I won't let you die - part 3
pairing 𓂃 prince!Baelor Targaryen x targaryenfem!reader (main) and aerion Targaryen x targaryenfem!reader (forced)
series masterlist 𓂃 here <3
part 𓂃 3/?
part 4 here <3
The wedding night arrives. Aerion claims what the sept has given him with savage entitlement, turning consummation into punishment. You endure the violence in silence, clinging to Baelor’s name like the last thread of yourself. Outside the door Baelor hears enough to shatter every vow of restraint he ever made.
genre and tags 𓂃 Dark Angst, Slow Burn, Forbidden Love, Extreme Jealousy, Possessive Violence, Non-Con Elements (Aerion), Marital Rxpe, Physical & Emotional Abuse, Protective Rage, Helpless Longing, Secret Pining, Family Fracture, Powerlessness, Psychological Horror, Restrained Breakdown, Sacrificial Endurance, Near-Kinslaying, Heavy Emotional Trauma
Trigger Warnings 𓂃 Graphic non-consensual sex / marital rxpe, physical violence (slapping, biting, choking, bruising), blood / injury description, forced submission, degradation, possessive cruelty, emotional manipulation, intense jealousy & rage, crying / sobbing, power imbalance, references to foreseen death, heavy psychological distress, dissociation during assault
Word count 𓂃 ~ 5.2 k
series taglist . ִֶָ☾. : @vigilante24ish ; @eden031 ; @faelightsworld ; @ladyhesperus ; @ghostlybfgf ; @beebeechaos ; @asigmasideblog ; @white-olive @lightdragonrayne ; @saltycomicsparentingfish ; @chick-from-nz ; @mariaaysbusjs ;
author note : This section contains explicit depictions of non-consensual violence, physical assault, and sexual assault. It is intentionally heavy and difficult to read — I know that, and I’m sorry if it hits hard. The story is going into very dark territory here for this part to show the reality of Aerion’s cruelty and the stakes everyone is facing. Please take care of yourself: skip if you need to, or come back when you’re ready. Things will get better after this. The narrative arc does not stay in this place forever — there is light, justice, and healing still to come.
Thank you for reading, and thank you even more if you’re still here despite the warning. Your support means a lot. ♡
Maekar found Baelor before the prince could reach the training yard.
The heir was already half-armored—breastplate buckled, sword belt cinched, cloak thrown back over one shoulder as though he meant to stride straight into the lists and call Aerion out before the morning drills even began. Maekar stepped into his path at the arched entrance to the yard, broad-shouldered and unyielding, still in the plain mail shirt he’d worn in the armory.
“Brother,” Maekar said, voice low enough that the squires nearby would not overhear. “A word. Now.”
Baelor’s jaw tightened. “If you mean to talk me out of it—”
“I mean to talk sense into you.” Maekar jerked his head toward a shadowed alcove just inside the yard’s wall, out of sight from the main sand. “Five minutes. Then you can play the fool if you still wish.”
Baelor hesitated—only a heartbeat—then followed. The alcove smelled of old stone and damp moss; the morning light barely reached it. Maekar leaned one shoulder against the wall, arms crossed, studying his elder brother like a man sizing up an opponent he did not wish to fight.
“You look like death warmed over,” Maekar said bluntly. “Sleepless nights? Wine? Or just the sight of my son’s ring on her finger?”
Baelor’s hand flexed at his side. “All three. And every day it tightens like a noose.”
Maekar nodded once, unsurprised. “She came to me at dawn. Begged me to stop you. Said she had already watched you die once in a dream and would not watch it happen in truth.”
Baelor’s eyes flashed. “Then you know why I must—”
“No.” Maekar cut him off, sharp. “I know why you think you must. But you are wrong.”
He pushed off the wall, stepping closer until they were nearly chest to chest. His voice dropped, rough with the weight of years and battles shared.
“Aerion is my son, Baelor. My blood. My failure, perhaps, in not curbing that wildfire sooner. But he is not a monster. He is a boy playing at being a dragon, obsessed because she is bright and untouchable and everything he cannot bend to his will. That kind of fire burns hot…and it burns out.”
