the worst one to be here with you, because he will never let this rest until he figures out how to fix it, and you hate that he sees through all of the facades, and that when all you want is to pretend that everything is okay, he never lets you. 

He is the best one to be here with you, because you do not know if you’ll be able to pull yourself out of this on your own this time, and he might be able to put together a scheme to return to you the only person other than your brother who might be able to. 

“You’re a cunt,” you tell him, and you mean it. He knows you do, because his smile widens, a laugh bubbling from his lips as your steel clashes again. “I’m gonna bloody up that pretty face of yours, Jae.”

Jaenys winks at you. “Will you kiss me better after?” 

“If you actually manage to land a blow, I’ll do a lot more than kiss you,” you purr, leaning back to avoid an arc toward your neck, “but we both know that’s not going to happen.”

Jaenys laughs, smile sharpening. “Careful, I plan to hold you to it.”

You snort, twisting away from the next strike, but the easy rhythm you almost allowed yourself to fall into falters anyway, because for a brief, stupid moment, you can almost pretend that nothing has changed. That you are back in Volantis with your friends, trading blades in the forum until someone runs to your parents to complain about the noise and steel. That there is no exile hanging over your head, no impossible choice waiting for you at the end of this. That Aerion is not somewhere far away and unreachable, on the opposite side of the scale from your brother, your friends, your father, and your promised future. 

The thought drains you so quickly that it almost makes you feel dizzy. Your blade catches Jaenys’s with a sharp clang, but the force behind it is gone now, attention drifting eastward for the hundredth time that day.

Jaenys’s smile falters, a heavy expression on his face.

“I want to go home,” you tell him quietly, lashes fluttering as you let out a breath. No one can hear what the two of you are saying over the crowd and steel, and everyone is far too caught up in their own excitement to notice the serious expressions suddenly on your faces. “I really want to go home, Jae.”

“I know,” he says simply, because he does. Because Jaenys has always known you best of your group of friends, because you have always relied on it and dreaded it in equal measure. “But not at this cost.”

Your jaw tightens as he speaks the words you’ve been refusing to say out loud for two moons now. You do not have to agree for him to know your answer—he already knows it well enough, sees it in you every time he looks at you with those irritating, knowing eyes. You miss Aerion so terribly that some mornings it feels difficult for you to breathe without him hogging all of your air. You miss the weight of him beside you at night, miss his voice and terrible temper and the way he looked at you like you were something worth giving up everything for. Some selfish, aching part of you looks at him the same, wants to throw all of this away, potentially your only chance of going home, just so you can have him again.

But how are you supposed to justify that? All of this, for a boy you have not even known for a year, who might already hate you for sending him away. How are you supposed to justify choosing him over your home and family, over the future you have spent your life bleeding for?

Still, you find yourself agreeing, voice mortifyingly weak even to your own ears, “Not at this cost.”

As soon as you speak the words, you feel as though you’ve swallowed poison. 

It feels like a betrayal. 

A betrayal to Jaenys, who has come all this way with all of these plans for you to finally come home. 

A betrayal to your father, who expects you home on the next ship with Jaenys, so you can finally pick up the mantle as the future of the Tiger party, the way you were meant to from the very beginning. 

A betrayal to yourself, because you do not even know who you are anymore, because there’s nothing you want more than to go home and reclaim your promised future—except Aerion, and that terrifies you.

A betrayal to Viserys. A betrayal to your brother—your twin brother—who is waiting for you back home, aching for you the same way you do for him. Two halves of the same whole; a single soul cleaved into two at birth, always yearning to return to one another. 

There are eight hundred miles between you and him, and you can feel every inch of it. Every time you look east, you try to imagine what he’s doing—playing the harp, drinking wine, lounging in the gardens. Sometimes, you pretend to be there with him, eyes sliding shut as you lie on a marble bench of some magister’s manse, pretending you can hear his music and laugh.

When you were young, you sometimes woke in the middle of the night with the same pull you feel incessantly now. You felt the moment he slipped away from your side, and you would find yourself wandering the halls, confused and half-asleep, only aware that something was wrong and needed to be fixed. Your feet would bring you to Viserys, who was curled in the corner of some hall or tucked away under an orange tree in the gardens, because sleep only brought him nightmares.

You had learned then to always follow it—that pull—to find him, to go to him no matter the cost.

When had you unlearned it?

How had you unlearned it?

It is a betrayal—to you, to him, to everything you have ever known as truth. How are you ever supposed to look your brother in the eye again? Would you ever have the chance to do so, if you give this opportunity up? How can you possibly make this decision if it means you might never see him again?

You barely dodge the jab to your side, lost in thought. Jaenys raises his eyebrows at you, taunting, but you are retreating again already, back into that cold, empty void you were in this morning, where you have been for the last two moons, trying to balance this impossible, impossible decision.

“You really love that dragon boy, don’t you?” Jaenys asks you softly, an unreadable expression on his face as his gaze slips over you. 

“What does it matter now?” you ask bitterly, becoming fed up with everything about this. “I will likely never see him again.”

You don’t want to talk about this anymore. You don’t want to think about it. You side-step the next swing of Jaenys’s blade, and you drive your foot hard enough into his side to send him sprawling onto the ground. You lift your blade to point it at his neck. The crowd erupts around the two of you, Lysene coins exchanged en masse as the gambling comes to an end. 

“I yield,” Jaenys sighs, head rolling back, silver hair brushing the ground before he holds his hand up, beckoning for you to help him to his feet. You roll your eyes—what a princess, you think, grabbing his forearm to pull him upright. He stands in front of you, so close that your chest brushes his. You tilt your head up slightly to look at him, waiting for him to back up, but he doesn’t. He tells you quietly, “I told you I would fix it, didn’t I?” 

“But at what cost, Jae?” You hate that your voice wobbles. You hate feeling weak. “The only opportunity I have to go home? To see all of the others again? Viserys? I lose no matter what happens. I—”

“This won’t be your only opportunity,” Jaenys says so firmly that you falter. He lifts his hand to brush his fingers against your cheek, tilting your face to force you to keep your eyes on him. Before you can spit out a ‘you do not know that,’ Jaenys continues, “Aenys—he has been… talking to your father.”

For a second, you don’t think you heard him correctly.

“What?” you ask, voice riddled with disbelief. “Aenys Vyninar? Aenys as in Triarch Vyninar’s son? Aenys as in bane of my existence and—”

“—and the boy you used to sneak out to fuck when you thought no one was paying attention,” Jaenys finishes lightly, one brow lifting when you scowl and look away. “He’s not happy about your exile either. From what I hear, he’s planning to run for Triarch in the next few years, whether his father approves or not. He will side with your father’s petition to revoke your exile, and you know what that means.”

If two of the three Triarchs approve the petition, then you can come home.

You blink, and a lump suddenly forms in your throat. “He would have to break away from the Elephant party to run against his own father. He would never have the support as an independent—you cannot expect me to believe he would risk his own political future for—”

“Except, he is,” Jaenys interrupts. You let out a shaky breath to steady yourself. “He’s already working at siphoning off votes from the Elephants, framing recent behavior as self-serving and vindictive rather than for the good of Volantis as a whole—”

“He’s trying to pull off a coup, then? He’s going to tear apart the whole Elephant party doing that,” you demand, voice pitching in disbelief. “I don’t—but why?”

Jaenys gives you a half-smile, head tilted slightly to the side. “You know why.”

Your eyes burn. 

Idiot boy, you think, remembering all of the days you spent lounging in his bed, trading insults and kisses, all of the twisted games where you would try to get information from each other while the other’s guard was down. Aenys was—you do not know what he was to you. He was not a friend, barely a lover, but he was important to you in a way you loathe to admit.

Clearly, you were the same to him.

You suddenly feel far too close to crying for comfort, considering you’re still in public. Jaenys snakes an arm around your shoulders, pulling you into him casually under the guise of celebration rather than comfort.

“This was never the only way,” he tells you quietly. “I was just—impatient. I did not want to wait or rely on that Elephant cunt,  and I did not realize—” He cuts himself off, looking away. “Let me fix this. I can make this right without you having to give anything up.”

You remember the days when Aerion came down with fever, suddenly. You remember sitting at his bedside and telling him about Volantis in his rare lucid moments. You remember telling him about gardens and fountains, festivals and the azantys shows; you remember telling him that one day, you would like to bring him there to show him your home, and you remember the ache in your chest, the mourning you felt, when you realized you would likely never be able to. 

Jaenys ghosts his lips against your forehead, and for the first time in two moons—longer than that, much longer than that—you feel something close to hope.

—————————

Aerion does not know what he expected.

He watches blankly from one of the rooftops over the market as you trade blades with your friend. The two of you dance around one another, laughing, talking, like nothing’s changed, like you do not even care that Aerion is gone, like his absence means nothing to you. 

And Aerion is—he is furious. He is furious and embarrassed; he is upset that he has come all this way for someone who does not care, that he had hope, that he has spent two moons haunted by you, that he cannot even escape you in his sleep, and you have probably not even thought of him once since he left.

Aerion dreams of you almost every night. He is loath to admit it, but it is true. 

He dreams of the Blackfyres finding out you lied about him, and he dreams of returning to Lys to find your corpse waiting for him, because that is the only fate that awaits you if they learn the truth. He wakes up gasping those nights, fingers clawing at the shitty roll he sleeps on, sick and heaving and pushing himself out of bed to make his way to the officers of the Second Sons to find out if there has been any news from Lys. 

Sometimes, he dreams that there has been word from Lys. He dreams that Volantis is going to war. He dreams of returning to Lys to find you gone, of going back to Westeros, where his family is preparing to defend against you and yours. He dreams that the next time he sees you, it’s on the opposite side of the battlefield. 

Some of those nights, he dreams of killing you. He dreams of staring down at you, of you on your knees in front of him, his blade pierced through your abdomen. He dreams of blood spilling from your mouth, and he can tell you’re trying to say something to him, but you cannot hold on long enough to finish whatever it is, and he tries to put pressure on the wound he caused, tries to save you, but he cannot, and he feels helpless—so fucking helpless. 

And some of them, he dreams of you killing him, and it sickens him that he prefers those. He dreams of your sword cutting through his chest, your hand fisted in his hair as you force him to the ground; he dreams of the long, terrible moment where you almost look triumphant—until you realize what you’ve done, and your expression breaks, eyes widening, lips parting as you fall to your knees at his side.

He wakes up with phantom pain lancing through him, heart hammering in his ribs, choking over his own breath, fingers still twitching in your direction, even if you are no longer there. 

His heart hammers now, too—loud and painful, thudding in his ears like a war drum as he stares down at you from the place he first tracked you down during the days you used to make him hunt you. He realizes, dully, that of the realities he dreams of, one has become far more likely than the other, and the only question left is whether it will be you or him to fall at the other’s hand. 

Fuck. 

He feels like a fucking fool. His nails draw blood from his palms, the gift he brought you weighs heavily in his pocket, and his jaw is so tight that it is painful. He risked capture just to get a chance to see you again, just so he could know that you ache for him as much as he aches for you, only to find—to find you what? Playing around with your friend, laughing, smiling, teasing. 

You do not care. You never cared. It was just as he feared—the moment he was out of sight, you forget he exists, while he is tormented by the mere idea of you. 

It is sickening and infuriating, and he cannot seem to pull his gaze away. The fight comes to an end with your friend sprawled on the ground and your blade pointed at his neck, and Aerion stays in place on the roof, blood dripping between his fingers onto the tiles, breath ragged. 

He should go back to the ship, wait out the rest of the supply run in the cabin he stole from the other sellsword meant to join the trip. He should forget about you. He should, because you forgot about him, and Aerion is not—Aerion is a prince, a dragon. He does not pine, especially not for someone—

Someone he loves. 

Someone he loves enough to make him feel uncomfortable in his own skin. It is a foul, humiliating thing. Aerion is a dragon, not some soft-hearted fool sighing after a lost lover like the singers in the songs Daella is fond of, yet the thought of you with another man, the thought of you leaving him, leaves him sick with the urge to tear the world apart with his bare hands. 

Only his mother had ever known how to quiet that ugliness in him before it swallowed him whole, and he lost her.

Only you after her—has he lost you, too?

That is why he cannot drag his gaze from where you are standing close enough to your friend that you might be kissing him, though Aerion cannot tell from this distance and angle, and the thought makes something savage twist violently in his chest. That is why his heart feels lodged somewhere in his throat. That is why he cannot move from the rooftop where everything changed—when he had finally found you after days of those wretched hunts of yours, back at the very beginning of this, and you were always just out of reach, until you weren’t, and his gaze met yours from the square where you’re standing now, victorious. 

He had seen you, really seen you, and you had seen him.

Look at me, he thinks furiously. Look at me and see me, the same way I saw you.

But you do not. 

Your friend steps away from you, and you stand there for a long moment, back to Aerion, staring at gods know what, before you start making your way over to where one of those silver-haired pretenders is standing. His teeth grind. 

Look, look, look! Look at me, you wretched woman, I am right here, he almost shouts—enraged and desperate, because all he wants is you. He wants to scream at you for betraying him, wrap his hands around your throat and squeeze until you finally understand what you have done to him; he wants to tell you how badly he’s missed you, and he wants to ask if you’ve missed him the same, but he’s terrified your answer will not be what he wants to hear.

You do not look. 

But your friend does.

—————————

Aerion wakes up on the floor. 

He blinks once, twice, trying to remember what happened, where he is. Panic thrums through his chest briefly—was he caught? Did the Blackfyres realize he was here? Did one of the Second Sons give him up? Will his father care? Will you care? Will you care?

His fingers press down on the cool marble beneath him, and he winces as he pushes himself into a sitting position, head aching terribly. 

He does not seem to be in a cell, he realizes, head still fuzzy, half out of it. He seems to be—

He’s in your chambers.

Aerion blinks again as clarity washes over him. Your ceiling, your bed, your sheets, your sleepwear discarded haphazardly on the floor—he recognizes it all like the back of his own hand. He spent more nights in your room than his own, your warmth curled at his side. He finds himself crawling toward the silk, fisting the soft fabric in confusion, trying to figure out what’s going on.

How did he get here?

Another shooting pain spreads from his temple as he tries to remember, and he hisses through his teeth, half doubling over, tears blurring his eyes. Before he even realizes what he’s doing, he’s lifting your sleepwear to his face, eyes sliding shut as he buries his nose into the soft silk and inhales deeply.

Instantly, the pain is replaced by a mortifyingly intense wave of relief, strong enough to make his shoulders shake as he greedily sinks into the familiar scent of you. Cherry wine and spice; that lavender oil you bought at the market with him the week before you left. It smells so much like you that it runs Aerion ragged, a noise building in the back of his throat that he desperately tries to swallow away. 

He’s missed you. He’s missed you. He’s missed you so much, and you just—

“Ah, so we meet again, little prince! Do forgive me for this, but our mutual lover has missed you quite badly these past two moons.”

Aerion blinks once, head aching as an aggravating voice rings through his ears—whose? He recognizes it from somewhere, but he cannot place it. 

Mutual lover, he thinks irritably, trying to sort through what they said to figure out who it might be—he would’ve recognized your whore’s voice, and the Blackfyres never would have left him in your room for you to find, he would be strung up and half-dead right now if they had found him, so then who—

Your friend, Aerion realizes instantly, blinking once as he remembers what he had been watching before he had decided to go back to the ship. You had been sparring with him—Jaenys—in the central market, and Aerion had been sitting on the same rooftop you would lounge on, waiting for him to find you in the early days of his exile. He had been waiting for you the same, but—but you hadn’t looked. 

Jaenys had looked. Aerion had slid off the back of the rooftop, the way he had come from, to get back to the ship before Jaenys could catch up to him, but he’d hardly made it to the docks when he was thrown hard against the side of a building in a narrow alley. Aerion had drawn his blade, but—

But what? 

He can’t remember what happened after. He lets out a frustrated breath, fingers tightening around your sleep clothes before he forces himself to his feet, trying to ignore the shooting pain that spreads from his right temple. 

He needs to get out of here before you come back, because he does not want to talk to you. He does not want to talk to you, he does not want to see you, he does not want anything to do with you. You have made your choice, clearly, and he needs to—

He fists the silk tighter, pressing his face back into it, breathing in deep one last time before he looks up to the ceiling. 

He counts to three in his head, desperately trying to pull himself back together.

His gaze cuts over to the door, and he squeezes his eyes shut as he reluctantly lets go of your clothes to force himself to move. One foot, then the next—the room sways unpleasantly around him. He has to brace a hand against the wall, hard enough that his nails scrape against the marble. 

And then, he pauses.

There, by the fireplace, the black chest he asked you to look after for him, so he wouldn’t return to that poacher Vyrano having stolen and sold it. His throat bobs, breath shaky now as he takes half a step in its direction. He isn’t sure why he suddenly feels so thrown off. 

Because you had actually gone for it as you promised? 

Because he has never gone so long apart from it? 

Because it means you might actually be waiting for him?

Why else would you go after it when he asked? Why else would you keep it safe in your chambers? Why else, why else, why else?

He hates the hope that blooms in his chest. It grows and spreads like a fucking weed that he cannot contain; it festers and pollutes, depriving him of all common sense. It doesn’t make sense, he tells himself logically. Aerion knows what he saw—he knows it. You didn’t care. You were smiling—you must have been, because he heard your laugh, even if it did sound a bit off compared to the one he had grown used to. You were sparring with your friend the way you used to with him. You did not look. He was waiting for you to look, and you did not look. You cannot be waiting for him, because—

Aerion’s gaze cuts to the side when he hears footsteps coming in the direction of your chambers. He barely bites back a curse, gaze flying around the room to find somewhere to hide, eventually deciding to slide behind the folding screen in the corner of the room. He leans back against the wall, watching through the sliver of the screens as you stumble in.

“Fuck off, Jae,” you snap, glaring back at the door as you catch your balance on the pole of your bed. “Close my door and get the hell out.”

Aerion’s breath catches.

You are—

You are right there. 

You are right there, less than ten feet away. If he steps out from behind this folding screen and takes three long steps, he would be able to grab your wrist and pull you into his arms—hold you or fuck you or kill you, or all three if he so pleased. There is a lump suddenly in his throat, fingers fisting at his sides, nails digging into his palm deep enough to draw blood.

“Ah, but you promised you would do more than just kiss me if—” Aerion hears your friend pout from the doorframe. 

“Why must you test my patience?” you cut him off before he can finish, giving him a sharp but sweet smile. “Get out. You pissed me off, and you didn’t land a blow—as usual.”

Jaenys sighs dramatically. “You never used to condition our love like this, ñuha prūmia. It makes me sad. I miss your bed.”

My heart.

“You were in it last night,” you reply, and Aerion’s teeth grind together. He squeezes his eyes shut, hand darting down to the dagger at his waist, knuckles white around its hilt. It takes all of his self-control to keep in place. “Don’t get greedy, Jae.”

“I’m always greedy when it comes to you,” Jaenys purrs. “C’mon. I was good today, wasn’t I? Let me come in.”

Is this why your friend found him and left him here? To force him to watch while you and he—

Aerion feels apocalyptic. He will not suffer the insult. He will not. He will kill you both if that cunt comes within five feet of you. 

His eyes snap back open, focusing on you, and—

—and all of the will to fight leaves him immediately, shoulders slumping, instinctively taking half a step forward, until his chest is almost against the folding screen. He hates the way he longs for you; hates that he cannot even muster the will to remain angry. You’re leaning against your bed, dressed in the same black leathers you were wearing in the market square, but your hair is loose now, and you’re visibly drunk, unsteady on your feet, holding onto the pole for leverage. 

You look beautiful, Aerion thinks, furious and yearning and all things in between, because he is sick of how badly he wants to be with you, and he is sick of being apart from you at all. All of the tumultuous emotions that have been tearing him apart the past few days, weeks, months, come back with a roaring vengeance. 

Aerion misses you. It is impossible to deny. All he wants is to go back to the days he spent hunting you through Lys, lounging on cushions, and watching magister’s sons and merchant princes make fools of themselves, tangled in your sheets, bodies entwined. It is infuriating, because he has known all along that there would be no going back to a life without you—he has known it since the day he first won one of your wretched games, when you had him laid back on your bed, unraveling beneath your touch. He has known it before that, even, since the first time you made him say it in the cove—iksan aōhon, iksā ñuhon.

But it is incontrovertible now—he has had two moons of hard-packed earth and steel, bloodshed and violence and everything he has longed for that he could not have while trapped on this pillowed island. And in those two months, he has ached and raged and longed, forever unsatisfied because hard-packed earth and steel are not enough now that he has had a taste of a life with you. 

Nothing is enough if he does not include you.

Wretched woman, he thinks furiously, eyes tracing the length of your neck as you sigh and tip your head back. You have ruined him. You have ruined him in full, and Aerion does not even have the will to hate you properly for it. 

“Jae, if you do not get out of my sight in the next five seconds, I’m going to throw you off my balcony,” you say, head tilted to the side as you pull a dagger from your waist to point it lazily at him. “The fuck happened to your face anyway?”

Your lips curl up into a half-smile, and Aerion detests you—he detests watching you smile at someone else, and he detests that there are things happening around you that he does not know, and he detests that he cannot have you as completely as you have him. He never wants you to leave his side; he wants to possess you so fully that all you can think of is him. As long as Aerion lives, you would be his—and he would be yours.

“Don’t worry about it,” your friend drawls, and Aerion’s jaw tightens when he sees him peek into the room, eyes furrowed, and lips curled down in a slight frown as he looks around. He must be looking for Aerion, he realizes, seething. He is purposely trying to antagonize him. A vicious thrill runs through him when he sees that Jaenys’s eye is swollen and his lip is split, a slash deep across his cheekbone. “Whatever, get some sleep. Maybe tomorrow you won’t be such a raging cunt.”

You throw the dagger at him hard, but Jaenys only laughs wildly as he shuts the door, the blade burying in the wood instead. 

For a long moment, you only stand there, shoulders hunched inward, frowning slightly. You look so sad, so suddenly that Aerion falters, brows furrowed as you hang your head forward and let out a heavy sigh. He itches to make his way over you; to tell you that he’s here, just to see how you react. Will you be relieved? Will you look at him the same way you did when he left? Or will your eyes slip over him like he’s not even there?

Does Aerion really want to know?

No, he doesn’t.

He takes a step back, away from the folding screen, until his back is against the wall. His eyes slide shut again as he tilts his head back against the marble, fighting the heaviness that weighs on him. You fall asleep quickly when you go back to your chambers after drinking, so he’ll just wait for you to lay down and slip out from the balcony. You’ll wake if he tries to open the door, and—

His attention cuts back to you when he hears you push yourself away from the bed. He tilts his head slightly to the side, peering through the crack to figure out what you’re doing, and he pauses when he sees you making your way over to his chest. His brows furrow suspiciously as he leans forward again; you’re kneeling in front of the fireplace, back to him, and he cannot tell what you’re doing until he sees the glow of the fireplace emanating around you.

What?

Aerion blinks—it’s hot as hell. Aerion’s silks are clinging to him, even with the cool marble behind him. He can feel the sweat beading at his forehead and dripping down his sides. Why are you lighting a fire?

He watches, bewildered, as you prod at the embers with the poker. Firelight spills gold across your skin, and you sit there silently for a long while, staring into the flames before you finally sigh and open up his chest. Aerion blinks again, a second and third time, shaking his head slightly as he tries to figure out what the hell is happening, but he freezes when he sees you lift his dragon egg from the cushions.

The egg gleams in your hands, scales of deep crimson and black, beautiful and lifeless and so familiar that it makes the breath leave his lungs. 

Aerion has had it for as long as he can remember—some of his earliest memories are of clutching it clumsily in both arms while his mother laughed softly and told him not to drop it. He remembers dragging blankets beside the great hearths in his chambers at King’s Landing, placing his egg into it, and lying in front of it, watching the flames lick at the scales, begging the fire to breathe life into it. He remembers pressing his ear to it at night, convinced that he could feel warmth instead of the cool stone.

Everyone eventually stopped humoring him—they had all given up. The eggs were decorative stones to the rest of them, but he had never accepted it. He could never bear being parted from it for long. Not when they left King’s Landing for Summerhall, not when he was exiled to Lys. Even when everything else was stripped from him, the egg stayed. He carried it with him from city to city despite the weight of it; still woke up some nights, certain he felt warmth beneath the shell or heard movement from within. 

Ridiculous and childish, maybe, but he does not care. It is his dragon. It will hatch for him someday—it has to, he’s seen it, he knows it. And you—

—and you lift it like you know it too, which is ridiculous, because he remembers how you reacted during that argument the two of you had moons ago, remembers the way you looked at him when he implied maybe the right blood wasn’t being spilled to bring life to the stone eggs. When he was too close to admitting out loud that sometimes, in his dreams, he sees himself stepping into the flames with the egg cradled to his chest, that he does not die when he does, but transforms—into what he was always meant to be.

He had caught himself before he did, because the way you looked at him—Aerion is used to people staring at him like he’s half-mad, but he cannot handle it from you. The point is, you do not believe the egg will hatch, and you do not believe that dragons will return. 

He supposes he cannot blame you—the Volantene bloodmagickers have been trying for centuries, and they have made no progress, but the Volantene bloodmagickers are not him. They are not Targaryens. It is his family who retained their dragons when all of the other Valyrian dragonlords were lost to the Doom, and thus, it is they who are the true blood of the dragon, much as the Volantene old blood—you and your friends—like to claim otherwise. Only the true blood of the dragon can bring life to what was lost, he knows it, and you do not believe it, but… but you act as if you do. Right now.

Aerion is hardly breathing as he watches you settle the egg on top of the hearth, head tilted to the side as you watch the fire lick the scales, the same way he would back home. 

He almost calls out for you—his chest is all tangled, and he feels so uncertain that it almost makes him sick to his stomach. His first instinct is to convince himself that it’s not what he thinks. You’re not doing this for him; you’re doing this for yourself. You’re trying to steal his egg. It was never that you didn’t believe him—it was that you were trying to discourage him, it was that you knew the dragons would come back, but you wanted his dragon for yourself. 

It would make more sense, he rationalizes, hand dropping back down to his dagger. It would make more sense than you—than you, what? You doing this for him? You keeping the egg warm and taking care of it the way you think he would, because he’s not here to do it? How does it make sense? You don’t even believe it—he knows you don’t—so then, why?

You reach for the dagger you must have pulled out of the wall when Aerion was trying to calm himself down, and Aerion leans forward even more, until his face is almost pressed up against the crack, trying to figure out—again—what you are doing. His lips part when you press the blade hard against your palm, cutting through the skin there, and Aerion’s body locks up.

He shakes his head again, blinking to clear his vision, trying to make sure he’s actually seeing what he thinks he’s seeing, but—but he is. You let the dagger clatter to the ground as you hold your hand over the egg, and he hears you murmuring something under your breath, “… ānogar…  ābrar… dōron…” He cannot make out all of the words, but he understands enough to know what you’re doing. 

Blood… life… stone…

Aerion suddenly feels feverish, weak in the knees, sick to his stomach, so confused, so uncertain. He steps back once, twice, three times, until his back hits the wall and he slides down to the floor, pressing his face into his hands.

He does not understand. 

Aerion has spent his entire life chasing this—dreaming of dragons, reading old scrolls until his eyes burned, desperately searching for scraps of forgotten knowledge from the Freehold, trying to figure out how he could possibly bring life to stone. He has bled for this obsession before, fought for it, and no one ever took him seriously, not really. At best, they indulged him, but you—

You are sitting on the floor of your chambers with blood dripping down your wrist, murmuring old Valyrian rites over his cradle egg for—for him. Not because you believe that dragons are destined to return to the world, not even because you believe in him when he tells you he has dreamt of it, but because somewhere along the way, you started loving him enough that the distinction no longer mattered to you.

Aerion presses his face harder into his hands. His thoughts feel disjointed, half-feral with confusion and refusal to believe what is right in front of his eyes. He tries to make sense of it, and he cannot, because you should not love him like this. It makes more sense if there’s some underlying self-serving reason. You know too much about him to love him sensibly—you have seen the ugly parts, the obsession and arrogance and cruelty. He has pushed you away and threatened to kill you if you didn’t leave him be, and in the same breath, he promised to hunt you down if you ever left him, because he does not know how to deal with how strongly he feels for you, and it always manifests in the worst ways.

He feels overwhelmed. Aerion always feels overwhelmed, but never like this.

This is not—he does not know what this is. It does not feel like possession, or obsession, or the frantic, poisonous thing he has come to learn is love. It feels—

He squeezes his eyes shut harder, teeth grinding together.

—safe.

The realization is horrifying.

He has spent so long bracing himself for abandonment that he no longer knows what to do with devotion freely given. Every relationship in his life always felt conditional somehow, balanced on the edge of a blade. Useful, until he became too difficult. Wanted, until he became too much—and Aerion has always been too much. Too volatile, too intense, too quick to cruelty. He has been preparing himself for you to leave him since the moment he realized he loved you. Maybe even before that.

He thought that this would finally be it. You would look at the opportunity laid before you—the Blackfyres, your friend, your home suddenly within reach again—and you would decide that he was never worth enough to outweigh it.

And logically, why would he be?

He is a prince without a kingdom, exiled across the Narrow Sea with more scandal than allies to his name. His own father does not want him around; his brother will not even write him. You have known your people your entire life—your brother waits for you back within the Black Walls, your father wants you home, and your friend crossed half the world and planned a war just to bring you back where you belong. 

Aerion is just—

Aerion.

A mistake made in exile in comparison; a temporary madness born from loneliness and proximity and all of the ugly things the two of you recognized in one another. He would become nothing more than a strange chapter in your life. A lover from your years of forced humiliation. A dragon prince you once entertained in Lys before returning to your real life across the sea.

He thought that once the choice was finally in front of you, you would take one look at him and realize how absurd this all was. He spent two moons trying to harden himself against the inevitable moment you would decide your home mattered more than he did. He convinced himself of it when he was watching you with your friend from the rooftop, and it felt as though his ribs had been split open. 

You would survive it, and Aerion would not. You would grieve him, maybe. Miss him, hopefully, for a while, at least. But you would go back to your brother and your friends and your city, and life would continue on around you until the wound scarred over. Aerion thinks losing you would leave him maimed permanently—he knows it. The past two moons have proved it. 

But—you are here. You are waiting for him. You are bleeding over his dragon egg in the middle of the night because he once looked at you with desperate certainty in his eyes and said someday it would hatch. You would not do that if you had already discarded him, if you did not plan to choose him, and Aerion does not know how to cope with it.

You do not even know he is here. That is what ruins him most. 

It would be different if you knew he was watching. Aerion could dismiss all of this then. He could tell himself it was another game, another calculated attempt to keep him bound to you until you no longer had use for him. He could be angry then. Anger is easy. Suspicion is easier. Cruelty, easiest of all.

But you think you are alone. You think there is no one here to see the way your shoulders curl inward, the way your lips move around words you do not believe, the way you offer up your blood to the egg in hopes of bringing life to it, not because you believe it will, but because he does.

Something hot stings behind Aerion’s eyes before he realizes, with vague horror, that he is crying.

He wipes viciously at his face immediately, furious at himself, but it does not stop the next tear from slipping free. Or the next. 

He presses his hand over his mouth to stifle the noise that builds in his throat, desperately trying to force himself to calm down.

You are wretched. You are a wretched woman. Aerion regrets ever approaching you that day on the rock. He regrets ever indulging your games. He regrets it all, and most of all, he regrets that he cannot truly bring himself to regret anything at all. You have ruined him in full—you really, truly have—and Aerion cannot even bring himself to regret any of it. 

He inhales deeply through his nose, tilting his head back against the marble again. He counts—one, two, three—and then pushes himself back to his feet. He forces his eyes dry and his breath steady, and then peeks back through the folding screen to see if you’ve moved over to the bed yet.

You have. Aerion grinds his teeth together as another wave of longing washes over him. You are sprawled haphazardly over the covers—didn’t even bother to change out of your leathers, you rarely do whenever you’ve been drinking. 

He should be there with you, he thinks bitterly. At your side, you should be curled into his chest, and he should be toying with your hair, because you are a miserable, wretched wench, but you are beautiful, and the only time he can truly enjoy that is when your mouth is shut with sleep or busied with his cock.

He finds himself moving in your direction before he can stop himself; his feet drag lightly against the marble floors, body drawn to yours, like some pathetic, starved thing, finally catching the scent of food again after two moons of hunger.

Gods—he hates how weak you make him. 

Aerion stops at the side of your bed and stares down at you in silence. The firelight and setting sun spill soft gold across your skin; one arm hangs off the mattress, fingers brushing the floor, blood still dripping from where you’d cut your palm open for him. Your breath is slow and heavy with exhaustion and wine, and now that he is closer, he can see the faint circles beneath your eyes.

You look worn thin, now that he sees you up close, and it unsettles him more than anything else today has. He finds himself reaching out before he can stop himself, fingers tracing beneath your eye.

“—our mutual lover has missed you quite badly these past two moons.”

Is it true? He exhales lightly through his nose, gnawing at the inside of his cheek as you instinctively turn your face into his hand. Could it be? You had been laughing in the market square, sparring with your friend like nothing was wrong, but—but the laughter had sounded wrong, hadn’t it? It wasn’t the way you would laugh with him, bright and brilliant, all sharp edges and fire that Aerion wanted to bask in for the rest of his life. 

His fingers slip down your face—tracing the slope of your nose to the outline of your lips. His heart jumps when your lips part beneath his touch, breath warm and steady against his skin. He finds himself leaning his head down, lashes fluttering as he ghosts his lips against your cheekbone, lower still, until his mouth hovers just above yours.

He can feel your breath against his lips, can almost taste the cherry wine you’d been drinking, and then he closes the sliver of distance. The contact is brief at first, hesitant in a way that would mortify if anyone else were there to witness it. Aerion is not hesitant. He takes and burns and devours; he does not hesitate, not like this, but—but he cannot help himself. Because he has missed you desperately—have you missed him the same? 

His lips brush yours, and you taste the same you did two moons ago—cherry wine and spice, and for the first time in two moons, the unending ache within him is finally put to rest. Everything crashes through his chest so violently that it almost hurts.

His hands slip down to your leathers, fisting the fabric hard as he makes a quiet, broken sound against your mouth before he can stop it. He kisses you again, deeper this time, tongue easing open your lips so that he can lick the inside of your mouth, no longer hesitant, because he cannot be hesitant now that he’s had a taste of you again. The restraint snaps apart all at once, replaced by two months of hunger and fury and yearning condensed into something mortifyingly desperate and needy.

He has missed you. Have you missed him?

You stir beneath him, but Aerion is undeterred, bowing his head with a shaky exhale, pressing another kiss to the corner of your mouth, then your cheek, your jaw, dragging his tongue up the length of your neck. He has spent two moons trying to survive without this—with hard-packed earth beneath him instead of silk sheets, with blood and steel instead of your hands in his hair—and he does not know how he survived it, how he could ever survive a life without you. It is impossible.

Wretched, wretched, wretched woman. 

He is ruined. He is ruined.

His fingers work at the strings of your leathers, fumbling as he tries to loosen them—you are stirring now, he can feel it in the way you shift beneath him, and the soft gasps starting to spill from your lips as his teeth graze your clavicle, before he licks up to the hollow of your throat, breath ragged and lashes fluttering as heat clouds all common sense. 

He shifts onto the bed, the mattress dipping beneath his weight as he moves to straddle your hips, sliding the fabric down your shoulders so that he can kiss down your chest, between your breasts, mouthing bruises into your skin.

“Wake up, wench,” he murmurs into your skin. He already feels too hot—the fire, the summer night, the feeling of your skin for the first time in two moons. He’s half out of it already, hips jerking, grinding into your thigh, because his cock is straining against his pants, and his abdomen is so tense that he almost feels like he’s in pain. “Wake up!”

“Aerion?” you murmur drowsily, not even awake yet, body twitching beneath his. 

His name on your lips chokes the air right out of his lungs. Aerion, Aerion, Aerion—he wants to hear you say it over and over again, wants to hear you cry it, scream it, wants the whole island to know that you are his. You are his, and he is yours—iksā ñuhon, iksan aōhon. None of the bastard pretenders, not even your friend—they cannot make you feel the way he does. Not in a million years. Not until the sun rises in the west and sets in the east; not until the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves. It is only you, and only him. That is how it will be for as long as he draws breath.

Your hand lifts from where it’s brushing the ground to slide against his face, and Aerion lets out a low moan, turning his face into your bloody palm, kissing the wound briefly once, before he drags his tongue across the cut. The taste of your blood floods warm and metallic in his mouth, and Aerion groans deep in his throat at the sensation, eyes sliding shut as he laps at the wound, hips still rutting against your thigh.

You bled for him, he thinks, panting into your skin. You bled for him. You bled for him. You bled for him.

The thought is dizzying, all-consuming; for a moment, he chokes because he almost finds himself finishing in his pants just from it. You bled for him. You cut yourself open and spilled your blood for the egg, just because he had looked at you with certainty one night and confessed something no one else has ever taken seriously. You bled for him. You did it for him—you bled for him, for him—what else would you do for him? Would you choose him if he asked? Would you return to Westeros with him? Would you turn your back on your family? How far would you go? What could he ask of you that would make you deny him? Is there anything? You bled for him.

He’s drunk off the thought—off the cherry wine and spice he licked from your lips and the warmth of your body sliding against his for the first time in two moons. No one—nothing—can compare to this. He thinks it might kill him. You might kill him. How dare you? How dare you do this to him? How dare you make him feel this way? How dare—

“Aerion?” you breathe again, more awake this time, and Aerion’s eyes slide open, amethyst slivers landing on your face with his mouth still pressed to your open wound. 

You blink once, still sleep-heavy and unfocused, trying to make sense of what you’re seeing. Your fingers curl into his cheek, nails digging lightly into the skin there. There is a hint of confusion in your eyes, and Aerion is sure he must look mad with your blood smeared across his face, dripping from his lips, but he—he does not care. 

He does not care at all—he wants you, all of you, he wants you completely. Wants to possess you, consume you, have you, hold you, fuck you, kill you even, one day, because he loathes to allow anyone to experience something with you, take something from you, that he cannot. 

It is unreasonable—he knows it, logically, but he wants it all the same. Aerion wants to crack you open and crawl inside your ribs until there is nowhere you end and he begins. He wants to consume every thought you have ever had, every memory, every ugly and beautiful thing alike, until there is nothing left in the world that belongs solely to you anymore.

He hates that things happen around you that he cannot be around for. Hates that there are parts of you he cannot touch—that he cannot know every thought running through your head at any given moment, that there are twenty-three years of your life that belong to other people and places that he cannot reach. Your brother knows you in ways Aerion never will. Your friends know versions of you that he has never seen. There are pieces of you scattered across Volantis that Aerion will never be able to claw into his own hands, and he hates it so violently that it leaves him full of rage and helplessness all at once.

His thumb drags against your lower lip as he stares down at you, breathing unevenly. Your eyes are clearer now, more awake, and he hates that too, because he can see the moment your thoughts begin moving behind them again—quick and sharp and impossible for him to follow.

What are you thinking?

What did you think while he was gone?

Did you lie awake wanting him the way he wanted you? Did you think of leaving him? Did you stand on your balcony at night and picture Volantis waiting for you across the sea, or did you picture him? Did you think of your brother more than him?

The jealousy that cuts through him is vicious and ugly. His hand drops down to your throat, pressing down lightly on either side of it. 

“Are you—” you start to ask, blinking once, twice. Your hand slides against his cheek, against your blood still slick on his skin, thumb running over his lip once.

You do not finish the question. You surge upward, hand sliding behind his head to drag him down, surely staining the silver red, but Aerion does not care, because the moment your lips are on his, all coherent thought slips from his mind. 

His breath hitches, and he lets out a moan into your mouth, pressing his body into yours as close as he can. Your thighs part so that his hips can slide between them, and he bites down hard on your lower lip, just so he can feel how you gasp against his lips.

“How—how are you here?” you ask, fully awake now, disbelief lacing the words as his lips slide messily from yours down your jaw again. “Aerion—”

His grip tightens in your hair, cutting you off, and your eyes flash in response, taking it as a challenge. He has missed this—he has missed you. You are the only one who meets him where he needs to be, the only one who understands him, the steel to his fire, the only person in the world who does not bend away from the worst parts of him. Everyone else recoils eventually, but you bite back.

He asks, “How many people did you let touch you while I was gone?”

Your eyes flicker with amusement, and Aerion’s fingers tighten unconsciously in your hair before he forces them to loosen. His mouth drags slowly along your throat again, teeth scraping your skin, relishing in the way you shudder against him, still hazy with sleep, back arching into him until your breasts are flush to his chest. 

“Hm?” he presses when you do not immediately respond. The images fester in his mind—Jaenys’s hands on your body, the Blackfyre pretenders draped on the cushions at your side, while he rots in the Disputed Lands, thinking of you every waking second. “How many? Answer me, wench. Did you miss me, or did you just find someone else to fill the space?”

His lips brush your jaw against, softer this time; he feels almost feverish. He licks the line of your jaw, lashes fluttering as you roll your head backward to give him better access to your neck.

“You should not ask questions you do not want the answer to, prince,” you rasp, voice rough with sleep, and Aerion bites down on your neck hard enough to draw blood. You let out a bark of laughter instead of a yelp of pain—he loves it, loves you. “You first. You had whores in your camps. Did they help? Did they make you miss me less?”

You are mocking him, he realizes furiously. Not even a question of if he missed you, because you know he has. Aerion hisses against your skin, baring his teeth even though he knows you cannot see it. He drops his forehead to your shoulder, shivering when he feels your hands slip beneath his tunic and smooth against the warm skin of his back. A pitched noise builds in the back of his throat as he presses his face into your chest, and one of your hands leaves his back to hold the back of his head. 

“You are a plague,” he tells you, not for the first time, and certainly not the last. His voice is rough, cracking over the words. “I hated them. Every single one. I kept thinking of you—I would close my eyes, and it was your face. Your voice. Your hands. It was intolerable. You are intolerable.”

He grunts low in his throat, biting down again, this time on the plush skin of your breasts—you pull his hair hard at that, hard enough that his breath hitches and he cannot smother the whine that spills from his lips. He kisses messily back up your neck until his lips hover above yours, and his hand returns to your neck, not squeezing, not yet. 

“Tell me,” he says, voice low. “I know you let your friend into your bed. Did you let that Blackfyre cunt too?” 

“Are you mad about Jaenys, dragon prince?” you drawl, looking too amused as you roll your head back to look at him. How could he not be? It is not fair. You already live inside him like a sickness. A religion. A second heartbeat. He hates the idea of someone else getting to be with you. “He has been in my bed since we were barely fifteen. You are almost a decade too late to become jealous over it.”

Aerion hisses, volcanic rage flooding him instantly, grip tightening on your throat enough to cut off the air flow. You smile anyway, teeth sharp, delighted, and the jealousy twists into a vicious thrill, pulse pounding. The violence in him, the possessiveness, the cruelty that he spends so much time trying to disguise from everyone else—you look at it and smile, and Aerion feels something in him go warm and molten, the fight draining from him before it can even really take hold. He sinks into you, gaze loosening on your throat so that he can lean in and nose your cheek, letting out a ragged breath.

You like him like this, as he is—not the polished prince he learned to be at court, not even the sharp-tongued exile lounging through Lys pretending indifference to everything around him. This. The ugly thing beneath it all. Blood smeared on his face, violence in his eyes, his hand on your throat. Even two moons apart, and you still want him for what he is.

You are insane, he thinks wildly, panting as he tries to distract himself by dragging open-mouth kisses along your jaw. 

More than he is, maybe.

“And the Blackfyre?” he asks again, voice lower this time. “Did you let him touch you, too?”

You tilt your head to the side, eyes glittering in a way that puts him on edge. You ask sweetly, “Which one?” 

Aerion stares at you in disbelief, and then you laugh—it is bright and pretty as a bell, not like the hollow one he heard while you were sparring with Jaenys in the market square. You slide your hands up his body to cradle his cheeks, pulling his face from your shoulder to press your lips to his. 

He feels your leg circle his waist, and he knows what you’re doing, but he’s too consumed by the way your tongue dances along his to stop it—his back hits the mattress hard, air whooshing from his lungs, and you hover above him, straddling him, rolling your hips against his so slowly that he cannot stop the low moan that spills from his lips.

“You have no right to be mad, prince,” you tease, forearms coming to rest on either side of his head as you hover over him. “You spread your legs in my absence, did you not?”

“I did not spread my legs,” he hisses furiously, face flushing, disliking the way you phrase it. “And it is different. They were whores.”

You hum, rocking your hips again just to see how his breath catches. He glares up at you, silver-gold hair spread messily across your pillows, your blood still streaked across his mouth. 

“Jaenys is whorish,” you offer, as though that is supposed to make him feel any better. “I’m sure it counts for something.” You pause, and then add with a sharp smile, “And Haegon Blackfyre certainly fucks like one.”

Aerion stills beneath you, staring up at you in sheer disbelief, and you have the nerve to look inordinately pleased with yourself, eyes bright and smile even wider when you see the way he looks at you.

He hates that he pictures it immediately. Your hands tangled in that pretender’s hair, your mouth smiling against his throat, you tumbling backward into his arms while Aerion sleeps in dirt in the Disputed Lands, dreaming of you every night like a man cursed.

“You vicious fucking creature,” he says softly, the words coming out almost reverent despite the rage wreaking havoc on him internally. 

He grabs your hips hard enough to bruise and flips you onto your back in one swift movement. You let out a startled laugh, goading him as he pins your wrists above your head with one hand and snatches the dagger from where it’s sheathed at its side with the other.

He presses the tip beneath your chin, staring down at you, hostility and desire so tangled together that they are nearly indistinguishable. And you—you are undeterred. Your head tilts to the side, gaze lidded as you stare up at him, unbothered by the blood dribbling at the underside of your chin.

He’s missed you, he thinks again desperately. He’s missed this.

No one else speaks to him like this, treats him like this. No one else grabs hold of the ugliest parts of him and drags them into the light without fear. Most people spend their lives trying to soothe him—soothe him, placate him, praise him, survive him. But you—you antagonize him. You provoke him. You want him. You want all of him. 

“How did he touch you?” The words scrape out of him harshly because he can not help himself. “Did he kiss you like this?” He drags his mouth hard across your jaw. “Did he hold you down?” The dagger shifts just enough to emphasize the point. “Did he make you feel like I do?”

Aerion can hear his heart thudding in his ears, pulse roaring, knuckles white around the hilt of his dagger. He drags it lazily down the length of your throat, watching the red line beading in its wake as his lips brush your jaw. He lifts his head so that it’s hovering over yours.

“Did you think about me while he touched you?” he presses, voice lower now—crueler and needier, desperate to know the truth of it. 

You tilt your head up, neck pressing deep enough into his dagger that it draws blood. Your lips ghost his as you whisper, “The entire time.”

Aerion kisses you again—harder this time. Something savage and triumphant tears through him so suddenly that it nearly hurts. His breath catches hard in his chest, fingers tightening instinctively around your wrists as he presses the blade in deeper with his other hand before he tosses it to the side haphazardly.

You kiss him back just as hard, yanking your wrists out of his grip so that you can hold his face between your hands. Your nails dig crescents into his cheeks, and your legs wind around his waist, and Aerion is—he is not close enough, not nearly, he needs to be closer, inside you, on top of you, beneath you, skin-to-skin, mouth-to-mouth, until there is not even a breath of space between the two of you. 

His hands fly down to work at the laces of his pants, and he does not pause when he feels you break your lips from his, not when you tilt his face up to get his attention either.

“How long are you here until?” you murmur, fingers running absently through his hair. Aerion’s lashes flutter at the feeling, and he has to force himself to pay attention. “Hm?”

His gaze flicks over to the balcony, toward the setting sun, lips curling into a frown. “Not long,” he admits. “It is only a day trip for supplies. I need to be back at the dock before the moon rises.”

You look disappointed, and Aerion gives you a questioning look, barely able to bite back a groan of relief when he finally frees his cock. You do not acknowledge the silent request; instead, Aerion finds himself on his back again, with you straddling his hips.

He blinks up at you, flushed and breathless, cock aching as you absently stroke it. His abdomen tenses and spasms as you push his tunic up so you can kiss up from his hip to his sternum. Even as you work him so easily that he fears he might come apart before you’ve even undressed, he can see your mind sharp and calculating, thoughts racing faster than he can follow. 

He hates that he cannot hear them.

Finally, you sigh and say more to yourself than to him, “There is not enough time, then.”

He bites back a moan when you squeeze the base of his cock, eyes half-rolling back. “Time for what?” he forces out.

“I had plans for you, dragon prince,” you murmur, almost sounding sulky about it as you shimmy out of your own pants. 

His lips part when he sees the wetness smeared against your inner thighs, chokes over air when he watches how you slide your fingers between your folds, gathering the slick on two fingers.

He raises his eyebrows, trying to pretend he’s half as affected as he really is. “Oh?” he drawls, a bit breathless. “And what exactly were your plans, wench?”

You tilt your head to the side and give him a lazy half smile. “You know.”

Aerion inhales so sharply, face flaming as he remembers exactly what you said the last time he was here. Beneath you, held down, stretched open, back arched, inch by inch—his pupils are blown wide as he stares up at you, chest heaving, and when you finally sink down on his cock, warm and wet and tight and so fucking familiar, Aerion’s whole body spasms in an attempt to stop himself from cumming immediately.

You grab his face when he curls inward, choking on air, eyes squeezed shut, and you tilt it up so that he’s looking at you. 

“My poor dragon prince,” you mock—his cock twitches hard inside of you at the my, and he at least is able to relish in the way it makes your breath catch briefly. “Were you really going to come untouched from two moons apart?”

Aerion will kill you.

He bares his teeth, but as soon as he does, you roll your hips, and the only thing that spills from his mouth is a noise that’s so pitched that he flushes from his face to his chest. 

You look delighted.

“You are wretched,” he gasps as your cunt squeezes his cock. His breath hitches into a whine when you finally start to fuck him in earnest, a slow, steady roll of your hips, taking him in full with each bounce. “Hah—fuck—”

“It’s all I’ve been able to think about,” you tell him, kissing up his throat, bruising and biting so he has something to take with him back to the Disputed Lands. He wishes your teeth would dig deeper, that your lips would press darker bruises—he does not want them to fade, wants the proof of your touch branded on him, and the proof of his on you the same. “I loathe to wait longer, but I want to take you apart properly.”

A vicious thought hits him at once, fingers digging so deeply into your hips that it makes you falter. He asks you, “Have you taken any of them like that since I have been gone? Your friend? Your whore? The Blackfyre?”

You tilt your head to the side, calculating as you slow the roll of your hips to a still, and Aerion’s cock aches, and his abdomen is on fire, thighs so tense that he feels as though they might be sore tomorrow, but he needs to know. The thought of you taking any of them the way you’ve promised to him, the thought of them—the Blackfyre—being able to have you this way when he has not been able to, it enrages him. Any jealousy he felt earlier is dwarfed compared to what he feels now: it is violent and furious and so all-consuming that he cannot breathe. His nails draw blood from your hips, and he cannot stand that look in your eyes as you stare down at him—sharp and curious, too quick for him to follow. He hates it, he hates it—he wants to know every thought in your head. He wants everything that has to do with you—every thought, every feeling, every experience, everything. 

“Does the idea of that upset you, prince?” you ask, as though you do not already know the answer.

His hand flies from your hip to your throat, squeezing just hard enough to threaten. “The idea of that makes me want to—”

He cannot even articulate it—the lust for blood, for death, for you. Luckily, he does not need to, because you know. You always know. And you look terribly satisfied as you sit back on his thighs, his cock still buried deep inside of you.

“I have not,” you tell him at last, and the relief hits him so hard that it almost feels like another form of anger. Your arms curl around him—one hand pressing between his shoulder blades to pull him into your chest, and the other slides to the back of his head, fingers tangling in his hair as you hold him. His arms wind around you, too, biceps flexing, holding you so tight that it must border on painful. “I have been waiting for you.”

Your voice is small at that last part, quiet in a way you rarely are. He does not think you are just talking about fucking anymore, and he feels wrecked, breath ragged as he presses his face into the crook of your neck.

“You have?” he questions, voice equally small, just for a second.

He feels you nod. “Kessa,” you say softly, pressing your lips to his temple. “Tolvie tubis, tolvie jēda, tolvie tȳne.”

Yes. Every day, every hour, every minute. 

He squeezes his eyes shut to fight the heat suddenly pressing behind them, letting out a shuddered breath into your skin. His arms tighten around you.

“Avy jorrāelan,” he tells you, hand sliding down the length of your spine, trying to pull you impossibly closer. “Nyke vēdros issare qrīdrughagon hen ao.”

I love you. I hate being apart from you.

You guide his face gently from the crook of your neck. Aerion’s breath hitches when you press your lips back against his, kissing him slow and deep, rolling your hips as you ease his lips open so that you can map the inside of his mouth. 

Aerion melts into it instantly. The way you cradle his face as though he’s something precious, the way you kiss him slow and easy as though you have all the time in the world, and the sun is not steadily setting just beyond the balcony. Your fingers comb through his hair as your mouth moves against his, and Aerion lets out a soft moan, lashes fluttering.

The heat in his stomach builds rapidly, despite the slow rolls of your hips, and Aerion cannot even bring himself to feel embarrassed when he realizes how close he already is to finishing. His hands flex helplessly against your back, but his body is too hot, and his eyes are half-knocked back, and his thighs and abdomen are so tense that they ache. 

“I—” he starts to say, breath hot against your lips. He pulls back just enough to look at you, and you are—you are beautiful. Lips swollen and parted, sweat beading at your forehead, lashes fluttering with each roll of your hips. You are beautiful, and you are his, and he is yours. “I’m close, I—”

“Me too,” you breathe, and then you kiss him again, like you cannot get enough of him, the same way he cannot get enough of you. 

He holds your waist tight, guiding you down, rocking his hips up into you, faster now, a bit rougher as the two of you chase release—it is filthy, the sound of his cock fucking deep into your cunt. He can feel the wetness splattering against his thighs and pelvis with each thrust, the lewdness of your cunt sucking him in deep. It is in such contrast to the chaste kisses the two of you are sharing that it drives him crazy. 

Your breath hitches on something that sounds like his name, and Aerion presses his forehead to yours, sharing the same sliver of air as he lets out a low moan. His hips stutter against yours, grip tightening on your waist as he holds you down and cums deep inside of you, spots dotting his vision and body spasming as he grinds his cock up into you, dizzy over the feeling of your walls tightening around him, cum gushing down his length.

You settle against him, panting, not even bothering to pull yourself off his cock as you wind yourself back around him—arms around his shoulders, legs his waist. You bury your face into the crook of his neck, and he buries his into your hair, holding you just as tight. 

“They do not plan to leave any time soon,” you say after a moment, voice quiet and subdued, breath fanning hot against his neck as you nose into it. “They keep picking up more contracts.”

Aerion exhales, eyes sliding shut. Of course they are. Bitterness swells thick in his chest; he hates the images that immediately form in his head. Jaenys sprawled carelessly in your bed for another few months, laughing and sparring with you in markets, touching you without hesitation because he has known you your entire life, and Aerion has not. Haegon Blackfyre lounging on cushions with you, silver-haired and smug and more familiar with the shape of your smile than he should ever be.

“Henujagon lēda nyke,” he murmurs, pressing his lips to your temple, and then pressing his nose into the side of your head. He repeats, “Nyke vēdros issare qrīdrughagon hen ao.”

Leave with me. I hate being apart from you.

You let out a heavy sigh. “Ao gīmigon nyke daor,” you say quietly, pulling back slightly so that you can brush your lips against his. Aerion’s eyes flutter shut, lips pressing chastely against yours once, twice, three times. “Jaelan ao naejot gūrogon mirros arlī lēda ao.”

You know that I cannot. I want you to take something back with you.

Aerion makes a questioning noise in the back of his throat, tilting his head to the side. He frowns when you shift enough to reach over to the table near your bed. He lets out a low grunt when you inadvertently grind down on his sensitive cock, fingers flexing at your hips, but you settle back down on his lap before he can hiss at you to quit it. 

You’re holding something long and thin in your hand, fine mahogany—it takes Aerion a moment before he recognizes it as a wax seal stamp. His brows furrow as you grab one of his hands and place it in it, forcing him to curl his fingers around it. 

“I could not write you without drawing suspicion. If anyone had seen a seal bearing the three-headed dragon… Well, you know what would have happened,” you tell him. The last bits of tension ease from Aerion’s shoulders as you answer the question that’s been haunting him for two moons. “Take my family’s seal. I have a spare. No one will question me receiving a raven that bears it.”

Aerion’s stomach flips violently. For a second, all he can do is stare down at the seal resting in his palm, his thumb tracing the sigil engraved in the stamp, circling the snake that devours its own tail and the skull within it. This is—this is not done. Noble families do not give away family seals to people. Anyone bearing this could write in your name—could command in it, could implicate your household in treason if it fell into the wrong hands. Even carrying it is dangerous—the kind of dangerous that only exists between people who trust one another implicitly. 

And you are pressing it into his hand.

You hold his gaze steadily despite the vulnerability creeping around the edges of your expression now. You are trying to pretend this is practical, merely a solution to the problem of ravens and suspicion, but he can see the truth beneath it. You are handing him something precious—something that belongs to your bloodline, and could destroy you and your family if he decided to misuse it.

His fingers curl tighter around the mahogany handle instinctively, and when he lifts his eyes back to yours, he can’t hide the way his throat bobs, how he can hardly hold your gaze.

“You trust me with this?” he asks quietly. 

He wants to withdraw. Wants to pull away from you and turn cruel because he does not like how vulnerable he feels. You drugged me, he wants to accuse viciously. You drugged him because you did not trust him to control himself, but you—you trust him with this? Trust him to guard it so it does not fall into the wrong hands? Trust him not to misuse it? How does that make sense at all? 

You do not hesitate in your response. “Of course.”

Aerion’s teeth grind, gaze lowering, head falling forward slightly. He catches sight of the fire from the corner of his eye, and he sees the familiar scales of his dragon egg, and Aerion can feel it. He can feel the way his skin starts to crawl, stomach twisting, chest tightening—too much, all at once. It builds, and builds, and builds, and he can feel it on the brink of exploding violently. 

“Why?” he asks through his teeth.

Why what? Why do you trust him? Why do you love him? Why are you waiting for him? Why are you actually considering choosing him over your home? Your friends? Your brother? 

“Why do I trust you?” you ask dryly, almost sounding amused. “Should I not?”

His hand snatches out to wrap around your hand, and he pointedly presses hard down on the wound there. You do not even flinch, squinting at him slightly, assessing. 

“Why?” he asks again pointedly.

Your gaze flicks over his shoulder to where you placed the egg in the hearth, brows furrowing slightly. For a second, you almost look embarrassed, and Aerion almost relishes it because he’s never seen you embarrassed before, but he’s so wound up that he cannot bring himself to fully appreciate it.

“Well, I wasn’t sure how you took care of it,” you start to say, voice clipped. “I—”

“But why?” he hisses. “You do not believe it will hatch, so why would you—”

He does not know how to finish the question, and he feels helpless as his gaze flicks back up toward you, but understanding crosses your face immediately. 

“Because you do,” you say so simply the words he has been dreading and yearning for in equal measures. 

Because you do, as though it is that simple, as though that alone is enough reason to bleed for his dreams, as impossible as you think they are. Enough reason to justify kneeling before a fire in the middle of the night with his dragon egg cradled in your hands and Valyrian rites on your tongue; enough reason to spill your blood and call upon old magic. 

Just because he believes. 

Aerion feels something inside him split wide open, and when you curl your arms around his shoulders to tug him close again, he follows without protest, sinking into you, face pressed to your neck, arms wound tight around your waist. Your fingers slide into his hair, nails scratching lightly against his scalp in that way that always seems to make the tension in him ease.

He presses closer anyway, breathing you in desperately—wine and lavender and spice and the faint metallic scent of blood still lingering on your skin. The fire crackles softly beside the bed, warming the room until the summer heat feels almost suffocating, but Aerion cannot bring himself to care. He would let himself burn alive if it meant staying here in your arms a little longer.

“You cannot say things like that to me,” he murmurs into your skin.

“But it is true,” you say easily, which ruins him even more, a ragged breath stolen from his lungs as he presses his forehead harder into your skin.

“You make me feel mad,” he admits, voice small. “I do not—I do not understand you. Or this. Or—”

—me.

“You were already mad. You did not need my help with that.”

“I am trying to be serious, you miserable wench,” he hisses, but you laugh—bright and pretty, full of fire and life. “You are wretched. I should have your tongue.”

“Your threats do not frighten me anymore, dragon prince,” you say, fondness lacing the words, and Aerion scowls into your neck as he feels you press your lips to the side of his, and then tug at his earlobe with your teeth. “We both know you are too fond of my tongue to rid me of it.”

“Do not be so vulgar,” he scoffs, but he is smiling, and he knows you feel it, because he feels you laugh. 

He feels warm all over—not just from the fire and the summer heat and your body wrapped around his, but from something infinitely worse.

In his pocket, the gift he brought for you weighs heavily. 

He feels it every time you shift against him—the ring he bought in Myr when the Second Sons passed through for supplies a few weeks ago, obsidian, ruby-embedded. He had seen it in the market and immediately thought of you, of your sharp smiles and warm skin and the way red jewels look so pretty against your skin. He nearly gutted the merchant for suggesting emerald instead. He imagined slipping it onto your finger himself, pictured it on your hand; he wanted to leave something of his behind with you when he returned to the Disputed Lands.

But now, it feels woefully insufficient. A ring is nothing close to the value of the Valyrian steel you put on his throat, nothing compared to the seal you pressed into his hand, nothing beside the blood drying on your palm from where you cut yourself open for his dream.

Fuck.

“Aerion?” you ask quietly, pulling back slightly to look at him. “What is it?”

“… Nothing. It is nothing.”

[chuluoyi]

the dragon and the lioness

- aerion targaryen x wife!reader

for as long as you could remember, you and the bright prince have always been bitter enemies... but when duty calls and you are married off to each other, how will you survive this marriage?

genre/warnings: lots of crack, hardcore childhood enemies to lovers, arranged marriage, quarrels & usage of "wench" (he is aerion and he's emotionally constipated), assault and injury (not by aerion), forced proximity, mentions of blood (aka aerion going ballistic on your former betrothed), fluff, lannister!reader

notes: aerion here is the same aerion from this valarr fic but this can def be read as standalone. i actually had so much fun writing this bc this trope is my fav trope to write! i hope you all enjoy it <3

The fool in Red Keep said… the animosity between you and Aerion began when you were nothing more than babes in cradle.

He claimed that with the supposed cruelty of infancy, you had pushed him from his cradle and sent him flying to the floor. Thus, he had despised you ever since.

On the contrary, the fool in Casterly Rock said… it was the Bright Prince who started it. He was an unruly babe who yanked your hair so harshly it made you wail, and it was no wonder you came to loathe him.

Whether any tale held any truth, you could not say. You had no memory of ever laying a hand on him, or otherwise. Only that the hatred had always been there, as old as time.

You two have always been the bitterest of enemies. So when the news of your betrothal came, it felt like a cruel jest of the highest order.

But of course, House Lannister accepted the proposal gladly. Your father even went as far as breaking your previous betrothal to House Reyne. No matter how wretched Aerion was, he was still a prince of House Targaryen—blood of the dragon, and your house had never been one to shy away from greed.

And so when your new, blasted betrothed, with his silver hair and evil violet eyes, let out a derisive snort and told you right in your face that:

“The proud Lady Lannister has fallen to my feet at last… How sad.”

Gods knew you had never lacked for sharp words—but for once, nothing came, because this was exactly what your house had thrust you into.

And nor were you comforted when you would-be goodbrother, Daeron, came to you in his drunken stupor, saying:

“At this point, he’s a lost cause. I doubt marriage could fix him… but you could at least fuck him, yeah?”

Your life would be an utter disaster, you were sure of it. Why? Why must it be Aerion fucking Targaryen? You could understand politically beneficial marriage, but still, there were other Targaryen princes besides Aerion!

There were Daeron (though he might rope you into his drinking habit), Matarys (who might be too young for you), Aerys (who was said to have little interest in women, and way too old for you besides), and even Maekar?

No, no. The thought of being Aerion’s stepmother just filled you with more grief.

Valarr would be the perfect choice. The Young Prince was everything a bride could want in a husband… alas, his princess consort was already living that fairy tale with him.

As the only daughter of House Lannister, you were the perfect piece to be played in this game of thrones—such was your fate.

And whether you liked it or not... your wedding with your worst enemy was fast approaching.

“Father, Smith, Warrior, Mother, Maiden, Crone, Stranger...”

Your wedding was a grand event in King’s Landing. Held in the Great Sept of Baelor, three days of feasts and a wedding tourney would follow—festivities befitting a royal union between a prince of the realm and a lady from a powerful house.

You stood at the altar, every inch the perfect bride. Beside you, Aerion was draped in Targaryen prince regalia, the very image of arrogance as he recited the vows—

“I’m hers… and she is mine.”

“I’m his… and he is mine.”

The words tasted like ash on your tongue, but when you glanced at him, you caught the triumphant glint in his violet eyes.

“From this day... to the end of my days...”

You almost looked away in disgust, but the weight of a hundred watching eyes held you in place.

The High Septon then bound your hands together, silk wrapped tight, sealing a union that neither of you had ever wanted— and after a very awkward kiss, you became the Aerion Brightfire’s wife, and he your husband.

A union of a dragon and a lion. To the realm, it was a pretty spectacle, but to you, it was a veiled disaster.

. . .

The wedding, by all appearances, had been a resounding triumph. The feasts had been lavish, the tourney lively, the realm thoroughly entertained.

However, the real trial began when doors to your marital chamber closed behind you with a thud, when both of you shed the amicable masks you had worn all day.

At least your new husband had the sense to refuse the bedding ceremony outright. For that alone, you might have been almost grateful.

“I suppose with this, you could consider this the height of your ambitions fulfilled,” Aerion drawled, both hands on his hips, his voice dripping with that same unbearable arrogance you had come to loathe.

You let out a short, humorless laugh. “If this is the height, then I should like to return it.”

His eyes narrowed, a flicker of irritation breaking through his cool. “How ungrateful. Most women would kill to stand where you are.”

“You flatter yourself. Most women would weep to be wed to you.”

“Careful, my lady wife. You shouldn’t offend me too deeply, or I will be inclined to have your tongue.”

“I should hope to offend you thoroughly then. Feel free to get my tongue out of me, if you could.”

That was how it had always been between you—venom clashing like blades. From childhood to now, nothing had changed.

“Gods, what a delightful marriage this will be!”

Aerion scoffed, throwing his hands up in exaggerated delight before turning away. He began shrugging off his coat, then bending to pull at his boots. Another silence fell—sharper this time, brittle at the edges.

Your gaze flicked, unwillingly, to the bed... and realizing that as a man and wife, you would be sharing a bed together. Something in you snapped at the very thought.

“Oh, bloody hell,” you cursed. “If you intend to share my bed, I suggest you don’t.”

He looked back at you, brow lifting slightly. “Your bed? This is Red Keep, you dullard.”

“I refuse to be anywhere near you!”

“As if I would want—”

“Then go and find one of your whores instead!”

Oh no, maybe you had gone to far, but all you could see before you was the little monster who had made your childhood a misery whenever you visited King’s Landing—one who stole your tarts, shoved you aside, and screamed at you without cause.

For a heartbeat, the air seemed to turn icy, something dark flickering in your new husband’s gaze, sharp enough that it nearly made you recoil.

“Just so you wait until we go back to Summerhall.” Aerion’s piercing violet bore through you. “You won’t be so eager to test me then.”

“I shall try regardless,” you replied, still lifting your chin in defiance.

He held your gaze a moment longer, something unreadable passing behind it—before turning on his heel.

“Enjoy your solitude, wench.”

And with that, he strode from the chamber, the door slamming shut behind him. At last you were alone, safe and free from him and the dreadful notion of the first night.

…then, suddenly, you burst into dry, crisp laughter. The sound escaping you as you sank into the chair before your vanity, your limbs heavy with the weight of it all.

There you had it... the first night of your marriage, and your husband really went to the whorehouse.

. . .

“Impudent little wretch…”

Aerion stalked down the corridor, the words slipping through clenched teeth. His temper burned hot, as though the very walls of the Red Keep offended him.

You. Gods, how he hated you. It was not merely the defiance—though that alone would have been enough. It was the way you met every barb he threw with one of your own since you were children of five. You did not shrink, did not simper, did not bend.

And worse, you had been radiant throughout the day, as much as it pained him to admit. The way your eyes widened just so, the softness of your lips, the slim of your waist—

Gods, what cruel jest was this, that his sworn enemy—now inconveniently, his wife—should be so offensively comely?

A bitter scoff left him.

“Impudent little wretch,” he spat, quieter this time, though the words held no less venom.

As astounding a fact as it was, Aerion was no habitual whoremonger nor witless adulterer. He didn’t even frequent the brothels that often!

Which only made this all the more infuriating… because now he found himself striding towards the Street of Silk, driven not by want, but by seething spite.

If that was what you thought of him, then so be it! He would give you a tale worth choking on—he would be tangled in silks and perfumed arms, and by the morning, you would be known as the wife spurned on her very first night.

His lips curled faintly at the thought, satisfaction flickering beneath his irritation.

Aerion slowed at the entrance of a particularly well-appointed establishment. Music drifted faintly from within, low laughter following after it. For a moment, he simply stood there.

Not out of hesitation, but because the absurdity of it all suddenly pressed sharply at his pride. He, a prince of the blood, reduced to staging a petty display all because his own wife had refused him on his wedding night!

Still, his hand lifted—

“Your Grace.”

The voice cut cleanly. Aerion’s expression darkened at once, already recognizing it. Sure enough, when he turned, two figures cloaked in pure white stood just behind him.

Ser Roland Crakehall and Ser Donnel of Duskendale. Of the Kingsguard.

“Explain yourselves,” Aerion demanded coldly, his gaze flicking between them.

Ser Roland inclined his head, far too calmly for his liking. “We are under orders, Your Grace.”

“From whom?”

“Prince Maekar,” Ser Donnel answered with a tone of finality. “To keep you… in order, my prince.”

For a heartbeat, Aerion simply stared at them, utterly incredulous. That his father had foreseen him marching to a brothel from his wedding feast, and thought it necessary to hatch a contingency plan— how and where did the old man get such a wisdom from?

He moved to brush past Ser Donnel, intent on entering the brothel regardless, but Ser Roland stepped neatly before him and blocked the entrance.

“You insolent—”

“Forgive me, my prince. Our duty is to Prince Maekar, and he has made it clear that you are not to incite any scandal on your wedding day.”

And so the night ended not in scandal, but with a very fuming prince walking back to Red Keep, under the watchful eye of the Kingsguard.

When the news reached you that your husband (of a day, mind you) was unceremoniously escorted back from Street of Silk, you burst not into polite titter or a restrained chuckle befitting a princess—

But a fit of hearty laughter that rang through your chamber.

Gods. The image of insufferable, pride-swollen Aerion halted by his own father’s guards was too priceless in your mind that you wished you had seen it firsthand. This marriage might prove to be entertaining after all!

While you were thoroughly amused, this matter proved rather less amusing for Prince Maekar and Aerion on the breakfast table.

“Father, I fail to see—”

“You fail to see quite a great many things, boy,” Prince Maekar spat, not even granting him the courtesy of finishing. You folded your hands on your lap, trying to be the very image of a docile wife, desperately trying not to break into a smile at Aerion’s peril.

Aerion’s jaw tightened. “I was merely—”

“—making a fucking fool of yourself,” Maekar hissed. “On the night of your wedding, no less.”

“It was not—!”

“Do not insult me with excuses.” His father’s voice dropped, colder now. “I know you, boy. I knew precisely where your temper would carry you, but you are not a strapping boy of seven— you are a prince of the realm!”

Aerion stiffened, pointing a hand at you, which made you look at him scandalously. “She—!”

“Enough!”

The single word struck like a lash that you flinched.

Maekar stepped closer, his gaze hard as iron. “You will not shame this house over wounded pride, Aerion. Not now. Not ever. You are wed. You will act like it.”

Aerion’s hands curled at his sides. “And if I will not—”

“You will,” Maekar said flatly, cutting him off once more. “Because I will not have whispers spreading that my son cannot even command his own household.”

Even your hands were getting clammy at your father-in-law's warning tone. Was this how Aerion was always disciplined? Now you were feeling a bit sorry for him.

Then, quieter, but no less final, Prince Maekar left him with:

“Play your part, Aerion. Or you are no son of mine.”

It was a bit strange to see how Aerion took everything in silence as his father strode away from the hall. That was quite harsh, but unlike the fiery man who you knew, he just sat there, jaw clenched tight.

A part of you felt guilty because in a way, you were the one who drove him out last night, and you were not interested in drawing your father-in-law’s ire anytime soon, so you cleared your throat, having arrived at a decision.

“For what it is worth—” you began, but before you could finish, his head snapped towards you at once, violet eyes narrowing spitefully.

“Spare me.”

You crossed your arms. “I have no desire to be dragged into your father’s displeasure, Aerion.”

His gaze lingered, studying your face. You met it, chin lifting just slightly.

“For the sake of our self-preservation… let’s call for a truce,” you continued, voice measured, “I will play my part. In public, at least.”

“Damn it, wench. Don’t pretend to be generous now,” Aerion snarled at you, spitting each word.

But for all his sharp words, there was something almost resembling an understanding between you for the first time since you swore your vows in the sept.

And so, albeit begrudgingly, both of you became the image of blissful newlyweds ever since.

You would walk beside Aerion with demure smile and composed grace, your hand resting lightly upon his arm. He, in turn, played the decent husband well enough—standing close, sometimes a hand on the small of your back, his expression schooled into calmness befitting a royal prince.

“I have heard the two of you were inseparable as children,” Myriah Martell, the Queen of Seven Kingdoms, said with a pleased smile when you were presented to her. “You suit each other beautifully.”

“You are too kind, Your Grace,” you replied, dipping your head with practiced elegance, your fingers tightening slightly against your husband’s sleeve.

Aerion’s lips curved—or more like, twitched—just enough. “We are… well matched.”

The queen seemed to take your responses as a good sign, because she smiled so widely at the two of you.

“Good, good... May the Seven bless you with many children, dears.”

You grimaced for the briefest moment. Aerion coughed.

Little did the court know of what had transpired in your marital chamber.

. . .

Asking a separate room would make servants talk, and it would reach Prince Maekar in due course. You couldn’t have that, so you came up with an idea and requested a dozen of pillows.

It took three maids to carry them all in. You scarcely spared them a glance, too occupied with your task as you arranged yet another cushion upon the bed with precision.

By the time you were finished, a veritable fortress stood—two layers of embroidered silk dividing the marital bed cleanly in two.

Aerion returned from his bath not long after, about to retire to bed… and he was rendered speechless by the sight before him. He kept staring at it, then at you, then back at the barricade.

“You cannot be serious—”

You turned your head, meeting his gaze with sweet, dangerous calm. “Cross it, and I will make certain you regret it.”

“Is that a threat?”

“An inevitability.”

A long, charged silence stretched between you. Then, with a scoff, Aerion threw himself onto his side of the bed, turning his back to you with pointed disdain.

“Ridiculous woman.”

“Detestable man.”

And so that was how you slept ever since— back to back, divided by a fortress of pillows the two of you swore to never breach.

. . .

At banquets, however, the performance continued and not a soul in court the wiser.

“My lady,” Aerion grounded out through clenched teeth, extending his hand. “May I have this dance?”

You smiled, sweet as honey and false as it was flawless, placing your hand in his. “Of course, my lord husband.”

However, the moment you stepped onto the floor, both of you pressed your lips thin in unison. You were each a fair dancer—well-trained, as any highborn ought to be—and the steps of waltz were second nature. Yet, where other couples moved with effortless grace, you and Aerion were rigid, like two tin men forcing each step into place.

Aerion’s grip tightened ever so slightly at your waist. “Watch your step.”

“I always do,” you hissed. Then a thought, sharp and petty, slipped into your mind.

You drove your heel neatly onto his foot, and he sucked in a sharp breath in response.

“My apologies...” you said, all syrup and innocence, even as he shot you a scowl.

Moments later, his foot came down on yours—too deliberate to be an accident! You forced yourself to swallow the shriek in your throat, and glared up at him.

“A misstep,” he returned with a taunting smile. “My deepest apologies...”

To all, the newly married prince and lady shared a dance of perfect decorum. Only the two of you knew it for the battlefield it truly was.

Your lips were always soft. The curve of your cheek felt even softer beneath his palm, the quiet of your breath too... but it was the way you had looked at him that did it—not sharp, not cutting, but so unguarded and trusting.

Closing the distance, his hand caught your wrist, pulled you toward him with a force that startled even you. Your breath hitched, your body pressing against his as he leaned in—

And his lips crashed against yours.

Not gentle. That was never him. It was hot, fierce, claiming— like everything else about him. As though he meant to silence you, to steal the very breath from your lungs, to corrupt you—

. . .

. . .

. . .

And then, Aerion jerked awake.

His breath came sharp, his whole body tense as though he had truly been there—truly done that, and damnably, that one specific part of his groin felt hard. For a long moment, he simply stared into the dimness and the pillow wall next to him, disbelief settling over him, while hearing your soft snores.

“What the fuck?” he cursed under his breath.

A dream. Just a dream. But for the life of him, it had felt far too fucking real!

Your first official appearance as a royal couple came three moons after the wedding— a grand tourney at Storm’s End, held in celebration of Lord and Lady Baratheon’s tenth wedding anniversary.

By now, you had fully mastered the art of needling him. Aerion often had half a mind to slip sweetsleep into your tea, if only to spare himself your insufferable remarks—but, to his credit, his restraint had held… thus far.

He could not name precisely what it was about you that set him off. Perhaps it is your stupid hair, or your stupid eyes, or that stupid smile you so freely bestow upon squires, yet so rarely upon him. Sometimes, he just wanted to lock you away from prying eyes and silence that sharp tongue of yours himself... with his.

What...? The scenes from his dream last night filled his mind’s eye, and Aerion shook his head once sharply, as though he could rid himself of it.

The journey to Storm’s End from Summerhall was not long. You rode the carriage, while he remained outside upon his prized stallion. Through the veil of the window, he knew you could hear him swearing at his squire.

For this, there had been no question—Aerion would compete in the said tourney. He had always reveled in the bloodlust and the clash of steel, and took no small pride in winning, even if it meant employing tactics others might deem less than honorable.

When his ever-eager squire asked if he would ask for your favor and name you Queen of Love and Beauty should he win, he only scoffed, saying, “No need, and I would sooner put the crown on the elderly Lady Baratheon’s head myself.”

“H-huh? Not Lady Lannister…? Why—”

“No. And stop asking useless question, you witless fool.”

He did not know what he hoped—invoking some reaction, perhaps—but none came from the carriage. What, had he really thought you might rise to it and argue with him?

Aerion clicked his tongue, then drove his heel into his horse’s flank, urging it forward with a sharp kick.

. . .

By the time you arrived, Storm’s End was already alive with celebration. Many highborn lords and ladies gathered for this grand event, and you and Aerion slipped seamlessly into your harmonious facade until the first opportunity arose for you to part ways.

Conversing with ladies your age never held your interest, so you only spared them a few words before excusing yourself. Soon, you decided you had no appetite left for feasting or courtesy, and that the air outside would do you better.

Your husband was an imbecile. Of course you had heard the provoking remarks he’d made earlier, but you left him to his own devices. He was aggravating—so much so that, at times, you had the impulse to give him a good shake to rattle the madness out of him.

You exhaled, kicking the stones in your feet as if they drew your ire. Cool night air brushed against your cheeks and for a moment, you felt better.

“My, why is a fine lady such as yourself out here all alone?”

—so much so that you failed to notice the presence that had crept up behind you.

You went rigid at the sound, whirling around at once. And the instant you caught the sight of a crimson lion, dread coiled low in your stomach.

“Oh, what a surprise... if it isn’t the Lady Lannister.”

Your former betrothed, Rogar of House Reyne, stood before you, tall and imposing, a thin, venomous smile curling his lips.

There was no mistaking the resentment of a man once promised your hand, only to have it torn from him.

You straightened despite yourself, masking the unease clawing at your spine. “Lord Rogar.”

“Look at you now,” he drawled, the sharp stink of wine clinging to him. His gaze dragged over your black gown. “A princess of the dragon’s brood. Tell me, does your prince dote on you as sweetly as they claim?”

House Reyne was a proud and ancient line, long at odds with House Lannister in one way or another. Throughout history, there were many matches made to tie the two lion houses together, and you were considered for it... until your father broke it to bind you to Aerion.

You said nothing, clenching your skirts.

Rogar huffed a quiet laugh. “Ah, silent. How unlike you.” His head tilted, studying your face as though searching for something. “Do you remember, I wonder, how it was meant to be? You, at my side. Our houses bound, our banners flying as one.”

“My father never agreed to such a match,” you replied evenly.

“Strange. I seem to recall him swearing it so. Until a dragon came calling. Until your family decided a title was worth more than honor and handed you off to warm Aerion Brightflame’s bed like a common whore.”

You had always detested this man’s boundless greed. And now, you found one thought almost laughable—Aerion, for all his faults, was still far more tolerable.

Rogar Reyne’s lips twitched, though there was no warmth in it.

“Didn’t they say Lannisters always pay their debts? I’m afraid you owe me a great one, little princess.”

“And didn’t you hear that a Lannister lion does not concern itself with the opinions of sheep?” you returned coldly, lifting your chin. “Lord Rogar, I fear you are not even a sheep... but a roach.”

The crack of his hand against your face came so swift that you hadn’t even realized it. Pain burst across your cheek as you were sent sprawling to the ground, the world spinning for a heartbeat. You tasted blood.

“You bitch,” he spat. “You and your house dare to dishonor mine!”

It was the first time in your life a man had ever struck you. In that instant, your survival instincts took over—driving you to your feet and run.

Your breath came sharp and ragged as you fled through the darkened paths, your skirts gathered in your fists. Behind you, the heavy thud of his boots struck against stone, far too close.

“Stop running, you bitch!”

Something snagged at your leg—thorn or splinter, you didn’t know. The fabric of your dress tore, and pain flared hot along your calf, but you did not stop.

You caught sight of a narrow passage leading to an old door half-hidden in the stables. You lunged for it, fingers fumbling against the handle before wrenching it open and slipping inside. The moment you crossed the threshold, you shoved the door shut with all your strength and slammed the lock into place.

You staggered back a step, pressing a trembling hand to your mouth as you tried to steady yourself. Your cheek still burned, your pulse still raced—but you were safe. For now. Then—

A violent rattling at the door.

You flinched, a strangled gasp tearing from your throat as the handle jerked sharply, once, twice—then again, harder, as if someone meant to break it down.

“Go away, you bastard!” you screamed, holding the wooden door with your bare hands.

“Open the door!”

“I said go bloody hell—!”

“It’s me!”

You froze. For a moment, you could only stare at the door, your hands trembling where they pressed against it. Then, with a shaking breath, you lifted the latch.

And found your silver-haired husband standing outside.

A vexation wrapped in the flawless guise of a lady. Too sharp, too free, and far too composed for his liking. At times, you tried his patience so thoroughly Aerion thought he might truly strangle the fuck out of you.

And yet... here he was, breathless before you now, having chased you through the night like some fool led more by instinct than reason.

Aerion had not meant to follow you, but when he saw his wife fleeing into the night as though someone was hunting her, how could he leave her to it?

“What happened to you?” Aerion demanded, his violet irises blazing, taking in the sight.

You stood before him trembling from head to toe, your eyes wide with something dangerously close to terror. There was a smear of blood at the corner of your lips, and—

Aerion’s hand came up, firm as he caught your chin and tilted your face toward the dim light. The swelling along your cheek was already rising beneath his touch.

Someone has laid a hand on his wife.

“Whose bastard did this to you?”

“Aerion, it’s not—”

“Who?”

You did hesitate, but in the end, you told him of Rogar Reyne, the broken betrothal, and the wroth he had turned upon you.

By the time you finished, Aerion had gone very still. His expression darkened, something cold and vicious settling over his features—so much so that even you nearly recoiled from it.

“I will have his head!” he snarled then with righteous fury, to your shock. “This is high treason. I will demand a trial—!”

“No!” You clutched his arm, horrified. “Don’t!”

Trial by combat—or any form of trials, really—would spell disaster for the royal family and others alike. You wouldn’t let him, and he glared at you, anger still burning hot in his eyes.

“If you must answer this, then do it in the tourney,” you insisted, holding his fiery gaze. “Redeem my honor on the morrow. Slay him if you must, but do it in the melee.”

Still holding his arm, silence stretched between you. You found yourself looking at him—truly looking—as if you just saw him for the first time.

Aerion was ready to demand blood and call for judgment to see your attacker punished. His jawline was sharp, clenched as his beautiful violet eyes gazed at you in return, internally deciding what the best course of action was.

In the end, he listened to you somehow... but that was also when his gaze dropped. There, beneath the torn edge of your dress, blood had begun to seep down your calf.

“Seven hells.” The fury did not leave him, and now shifting to your sorry state. “You are fucking bleeding.”

“It’s nothing—” you dismissed it, but he ignored you entirely. Instead, Aerion forcefully led you down to sit on the wooden planks before he crouched before you, his hands lifted the torn fabric to see the wound.

With a sharp motion, to your shock (again), he tore a strip from the edge of his own doublet.

“What are you—”

“Hold still, wench. I’m trying to stop it.”

He bound the cloth firmly around your calf, his fingers deft despite the dim light, tightening it to staunch the bleeding.

You watched him, something unfamiliar fluttering in your chest. Throughout all the years you had known Aerion, tenderness had never been something you would attribute to him. But now, not only was he furious for your sake, he tended to you with such focus you would never have expected from a man so proud.

“…Where did you learn to do that?” you asked quietly.

Aerion huffed under his breath, not looking up as he secured the knot. “Daeron used to patch me up whenever I took a fall.” A pause followed. “It will have to do for now. Can you walk?”

You shifted, testing your weight. The sting along your calf answered for you as you grimaced. “…Not well.”

He let out of a long exhale, as if exasperated, and you thought you would force yourself to walk regardless rather than risking his ire, but—

Before you could protest, Aerion bent and swept you up into his arms.

A startled breath left you, your hands instinctively clutching at his neck. “Aerion—!”

“Spare me,” he hissed, already striding towards the way back. “You are not limping back to the castle.”

Your heart hammered traitorously against your ribs. It was ridiculous—utterly ridiculous!

His arm was firm at your back, the other braced beneath your knees, and you could feel the heat of him, the steady rise and fall of his breath, the strength he exuded in every step as though carrying you was the most natural thing in the world.

He did not set you down once—not even when the hall fell into a hush, nor when lords and ladies turned to stare, their gasps rippling softly in your wake.

A maester was summoned to tend to you the moment you returned. He worked in silence, cleaning and binding the cut in your calf far more thoroughly than Aerion’s efforts. By the time he finished, you were left sitting at the edge of the bed, exhaustion beginning to weigh on you.

You shared a chamber. That much could not be helped. And this was Storm’s End, where you couldn’t ask the maids for a heap of pillows, but the biggest concern was—

“It is a small bed,” you noted, casting him a sidelong glance.

Aerion gave a low snort, his gaze flicking to you. “You’ll survive.”

When you both finally lay down, it became more undeniable. There was scarcely any space between you. Your shoulder brushed his with the slightest movement, your legs threatening to tangle should either of you shift.

How were you supposed to rest like this...?

You let out a quiet breath, trying to lift the air. “If you so much as crush me in your sleep, I will see it counted as an assassination attempt.”

Aerion scowled beside you. “I would sooner have Rogar Reyne’s head before strangling my own wife in her sleep.”

“Must you sound so eager about it?”

“He dared to lay a hand on what is mine.” His voice sharpened, edged with a snarl. “If I had my way, his corpse would be hanging naked in the streets of King’s Landing. As it stands—he’ll beg for death before I’m through with him.”

His. You ignored the way your heart skipped a beat, and studied him in the dim light. “Why are you so upset about it, anyway?”

Aerion turned his head, fixing you with a look as though you had spoken pure nonsense. Why? Why indeed? Why had this searing anger taken hold of him the moment he realized some wretched cur had cornered you?

His indifferent, infuriating wife you might be, but still his all the same. That was enough reason.

“You are an enduring mystery,” you grumbled, saying this because you wasn’t aware of any of his thoughts, of course. “You told everyone and your squire you didn’t want my favor and all—”

The Bright Prince barked a quiet laugh. “Gods, you’re insufferable.”

“How—!”

“Because,” he snapped, “if I asked, you’d spend the night sewing like some overzealous seamstress just to meet the morning. Everyone knows your ribbons are the finest favor amongst the ladies.”

Your handmade favors had always been nothing more than a quiet pastime of yours. And yet, somehow, they had gained a reputation of their own because word got out that you always put so much care in the stitching.

“With your favor or not, I’ll beat the shit out of Reyne.” He shifted, settling in to his side and pressing his eyes shut. “Now stop prattling and go to sleep, wife. You ought to watch me on the morrow.”

You lay there for a moment, thoughts drifting. Aerion Brightflame who had become your husband— who made your life unbearable at times, and yet this same man whose touch had been careful, whose fury had flared at the sight of your injury, and who now swore vengeance upon who wronged you. You couldn’t fool yourself into feeling that you were not flattered in some strange, twisted way.

“Thank you,” you murmured almost shyly.

Aerion’s back remained to you, unmoving. Whether he had heard, you could not tell.

. . .

Aerion lay still, listening as your breathing gradually evened, growing slow and steady. When he finally turned his head, you were already asleep.

In sleep, you looked… different. All this time, that stupid pillow blockade had obstructed his view that it was the first time he saw you like this. The edge in your expression gone, your features eased into softness. Your lips were slightly chapped, and yet so bloody tempting to him he didn’t know why.

He still remembered the little lady with wide, doe-like eyes, clad in Lannister golden dress for her visits to the Red Keep. He remembered the way your face had pinched in irritation when he’d stolen your lemon tarts, clutching the empty plate as though it were a grave offense.

It had amused him then. It still did.

And no insolent fool dared to hurt you would be left alive.

Come the morrow, he would destroy the rat. But now, as he stared at you, his enemy-wife—

Aerion decided he would ride into the melee, crush every last opponent, and place the victor’s laurel in your hands after all.

The stands of Storm’s End were alive with color and noise, the roar of the crowd rolling like thunder beneath the gray skies as each knight lined in the arena.

Unlike most ladies, you did not shrink from bloodshed. You had always enjoyed tourneys—had cheered your brothers rather than fearing for them—and even now, with your husband among those in the field, you only felt a sense of calmness.

Or perhaps… you were simply distracted.

Your mind drifted back to this morning, and a flush of warmth rose to your cheeks.

Aerion’s face had been too close to yours when you woke, his arm draped loosely around your waist. His harsh features were nonexistent in sleep, and his expression almost… peaceful. With that silver-gold hair, he had looked less like terror and more like, you daresay, your protector.

“Good day, my lady.”

You blinked, dragging yourself back to the present as someone took the seat beside you. Prince Valarr’s smile was gentle, his mismatched gaze clear as he inclined his head in greeting.

“Your Grace,” you returned, offering a small smile.

He settled beside you, watching the field below. For a moment, the two of you simply observed the gathering knights.

“You are not competing today?” you asked, glancing at him.

“My lady wife is not fond of me in tourneys,” he replied, a note of fondness in his voice. “And she prefers the quiet of the castle with our son. I would have joined her, but I must stand in place of my father, you see.”

The tale of how besotted the Heir of Dragonstone was with his princess had all the makings of a storybook romance. At times, you found yourself envying them.

“Ah, and how does fatherhood treat you, Your Grace?”

His eyes softened then. “Better than any victory in the lists, I assure you.”

You smiled faintly at that, before your attention drifted once more to the field. It was a melee today—no tilting and just pure strength, steel and survival.

And there, striding into the fray in black and red armor, was Aerion of House Targaryen, the second son of the Prince of Summerhall, as the herald proclaimed.

With the shape of his helmet and spikes of his armor, he cut a menacing figure among the rest. Even at a distance, there was something in the way he held himself—like a blade drawn and waiting.

Valarr followed your gaze. “Are you excited, my lady? My cousin is a fine knight. I would not be surprised to see him emerge champion.”

Truthfully? Yes. You parted your lips to answer but the sharp blare of a trumpet split the air, signaling that the melee had begun.

Your husband drove his destrier forward with ruthless precision, scattering men before him. Steel rang, bodies fell, and in the chaos—he thrived. With that morningstar in hand, he was a force to be reckoned with.

At one point, he forced Lord Tully to the ground, looming over him like something out of a nightmare.

“Tell the Reyne bastard that Aerion Brightflame is after his head!”

Valarr’s lips twitched beside you. “Ah… so someone has offended him yet again. Poor him.”

You remembered an anecdote you had once heard, glancing at him. “I was told Aerion once asked for Her Grace’s favor, and you beat the shit out of him for it... is that true?”

From the meaningful smile he had on his face, it was clear there was more into the tale, but whatever it was, Valarr chose not to disclose it.

“To be honest, I have the Seven to thank for that. But fret not, my lady. Aerion will not lose this time.”

“And why are you so certain?”

The Young Prince’s gaze flicked to you, something knowing in his expression.

“Would you not be the one who knows best? He is the dragon. He ought never lose.”

If Valarr mirrored Prince Baelor’s impeccable duty and honor, then Aerion was the living image of Prince Maekar’s finest lance and fury—though sharper, fiercer, and far more unforgiving than his sire had ever been. His height might prove to be a challenge, but he more than compensated it with aggressive stances and lightning-fast strikes.

Below, as if to prove the point, the Bright Prince cut through another opponent with brutal efficiency, swinging his deadly mace mercilessly.

Soon enough, he cleared out all the combatants and found his target: Rogar Reyne.

Your former betrothed had barely time to react before Aerion’s destrier crashing forward with terrifying force. The swing of his morningstar came swift and brutal—striking so hard that sent Rogar flying from his saddle and into the dirt below.

The crowd roared, and Aerion did not stop. He had only just begun.

He dismounted in a breath, advancing like a man possessed. Lord Reyne scrambled to defend himself—but the Brightflame fought with something far worse than skill. Entitled fury.

The morningstar came down again and again, each blow denting armor, drawing blood. And when Rogar Reyne’s guard finally broke—

Aerion pulled out his sword. He drove the man back, slashing without mercy, carving through what little defense remained. Blood spilled freely, staining the ground, staining his hands— each strike was meant to answer for the wrong he did to you.

A gasp rippled through the stands. You also felt the shock and horror, but beyond that—

The sight of your husband, stained with blood of his own doing, and knowing that he did it because of you… it was not as repulsive as it ought to have been.

If anything, it felt gratifying.

Rogar was barely conscious when Aerion seized him by the collar, dragging him across the dirt like a carcass. The field fell into a stunned hush as he hauled him before the stands and forced him to his knees.

Your husband loomed over him, tearing off his skull-like helmet—his face unmarred by blood, yet no less fearsome. His presence overwhelming as his voice rang out across the arena:

“This cunt right here dared to dishonor my wife.”

A murmur swept through the crowd. You could feel the weight of eyes turning towards you but the crowd’s attention quickly snapped back to the broken man at Aerion’s feet.

“And now let it be known—”

His violet gaze burns anyone he laid eyes on—until it found yours. For a fleeting moment, you thought the corners of his lips curled ever so slightly.

“—any lowlife who dares the same will answer to me.”

With a single, vicious kick to his face, Aerion sent him sprawling into the dirt once more. The stands erupted at once, their roars rising for the champion they had found.

That day, Aerion Brightflame stood victorious… having claimed justice in the name of his wife.

Lord Corlys Velaryon once said that history remembers names. The fools of the Red Keep and Casterly Rock might argue over how it was that you and Aerion came to despise one another—but on this, both they and realm would agree:

When the Bright Prince dethroned Lady Baratheon to name you the queen of beauty in the grandest tourney in its time—

It was more than clear, that by then... the lion had tamed the dragon.

[bibibitchery]

i’m not calling you “sir”, you haven’t even been knighted, fucking poser

[notlayingroses]

Everything I read about recovering from burnout is like “it takes months or even years to fully recover” and it’s like okay…. I have a weekend before I gotta clock in on Monday

[saint-orment]

[osarina]

ঌ STARFALL

FEATURING: aerion targaryen x fem!reader

SUMMARY: the golden company arrives in lys, and aerion is forced into unfortunate situation after unfortunate situation in his attempts to avoid capture. but he realizes that he is not the only one the blackfyres are here for, and he does not know how to cope with the fact that he might lose you for good.

WARNINGS: fem!reader, reader comes from valyrian lineage but no physical traits are mentioned/described. the high valyrian is not properly translated because we don’t know the words for the words I needed so bear with me LOL. aerion's narration is well aerion aufhsduhf LOL he has fantasies of violence and love in the same breath. implications of valyrian exceptionalism from reader/jaenys with how they talk about targaryens/blackfyres but it's not explicit. mentions/references to pegging/aerion "unwillingly" fantasizing about it LOL. aerion is forcibly drugged at one point. brief reference to/mention of abuse of sex workers in lys. choking. there are implications of rape/torture in the first scene when reader & aerion are talking about what could happen if the blackfyres get their hands on him or realize what she's doing. brief self-harm (aerion holds the blade of a dagger against his hand too tight trying to ground himself). switch!reader, switch!aerion (as always).

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Yayyyyyy I hope you guys enjoy this part. It's the longest so far and will probably be the longest generally, I don't see myself ever writing an installment as long as this one LOLL (except maybe when they get married we'll see). But my god this one was a total beast and gave me so much trouble LOLLLLL. I have my first exam on Friday and another Monday, so wish me luck euhuhuuhhuhuhuh. I left one longer note at the end because I don't want to spoil anything that takes place in this part. Anyway, comments and reblogs always appreciated! I hope you guys enjoy!

READ: EPHEMERAL

“Get up,” Aerion hears, blinking blearily as his sheets are ripped off his body. “Aerion, get up! Now!” 

What the fuck—

Half awake, Aerion’s heart races as he pushes himself into a sitting position, trying to figure out what the fuck is happening. The only reason he doesn’t reach for his blade is that he recognizes your voice. He lets out a disgruntled noise when he feels fingers grab his cheeks hard, glaring when he sees your face inches from his.

Outraged, he sees movement from the corner of his eye and realizes that you did not come alone.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he demands, still trying to wake himself up. He tries to look to the side to see who the fuck you brought into his chambers, but your grip on his face tightens. He grimaces, giving you an annoyed look. “Answer me, you miserable wench. Why—”

“The Golden Company is in Lys,” you say, and Aerion doesn’t think that he hears you correctly at first, staring at you blankly. “Caelyx has clothes for you. Get up, and get dressed now.”

“What did you just s—”

Aerion’s head snaps to the left, a sharp pain spreading through his cheek as he stares at the open balcony looking over Magister Vyrano’s manse. 

Did you just strike him?

His tongue darts out to wet his lips, brows furrowing in disbelief. Before he can look back at you and demand to know what the fuck is the matter with you, he feels your hands cradling his face, forcing you to look at him again. 

“Aerion, wake the fuck up,” you say again, and he should be angry—he is angry, his chest is hot and bubbling, and his face stings, and indignity and pride flare terribly, and it all fizzles when he hears the fear plain in your voice. He’s never heard you sound this way before. He’s heard you furious, mocking, teasing, happy, but never scared. “Get up, and get dressed now. Stop asking questions. We do not have time.”

Aerion stares at you for a moment longer before he pushes himself out of bed, hardly given a chance to orient himself, before someone—your whore, Aerion realizes disdainfully, the silver-haired pillow boy who always attaches himself to you—is forcing silk chiffon over his shoulders. He looks at the white fabric that he’s being dressed in: revealing and clinging in a way that feels entirely inappropriate for the situation. Dress for a whore, not a prince. And then he looks at the fitted leathers you’re wearing, the red cape attached to your shoulder, the sword at your hip, and he shoves your whore away from him, sneering as he watches him stumble back into a table. 

“I am not fucking wearing this,” he spits furiously. “What the fuck is going on?”

“You’re going to wear whatever the fuck I tell you to wear,” you reply, undeterred by his fraying temper. You step closer again, and you grab his cheeks to force him to look at you. You don’t let him yank his face away when he tries. “We need to get you out of the manse and into one of the whorehouses so that your kin don’t come and slit your throat. I’ve arranged for the Second Sons to take you on a ship out of Lys to the Disputed Lands, but the ship doesn’t leave until tomorrow morning, and they cannot leave earlier without drawing suspicion. So for the next day, you’re going to be Ari of Lys, dragon prince, and Aerion Targaryen will have left Lys a moon ago because he grew bored with whores and wine. Do you understand?”

Aerion shakes his head, and when your whore tries to get the clothes on him again, he raises his hand furiously, threatening to put his fist into his face. You immediately raise your hand in response, threatening to strike him again. Aerion gapes at you, betrayed.

“If you strike him, dragon prince, I will parade you around as you are,” you hiss, pointedly looking down at his current state: bare-chested and hair sleep-mussed. “Caelyx was kind enough to let you borrow his silks so that you may not be entirely indecent when you step outside. Or would you prefer to be dragged through the streets half-naked for all of Lys to admire?”

“It is transparent,” Aerion says furiously. “I may as well be bare.”

“It is disguising,” you shoot back. “No one will look twice at another silver-haired whore on an island full of silver-haired whores.”

“I am not a fucking whore.”

“You will be whatever the fuck I tell you to be if it keeps you alive,” you shout. Then you exhale, rubbing your face. “Aerion, please—they are docking, they have probably already docked by now. We do not have time for this.”

Frustrated, Aerion glares at you, and then he glares at your whore, who has the audacity to give him a sweet smile. Aerion bares his teeth at the boy, a disgusted expression on his face as he returns to dressing him in the soft silks.

Aerion spits, “How many men have you let fuck you in this?” 

The whore raises his eyebrows, lips curled up. “They are my special silks, prince,” he purrs. He looks pointedly at you as he answers, “Only one person has fucked me in them.”

Aerion’s blood pressure skyrockets, pulse thudding dangerously in his ears as he turns to look at your whore. There’s no way that he’s being dressed in something that another man was wearing while you fucked him. The boy only gives him a smug smile, and Aerion’s gaze cuts toward you, questioning, and he blanches when he sees your eyes slide shut. 

Instead of denying it, you give your whore a long look—a warning. 

Aerion gapes again. “You cannot be serious,” he hisses at you, ripping his arm away when your whore tries to finish dressing him. “Will you—”

“We do not have the time for this,” you say through your teeth, turning a cold look on Aerion now, as though Aerion isn’t the victim in this situation. “Caelyx, stop antagonizing him. Aerion, get dressed.”

Aerion’s nostrils flare as he inhales deeply, tongue pressing against the back of his teeth as he wills himself to calm down. His gaze flicks back toward the open balcony as your whore—Caelyx—returns to wrapping him in the fine silks. He can’t see anything—Aerion’s balcony faces the west, and Lys’s ports are to the north, but he’s heard enough about the Golden Company in passing to imagine the fleet of ships with golden banners docking in the harbor. Recent reports have put their numbers at over twelve thousand—all of Essos has been whispering about them since the sacking of Qohor. 

“How many are here?” he asks you, jaw tight. 

“Enough,” you answer, arms folded over your chest as you stand in the doorframe of his chambers, one hand on the hilt of your sword, looking down the hall, as though you expect Aegor Rivers to come barreling down any moment. Aerion’s heart is pounding, he realizes, as the situation finally begins to hit him. “One of my harbor boys came running to me as soon as he saw the gold banners in the distance. I came here as soon as I got everything handled.”

Aerion lets out a sharp breath through his nose, dragging his hand through his hair as he paces once across the room, away from your whore, silk clinging to him in a way that makes his skin crawl.

“After you got everything handled,” he echoes, incredulous, turning on you, trying to turn the nasty panic that climbs his throat into something more manageable: anger. “Instead of waking me, you decided to—what—build a whole fucking scheme while I was asleep?”

“I did not have time to argue with you first,” you hiss. “By the time I reached the harbor to confirm the banners, the first ship was a mile out from docking. I—”

“You should have come to me first,” he interrupts, heat rising in his chest. “You should have—”

“Aerion.”

Aerion’s teeth grind, something uncertain spiking in his chest with his heart rate as he fists his hands at his side to hide the way his fingers tremble—he pretends it is fury and not fear. You look back over at him, gaze lingering on the way the sheer silks cling to his slim hips, hiding little more than necessary—barely what is necessary. He glares at you, but there is a lump in his throat, and he cannot swallow it away. 

Aerion could die today.

There is a really good chance that Aerion will die today. 

He exhales as he paces over to the balcony. When his back is to you and your whore, he lifts shaking fingers to his chest, over his rapidly beating heart. The last time it beat like this—wild and erratic, like it was trying to tear itself out of his chest—was during the Trial of Seven. In the mud, with blood in his mouth, in his eyes, iron on his tongue, vision blurring and head half in the clouds because he lost so much blood, staring up at a hedge knight who could have killed him if he wanted. 

He had been afraid. 

He’d been lying in the muck; he knew he had lost even before he yielded. He knew it the moment the oaf stood back up after Aerion had given it his all. He had no energy left, and he was bleeding out, and when he hit the ground that final time, he knew that he wasn’t going to get up. He remembers hearing his father yelling for him—my boy, Aerion! My boy!—and he remembers thinking that at least he would die in battle, at least he would die with his father’s voice in his ears, he would die knowing that his father cared enough to fight for him, to beg for him.

He is afraid now. 

And there is no oaf in front of him this time, no enemy wielding a blade that he can try to strike down, and no father to save him; just ships on the horizon, men he cannot see yet, and the suffocating feeling of knowing that they are coming from him. The Blackfyres are here, on this island, searching for him, and there’s nothing he will be able to do if they find him. There will be no yielding, no surrender. If they figure out he is here, they will cut his throat, and he will die cowering in silks instead of armor, in silence instead of with his father’s voice in his ears. 

He wonders, briefly and bitterly, if Maekar will even care. 

Probably not—no, there’s no probably about it. His father will not care. He did not care when Aerion was choking over his own blood, hardly able to speak, when he delivered the news that he would be sent across the Narrow Sea. He did not care to hear Aerion beg him not to do this, did not care when Aerion reopened the stitches on his thigh, trying to scramble after him when he turned his back on his own son. His father knew that the Blackfyres and their allies were across the Narrow Sea. Knew that this was a risk. And he sent Aerion here anyway. Aerion died to Maekar the moment Baelor’s heart stopped beating.

He will not care.

Maybe, even, he was hoping for this. 

A tragedy to befall the mad prince that he can work into a way to gather sympathy back home. Aerion was never useful to him alive, cost him far more than he was worth, but maybe in death—

Distantly, he hears you tell your whore to leave and then your boots clicking against the ground as you make your way over to him. He half wants to tell you to fuck off, to let him handle this himself, that he doesn’t need nor want your help, and he can face the Blackfyres himself, but then you slip your arms around his waist, rest your forehead against his shoulder blades, and the protests die on his lips. His throat bobs as your hand slides up his torso so that your palm is over his heart, feeling the rapid, fluttering pace of it. 

“Do you trust me?” you ask quietly, lips against his shoulder.

It terrifies him how easily the answer comes to him. “Yes.”

“Then trust me,” you say. “Go with Caelyx. He will bring you to the Perfumed Garden. The First Magister and I will be meeting the Golden Company in the central square. The Garden sits on the north end of the central square. You will be able to watch and listen to what we say to the Golden Company, and if things go south, Caelyx will make sure you get to the west side of the city and—”

“And what about you?” Aerion demands, whirling around to face you. “If things go south, you expect me to cower and hide while you—” While you die. He cannot even bring himself to say it. “I will not. You cannot expect that of me. You—”

“I’ll be fine,” you say dismissively. “I—”

“Do not take me for a fool,” he hisses. “There is a reason you are armed.”

You press your lips together, staring at him for a long while, and Aerion feels sick. They are here for him, they will kill him if they get their hands on him, and you are trying to send him away so they cannot, but if they realize what you’re doing, they will kill you. 

Aerion might die today, and Aerion might get you killed today, too.

He has never felt so useless before.

“They won’t kill me if things go south,” you finally say, shaking your head, and Aerion bristles, because you do take him for a fool and he should see your tongue removed for it, but all he can do is try to swallow his own as fear claws at his chest. “They won’t, Aerion. They will not risk making an enemy of Volantis. We have been over this before. If anything, they will take me hostage and—”

And what the hell do sellsword companies do with their hostages? he wants to scream at you. You are capable, he knows this. You are capable, and you are influential, and you are dangerous, but you are a woman. He wants to shake you to make you understand—if they take you hostage, then—

“They will do worse to you if they get their hands on you,” you say quietly. “They will make a spectacle of you. They will want something to show for it—something to carry back across the Narrow Sea and boast of. The Brightflame finally put out, the mad dragon tamed. They will keep you alive long enough for word to spread, long enough for your family to send men after you, and while they have you alive, they will do everything they can to break you—”

Aerion does not need to hear this from you. Doesn’t like the way it makes his skin crawl. 

“You are a fool if you think they would break me,” Aerion says through his teeth. “They—”

“They will,” you interrupt, voice so firm that it makes a chill run down his spine. “Aerion, they will break you. They will take their time, and they will make you into something that can be passed from hand to hand, something they can laugh over and parade about as a prize to mock your family. And once word has spread, and there is nothing left of you worth keeping, then they will kill you.”

“I would sooner kill myself,” Aerion hisses, but his stomach is turning, and the room feels too small, and the silk is too tight, and the air is too thin. “I would—”

You grab his face between your hands hard, pinching his cheeks, and Aerion loathes what you must see in your eyes to make the frustration and anger drain the way it does into something softer, grip on his face more gentle as your thumbs stroke his cheekbones.

“They would not let you, Aerion. Please stop fighting me. We do not have time for this.”

He glares at you, fury and indignation rising rapidly in his chest, because he knows that you are right. He knows it in the way his pulse will not slow, in the way his thoughts keep circling back to the same suffocating end, no matter how hard he tries to twist them into something else. He knows, and he hates it, hates that you have named it, hates that you are forcing him to look at it, to feel it.

Will his father even care? 

Will Maekar spare a second thought or go on his merry way?

“Do you trust me?” you ask again, firmer this time.

Aerion’s jaw tightens, and he nods.

“Then trust me,” you repeat, hands sliding from his cheeks to hold the back of his head, fingers threading through silver hair. “Trust me. Please. I need to meet with the First Magister before the Golden Company reaches the central square. Go with Caelyx and listen to him. He will relay everything else I don’t have the time to explain, okay?”

Aerion does not like it. He stares at you, and he is angry and helpless and so frustrated that he can feel his stomach churning, and he knows you know it from the way your eyes search his, begging him to just agree, not to make things more difficult.

He lets out a noise caught between a scoff and a sigh. “Fine. Fuck. Fine. But I do not like this at all, and if things go wrong—”

If things go wrong, then what? He’ll be dead, or worse. You’ll be dead, or worse. 

His throat bobs as he swallows.

Still, you say with a smile, “If things go wrong, you may hate me for it, and you may tell me I told you so when we meet in hell.”

Aerion snorts. “That is not funny, wench.”

You hum, lips still curved up. “It is kind of funny.”

“Not even slightly.”

You laugh, leaning in to press your forehead against his temple, and he sighs, eyes sliding shut. You ghost your lips against his cheekbone, and then turn his face slightly to the side so that you can brush your lips against his.

You say quietly, “Pāsagon nyke. Nyke gīmigon skoros iksan gaomagon.”

Trust me. I know what I’m doing.

“Gaoman pāsagon ao,” he murmurs. “Issa pōnta qilōni gaoman daor pāsagon.”

I do trust you. It is they whom I do not trust.

He feels you smile against his lips. The nerve.

“Eman ossēntan lēda qubykta vali,” you tell him, brushing your fingers through his hair. “Mirri kessa ivestragon iksan qubykta vali.”

I have dealt with worse men. Some would say I am worse men.

Aerion scoffs, but he finds himself smiling. “Iksā iā mittys, iksis skoros iksā,” he replies, voice weaker than he intends for it to be. “Māzigon arlī naejot nyke. Konir sagon iā udrāzma.”

You are a fool, is what you are. Return to me. That is an order.

Your lips curve up again, and you tilt your face to ghost your lips against his temple. “Kesan va moriot māzigon arlī naejot ao, zaldrīzes dārilaros.”

I will always return to you, dragon prince.

It should bring him some semblance of comfort, but the pit in his stomach only worsens.

———————

 “You should be paying attention to me, prince,” your whore drawls as he leans against the  doorframe to the room Aerion is waiting in. “I am trying to teach you how to behave properly as a courtesan.”

Aerion’s eye twitches, but he doesn’t look back at him, staring into the central square as you talk quietly to the First Magister, standing between him and his son, several of the Second Sons and the magister’s household guard lingering behind the three of you. 

This is the first time he’s seen the man look so serious—he’s always been quick to smile, friendly enough to be overlooked, though you are quick to tell Aerion that he is quite the cruel gossip behind closed doors. A vicious tongue and sharp mind to match, because one does not become First Magister in Lys without both at his disposal. 

Aerion has always dismissed it when you would tell him this; he’s never been able to reconcile the man you lauded as quick-witted and ruthless with the jovial man he portrays himself as, but now he can, with the way his eyes are cold and expression is stern as he stares in the direction of the ports, head tilted slightly toward you as he listens to whatever you’re saying. His son stands slightly behind the two of you, stiff, hand on the pommel of a decorative sword, gaze flicking nervously, visibly taking deep breaths to calm himself. 

“Did you know Marcellus asked her to marry him when she first arrived in Lys?” Caelyx says as he makes his way over to where Aerion is sitting, lounging on the cushions across from him. Aerion gives him a cool look, but the whore only raises his eyebrows, smiling easily, as though the Golden Company isn’t about to come down on Lys. 

“Who the fuck is Marcellus?” 

Caelyx lets out a huff of laughter and then nods out to where you’re standing. Aerion realizes he must be referring to the First Magister’s son—Aerion never even bothered to learn the idiot’s name. He scoffs and says, “Him? He is a fool. I once saw him trip over his own silks walking into a feast. Nearly took half the table with him. Then had a servant whipped to make it seem as though it was her fault.”

“He is an idiot,” Caelyx agrees, taking a sip of wine, unbothered, “but he is also pretty, and he is also cruel, so that makes him just her type.”

Aerion sneers, gaze flicking back out to where he’s standing just a smidge too close to you. He isn’t sure if he’d go so far as to say pretty—he’s sun-kissed, tall and thin, not toned, missing the lean muscle Aerion has, missing the silver-gold hair of Valyria, even if he does have the purple eyes. It’s a tawny brown instead, braided over his shoulder; he finds himself shaking his head, a scoff on his lips. 

No, Aerion thinks bitterly, not pretty at all. Not nearly your type.

“She liked him well enough for a few months,” Caelyx notes, smiling to himself as he watches the square. “Lasted longer than most, poor boy actually thought she might marry him. Eight whole moons, then he didn’t exist to her anymore. The two of you are coming up on that, aren’t you?”

Aerion stills, gaze sliding from the square to the whore sitting on the cushions next to him—too close to him, too smug. Aerion does not have time for this. Does not have time or patience. The Golden Company will arrive any moment, but—

—but he does not like the mockery in his tone. The implication. Aerion is not stupid, he knows what your whore is trying to say, and it settles very, very poorly. 

Caelyx leans in a little, so close that Aerion can smell the cherry wine on his tongue. “I could teach you to pleasure her,” he murmurs, leaning in closer to brush his lips against Aerion’s ear. “So that she does not become bored with you like she does everyone else.”

Aerion shoves him away hard, seething. “I should take your tongue, whore,” he spits. “Who do you think you are?”

Caelyx is unbothered, smiling still as he leans back against the cushions again. “I only mean to help, prince—”

“My prince.”

“Would that you were,” Caelyx drawls smugly. “Think on it. We both know she grows bored easily, and we both know that in the five years she’s been here, she’s never grown bored of me. I love nothing more than to be of use. We could have fun—the three of us.”

“Do not speak to me again,” Aerion says through his teeth. “If you speak to me again, I will have your tongue removed, and not even she will be able to save you.”

“Did you know that sometimes she enjoys taking the lead?” Caelyx continues, unperturbed, silver hair falling in his eyes as he tilts his head to the side. As Aerion’s about to spit out a yes, reminded of the countless times you forced him onto his back and climbed on top of him, Caelyx adds, “In ways most men are too proud to learn.”

Aerion pauses, brows furrowing as he casts a side eye toward the whore, unsure of what exactly he is implying. He fights a snarl when he’s met with another too smug smile. 

Caelyx only smiles wider. “It can feel good for men too, prince,” he purrs, leaning in again. “Taking it the way a woman does. She knows how to make it feel good.”

Aerion’s face burns hot as soon as Caelyx’s words register. He flounders, lips parting, attention drawing from the square fully now. Vile words threaten to burst from his lips, pride and indignity warring, insult for this whore to say something so crude, but they die in his throat, strangled by the heat that floods his chest and the unwelcome flicker of curiosity that follows. He hides it with a scoff, but—

His thoughts traitorously cling to the idea, envisioning what your whore dared to imply. He can see it too easily—your hands on Caelyx, pushing him back against the bed, holding him there, his head tipped back, mouth parted, gasping, moaning, violet eyes rolled back as you press deep inside him and take what you want.

Something green and ugly twists in Aerion’s chest, breath quickening, rage curdling, and then—

Then it turns. Then it is your hands on him instead, firm at his hips, nails digging into his skin as you force him down, as you hold him there, and all he can do is take everything you’re willing to give him. It would be a fight—everything is always a fight with the two of you, a war for dominance with blood drawn and bruises painted on smooth skin. He would not yield to you, not so willingly, not like your whore, but you would make him yield, and Aerion would—he would enjoy it. Aerion has never let anyone take control like that, has never given it, has never even considered it. The very idea should disgust him, should make him recoil the way he did just a moment ago, but it doesn’t.

He chokes, breath catching in his throat, heat flooding his face as he realizes how much his thoughts have drifted—that Caelyx has noticed it too, from the way satisfied expression on his face—and Aerion jerks his gaze away like he’s been struck.

“Shut up,” he snaps hoarsely, jaw clenched so tight it aches, because he cannot tell if he wants to rip Caelyx’s throat out for saying it or himself for imagining it.

Luckily, or unluckily, maybe, Caelyx does not have the opportunity to respond, because the Golden Company finally approaches the square. 

Disgust curdles in Aerion’s stomach when he recognizes Aegor Rivers standing at the head of the group, black hair loose at his shoulders and dressed in plain armor, the Valyrian sword Blackfyre sheathed at his hip. 

For a moment, he nearly rises. The impulse is sudden and violent—grab a blade, any blade, and cut his way through them until the bastard bleeds out in the dust and that stolen sword is returned to where it belongs. 

Behind the bastard are the false claimants. Aerion recognizes them without introductions, and it makes him sick. It makes him sick that they look like him. Sick that they have the same silver hair, the same violet eyes, the blood of Old Valyria running just as true through bastards and pretenders as it does through him—and they dare to stand beneath the banner of the black dragon. 

His body shifts, nails biting into his palm and teeth grinding together. 

He hates them. He hates the way they stand there like they have a right to be, like they have not stolen everything they are from his family and twisted it into something lesser. Hates the way the city seems to hold its breath for them, as though they’re something to be reckoned with instead of something to be stamped out. 

He starts to rise, and your whore tenses on his opposite side as though to stop him, and then—

—and then the First Magister steps forward, and Aerion loses the opportunity. 

He draws blood from how hard he bites his tongue, feels it dripping between his knuckles, too.

“I must say, if you have come to conquer our fine city with such… modest forces, then you will find us less accommodating than you might hope,” the First Magister says, eyes sharp as he stares down at the Golden Company from the top of the marble steps. “We do not take kindly to uninvited guests.”

Aegor Rivers does not rise to the bait. He paces a few steps forward, standing at the foot of the steps, gaze sweeping from the First Magister to you to the First Magister’s son, and finally to the men arrayed behind the three of you—a small regiment of the Second Sons, Lys’s gonfaloniere, and the household guard. The other magisters are nowhere to be seen. 

It is a statement of unity, Caelyx had explained when Aerion first made note of it—the Golden Company is not welcome in Lys. 

“We are not here to conquer, magister,” Aegor Rivers replies at last, inclining his head to the First Magister. “We hear you harbor a guest of particular interest to us, and we hope to come to an… understanding.”

“How unfortunate that you have come all this way for a rumor,” the First Magister replies with a thin smile, and he exchanges a quick look with you that Aerion isn’t able to read, “and without the decency to give notice before your arrival. One would almost think you meant to insult us. Did you mean to insult the magisters of our lovely Lys, my lord?” 

“He is no lord,” you interrupt blandly. “You are being far too generous, magister.”

Aerion’s lips curl up despite himself. But then you throw a wink back at the First Magister’s son, Marcellus, who snorts at your words, and his smile flattens, irritated again. He side-eyes the two whores who slip into the room with them—two girls, he’s seen them hanging around you before, but he doesn’t know either of their names.

“Caelyx,” the taller one says, glancing nervously out to the square. “How is it going?” 

“She’s only insulted them once,” Caelyx says as he smirks into his wine. “So I would say well.”

The shorter girl laughs, settling onto the cushions next to Aerion, resting her head on her arms as she looks out into the square. Aerion finds himself irritated again all of a sudden—the silk clings to him, too soft and too light and too wrong, and the scent of perfume and wine hangs thick in the air, cloying and suffocating. 

He should be down there—at your side, at the First Magister’s shoulder, steel in hand, not hidden in silk and pillows and painted smiles, not tucked away among whores. His fingers curl into the cushions, nails biting into the fabric as his eyes track you. This is fucking humiliating. He exhales hard through his nose, trying to calm his temper.

“Watch yourself, prince,” Caelyx drawls, watching him carefully from the corner of his eye. Aerion sneers at him. “I only mean to say that you know what is at stake. Do not let your pride get the best of you.”

“I do not need you reminding me, whore,” Aerion scoffs.

Still, his stomach flips as he remembers what you said earlier. He does not want to think about that, because if he thinks about that, he thinks about how he got here, and if he thinks about how he got here, he thinks about his father, and if he thinks about his father, he will wonder—will he even care? And Aerion will not like the answer he comes to, so he cannot think about what will happen if the Blackfyres see through the lies, so he does not.

“I had thought Lys better governed,” Aegor says after a moment, “than to allow its… wards such freedom with their tongue.”

You tilt your head, considering him. 

“And I had thought you more impressive,” you reply. “Given the stories.”

“Across the Narrow Sea, a ward who spoke so carelessly would find herself corrected. Firmly,” Aegor says after a moment, voice low and edged. “It is a failing of the Free Cities that they keep such a gentle hand in the face of such disobedience.” 

“If you are so fond of firm hands, I suggest you sail back to your Sunset Kingdom and find one willing to keep you,” you say, smiling, until you are not. “If you ever imply I need to be firmly corrected again, I will skin you alive and pour salt over every inch of your body.”

Aegor’s mouth curves, faint and humorless. “A bold threat,” he says. “Though I wonder—would your hosts thank you for starting a war in their square? It would be a shame to see Lys burn for your temper.”

“Lys would not be the city that burns, sellsword. It will be your ships and your men,” you drawl. “The sacking of Qohor has made you bold, but Lys is not Qohor—nor is Volantis, and you tread on making an enemy of both.”

“You are an exile, my lady,” Aegor says coolly, tilting his head. “You think your city will go to war at your whims.”

“Exile, maybe, but I am old blood, and you are the son of an Andal whore. They would never suffer the insult without consequence.”

Aerion barks out a laugh.

“It’s good to know you haven’t lost your teeth in the years you’ve spent amongst silk boys,” an unfamiliar voice says from the crowd of sellswords. Your expression shifts instantly, the irritation disappearing, eyes widening, and a pit inexplicably forms in Aerion’s stomach. He spares a glance at Caelyx, but Caelyx put down his wine, frowning as he straightens from where he was leaning back against the cushions. “I warned him that you would eat him alive if he tried to play this game. You should have listened, Rivers.”

Aerion watches as a man with silver hair, braided back from his face, makes his way across the marble toward you, all careless smiles and casual arrogance. He is tall, thin, but lean in the way of a man who knows weaponry, not the pillow play of the Lyseni silk boys—and he is very, very pretty. He dresses like you in black leather with a red cape over his shoulder, and he wears Valyrian steel like it’s fucking gold on his fingers, on his neck, on his ears, a sword at his hip and a dagger at his forearm. 

Aerion knows before either of you speaks. 

All of the tension bleeds from your body, disbelief spilling across your face, and Aerion feels sick to his stomach already. 

“Jaenys?” you gasp, a breathless smile spreading across your face as you make your way down the steps to meet him halfway. Aerion doesn’t realize he’s rising to his feet until he already has, jaw tight as he watches the way the man reaches for your waist, pulling your body close until it’s flush to his. Your hands rise to his face, gentle, your cradle his jaw, thumbs brushing his cheekbones like you need to make sure he’s real. Aerion’s stomach twists. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“That’s one of her friends,” one of the girls says, and Aerion’s teeth grind because that is not the way friends hold one another. “From back home. I recognize the name.”

That is the way—that is the way you’ve held his face in the cove, in bed, when it is only you and only him. He watches as you let out a bright laugh, genuine and pretty as a bell, more real than anything Aerion has ever heard from you before. And Aerion feels fucking sick—he feels sick, and he does not want to see this, but he cannot draw his gaze away, watching as the other man draws you in close, burying his face in your hair, pressing his lips to your temple, your neck, laughing into your skin. 

“Why is he with the Golden Company?” the other girl asks warily. “Caelyx, what should we do?”

Caelyx is no longer drinking. He has set his wine aside, watching the scene with calculating eyes, and he’s holding a small bowl in his right hand, and distantly, Aerion recognizes the fine powder that sits inside it from the corner of his eye, but he’s more focused on you, on the way your gaze traces Jaenys’s face, the way you’re holding him, the way he’s holding you. You’re talking to him, but your voice is too quiet now for him to overhear from the Perfumed Garden, as though you’d forgotten he was listening, forgotten you’d promised that you would talk loud enough so that he’d know what was happening, forgotten about him. 

Aerion’s fingers curl at his sides, nails biting into his palms as he watches the way Jaenys lifts your hand to his lips, kissing your knuckles, your wrist, your pulse, smiling into your skin—the two of you curling into one another like the Golden Company is not in the square, like there’s no danger and no one is watching. 

What the fuck?

You say something again, too quiet again, and then you nod toward the Perfumed Garden, and Aerion’s heart drops to his fucking feet. No—no, you wouldn’t. His mind scrambles to make sense of the motion you just made, to force it into something that doesn’t feel like a blade sliding between his ribs. You wouldn’t just—you wouldn’t just give him up so easily, not like that, not after everything you said, not just because, not just because—

He can’t even finish the thought, because he can’t even fucking convince himself of it. He knows well how much you long for home, more than he does; he knows the way you speak of the people you left behind, the future you lost, and he knows—

“It’s not what you think,” he hears Caelyx say, but it feels like there’s fucking cotton in his ears. Everything feels distant and far away, and he can only stare out at the square, at the way your head is bent together with Jaenys, at the way you motion again to the Garden, to Aerion. “It’s not—”

“I know,” he spits, and then he laughs once, sharp and humorless. “You do not need to—I do not need—”

He can’t even get a fucking sentence out, and his face flames red with humiliation, and his breath is too shallow. You wouldn’t, you wouldn’t—iksan aōhon, iksā ñuhon. You said it, he said it. You would not give him up so easily. 

“She told me to tell you that if the Golden Company pressed for negotiations, she would bring it to the Perfumed Garden so you could listen in on what’s being said in the chance it pertains to your house,” Caelyx says, and then shifts closer. Aerion shifts away, bumping into the whore on his other side, and he suddenly feels too closed in and too distracted, because he can’t drag his eyes from the square. “You need to take this.”

“I am not drugging myself when they are five feet from the fucking door,” Aerion snaps, rounding on him, voice low but vicious. His hands are shaking now—he curls them into fists to hide it, nails digging deeper into his palms. “When they will be in the same fucking room as me. Have you lost your damn mind?”

Caelyx doesn’t flinch. “You will give yourself away the moment they start talking about you or your family,” he says, lifting the bowl slightly, the fine powder shifting inside. It’s not the same one you took with him in the garden at the revel—this one is a shimmering blue. “Look at you.”

“I am fine,” Aerion spits.

“You are not,” Caelyx replies flatly. 

Aerion’s pulse won’t slow; his thoughts are spiraling, circling back to you, the Golden Company, Jaenys, that gesture, to the way it looked, to the way it felt, to the way it hurt. Aerion isn’t even sure if he’s breathing properly.

Will his father care?

Will he think twice when news reaches him?

Will you care?

Will you—

Caelyx’s gaze flicks behind Aerion, and Aerion catches it a split second too late. His gaze snaps behind him as the woman on his opposite side grabs his right wrist hard, pinning it to the cushions, while the other one grabs his left. Aerion thrashes, but they are stronger than they look, and Aerion is thoroughly distracted.

“What the fuck—” Aerion snarls, twisting hard, muscles straining as he tries to rip himself free. The cushions shift beneath him, silk sliding, his footing useless, and fury spikes hot and immediate, cutting clean through the panic. “Get your hands off me—”

He jerks again, violently this time, and one of them gasps as his shoulder clips her, but her grip doesn’t loosen. The other tightens, digging her fingers into his wrist hard enough to bruise, and Aerion cannot get his footing for leverage to pull away.

“Hurry up, Caelyx!” 

“You think you can lay hands on me? I am a prince of the blood,” Aerion spits, voice dropping into something more dangerous but riddled with panic that he cannot quite push down. His eyes flash, violet gone almost black in his rage. “I will have your hands for this—I will have your tongues, your lives—every last one of you—”

“Hold him,” Caelyx snaps, all softness gone.

Aerion bares his teeth, lunging forward despite the hold on him, trying to get at him, to hurt him, because this—this humiliation, this loss of control, this—

Caelyx moves faster. A hand fists in Aerion’s hair, yanking his head back hard enough to make his breath hitch, his throat exposed, jaw forced open on a startled inhale, and then fingers are shoved into his mouth, the powder coated on digits, and Aerion chokes, thrashing hard now, rage turning wild and frantic as he bucks against their hold. Your whores, to their credit, look guilty—the girls do at least, Caelyx is only watching with thinly pressed lips, holding his face and his nose so that he cannot breathe, forcing him to swallow the powder he pushed into his mouth.

“Sorry, prince,” Caelyx murmurs, though he doesn’t sound all too sorry. The powder is already dissolving on Aerion’s tongue, bitter and strange, and when he tries to gasp for air, he swallows. “She told us to use whatever force was necessary if it came to this.”

He shoves Caelyx away hard, scrambling off the cushions to the marble floor, on his hands and knees, vision blurred as he tries and fails to gag up whatever they forced him to take. One of the girls has the audacity to creep closer to him, worried, and he bares his teeth at her furiously, grabbing whatever is closest to him—a glass— and flinging it hard at her head. It misses, shattering against the wall, but it still has its desired effect, as the girl scrambles away.

“I’ll kill you,” Aerion gasps, eyes wild and furious as he stares up at Caelyx, who hasn’t budged from the cushions. “All three of you, her, I’ll kill you all, I’ll—”

Caelyx sighs, gaze drifting out to where you’re still laughing with your friend, limbs entwined, faces too close together, to where the Golden Company is waiting for the two of you to stop talking, and he says quietly, “Let’s make sure you live long enough to have the opportunity, yeah?” 

Will you care? Will you care? Will you care?

———————

Everything feels distant and faraway. 

After Aerion settles down, Caelyx explains that they give the younger ones this powder when they take their first clients. Men pay extra for whores who haven’t been passed around yet—cruel men, violent men, the kind that want to see the blood, that want to cause it, that want to hear the sound a girl makes when they hurt, but still want to convince themselves that they’re not doing anything wrong, because it’s only sex with a whore, after all. 

The powder makes it easier for them; it softens the worst parts, turning something unbearable into something survivable. Not painless, because it’s never painless, but it makes everything more distant and manageable. 

Aerion stares forward as you enter the room, laughing in the arms of your friend Jaenys, and there’s not even a tug in his chest or a twist in his stomach—as though everything happening around him belongs to someone else.

He knows what he should feel—the bitter, ugly flood of it, the heat and the humiliation, he knows it is there, but he just… cannot reach it. It sits somewhere behind his ribs, muffled and dulled down to a distant pressure that cannot claw its way to the surface.

Aerion watches you as you cross the threshold, Jaenys’s hand at your waist like it belongs there, like it has always belonged there, like Aerion is an imposter and never truly had a place in your life—the sight registers cleanly, but it does not cut the way he knows it should.

Your gaze slides over him like he’s not even there. 

He should not have stayed.

(“You don’t have to sit in the room for the conversation,” Caelyx says as he gets the main room ready for the meeting about to take place—only the Perfumed Garden’s best permitted in the area. “You can wait in the back or upstairs. You’ll still be able to hear it all, but—”

“No,” he says after a moment, voice slow to his own ears. He cannot even reach the anger he knows he should feel. It is infuriating. “No. I need to be here. They won’t recognize me. Not like this.”

Because this is humiliating. This is shameful. This is everything Aerion Brightflame is not. Even if they do see a ghost of the Targaryen dynasty in his face, the whole world knows him well enough to know that he’d never be caught dead dressed in silk posing as a whore. That’s exactly why you insisted on this, exactly why he fought it. 

He will put it to the test, he decides, and if it fails, and he is butchered in silk by the Blackfyres, then it will be your fault.

Will you even care? Will you even—)

He doesn’t like this. He doesn’t like this at all. He doesn’t like seeing you with your friend. He doesn’t like the way you don’t acknowledge him. Doesn’t like the way the First Magister’s son trails behind you, looking out of place and like he wants to cling to you. Doesn’t like the pit in his stomach that forms when he sees Aegor Rivers duck into the Perfumed Garden with a twisted expression, distant and unreachable as that pit may be. Doesn’t like the sight of the Blackfyre bastards that follow in after him—three of them, silver-haired and violet-eyed. 

“My lady,” Caelyx greets you with a demure smile, pressing his lips to your knuckles. You are leaning your body against Jaenys, as though you do not wish to stand on your own, as though the two of you are husband and wife, lovers who can’t bear to part. The sight of it makes Aerion sick—or, it should make Aerion sick. He cannot reach that either. He does not like this. “We’re here to serve as you please. Let us know how we may make your guests comfortable.”

“We’ll take the room,” you reply, and you shift to stand up straight. Aerion can breathe again. You finally look around the room, disinterest flicking across your face until your eyes settle on him resting against the cushions. He catches the irritation that flashes briefly in your eyes. “Get me Vaella and Rhalla. And a couple of the other girls. Boys too. And wine. Lots of it. Gods know I need it.”

You are a fucking idiot, you tell him without saying anything, fighting a frustrated sneer as your gaze lingers on him a moment too long. Why are you lounging about so carelessly? Why didn’t you go upstairs?

Aerion doesn’t raise his eyebrows mockingly, but he thinks you know he wants to, because your eye twitches before you mask it and turn back to your guests. 

“We do not need whores,” Aegor Rivers says roughly. “Let us—”

“Do not speak to me unless I address you first,” you cut in, casting an annoyed look back to the sellsword. 

Aerion knows it’s because you’re frustrated with him and taking it out on the first person who dared to speak to you, and it pleases him—or it should. He cannot feel anything beyond this muted numbness. 

The silence stretches, taut, as Aegor stills at your interruption, something dark flickering behind his eyes, his jaw tightening just a fraction before he reins it in. You turn your back on him, dismissing him, then make your way over to the cushions, exhaling as you drop back onto them, head rolled back as you stare up at the ceiling for a moment. He wants to know what you’re thinking, he wants to know what’s happening, he hates this. He hates all of this. 

The others begin to seat themselves—Aegor Rivers and the Blackfyre pretenders across from you, Marcellus on your left, Jaenys to your right. After what feels like an eternity, Caelyx returns to the room with the two girls from before, along with several others, boys and girls alike, all soft smiles and lowered gazes as they drift into the room, trying to figure out who to go to, where to stand, like they are nothing more than decoration.

Your head rolls to the side, gaze cutting across the room, straight to Aerion. 

“Ari,” you purr, lips tilted up into a lazy smile. Aerion doesn’t react only because he can’t. The muted panic sits low and unreachable in his stomach when he realizes that you’re purposely drawing attention to him. What the hell are you doing? “Come here. I’ve missed you.”

The instinct to refuse is there, buried beneath the haze, sharp and stubborn and his, in spite of the drugs dumbing him down. He wants to bare his teeth and stay exactly where he is, wants to force you to come to him instead. But it never makes it past that first flicker, because Aegor’s gaze shifts, the room tilts in his direction, and Aerion is suddenly very aware of every pair of eyes that might look at him with suspicion if he hesitates or lingers too long or does anything other than exactly what is expected of him.

Because he is a whore of the Perfumed Garden. Ari of Lys. 

Aerion fucking hates you. Aerion wants you dead. Not even this stupid drug can force away the resentment that bubbles in his chest as he forces himself to his feet, silk scraping uncomfortably against his skin as he makes his way across the room toward you. 

Are you purposely doing this to humiliate him? Why would you do this? Will you care? Will you—

“Do you know all of the whores on this island by name?” one of the Blackfyres drawls across from you, distracted as he glances up at a pretty golden-haired girl who smiles sweetly at him. 

Aerion realizes that no one is really looking at him anymore, not beyond the short glance when you first addressed him. By the time Aerion reaches you, the attention has already shifted away—he has been dismissed, just another pretty thing in silk. 

That was your play, he recognizes too late, lowering himself into your lap when you guide him down. You pulled him into the center of the room, forced their attention onto him for a heartbeat, just long enough to see him clearly, to register him, and then discard him. Better this than the edges of the room, where he would linger, where sharp eyes might wander back to him, and suspicion might build, where he might become something worth noticing.

Now, he is nothing—a prop, a distraction already spent. 

“Most of them,” you agree with an easy smile, one arm slinking around his waist possessively as you pull him close and he settles against you, shoulder pressed against your chest, hand sliding to rest loosely at the side of your neck, fingers grazing the edge of your jaw. “The ones worth remembering, at least.”

He hates this. 

He hates the silk clinging to his skin, too soft and too revealing, nothing like the leather everyone else of note in the room wears, nothing like anything a prince of House Targaryen should ever wear. He hates the way they look through him like he’s not even there. He hates that his body sinks into yours, and he cannot help the way his eyes half-lid when your fingers slip beneath his silks, thumb rubbing soothing circles over his hip, out of sight from everyone else. He hates that it comforts him. Hates that his head dips toward yours instinctively. Hates that he can feel the heat roaring through his veins, that he knows he should be ripping himself out of your hold, baring his teeth, reminding them all exactly who the fuck he is: a dragon and a prince, better than them, all of them, but he cannot fucking reach it. He cannot reach the fire he knows is there; it dies before he can hope to grasp at it, and he—

Someone is still looking at him. 

The hair on the back of his neck stands on end, and Aerion’s gaze shifts to the side, trying to figure out who is still looking at him, and he pauses when he sees that it’s your friend, Jaenys, watching him with sharp, calculating eyes, trained not on his face, but—

—Aerion forgot to take off the steel.

Aerion forgot to take off the fucking steel.

The Valyrian steel at his throat—the steel you gifted him, the steel you placed on his neck, the steel you found in the ruins of Valyria, likely with the boy sitting right next to you, weighs on his neck like a fucking shackle. How the fuck did he forget to take off the steel? He’s become so used to the weight of it that he doesn’t even notice it anymore. He didn’t even think anything of it until now, until someone who recognizes it stares at it like it’s the most fascinating thing in the room, because why the fuck would you gift the last relic you have of your home to some random Lyseni whore?

Aerion’s fingers twitch against your neck, a useless, delayed reaction, his mind scrambling sluggishly to catch up with what his body should have already done—hide it, move it out of sight, do something. But he doesn’t, because it’s too late, because moving now would draw attention and confirm exactly what he knows Jaenys must be suspecting.

Jaenys watches him for a moment longer, gaze lifting from the steel at last to his eyes, and Aerion hates the look in his eyes—amused and knowing and far too perceptive for Aerion’s liking. His lips curl, just slightly, but then he turns his attention back to you, lithe fingers reaching for your free hand. 

Jaenys holds eye contact with Aerion as he lifts your hand to his lips, kissing your knuckles again before he leans in to ghost them against your ear. He says something quiet, only for you to hear, and Aerion can only make out the word special, but whatever is said is enough to make you physically tense, grip on his hip tightening. 

“How is everyone back home ?” you ask, ignoring the Blackfyres and Aegor Rivers to focus on your friend. 

“Miserable without you,” Jaenys says with an easy grin and a wink in your direction. “You could not imagine how boring things have been. You’ve probably been having more fun on this whore island than we are in Volantis.”

Aerion feels you huff out a laugh, chest rising and falling against his back. “Do not be dramatic, Jaenys,” you reply. “There is little to do here beyond fucking and drinking, and we both know I can only handle so much of that without some blood in between.”

Jaenys hums, amused, lithe fingers sliding absently up and down your forearm. Aerion’s gaze follows them, watching how easy the movement is, how familiar—thoughtless in a way that makes Aerion’s chest tight even though that powder should have him dulled into oblivion. 

“You always did prefer a little chaos to keep things interesting,” Jaenys murmurs. “I’m surprised you haven’t burned this place to the ground yet.”

“If you are quite finished reminiscing,” Aegor cuts in, tone clipped, bold considering the way both you and your friend raise your eyebrows at one another, smiles easy, but not entertained. “We did not come here to hear tales of your boredom.”

You do not even look at him.

“Then perhaps you should not have come uninvited,” you reply smoothly, eyes still on Jaenys, as though Aegor is little more than background noise. You ask Jaenys quietly, “Why did you come, Jaenys? Why are you here with these Andal cunts?”

Jaenys exhales hard through his nose, averting his gaze for the first time since he entered that room, the easy amusement slipping into something more serious.

“I told you, it’s miserable without you,” he says with a sigh, fingers still against your arm, sliding down to entwine your fingers with his. Aerion can’t draw his gaze from it, can’t ignore the pressure rising in his chest, muted and distant but still somehow all-consuming. “The Tigers are restless, and the Elephants grow bolder by the day. Every assembly turns into the same argument and—” Jaenys exhales through his nose, and Aerion’s stomach twists. He doesn’t like where this is going before he even really knows where it’s going. “We are tired of waiting. Everyone is.”

Your thumb stills at Aerion’s hip.

“And you think I am the solution to that? Eight hundred miles away?” you ask, voice light and dry, but Aerion can feel the tension in your body now, the way your grip tightens at his hip. “Do not be ridiculous, Jae—”

“Not from eight hundred miles away, but yeah. You are.”

Aerion does not like this.

His fingers twitch at your neck, and he instinctively starts to shift in your lap, only to be stopped when the hand on his hip becomes painful, warning him not to move around and make a scene. Whores are meant to be pliant and obedient, seen but not heard, decorations not meant to react to anything being said around them.

But Aerion does not like this. 

His heart thuds in his chest. He does not know if the powder is wearing off on its own or if he’s just so bothered by the implications of what’s being said that it’s forcibly sobering him—or worse, this is the muted version of what he should be feeling. 

“What the fuck are you talking about, Jaenys?”

“You’re not meant to rot away on this island of fucking whores,”  Jaenys says, grip tightening on your hand to force you to look at him. “We were never going to let you, and now we’ve finally got a way to get you back.”

Aerion can feel your heart against his back, racing in a way that he’s never felt before. Aerion’s is too. His mind is too slow right now—if he wasn’t drugged up on this stupid powder, he would’ve been able to put together what’s happening by now, but instead, he’s stuck, lagging behind his own thoughts, watching everything happen in pieces instead of all at once. 

Aerion swallows hard, breath shallow, fingers tightening at your neck like he can ground himself there, like if he holds on tight enough, it will force everything to click into place like it already should be. 

“And the Andals have something to do with this plan to get me back to Volantis?” you ask, voice riddled with disbelief, nails biting into his skin the same way his are biting into yours, trying to ground yourself with him the same way he does with you. “Jaenys, you—”

“They offer a path,” Jaenys interrupts, glancing briefly toward Aegor Rivers before returning his attention to you. “Just hear it out, okay?”

They’re supposed to be here for him, Aerion thinks desperately. They’re supposed to be here for him, are they—are they here for you? They’re here to—to take you?

“The Golden Company has the men and the means,” Aegor Rivers says, finally pushing into the conversation. Aerion expects you to shut him down again. You do not. “We would be willing to lend our support to the Tiger Party in the event of conflict. To ensure that the outcome is favorable.”

“Conflict?” you echo. Your voice sounds far away. Underwater. Aerion does not like the word, what it means, what it implies. Sellsword companies do not do anything for free. So what do they want from— “You mean to throw Volantis into civil war, Jaenys? What the fuck? We don’t need the help of the Andals if we want to take Volantis by force, but we don’t want—”

Jaenys says your name. Aerion hates the sound of that too—the way he says it, soft and lilting, begging for you to listen, and he hates the way you actually do, halting in your venomous rant as soon as he speaks. Your fingers on his hip are bruising, and his on your neck twice as hard. His gaze drags over to Aegor Rivers from where he was staring over your shoulder; the man stares right past him—at you—and Aerion doesn’t know if he’s breathing properly. His head feels light, and each breath is shallow.

He could kill him right now. 

The thought cuts through the haze, and for a moment, Aerion almost feels like himself again. 

Aegor Rivers sits barely five feet away—this registers for the first time since everyone seated themselves. No armor, no helm, no guard between them but a room full of distracted men to expect a blade from a whore’s hand. The Blackfyre bastards, too—silver-haired, violet-eyed mockeries of his blood, close enough that Aerion can see the faint scars on their hands and faces, the way their chests rise and fall as they breathe. He could do it. He could lunge forward, rip free from you, seize the fruit knife on the table between the cushions, and drive it through Bittersteel’s throat before the man could react. He could carve through the rest of them after, one by one, leave them bleeding out on cushions and marble like they deserve.

He might die.

He probably would die.

But—but his father would hear of it. Aerion Brightflame, striking down Bittersteel in a way that neither he nor his uncle was able to during the rebellion, cutting through pretenders with his own hand before falling in battle. Not an embarrassment. Not something to be ashamed of. Not an inconvenience to be sent across the Narrow Sea and forgotten about. A Targaryen prince. A dragon in full, not silk and perfume and humiliation. 

You would probably die, too. 

That is what makes him falter. If he jumped forward now, if he cut Aegor River’s throat and then carved up each of the Blackfyre bastards, you would be caught in the middle. You’re armed, yes, and the moment the lingering Golden Company sellswords drew their blades to cut Aerion down, you would draw yours (right? you would, wouldn’t you? would you defend him? would you even care? would anyone care?). And you are skilled, he knows you are, but there are dozens, hundreds, thousands of Blackfyre loyalists on this island right now, and not even you—

“We could do it,” Jaenys says quietly. “A full coup, rout the Elephants—”

“That’s not how things fucking work in Volantis,” you hiss, interrupting Jaenys, whose lips tighten with irritation at your words. “We are not Andal cunts who chop each other up over inheritance—who destroy our houses and birthright for personal ambition. The Triarchy is not won by butchering half the city in the streets and hoping the rest fall in line.”

“I thought you would want to come home—”

“Of course, I want to come home,” you spit, voice rising in anger. Your grip on Aerion’s hip is painful, and it grounds him, pulling him away from the violence and blood that threatens to put him into a situation that will get both of you killed. “But gods, Jaenys, does my father even know about this? The rest of the Tigers? This could destroy everything, this could—what?”

Jaenys tosses his head back, beckoning someone to come forward from the edge of the room. Aerion’s gaze drags, following the motion as a man steps forward from the line of sellswords. He carries something wrapped in dark cloth, held carefully, and Jaenys reaches forward to take it from him, peeling back the cloth to reveal a sheathed sword—ruby-embedded hilt, dark, rippling steel, the patterns in it catching the sunlight. 

Aerion’s mouth dries, and you inhale behind him, leaning forward, lips ghosting his shoulder as you look over him at the sheathed blade. Jaenys gives you a pointed look before he places it between the two of you. 

“He gave this to me before I left,” Jaenys says softly, “to give to you.” Jaenys continues, voice lower now, only for you to overhear, “He wants you to come home. We all do.”

Oh. 

Aerion feels the change in you immediately. Your spine straightens, and your grip loosens on his hip. You don’t let go of Jaeny’s hand—you let go of Aerion as you reach out to brush your fingers against the hilt of the sword resting between the two of you. The aggression fizzles out of you, and you exhale in a way that is not frustrated or irritated; it’s contemplative. 

Aerion’s throat goes dry. His fingers twitch at your neck again, a delayed, useless motion, like he’s trying to remind you he’s still there—he’s still here—but it feels weak, inconsequential, swallowed by everything else that just shifted in the room.

“And what? The Golden Company wants to displace the Elephants and put us in power out of the goodness of their hearts? What do they want in return?” you ask. 

There is no derision in your tone. There is no bite or mockery, no easy dismissal waiting behind it. 

It is a real question.

Aerion feels it like a blow to the gut, wind knocked from his lungs. His fingers falter against your neck, the last weak attempt at grounding slipping away into nothing as a slow and suffocating reality settles in around him. You’re not shutting this down, and you’re not laughing it off anymore. You’re really fucking considering it.

You might actually accept it.

The thought lands heavier than anything else—heavier than the Golden Company arriving in Lys, heavier than the thought of war, than his father not caring about him, than dying here. His lashes flutter, and the next breath he lets out is shaky. 

This is what you’ve always wanted.

He knows that. Knows it in the way you talk about Volantis, about home, about what was taken from you. Knows it in the way you’ve never quite belonged here, no matter how easily you play at it, no matter how well you’ve carved a place for yourself in Lys. Knows it in the way you always look east. 

You never wanted to be here—you just never had a way back home.

And now you have a way back.

But you promised him. 

You promised him that you would come with him back to Westeros. You said it: iksan aōhon, iksā ñuhon, you told him you loved him, he asked you to come with him and you said I will. You promised, you promised—

“Well, we would like the Bright Prince, for one,” one of Daemon Blackfyre’s wretched sons says easily, gaze lingering for a moment on where Caelyx sits on the cushion next to Jaenys, before he focuses on you. “We heard he was here in Lys.”

Aerion’s pulse spikes hard and fast, blood rushing loud in his ears as his fingers lock at your neck—not gentle or grounding this time, clingy in a way that’s pathetic. 

Do not give me up, he says without saying anything at all, desperate and pleading, not half as commanding as he would like, do not betray me, do not leave me. 

He would not even be able to defend himself right now, he realizes, tense. He does not have the means—no armor, no sword, and if his body is half as sluggish as his mind is, he does not stand a chance. He is sitting right across from Aegor Rivers and the Blackfyre bastards, he is drugged with nothing to defend himself, and you might give him up to them now. 

His breath catches shallowly against your skin, the haze fracturing as fear edges out the last of the powder. You don’t react to his fingers at your neck, not for a long, long time, but then your hand smooths over his hip, squeezing it lightly before you lean back against the cushions with a sigh. 

“Even if the Bright Prince were here, I wouldn’t give him to you,” you say with a shrug, and Aerion doesn’t know if that was the right thing to say, but it puts him at ease, something terribly warm bubbling in his chest. “I’m fond of him. We got on well while he was here. He kept me—entertained.”

“Really?” another pretender drawls, mocking. “I hear he’s temperamental. Prone to mad fits. Not the sort one keeps for long.”

Aerion’s throat bobs at the words, remembering your whore’s comment from before: the two of you are coming up on that, aren’t you? So that she does not become bored with you like she does everyone else. Annoyance flares, teeth grinding; he shifts in your lap before he can stop himself, an instinctive movement like he’s trying to settle into you more firmly. Your grip tightens—a warning—you must realize that he’s coming down from the powder. 

“Which one are you?” you ask suddenly, gaze roving over the Blackfyre. “Wait. Let me guess. Another Aegon? You Westerosi seem fond of that name.” 

Jaenys snorts, turning his face toward you, a smile curving at his lips.

The silver-haired pretender flushes red, an irritated expression on his face. “Haegon, actually.”

You bark out a surprised laugh. “Wow, almost,” you drawl. “Well, Haegon, you’ll find I’m quite skilled at bringing temperamental little dragons to heel. I’m fond of it, even. You seem rather ill-tempered yourself. That, at least, is promising.”

Did you just flirt with that miserable fucking wretch?

A ripple of amusement moves through the room, and Haegon’s flush deepens, pale lashes fluttering as his gaze shifts to the side. Aerion wants to rip his eyes out. Aerion wants to rip your eyes out. Your tongue. His tongue. Aerion can’t deal with this anymore, Aerion—

“The Bright Prince is out of the question,” you say dismissively. “He’s not here, and I’m not wasting my time chasing ghosts. I assume you came with more demands than that, otherwise you make for poor bargainers, and I do not entertain poor bargains, be they in my favor or not.”

Aegor’s lips quirk into a smile, and Aerion feels unsettled. He knows what is coming before anything is said, but the words still make his stomach flip when Aegor Rivers finally speaks them:

“Once you are installed as Triarch, we would expect Volantene support during our campaign in Westeros and taking the Iron Throne from the Targaryens.”

———————

“Is this how it’s going to be, then? We’re not going to speak?” 

Aerion doesn’t reply. Can’t reply. Doesn’t. This is the third time you’ve tried to start a conversation with him since returning to your chambers, and Aerion remains seated on the cushions on the far side of your room, face turned away, fiddling with the dagger he should have taken to the whorehouse so he could plunge it into Bittersteel’s throat. Your throat, too, maybe. His fingers slide along the edge, and the pain helps ground him, brings him back to the present, away from the shame eating at his stomach and the rage threatening to consume him.

He never should have let any of that happen. He never should have agreed to let you dress him in silk, never should have hidden himself away in a whorehouse, never should have allowed those stupid whores to drug him stupid and pliant. He should have just died with his blade in hand, one final stand for his father to be proud of—maybe he could have even taken one of the Blackfyres or Bittersteel out with him. His face is hot with mortification; he can’t even look at himself in a fucking mirror.

He cuts through the pads of his fingers once, beads of blood welling up and dripping down his skin. He watches impassively, and then he slides the edge of the blade through them again, deeper this time. A third time, then a fourth, then—

“Aerion.”

Aerion doesn’t reply, and he doesn’t react when you snatch the dagger from his hands and put it to the side. He doesn’t look up at you when you spit out a curse at the sight of his bleeding hand, and he doesn’t let you bandage them when you reach out, pulling away and pressing the injured fingers to his lips, staring blankly at the wall as he sucks the blood from the cuts. You kneel in front of him, and Aerion hates the expression on your face more than he hates anything else—you’re pitying him, you’re pitying him. 

“Do you really want to?” Aerion asks, voice low and edged. “Because I do not think you are going to like what I have to say.”

You exhale hard through your nose, and Aerion can see the irritation thinly veiled. You have some nerve, he thinks. Some nerve to be irritated. Some nerve to question him. Some nerve to fucking pity him. He doesn’t need your pity, doesn’t want it. He doesn’t want anything, he doesn’t want you, he doesn’t—

Something wet tracks down his cheek, and his spiraling thoughts come to a halt. His brows knit, breath catching, and then—another, his opposite cheek now, more after that, one after another. His uninjured hand comes up quickly, swiping at his face, and he stares at the wetness smeared on his fingers like it’s something foreign. 

What the fuck?

Aerion clenches his jaw hard, teeth grinding, panic flashing hot through the anger still clawing at his chest. He’s not—he’s angry, he’s frustrated, ashamed. He’s not fucking—he’s not upset. He scrubs at his face again, harder this time, like he can force it to stop, like he can drag whatever this is back down where it belongs, bury it under the anger, turn it into something that makes sense. 

“Stop,” he hisses, and he doesn’t know if he’s talking to you or himself. 

His breath hitches, quick and loud and fucking mortifying, and that only makes everything worse. Fuck. He’s sick of this. He’s sick of being in exile, he’s sick of the constant humiliation—things had been different for a while, different because of you, different because you made it feel like it didn’t matter. The exile, the rumors, the looks, and the shame—you made him feel like it could all be ignored if he just stayed close to you because iksan aōhon, iksā ñuhon, because he is yours and you are his, because you said you would come with him, because you said you wouldn’t leave him behind, and now—

Now it is back to those first few weeks of humiliation, when he was chasing you around like a fool, losing his temper before magisters and merchants, making a spectacle of himself every day. He trusted you—you told him to trust you, and he did. He trusted you. 

And now you’re going to give everything up. 

You’re going to give him up. 

He knows it—he knows it’s the truth in his gut, in his heart. He knows it. You are going to give this up so that you can go home. 

“Get the fuck away from me,” he tells you when you try to reach for his bleeding hand again. He rises to his feet and paces away. His heart thuds painfully in his chest, and his fingers sting, and his vision is blurry, and he cannot stop the fucking tears. He’s not even upset—he’s angry, he’s frustrated, he’s—he’s fucking betrayed. “You humiliated me. You—”

“I kept you alive,” you counter, rising to your feet and turning toward him. Aerion hates that you’re not angry, and he hates that look in your eyes—you’re still fucking pitying, you’re still— “I—”

“You had me drugged,” Aerion interrupts, furious, voice rising. “You had me drugged, dressed up in silk like a whore, and sat me in your lap like a damn pet. You made me sit there while you conspired—”

“I did what I had to do,” you spit, pity finally shifting to anger, and Aerion can deal with this. He prefers this. He’ll take all of your anger if it means he won’t be on the receiving end of pity. “If you had walked into that room as yourself, you would be dead, and you know it.”

That’s not the point, Aerion wants to scream. He wants to tug at his hair and fight you for the dagger you stole from him, so he can put it through your throat. He wants to—

“I do not care,” Aerion says, and he shuts it all down, pushes it deep, deep down, just like when he was young, when his mother died and Daeron changed and Maekar refused to speak to any of them. He pushes it down, and he blinks once, twice, three times, and he pushes away the anger and the frustration and the tears. “I trusted you. You told me to trust you, and I did, and then you couldn't trust me. I would rather have died than sit there like that. I do not care if it was necessary, or if it kept me alive, or even if you were right. I do not care. You lied to me.”

“I didn’t lie to you,” you reply, and glee briefly bubbles in Aerion’s chest when he hears how your voice loses the heat, weaker. Aerion huffs out a laugh through his nose. “I didn’t, Aerion—”

“You did,” Aerion hisses. The heat bubbles again, and Aerion smothers it with another deep breath. He doesn’t look at you, raising his chin as he stares out over the balcony, over the gardens of the First Magister’s manse, where he has spent hours laid up in your arms, watching sunrises and sunsets, magisters’ sons make fools of themselves after too many glasses of wine, laughing and sharing breath, kisses, touches. His eyes slide shut. He pushes this away, too. “You did. You lied to me. You told me that I was yours, and you were mine. You told me that—” Breathe. “—that you loved me. That you would come with me. And you sat in there—you sat in there listening to them, conspiring with them—”

“Do not be a fool, I—”

“Do not call me a fool,” Aerion snaps, whirling on you again. It bubbles again, hotter and faster this time. Too much—you’re across the room, but he can feel your hands around his waist, running through his hair, your lips on his skin, and your breath against his ear. All of the promises, all of you. All of the fucking lies. “You were. I know you. The moment your friend showed up, when he gave you that sword—”

“Of course, I was, Aerion,” you shout at him. “They offered me an opportunity to go home. How could I—”

“Then go!” he shrieks right back, defensive, voice pitching higher than he intends. He needs to get ahead of it, needs to be the one to send you away so that you aren’t the one to choose to leave him. “Go back to Volantis. Take their deal, your city, your war. March against my family, march against me—fucking hand me right over to them while you’re at it, would you?”

“Wow. I knew you were hiding a secret, ñuha jorrāelagon, but I didn’t realize your special whore was the Targaryen prince everyone is looking for.”

My love.

Aerion goes stiff at the familiar voice coming from the entrance to your chambers. Your friend, Jaenys, leans against the doorframe like he owns the place, an easy smile curling at his lips, like he hasn’t just walked into something he was not meant to see. You’re as frozen as Aerion is, eyes widening as your gaze cuts to the side, anger draining into something far worse. 

Jaenys pushes himself off the marble, slinking forward in your direction. 

Aerion watches you, not him. Watches the way your mouth presses thin and the way your shoulders are tense. You never spoke much about your friends back home with him. Aerion hadn’t even recognized the name the way your whores had, he realizes bitterly. But he does know how you describe Volantis and its courts—cruel and vicious, people always looking for the next step up the ladder.

Will Jaenys give him up to the Blackfyres? 

Will you let him?

Will you care? Will you care? Will you—

Aerion’s gaze snaps over to you, trying to gauge where you’re at, but he can’t tell, and all of the frustration begins to bubble again, the heat in his chest and behind his eyes. His pulse climbs, and he cannot push it back down. He has to stop him—has to stop both of you if that’s what it takes. He’s never fought you for real; the two of you have sparred occasionally, but always while drunk. He’s never seen you fight at full force, but he knows you’re skilled—knows your friend must be too, from the way you talked about the upbringing of Tiger children. Can he take you both out? Aerion is confident in his swordplay, but he was confident at Ashford, too, and everyone knows how that went, and you two would be much more skilled than that oaf of a hedge knight. But he can’t allow himself to be caught, can’t give his father another reason to—

Fuck. 

“Is this how it’s going to be, then?” Jaenys asks you, raising his eyebrows mockingly, tilting his head to the side. “You’re going to choose some Andal cunt over a chance at coming home?” His gaze flicks over Aerion once, dismissively. “He’s not pretty enough for you to be so pussy-whipped, and we both know you’re not so sentimental.”

Aerion cannot stop the words from leaving his lips.

“What did you just call me?”

Everything is burning. 

He thinks he laughs as he whirls on your friend, but it’s not really a laugh; it’s too quick and too sharp, breaking halfway through. Your friend tosses an impassive look over his shoulder, violet eyes sweeping over Aerion once before he rolls them, as though decided Aerion isn’t even worth the effort to properly address.

His pulse roars. Something breaks loose in his chest, hot and violent, and it feels more like him than the haze he’s been stuck in all day. All of the muted emotions that he couldn’t sort through in the whorehouse come surging: the rage, the humiliation, the frustration. He exhales hard and takes a step toward Jaenys.

“What did you just call me?” Aerion repeats, slower this time, voice dropping as he makes another noise in the back of his throat—laugh, scoff, something in-between. 

“You heard me,” Jaenys replies, unbothered, barely looking at him. Aerion wants him dead. Aerion wants you dead. “Careful now. One word from me and every Blackfyre loyalist in this city will know exactly where to find you.”

Aerion’s lips pull back into something that might be passable as a smile if it weren’t so strained.

“Try it,” Aerion says, though he doesn’t even really register himself saying it. This whole day has been—fuck, wrong. It’s all been wrong. Wrong from the moment the Golden Company ships arrived in Lys. Wrong from the moment you looked at that sword. Wrong from the moment he sat in your lap, and you didn’t feel anything at all. Wrong, wrong, wrong—even he feels wrong now, like he’s not even in his own body, like he’s watching himself from somewhere just behind his eyes, feeling his mouth moving, hearing his voice as though it belongs to someone else. “Try it. See if you get the chance to finish the call out for them. I do not care who you are to her, I do not care where you’re from. If you say one word, I’ll have you skinned and hung from the—”

Jaenys laughs, loud and bright and mocking, genuine glee threaded through the sound. 

“You? Kill me?” Jaenys echoes, a condescending smile on his lips as he looks over Aerion once. “Little prince, I would eat you alive.” He looks back toward you, dismissing Aerion again. He winks at you and says, “You know, I shouldn’t be so surprised you went for this one, ñuha jorrāelagon. You always did like the fiery ones—Visedor, Naera, Aenys. Can you tire of him already? Let’s give him over to those Andals and go home already.”

Aerion’s jaw locks.

You say through your teeth. “It’s not like that, Jaenys—”

“You say that every time,” Jaenys scoffs, “and every time it is the same. I am not going to sit here and let you destroy your shot at going home for a boy you won’t think twice of in a few months.”

Why does everyone always speak around him? 

Why does everyone fucking talk about him as though he’s already half gone?

Aerion is a prince of the blood. A dragon. He is the one who takes and discards. He is not—

He is a prince nobody wants around. At best, a problem that cannot be fixed, and at worst, a mistake to be forgotten. To you, to his father, to the rest of his family, to everyone. 

It is infuriating. 

No one ever says it in those words, but they don’t fucking need to—they cast him out like he’s nothing, they do not say goodbye to him when he leaves, they do not send ravens unless someone has died, and even then, they still do not want him home. 

And you—everyone seems to be certain that you’re on the verge of tiring of him. Caelyx says it off-handedly when he has far more important things to be worried about. Jaenys stands there speaking as though Aerion were some passing amusement you would soon tire of. As though Aerion should be grateful for whatever scraps of loyalty anyone saw fit to throw him, and Aerion is fucking sick of it. He’s sick of hearing it, sick of believing it—he just wants—

He just wants you. He wants you to want him. He wants you to choose him. He thought you would, because you told him that you would. Iksan aōhon, iksā ñuhon—he is yours and you are his. 

And yet, he does not think you will anymore. Not now, and maybe you never planned to. 

He should have expected it. He should have known better than to take you at your word, than to believe that—

He cuts the thought off before it can finish. He’s not going to stand here and pick himself apart over it—not in front of Jaenys, not in front of you.

Still, the idea sits under his skin, festering. That you might leave him, you might choose them, you might hand him over. 

Fuck.

“… always told you, didn’t I?” Aerion hears Jaenys saying, drawn back into the conversation at hand when he notices him take a step back toward the open door. You don’t move to stop him. Aerion’s jaw tightens—he’s going to have to do this himself. Will you draw a blade against him if he attacks your friend? Did you ever actually care the way you claimed to? “I’m not going to sit back and let you make mistakes like this. I—”

Aerion does not flinch at the sudden crashing noise when you move forward and drive your foot into the open door, slamming it shut before Jaenys can leave, but his breath does hitch when he watches you shoulder Jaenys into the marble hard, putting the dagger you took from Aerion against his neck and pressing deep enough that blood dribbles down his pale skin.

The room is silent for a long, long time.

“I’m not letting you do that, Jaenys,” you say quietly. “You are my dearest friend. Do not put me in this position.”

Jaenys stares at you with an unreadable expression on his face. “You’d draw on me for him?” he breathes, voice riddled with disbelief. You do not respond, because the blade at his neck is answer enough. Oh. All of the tension that had spread through Aerion’s body, the heat beneath his skin and pressing behind his eyes, fizzles as he stares at you, throat working to swallow the lump that formed in it. “But the only person you’ve ever done that for is—”

Jaenys doesn’t finish the sentence, but understanding crosses his face instantly as he glances between you and Aerion one last time. Another few seconds pass with neither of you moving, staring at one another, and then Jaenys exhales, shoulders slumping as he shakes his head with a roll of his eyes. 

“You are impossible,” he mutters, and when you don’t immediately drop the knife from his neck, he raises his eyebrows tauntingly. “If you keep that there for much longer, you’ll make my cock hard, and if you do that, you will be taking care of it, ñuha jorrāelagon—favored prince or not.”

Aerion’s lip curls up in disgust. Jaenys notices. 

“He really doesn’t like sharing, does he?” Jaenys laughs, head rolling to the side to look over Aerion. He says lazily, “You’re lucky it was me who came, little prince. Naera or Visedor would have snapped your pretty head off if you wanted to keep her all to yourself. Lucky for you, I understand and will oblige you—for now, at least.”

Aerion gapes in fury, hand darting to grab the sword you’d rested against your wall so he can put it through the other man’s neck, but you give him such a cold look that he falters.

You’re choosing him. You’re choosing them. You’re choosing—

“Skoros iā qrīdronnor. Ao gīmigon skorkydoso naejot iderēbagon zirȳ, ñuha jorrāelagon,” Jaenys sighs, more serious now, silver hair falling in his face. “Skoros gaomagon gaomi sir?”

What a mess. You really know how to pick them, my love. What do we do now?

The tension bleeds from your shoulders at his words, and you drop the blade from his neck. Jaenys wanders over to your bed and sits at its edge like he belongs there, burying his face in his hands, and you lean against the wall you just had him pinned against, staring at the blood staining the blade. Aerion does not budge from the opposite side of the room—he doesn’t know what to say, if he should say anything. The way you stare down at Jaenys’s blood, and the way Jaenys is looking at you from the corner of his eye, it feels too personal. Aerion feels uncomfortable—he just, he wants to go back to how things were yesterday.

You’re choosing him. You’re going to choose Jaenys. You’re going to side with the Blackfyres. You’re going to march against his family—against him. You’re going to betray him. You’re going to—

You exhale, sliding down the wall until you’re seated on the ground, still staring down at the marble.“Eman iā kȳvanon naejot jiōragon zirȳla hen se tēgembōñ. Kessa henujagon lēda se Tȳni Trēsi hemtubis.”

I have a plan to get him off the island. He will leave with the Second Sons tomorrow.

“Gaomagon daor ȳdragon yno hae lo iksan daor kesīr,” Aerion hisses, still wound up, not sure what to do with himself anymore, but you let out such a heavy sigh that he physically falters, zeroing in on the exhausted expression on your face.

Do not speak of me as though I am not here.

Jaenys’s eyes flicker with interest at Aerion’s words, lips parting, but before he can say anything, you give him a cold look. He pouts and shakes his head, and then he says more seriously, “Pōnta jurnegon syt zirȳla sir. Issi jāre rȳ mirre hen lenton. Gaoman daor gīmigon lo kessi jurnegon bisy.”

They search for him now. They are going through all of the manses. I do not know if they will search this one.

You throw the dagger on the ground, frustrated, and the metal clatters against the marble loudly. You tilt your head back against the wall, and you hiss, “Nyke qogralbar ivestretan zirȳ īles daor kesīr!”

I fucking told them he was not here!

Jaenys shrugs helplessly and drawls, “Pōnta gōntan daor pāsagon ao.” Then he nods at Aerion, who sneers at him. “Nyke daor pāsagon skoro syt.”

They did not believe you. I cannot imagine why.

You knock your head back against the wall once, twice, a third time. Aerion makes his way over to you to stop you, but Jaenys is closer, and Aerion freezes dead in his tracks when he sees how Jaenys kneels in front of you, one hand slipping behind your head to stop you from smacking your head against the marble a fourth time. His throat is tight as he watches his free hand come up to cradle the side of your face, the way your eyes slide half open to peer down at him, the way you look so exhausted and still lean into his touch. Your eyes are soft, and vulnerable, and—

Have you ever looked at him this way? 

“Jurnegon rȳ nyke,” Jaenys says softly, and Aerion’s skin fucking crawls. How could he ever compete with this? He’s known all along that you yearn for home and the people you left behind—more than he ever has, ever will—but it’s different seeing it in front of his face like this. The way you look at him, the way he looks at you, the tone of voice the two of you take with one another and the implicit trust. Aerion has never had that with anyone. “Kesan ziry, ñuha jorrāelagon. Kesi mirre ziry mirre hen hēnkirī.”

Look at me. I will handle it, my love. We will figure everything out together.

“Jaenys,” you start to say, voice quiet. “I—”

Your eyes slide shut when Jaenys leans in to press his lips to your temple. “We can talk another time,” he tells you. “If you have a plan for the Bright Prince to get off this island tomorrow night, then we will see it done. Until then…” Jaenys’s gaze flicks over to Aerion briefly. “Spend time with your little dragon, ñuha jorrāelagon. It might be your last with him.”

Aerion’s stomach lurches at his words, and you only sigh, gaze lowering again. Jaenys rises to his feet, tilting his head back slightly, a smirk curling at his lips as he looks over Aerion blatantly. Aerion sneers at him, but can’t help the way his eyes widen in disbelief when Jaenys hums:

“Perhaps if things work out—if I am still here and you are still interested in him when he returns to Lys, we can share him. Like old times. It’ll be fun.”

Jaenys lets out a huff of laughter, brushing his braid over his shoulder as he leaves your chambers, shutting the door behind him, and the silence that follows his exit is suffocating, pressing in from all sides, thick and heavy and ringing with everything said and unsaid. 

Aerion does not move. For a long moment, he just stands there, staring at the door as if it might open again, and then at you, curled on the floor, gaze trained on the marble. You are not looking at him. You are not really looking at anything, he realizes. Your eyes are empty, expression just as vacant. Aerion has gotten good at reading you over the last eight moons, but now he cannot read a damn thing. 

And then you sigh again, heavier this time, shoulders curling inward, making yourself small in a way he’s never seen you do before.

“I am sorry,” you say after a moment, so quiet that Aerion almost doesn’t hear you. “I should not have had them drug you.”

Aerion stares at you for a long moment. There are insults on his tongue—cruel and defensive, because he does not forgive you, he cannot forgive you. He needs to brace himself for what is about to come.

Then, his feet move before he knows what he’s doing, dragging against the ground in your direction. His back hits the wall next to where you’re sitting, and then he slides down it to sit with you. Thighs pressing, shoulders knocking together, Aerion’s jaw tightens when he feels you lean against him, resting your head on his shoulder as you let out another shaky breath.

“I would be dead if you didn’t,” Aerion replies quietly, the admission tastes like poison on his tongue. He inhales deeply, eyes sliding shut, head hanging forward. “I would not have been able to sit there listening to them. To—”

To you.

“I should not have had them drug you,” you repeat again, something hollow in your voice that makes Aerion press his lips together tightly. “I do not know what to do.”

The admission comes out so small that Aerion almost doesn’t hear it. You exhale through your nose again, sharp and shaky, jaw tight. You look up at the ceiling briefly, and Aerion falters when he sees that your eyes are glassy with unshed tears. His lips part to say something, but he cannot find any words.

“I thought it would be easy—that if an opportunity came for me to go home, there would be no question about it, I would take it no matter the cost,” you continue. “But this? This is—”

You let out another breath, head hanging forward as you shake your head. You look at him again, gaze dropping to his cheek, and your face twists—he’s not sure why until you lift your hand, fisting the fabric of your sleeve as you bring it to his face and wipe off the makeup Caelyx put over his scars so that he would not be recognized by them. 

“If I return to Volantis this way, it will be the beginning of the end for our city,” you say, and something clenched terribly in Aerion’s chest when he realizes that this is the reason you’re wound up, not because of him, not because— “Volantis has existed as long as it has because of the Triarchy, because there are elections and we do not cut each other up over inheritance and right to rule. If I come back through a coup and am forcibly installed as Triarch, everything will change and not for the better.”

Aerion does not respond. 

He doesn’t have anything to say that is not bitter and angry and vile, that would be more humiliating to admit out loud than to just keep it in, because he spent months battling with the fact that you would not return with him to Westeros, weeks questioning you, trying to gauge whether or not you would come if he asked you. The relief he felt when you said yes—it was enough to be debilitating, enough that he did not even care how he looked, did not care that he should be ashamed, did not care about anything, just that he would not have to part from you when the day came. And yet—

And yet, he does not even cross your mind. 

You care about what it would mean for Volantis, you care about—

Shame floods him so quickly that it almost makes him sick. His next breath is quick, almost painful. Shame, humiliation, anger—he had always known in his gut that this was never as serious for you as it was for him. He tried to pretend the same, but it was intolerable. Aerion has never been good at handling his emotions; no matter how hard he tries to shove them down and pretend they don’t exist, they always bubble back to the surface at the worst possible times, unrelenting and all-consuming. And he could not bring himself to pretend that you did not matter to him—not when you were the first thing he thought of when he woke in the morning and the last that crossed his mind before sleep, not when the sound of your voice was sometimes the only thing to get him through bad days, not when he had begun to dread going home because he did not want to leave you behind. 

His throat works as he swallows, fighting the heat that rises to his face, that presses behind his eyes. He has known this even if he didn’t want to admit it to himself, but still, hearing it with his own ears, seeing it with his own eyes—it hurts. Hurts the same way it hurt when Maekar turned his back on him when Aerion begged him not to send him away. The same way it hurt when he waited weeks for ravens from him, or Daeron, or Valarr, and never received anything. 

And Aerion does not beg. 

He does not beg anyone—not even you, especially not you. So if you wish to throw everything away and act like this never mattered, and maybe it never did to you, then so be it. He will get on the ship tomorrow, sail to the Disputed Lands with the Second Sons, and he will never think of you again.

He knows as soon as the thought crosses his mind that it is untrue. 

There is no world where the two of you part ways and he will never think of you again. You will cross his mind every day, every hour, every minute—he will see you in the ocean and the sky and in every person that passes him by. He will spend the rest of his life chasing you, and you will be forever out of reach.

“I lied to you,” you suddenly say. Aerion’s thoughts come to a halt when your words register, brows furrowing. “I was never planning to go back to Westeros with you. I only said I would to get you to stop asking.”

A noise leaves Aerion’s throat before he can stop it—a scoff, maybe, a laugh, something in between. He stares at you, eyes wider than they should be, face hot and he’s sure red, because how dare you. Are you trying to rub it in? To make him feel worse about this? Are you trying to shove in his face just how little he meant to you? His stomach flips, and he—he feels embarrassed, again, because he had known this too. He knew it in his gut as soon as you agreed. He had known it was too easy, and nothing is ever easy with you, but he had let himself believe you anyway because—

Because he is a fool. He is a fool, and he loves you, and he wanted to believe you were telling the truth, wanted to believe that you would come home with him. Aerion hates you—he hates you. He hates that he cannot hate you. He hates that he wants to hate you, but cannot muster anything close. He wonders, briefly, if this is meant to be punishment—penance for getting his uncle killed—because he cannot imagine why else he would love someone who puts him through what you have. 

Lying to him in the same breath you tell him you love him, humiliating him in the same second you step between him and a blade—nothing can ever be simple. There’s always some form of whiplash, and Aerion just—

“Right,” he says after a moment, trying not to let his thoughts spiral, voice thin with something he cannot quite contain. “Of course you did.”

He laughs then—short and brittle and entirely without humor—turning his face from you so that you cannot see how his expression crumbles. You do not deserve to know how much your words have wounded him—you cannot know.

“That makes far more sense,” he goes on, words coming quicker now. Harsher. “Gods forbid anything between us be that simple. I must have been so insufferable asking you to come home with me for you to be forced to lie just to silence me. My apologies. I shall not make that mistake ever again.”

“Aerion—”

“If I am such a bother to you, then maybe you should just hand me over to the Blackfyres,” he hisses, face flushing with fury and mortification, the weight of what you said hitting him in full. He is a fool, and you are—you are fucking cruel. “I would—”

“Aerion,” you interrupt, louder this time, grabbing his wrist when he tries to rise to his feet and pull away, but you do not let him. 

Your grip tightens as you hold him in place, and he bares his teeth furiously, shoving you back when you won’t let go of him, but he cannot fucking get free. He cannot be free of you—he will never be free of you. His breath hitches traitorously, and his eyes feel hot again. Fuck—he is furious, and embarrassed, and he is—

Hurt. 

He is hurt. 

“Let go,” he spits. You do not. “Let go of me, you wretched fucking whore. I do not want to be here. I do not want to—”

Your hands find his face, cradling his cheeks, fingers soft and warm against his skin, and Aerion sucks in a breath that sounds like a whistle. He squeezes his eyes shut and turns his face away—distantly, he knows he can push you away. You’re off-balanced right now, half-leaning over him to force his face angled to you, so it would be easy to knock you away and storm off.

He does not.

“Listen to me,” you say. “Let me finish.”

No, he wants to say, because if he lets you finish, if he lets you try to explain your way out of this, he will listen, and if he listens, he will be weak. And Aerion is tired of being weak; he is tired of it—he has been weak all day. Longer than that, even—since the day he met you on that sun-warmed rock, and he let you mock him without consequence. He is sick and tired and he just wants—

“I thought it would be easy to disappear when the ship arrived to bring you west,” you tell him, and Aerion does not want to hear this. He does not need you to rub in his face how much of a fool he’s been. He tries to turn away again, but you do not let him, and he does not shove you away even though he could. “I convinced myself it would be—I would hide away in a cove and wait for the ship to leave port, would watch it leave with you on it, and go on with how life was before you showed up. But I have only been truly lying to myself, I think, because I do not know how I was ever going to disappear when the time came, when now I am handed an opportunity to go home on a silver platter, and I am hesitating because I know if I take this opportunity, I would lose you—for good.”

—you. 

He still only wants you.

Fuck. 

“It is… easier for me to focus on the logical flaws of Jaenys’s plan,” you continue, hands dropping from his face as you sit back on your heels and look away. “Easier for me to convince myself that I do not want to go along with this because it could spell the end of Volantis as we know it. The only thing I have ever loved more than my home is my brother, and it—it terrifies me that I find myself more upset over the thought of leaving you behind than I am at the idea of my city being on the brink of collapse. That I have a chance to see Viserys again, and—”

You do not finish that sentence, but you do not need to. 

“You do not make any sense,” Aerion tells you, voice hoarse. Are you being honest this time? You do not look him in the eye now, gaze averted off to the far side of your chambers, expression downcast in a way he’s rarely seen from you. “You—How am I supposed to take this? Eight moons, and you have only just realized I matter to you? After all of the times you’ve said—”

He can’t spit out the words he wants to say, thoughts jumbled and dangerous, and saying them out loud would only make him feel more pathetic than he already does.  

Avy jorrāelan, iksan aōhon, iksā ñuhon. All of the nights in the cove that is only yours and only his. All of the hunts through the streets that ended with you in his arms, legs entwined, tangled in sheets. All of the days laughing on balconies, drunk on wine and each other’s breath. And you are only just now realizing—

“That’s not what I meant—”

“It sure sounds like what you are saying—”

“Kessa ao ivestragī nyke tatagon ȳdragon?” you hiss, temper fraying. 

Will you let me finish speaking?

The sharpness of your voice cuts through his spiraling thoughts, right through the mess of everything he’s trying and failing to make sense of. His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t speak again, waiting for you to continue.

“I did not just realize you matter to me. Do not twist my words into something easier for you to be angry at,” you say, inhaling deeply as you shift to sit next to him again, gaze pinned on your lap. “This is not simple for me, Aerion. I—I’ve known for months, since you came down with fever. Before that, since the first time I brought you to the cove, I just—”

He remembers that day—the way you disappeared all day, how he spent hours looking for you, only for you to show up in the middle of the night, dragging him through the dark, over rooftops in a storm to the cove that you claimed was only yours, and now only his. He remembers a couple of days after that, too, when you disappeared again: boredom is survivable, you had scoffed, and I’m not? he asked, and you did not answer. 

You tilt your face to the side so that you can look at him, and his falls to the side, too. His gaze meets yours, and Aerion feels weak because he can feel the anger draining as the two of you share breath, as your eyes search his face. His throat bobs as he swallows thickly, and Aerion isn’t sure if he’s ever seen this expression on your face before. It is open—open and vulnerable in a way he’s only ever caught glimpses of when you tell him about home. 

“Avy jorrāelan,” you tell him, and Aerion’s jaw tightens as he fights the instinctive need to look away, face hot and eyes burning. “Nyke drējī jorrāelagon ao, Aerion, se iksan zūgagon kesrio syt eman mērī mirre dija sīr kostōba syt mēre tolie issaros isse ñuha ābrar, se nyke pryjatan ñuha giez ābrar syt zirȳla. Tubī, nyke shifang bona kesan gaomagon keskydoso syt ao, se gaoman daor gīmigon skorkydoso naejot mazōregon lēda bona.”

I love you. I really love you, Aerion, and I am scared because I have only ever felt so strongly for one other person, and I destroyed my whole life for him. Today, I realized that I would do the same for you, and I do not know how to cope with that.

Aerion inhales quickly, breath hitching in a way that should leave him mortified, but he cannot even bring himself to care. He admits, voice hoarse, “Nyke pendagon īlē jāre naejot tepagon nyke bē rȳ mēre jēda.”

I thought you were going to give me up at one point.

You shake your head, and he is only consoled by the fact that your eyes are as wet as his are. “Dōrī,” you say. “Kesan daor emagon tepagon ao naejot zirȳ. Daor syt mirros.”

Never. I would have never given you to them. Not for anything.

Aerion doesn’t know why he says what he says next, because he should be taking advantage of this. Drive the nail into the coffin and make you stay with him with just a few well-placed words. 

Aerion is not above it. He’s spent his whole life curating a softer, more palpable personality to put on for his father and grandfather and anyone of importance. He knows how to smile demurely, knows how to lower his lashes and give people exactly what they want to see. He knows what to say to make people give him what he wants, and he knows how to say it. Knows how to soften his voice just enough, how to let it catch on your name, how to make it sound like it costs him something to say it. Knows how to look at you like you are the only thing in the world that matters, like choosing you is not a question for him, was never a question for him. Knows how to reach for you slowly, carefully, like he is giving you time to pull away, even though he knows you won’t. 

He has done it before. Not like this—not with something that matters so much to him—but the mechanics are the same. And the worst part is that it would not even be a lie this time.

“I love you,” he could say, and mean it.

“I don’t want to leave you,” he could say, and mean that too.

“I won’t survive it if you go,”—that might be a stretch, because Aerion would survive, he would just be forever haunted by the memory of you, but it would sound right, and you would believe it, because you already want to.

It would be enough to make you stay. Enough to make you choose him. Enough to pull you away from Volantis, from your brother, from everything you have ever wanted, and bind you to him instead.

He should do it.

He knows he should.

You’re halfway there already. He can see it already—the way your guard has cracked and your eyes search his face desperately. It would not take much. He knows how he can finish this and get what he wants, and Aerion has never hesitated in that regard. He always takes what he wants, regardless of the consequences it may have for others. It is his right as a prince, after all.

Instead, he says, “You could go home.”

His voice comes out too weak. He knows how much you’ve wanted this, knows it better than anyone. You should not be hesitating. 

“I could go home,” you agree, voice just as weak as his. He finds comfort in that. “I might never get an opportunity like this again.”

He’s not sure which of you moves in first, but your lips are on his in the next breath—the kiss is chaste in comparison to the ones the two of you normally share, mouths sliding innocently against one another’s. It is slow and gentle in a way you both are so rarely.

It makes Aerion’s heart drop.

It feels like goodbye. 

“I could come with you,” Aerion says quietly, a desperate hitch to the words that he cannot quite mask, lips brushing as he rests his forehead against yours. He hears you sigh, and before you can reject him, he continues, “I have little back home. I am the second son of a fourth son. My own father sent me away as an embarrassment, my brother does not write me. I—”

“And you would be okay marching against your own family? Cutting down your own kin?” you reply doubtfully. “You heard what the offer was. I would be installed as Triarch in return for Volantene support in taking the Iron Throne. Would you back the Blackfyre claim, Aerion? Betray your own blood?”

Aerion presses his lips together, rocks settling in his stomach as he squeezes his eyes shut. “You could not go through with it. Use them, and then—”

“We cannot go back on our word like that, Aerion.”

Desperately, Aerion tries, “You might lose, then.”

“If Volantis marches against Westeros, we will not lose,” you interrupt.

Aerion is frustrated. Why won’t you let him latch onto anything, even if it isn’t true? Why must you be so— “You do not know that.”

“I do, because I would be leading the campaign, and I do not lose,” you tell him. “If you can look me in the eye and tell me that you would be okay with it. Returning home with me, knowing I will march against your family, wage a war that ends with your blood executed—father, uncles, brothers, sisters—and you will not regret it, then I will take you home.”

Aerion’s eyes slide open to meet yours. His lips part. And—and he sees his father teaching him how to hold a sword, hears his voice, my boy, my boy, remembers the way he used to smile at him and Daeron when Dyanna was still alive, before everything changed. And Daeron—he remembers Daeron teaching him to fish. Daeron, finding him on the ground, clawing at his throat, and holding him until the madness passed, teaching him breathing exercises to calm him. Daeron, who would be no better than a trembling fawn on a battlefield, because he never took to combat the way Aerion did.

His throat bobs, and Aerion does not respond. Your lips curve up into a smile that does not reach your eyes, and he knows you know his answer without him needing to say anything.

Is this goodbye?

Will you choose to go home?

Are you going to leave him?

You lean in so that you can kiss him again, more firmly this time, one hand coming up to cradle his face, and Aerion’s drops down to your waist, sliding against the leather of your pants before his grip tightens on your thigh so he can pull you closer to him, onto his lap so that your bodies are flush. Your arms snake around his shoulders, and Aerion sighs into your mouth as you tilt his head back to deepen the kiss. You taste like firewine and faintly of blood—Aerion wonders how hard you must have been biting your tongue when he kept interrupting you. 

“Gaomagon daor jikagon lēda zirȳ,” he murmurs against your lips, pulling back slightly so that he can meet your eyes as you slide his shirt off his shoulders. His breath hitches when you smooth your hands over his collarbones, nails scratching lightly at the hollow. He tilts his head back against the wall to look up at you, eyes half-lidded and lips slightly parted. His chest rises and falls beneath your palms, and his eyes slide shut when you lean in to kiss him again, slower this time. “​​Gaomagon daor henujagon nyke.”

Do not go with them. Do not leave me.

You do not answer him, and Aerion hates that it makes his heart sink. You are going to make him beg, and Aerion does not beg. He does not beg anyone, he does not beg you, but—but he will. And he hates that. He hates that he would bend, strip himself of every last shred of pride just to keep you here, that he would allow himself to become something smaller—not a dragon, not a prince of the blood, just… just a boy. Just a boy who will dig his nails in and won’t let go, ask you to stay, even if it costs him everything that makes him who he is. 

“Kostilus,” he breathes into your both, shuddering when you press your lips to the corner of his, to his jaw, kissing down his neck. You drag your tongue from the hollow of his throat to the underside of his chin, and he fights a whimper. His chest heaves as you hover above him, lips ghosting his, tongue darting out to swipe teasingly against his upper lip. “Hah—shit. Kostilus. Kostilus.”

Please. Please. Please.

You kiss him again, deeper this time. You still do not respond, and Aerion hates this even more. Is it because you know he will not like your response? Is it because you cannot bring yourself to say that you do choose him, when it means you are choosing him over a chance at going home, over a chance at seeing your brother again? Aerion does not know, but he knows one answer is far more likely than the other.

“Aerion,” you start to say, and he decides immediately that he does not like the tone of your voice. There’s something in it—careful, hesitant, guilty—and Aerion’s heart rate spikes, because it sounds like the beginning of an answer he does not want to hear. 

His hand comes up, fingers tangling in your hair, and he pulls you down into another kiss—harder, less hesitant, less asking. The words die on your tongue before you can get them out, and Aerion kisses you harder still, teeth biting into your bottom lip as his hands slide down to your thighs. He lets out a low grunt into your mouth as he shifts, lifting you with him off of the floor. Your legs instinctively wrap around his waist as he carries you a few steps over to your bed.

He drops you onto the mattress, following after immediately, hips slotted between your thighs, forearms braced on either side of your head, breath uneven as he searches your face for the answer he wants to hear.

But he does not find it. You press your lips together as you look up at him, and Aerion isn’t sure if he’s ever seen this look on your face before. His lashes flutter shut when you lift your hand to ghost the pads of your fingers against his cheekbone, tracing the lines of his face reverently. 

“Iksā sīr gevie,” you say softly, two fingers resting over his lips as he stares down at you, hair curtaining either side of his face. Aerion fights a shudder, throat bobbing at your words. “Kesan tepagon ñuha giez ābrar lēda ao lo kostan.”

You are so beautiful. I would spend the rest of my life with you if I could.

This is goodbye, Aerion realizes, breath wavering as he stares down at you helplessly. You’re going to choose them. You’re going to go home. You’re going to march against his family, and you’re going to leave him.

“Kostā,” he tells you, pretending his voice doesn’t break over the word.

You could.

You exhale through your nose, brows furrowing, expression twisting; you let out a sigh that tells him you are still uncertain, battling between two warring desires, and Aerion leans down to kiss you again, pouring everything he has into it. All of the mornings spent hunting you through the streets of Lys, all of the afternoons spent indulging in wine and each other’s arms, all of the evenings at the cove that is only yours and only his, all of the times you cradled his face and said iksan aōhan, iksā ñuhon. 

You kiss him back with the same intensity, legs wound around his waist, fingers tangled in his hair, back arching off the bed because even when your bodies are pressed together, it is never close enough. You whimper into his mouth when he rolls his hips, hands sliding from the back of his head to his cheeks, lips parting so that Aerion can swipe his tongue along the inside of your lip.

“Kostā,” he says again, dragging his lips from yours, to your cheek, your jaw, trailing open-mouthed kisses down your neck. “Kosti umbagon kesīr. Iā kosti jikagon naejot Vesteros. Kosti aerēbahon—naejot Qohor se Brāvos. Naejot Qarthi se Ashī. Skoriot mirre jaelā, kosti jikagon.”

You can. We can stay here. Or we can go back to Westeros. We can travel—to Qohor and Braavos. To Qarth and Asshai. Wherever you want, we can go. 

It is a nice dream, he thinks, eyes sliding shut as he slides off your tunic and kisses down your chest. It is a—he lets out a shaky breath, nails biting into your waist as he rests his forehead to your sternum, face buried between your breasts—it is a really nice dream. He feels your fingers thread through his hair, and he presses his lips to the swell of your breast, fingers trailing down your body to slide your pants over your hips, and then does the same to his own.

He can almost imagine it when he closes his eyes. With your hands in his hair and your breath rising and falling unevenly, the warmth of your skin and the way you breathe his name—he can almost pretend that the two of you are on a ship to another city, just you and him, together, because he is yours and you are his, and nothing matters more than that.

It is childish, he knows that in his heart. He has known it since the argument in Vyrano’s manse, when you shouted at him and told him that things aren’t so simple, that you are bound by politics and the weight of your station, your titles, and your blood. Aerion knows one day he will be called home, and as much as it’s nice to dream of a world where he burns his father’s letter in retaliation for months of exile and chooses you instead, it just—

It is not so simple.

It will never be so simple, and that is why Aerion cannot get rid of the pit in his stomach, because he knows it is not simple for him, and it is even less simple for you. You could very well choose to go home, and Aerion wouldn’t even be able to blame you—not really. He would be angry, he would be cruel and cold, and he would pretend that he didn’t care half as much as he truly did, but he would not be able to blame you for it, even if you did end up on the opposite side of the battlefield one day. Even if you did—

You cradle his cheeks and lift his face again, bringing your lips to his as he rolls his hips against yours, eyes sliding shut as you kiss him deeper this time, gasping into his mouth when you feel his cock slide between your folds, tip pressing heavy on your clit before he drags it to your hole. His lips part, jaw half-ajar as he slowly sinks inside of you.

“Avy jorrāelan,” you whisper into his open mouth instead of giving him a proper answer, dragging your fingers through his hair, nails scraping his scalp. “Sīr olvie.”

I love you. So much.

Aerion lets out a hitched noise into your mouth, a gasp, a moan, something in between, lashes fluttering as he buries his cock deep in your cunt. One hand drops to your waist to hold you in place when you try to roll your hips up, and he presses his face into the crook of your neck, savoring the feeling of being inside of you, of your thighs around his waist, your chest pressed to his. He mouths absently at your neck.

I love you, you say—you’re hardly the first to say it to him. Many whores crawl into his bed professing their love as they paw at his chest and kiss his neck, thinking it’ll coax him into giving them an extra coin. But it’s… different coming from you, because you mean it. You have seen the very worst of him—vicious and violent and half-mad—and you mean it still. He knows it in the way you say it, the way you look at him, the way you drew your blade against your own friend to protect him. He knows you mean it, and he doesn’t know if anyone has loved him—truly loved him, all of him, even the worst bits—since his mother died. 

And he is going to lose you, just like how he lost her, because you love him, but it is not enough to make you stay.

Fuck.

The next breath he lets out is shuddered, and his eyes burn, so he is glad he has his face pressed into the crook of your neck. His chest feels heavy all of a sudden, lust slipping away, and Aerion is frustrated—he’s so frustrated that he cannot even hold onto this. The feeling is there: your body wrapped around his, the heat, the closeness, the way you breathe his name and arch your back into him. His cock is buried in your cunt, warm and wet and tight, walls fluttering around him, but—

His hips still against yours, and for a moment, Aerion cannot move at all, pressed against you, breath uneven at your throat, grip at your waist tight, but not with desire. He does not want to lose this. You.

You card your fingers through his hair, a slow, soothing motion that makes him ache.

“We do not have to do this,” you say quietly, and he hates that you understand. You always understand. Nobody ever understands Aerion, but you always have; with little more than a glance or a look exchanged, you’ve always understood what he wants and needs. He does not want to lose this, he thinks again desperately. He does not want to lose you. “We can just lay together, if you want.”

Aerion’s jaw tightens at your words, frustrated with himself and the situation, because he let himself get too attached to you, because he loves you and now he is going to lose you, because he doesn’t want to just lay with you, he wants you, wants this, but he cannot pull himself out of his own head long enough to even fuck you properly.

“No,” Aerion says, voice strained. “No, I want this.” 

His grip tightens at your waist, almost bruising, trying to anchor himself to you. He forces his hips to move again, slow at first, then rougher, chasing something he cannot quite reach, and it feels wrong—disconnected, like his body is moving without him.

“Fuck,” he breathes, forehead still resting on your shoulder, so frustrated that his eyes burn with tears that he can feel on the verge of spilling over. Aerion has not cried in years, and today he has twice. It is mortifying. “I just—”

He does not even know what he’s trying to say. That he’s angry? That he’s scared? That he does not know how life will be after he loses you? That he wants you to tell him that you will still be here when he returns, even if it’s a lie? 

You lift his face from your shoulder and press your lips to his again, lips moving slowly against his, coaxing him out of his own head and back into the moment. 

“Tell me something,” you say against his lips, fingers carding absently through his hair.

“Like what?” he mutters, sighing as he presses his nose against your temple, basking in your warmth, trying to settle back into the now with you beneath him, your hands in his hair, voice soft in his ear, cock buried deep inside of you. 

“Anything,” you reply unhelpfully.

Aerion exhales through his nose, and then, he inhales deeply, drowning himself in the new lavender oil you bought at the market last week. 

After a few moments, he says without thinking, “Your whore said something earlier.”

You hum. “Caelyx says a lot,” you say, amused. Aerion almost rolls his eyes when he realizes you know which one he’s talking about without him having to say anything. “What did he say this time?”

Aerion’s face is hot as he registesr exactly what he just said, remembering what it was that threw him so off kilter earlier, unsure why he even brought it up. His mouth opens, then closes again, jaw tightening because he already regrets it. You give him a curious look and he scowls.

“Something stupid,” he mutters, trying to brush it off, but your fingers tug lightly at his hair, trying to coax the answer out of him.

“Tell me.”

“That you—” Aerion cuts himself off, eyes flicking to the side until you press your fingers to his cheek and force him to look at you again. Irritation and embarrassment war within him, begging him to shut the fuck up. “That you like to take control. In ways most men are too proud to learn.”

You are silent for a long moment, and then you laugh—it is bright and pretty, and Aerion pulls back slightly to look at the way your eyes shine, and your smile splits your face. Your fingers drag through his hair as you look up at him, an adoring expression on your face that leaves him breathless.

“Gaoman raqagon bona, zaldrīzes dārilaros,” you purr, leaning up to nip his lips. “Issi jaelā naejot sylugon mēre tubis? Ivestragī nyke gūrogon toliot? Mazverdagon ao dijāves sȳz.”

I do enjoy that, dragon prince. Are you wanting to try one day? Let me take over? Make you feel good?

Aerion’s face flushes hot, and he instinctively moves to press his face into your neck again, but you do not let him, forcing him to hold your gaze. There are a dozen things he wants to say, sharp and cutting, to salvage what little pride he has left. But none of them can make it past the heat crawling up his throat.

“That is not—” he starts, then falters, scowling when your expression only grows more amused. 

“Not what?” you murmur, thumb dragging slowly along his lower lip before pressing in slightly. His lips instinctively part for you, letting you trace the inside of his mouth. “Did you imagine it, prince? Taking it? Letting me set the pace, letting me decide how deep, how slow, how hard?”

Aerion’s cock twitches inside of you, breath shuddering, letting out something between a scoff and a strained breath, grip tightening. He stares down at you with wide eyes, and you watch him raptly.

“I think you’d like it,” you continue, thumb sliding further in his mouth to press down on his tongue. He thinks to bite down just to make a point, but he finds himself too consumed by what you’re saying to even try. “Being held down, stretched open, made to take it inch by inch, fucked hard until you forget how to fight me at all—forget to think, forget to breathe.” 

Aerion chokes on nothing at the lewd words, face flaming red, pupils blown wide, breath quick and chest heaving. Something close to a whimper spills from his lips.

“You’d curse me for it at first,” you say, lips curved up, almost thoughtful, like you’re envisioning it yourself—him beneath you, back arching, jaw slack, eyes rolled back as you hold his hips. He is envisioning it too. “Try to push me off, tell me to stop—” Your lips brush his jaw, lingering there. “—and then you wouldn’t want me to, start to realize how nice it feels.”

His nails dig crescents into your skin, so deep that he’s sure he’s drawing blood. His hips twitch, but you stop him this time, legs tightening around his narrow waist to hold him still. He fights a complaint, teeth grinding together as he tries to hold himself together with the sliver of pride he has left.

“It is easy to make someone loud, you know? But I could make you feel so good you’d go quiet,” you tell him. “Turn this pretty head of yours to mush, until all you can do is lay there and take it.”

“You—”

Aerion does not even know what he wants to say, breathing ragged and heavy, cock aching in your cunt. He tries to move again instinctively, only able to grind his cock a little deeper inside of you, and it is not enough, not nearly enough. Your thumb slips from his mouth and Aerion’s head hangs forward, eyes half-lidded, a low groan escaping his lips when you roll your hips up.

“Jaelan so naejot qogralbar nyke se ñuhoso kesā jaelagon nyke naejot qogralbar ao,” you breathe, tilting the lower half of your face up to ghost your lips against his. “Sīr bona skori ao māzigon arlī, kostan gūrogon ao isse manta lēda.” 

I want you to fuck me the way you would want me to fuck you. So that when you return, I can take you apart properly.

When you return—hope flares in his chest with a vengeance, and Aerion is rutting his hips into you before you even finish the sentence, choking over a breath, one hand flying to your hair to crane your head back so he can press his lips to yours. He moans into your mouth, eyes rolling back at the feeling of your walls tight around him, drowning in the lewd sound of skin on skin, the sloppiness of his cock pounding your wet cunt. 

“Aerion—” you gasp, and he loves the sound of his name on your lips, loves it even more when you sound like this—whiny and needy, fucked out in a way you only ever get with him. Aerion will never get enough of you. He could have you forever, and it’ll never be enough. “Hah—shit—”

He grabs your thigh with his free hand and hooks your leg higher to reach deeper inside of you, bracing his knees on the mattress so that he can fuck you properly, relishing in the way you cry his name, back arching into his chest and—

—and for a second, he cannot stop himself from imagining that it’s him instead. That it’s your weight pressing on his body, your fingers pressing bruises into his thigh as you push it up to his chest, his back arched off the bed as you press deep into him, so deep that he cannot breathe, that all he can feel, all he can think is you. And—and it is wrong. Aerion is a prince, a dragon, he does not give up control to anyone like that, much less a woman, much less you, and he is angry. Angry at you for putting the image in his head, angrier at himself for wanting it.

Aerion’s hand slips down to your throat before he can think twice, pretending that it’s yours on his instead, fingers squeezing just enough to cut the air to his lungs, watching the way his face reddens as he gasps for air he cannot breathe in; he imagines the burn in his lungs as your lashes flutter and lips part, the way his head would go light and fuzzy, vision darkening at the edges.

Your hand flies to his wrist, nails digging deep into his skin, eyes rolling back with each thrust of his hips, lips wet and swollen as you try to suck in the air he deprives you. Your eyes are hazy as you stare up at him, hardly able to hold his gaze, his fingers cutting off the pretty moans of his name that he knows would be falling from your lips. 

He cannot get enough of it—he cannot get enough of you. He will not let you leave him, cannot let you leave him. But—but he cannot stop you. He cannot stop you, and you love him, but it is not enough, and Aerion should not be surprised, because when has he ever—

—Aerion does not want to think about that. He does not want to think about it at all, so he leans down to press his lips messily against yours, groaning into your mouth as your walls flutter around his cock. You barely kiss him back, too focused on trying to stay conscious; he can feel the soft, breathless whines against his lips, the ones he cannot hear from his own doing, and he chokes over a moan when he feels you writhe beneath him, jaw falling slack when one particularly rough thrust has you cumming on his cock, hips jerking and body spasming beneath him.

He squeezes his eyes shut, willing himself not to finish with you, even as his cock aches, head hot and heavy, each drag against your tight walls making his whole body shudder violently. He only lets go of your throat when your fingers start to slacken on his wrist, when he notices the way your head starts lolling back against the pillows.

“Fuck,” he groans, watching as you inhale the air greedily, imagining the rush to your lungs, the way pleasure has started to shift to overstimulation as you squirm against him, hips still slapping against your ass as he fucks you hard, chasing his own high now, abdomen tense, body hot and prickly, mind half-way gone already.

“Aerion,” you gasp, nails digging into his shoulders as you seek something to hold to, head tossed back, throat bared to him, and Aerion bites down hard, relishing in the familiar taste of iron in his mouth, the way you cry out, hips jerking as you cum a second time already.

He cums with you this time, hips stuttering when he feels your walls tighten around him again, moaning into your neck as he spills his seed deep inside of you.

He collapses against you, chest heaving as he tries to regain his breath. His eyes slide shut when he feels your fingers on his back, tracing his skin lightly as he comes down from his high. He presses his nose into your neck, ghosting his lips against your skin.

After a long moment, he lifts his face from where he’s buried it in your skin so that he can look at you. There is an expression on your face that makes Aerion’s chest tighten—too sad, too close to goodbye, like you’re memorizing something that will soon be ripped away from you.

“You could come with me,” he says, grateful that it does not come out as a plea, because it certainly feels like one. “Tomorrow morning, on the ship. Join the Second Sons with me until the Golden Company leaves Lys. Come with me to the Disputed Lands.”

Aerion knows your answer before you say it. He sees it in your eyes, and his jaw goes tight, helplessness and frustration, pride and anger eating away at him. But before he can spit out a string of vile insults, accuse you of being a liar and a traitor and a whore and whatever else spills from his lips in a desperate attempt to salvage his mangled pride, you lift your hand to his face, fingers brushing beneath his eye before you hold his cheek in the palm of your hand.

“I do not want to fight tonight, Aerion,” you tell him quietly when you see the expression on his face. 

Aerion does not care. You do not get to want anything; you do not get to ask him anything. Frustration bubbles and bubbles and bubbles, and he stares at you accusingly, angrily, because how dare you tell him this when, for all he knows, as soon as he leaves tomorrow, you’ll be on a ship with the Golden Company returning to Volantis. 

And yet, it does not spill over. He does not know whether he is the one who does not allow it, or whether he is just tired and cannot muster it. 

Aerion lets out a breath as he lowers his head to your chest, eyes sliding shut when he feels your fingers thread through his hair again, carding through the long locks gently. He sinks into your warmth, the feeling of your arms around him, legs entangled, so wrapped together that he can no longer tell where he ends and where you begin—as it should be, as it won’t be soon.

Will you be here when I return? he wants to ask desperately. Is this the last time we will be together like this?

He cannot bring himself to ask, because he’s not sure if he really wants to know the answer. 

———————

Aerion wakes to the early morning light spilling through your curtains. He lets out a soft puff of air, pressing his face into your chest before he cracks his eyes open. 

The sun only seems to be just breaching the horizon, and Aerion’s eyes slide shut again briefly when he realizes what that means. He feels your fingers still in his hair, absently twirling the ends, and his jaw tightens. 

“How long have you been awake?” he rasps, not wanting to move from where he’s laid up in your arms, but he knows it’s only a matter of time.

“I did not sleep,” you say quietly after a moment, and Aerion pauses, staring absently out to the balcony looking over the First Magister’s manse, watching the sun rise over the sea. 

For a few seconds, he does not respond. He just listens—to your breathing, to the faint sounds of the city beyond the manse, to the rhythm of your heart beneath his cheek. His fingers smooth over your forearm, sliding down your wrist to entwine his fingers with yours, the movement so instinctive that he doesn’t even realize what he’s doing until he feels your fingers tighten around his. 

“Why?” he asks finally after a minute, feeling your fingers pause in his hair before you resume the slow strokes. 

“You’re prettier with your mouth shut. I was appreciating the view without all of the snark.”

Aerion clicks his tongue harshly, but his lips curl up into a small smile despite himself. He mutters, “Miserable wench. I should have your tongue.”

He feels you huff out a laugh, and he shuts his eyes again, letting himself rest in your arms, exhaling softly when he feels your hand drift from his hair to trace idle patterns along his shoulder and back. He does not want to move. Does not want to ruin this moment. Does not want to leave when he doesn’t know if you will be here when he returns. He just wants to stay like this.

He thinks you want to, too, because your arms tighten around him, and you make a noise in the back of your throat. He feels you tilt your head down to ghost your lips against the top of his head, sighing into his hair. 

“We need to get to the harbor before the rest of the island wakes,” you finally say, voice quiet. 

Aerion wants to pretend that he doesn’t hear you, that the world outside this room does not exist and the Blackfyres aren’t a breath away, seeking his head—that it is only you and only him, as it should be, as it is meant to be—but his pride is already in tatters and he refuses to shred what little is left of it, so he pushes himself up, out of your arms. 

He hesitates at the edge of the bed, sitting there, staring into the horizon, until he feels your arms slip around his bare waist, nails scratching lightly at his abdomen, your lips on the sun-warmed skin of his shoulder, and he lets his eyes flutter shut again.

Will you still be here when I return?

“I do not have proper clothes to wear,” he says instead. “I will not wear silks to—”

“You can wear something of mine,” you interrupt, and Aerion regrets brushing you off the moment you pull your arms back and shift off the bed, wandering over to one of your chests, pulling out black leathers for him to put on. “We’re going to have to move through the alleys—I’m sure the Golden Company still has men patrolling the streets looking for you. Once you get on the ship, you’ll be fine. They won’t risk starting a conflict with another mercenary company.” 

Aerion knows all of this, and if it were any other day, he would make a snide comment about how you should put your tongue to better use than telling him something he already knows. But it is not any other day, and Aerion can only grind his teeth together as he pulls on the clothes you handed off to him.

The two of you dress in silence after that, quickly so as not to waste too much time, but slowly all the same, casting looks toward one another when the other is distracted, savoring in a sight that you will both soon be deprived of.

On opposite sides of the room, the two of you stare at each other after getting dressed. Your jaw is tight, and he’s barely keeping his breath steady. This is goodbye, he knows that, but he does not know for how long. 

A few months, maybe. 

Forever, maybe. 

His lips part to speak, but no words leave them. You exhale through your nose and reach to your bedside, grabbing the steel you’ve carried the past eight moons. You stare down at it for a minute, fingers tracing the red gems embedded in the hilt—it’s not the Valyrian steel that your friend gave to you earlier, but it’s still one of the finest blades Aerion has ever seen. 

Your grip tightens on it briefly before you make your way over to him.

“This was a gift,” you say quietly. “From the First Magister on my arrival. My father took my sword, my armor, my jewelry, and put it all back in the family vault. He allowed me only the necklace I took for myself from the ruins, and a short dagger to defend myself with. The magisters do not typically allow people who aren’t household guards or hired sellswords to carry steel, but the First Magister gave me this in hopes of making me feel more comfortable as I was not… adjusting well—” Aerion snorts, and you scowl at him, but then hold out the hilt of the blade to him. He gives you a questioning look. “We will not have time to stop by Magister Vyrano’s manse so you can grab the rest of your belongings. Take it with you. A sellsword without a sword makes for only—”

“Do not finish that sentence,” he mutters, chest tightening as he takes the blade from you. It’s light in his hands, balanced, the morning sun glittering against the rubies in its hilt. He admits, “It is a nice blade.”

You give a wry smile that does not reach your eyes. “Do not lose it, dragon prince, or I will take offense.”

Aerion would never lose something of yours, he thinks to himself, but does not say out loud because he cannot bear to admit more than he already has. He thinks you know, though, because your smile fades at the edges, expression slipping the longer you watch him.

“In my chambers in Vyrano’s manse,” Aerion says after a moment, chest tight, exhaling as he looks away, “there is a chest. A black one. It is important to me, will you—”

Aerion cuts himself off, lookin away, unsure what he’s really asking. But you nod, because you know—you always know.

“I’ll make sure nothing happens to it while you’re gone,” you say softly. 

You turn your back on him without another word, making your way to the door, and Aerion’s lips part to call after you, panic spiking hard and fast, clawing up his throat. Once you leave this room, everything will end, and Aerion does not want this to end—not now, not ever. Your hand wraps around the handle of the door, and your name is on his lips, but—

—but he closes his mouth, eyes sliding shut as he follows after you instead, unable to rid himself of the heaviness weighing on his chest.

———————

It takes less than an hour to get to the harbor. There was only one brief scare at the market where one of the Blackfyres—Haegon, the one you flirted with—was lingering, talking to a Tyroshi merchant. Aerion had half a mind to put a blade through his throat before making his way to the Second Sons’ ship, but you stopped him before he could, much to his irritation. 

He stands at the edge of the harbor now, the smell of sea thick in the air, watching as the sellswords move about the deck, preparing to set off to the Disputed Lands. The ship looms ahead of him, its shadow dwarfing the pier, and the lump in Aerion’s throat feels terribly uncomfortable.

His thumb tightens reflexively around the hilt of the blade you gave him, thumb brushing over the embedded rubies. Behind him, the city is just beginning to stir, voices carrying faintly from the square as merchants open their stalls, and the harbor children chasing one another down the docks. Life goes on, as it always does whenever Aerion feels as though his life is falling apart.

He lets out a breath, then turns to you.

For a long moment, neither of you says anything.

Up close like this, with the morning light catching in your hair, you almost don’t look real. Like something he imagined into being during those long, empty months of exile. He almost wouldn’t be surprised—Aerion is the last person who deserves to have met his other half, like in the stories and poems that Daella used to have their mother read to them, and madness always has run in Targaryen blood. 

But you are real, you are here, and perhaps it does make sense that he has met you, only to lose you. That is a just punishment, he thinks, for who he is and what he has done. His gaze drifts over your face, lingering, memorizing—the curve of your mouth, the glint of your eyes under the morning sun, the way your lips part as you let out a soft sigh.

He swallows thickly, trying to find something to say, but before he can, you say, “Māzigon arlī naejot nyke, zaldrīzes dārilaros. Konir sagon iā udrāzma.”

Return to me, dragon prince. That is an order.

But will you even be here when I return? he wants to ask, the words lodged in his throat, because he is terrified of leaving you here with your friend and the Blackfyres, where they can whisper in your ear and convince you to go along with their plan to bring you home and he will be out of sight and out of reach, too far away to convince you not to forget about him. He is terrified of returning to find you long gone. 

“Gaomā daor udrāzma nyke, quba ābra,” he says instead, grateful that his voice comes out steadier than he feels.

You do not order me, wretched woman.

Your smile lightens at his words—the curve of your lips softer, and the look in your eyes gentler than he has ever seen it, a flash of longing crossing your expression before you hide it with another quiet sigh. 

A yell from the deck of the ship signals that it is almost time for it to disembark.

“Kesi rhaenagon arlī, mēre ñuhoso iā tȳne—bona iksan gīmigon hen,” you say easily, turning on your heel to leave without so much as another lingering look in his direction. Aerion almost calls after you, but he stops himself, watching you leave with his heart in his throat. “Ēva hembar jēda, dārilaros”

We will meet again, one way or another—that, I am sure of. ‘Til next time, prince.

———————

There IS a universe where our girl chooses to go home & takes the Blackfyres up on their offer instead of staying in Lys… That is not this au, but the idea of that au is saurrrr juicy to me. Like it would definitely be a much darker au because it would be centered on them being opposite sides of a war, which the Targaryes would ultimately lose—so his father/uncles would be killed, potentially his brothers/sister too unless they escaped or someone intervened (hint hint), and Aerion would be in the middle of tug of war because the Blackfyres want him dead because he’s a potential heir to the throne, and reader wants him and is refusing to let up on it. All this to say, it would be much darker and much more toxic LOLLL, Aerion would hate her profusely and also hates that a part of him can’t bring himself to hate her as much as he should, even after everything she did. Definitely tries to kill her several times but either can’t bring himself to do it or is half-assed so she’s able to stop him.

[valarrsgirl]

[ladyblackfish]

Coins are used in the Seven Kingdoms, chiefly Gold Dragons, Silver Stags and Copper Stars. Gold Dragons are used mostly used by rich merchants and noble lords and ladies, while smallfolk tend to exchange copper and silver coins. The current currency was established shortly after the unification of the Seven Kingdoms following the War of Conquest and was used through the whole Targaryen rule and continued after Robert’s Rebellion