Baelor laughed, bitter and short. “You think his obsession will simply pass? That he will tire of her the way he tires of tourney prizes and Essosi whores?”
Maekar’s mouth quirked, not quite a smile. “Exactly that. He will get bored of her soon enough. Once the sept is done, once she is his in name and bed and the chase is over, the novelty fades. Aerion has never kept anything that did not fight back or burn brighter than he does. She will become another jewel in his hoard—polished, admired for a season, then left to gather dust while he seeks the next flame.”
Baelor stared at him. “You speak of your own son like a sickness that will run its course.”
“Because that is what it is.” Maekar’s voice hardened. “I have watched him since he was old enough to throw tantrums. The mummers, the sellswords, the strange rites he whispers to himself in the dark—he devours, he discards. Marriage will not chain him to devotion; it will chain her to boredom. And when he grows restless again, when he looks elsewhere for his next amusement, the betrothal will fray from his side.”
He reached out, gripped Baelor’s vambrace—not hard, but firm.
“You challenge him now, you force my hand. I will not stand by and watch my brother and my son spill each other’s blood in the sand for a woman who has already bought your life once with her own freedom. If you die, the realm loses its best hope. If he dies, I lose my son—and the stain of kinslaying follows us all. Give it time. Let me watch him. Let me wait for the slip I know is coming. When it does, I will be there to break the hold without breaking the family.”
Baelor searched his brother’s face. The same violet eyes, the same stubborn jaw, but beneath the iron there was something raw: a father’s fear, a brother’s love, the bone-deep weariness of a man who had already buried too many kin.
“How long?” Baelor asked at last, voice rough.
“Until he overreaches—because he always does. I swear it on our mother’s memory: I will not let this stand forever. But we have to wait.”
Silence hung between them, thick as smoke.
Finally Baelor exhaled, long and shuddering. The tension in his shoulders eased—just a fraction.
“For you,” he said quietly. “And for her. But if he hurts her—if he so much as bruises her pride—I will not wait for your slip. I will end it myself.”
Maekar nodded once. “Fair enough.”
He clapped Baelor’s shoulder—once, hard, the old battlefield gesture.
“Go back to your chambers. Strip the armor. Sleep if the gods grant it. I will speak to the girl—tell her we have a reprieve. And I will keep my eyes on my son.”
Baelor lingered a moment longer, then turned and walked away—still armored, still angry, but no longer charging toward death.
Maekar watched him go until the morning light swallowed him.
Then he turned back toward the armory, mouth set in a grim line.
He had bought time.
Now he had to make certain his wildfire of a son did not burn them all before it guttered out.
Unbeknownst to Maekar—or to Baelor, who clung to his brother’s promise like a drowning man to driftwood—Aerion’s fire did not gutter. It fed.
The days stretched into weeks, then moons. The court watched the betrothed pair with the usual mixture of prurience and piety: Aerion ever the gallant predator, circling with lazy smiles and possessive touches that stopped just short of scandal; you the picture of maidenly reserve, eyes downcast, voice soft, every refusal cloaked in devotion to the Seven. The banns were cried. The sept was prepared. Invitations went out to every lord who mattered. And still Maekar waited for the slip that never came.
Aerion did not tire.
If anything, the wait sharpened him.
He began to appear at odd hours—outside your solar after vespers, in the shadowed galleries during your walks with the other ladies, once even at the edge of the godswood while you knelt before the heart tree. Each time he said the same thing, voice low and amused:
“Soon, my flame. Soon you will have no more excuses.”
You endured. You smiled. You prayed.
The wedding came on a day of pale autumn sun and whipping wind off Blackwater Bay. The Great Sept of Baelor was packed—smallfolk crushed outside the doors, lords and ladies glittering within, the High Septon’s voice rolling like thunder over the vows. Aerion stood beside you in black-and-crimson velvet slashed with gold, the three-headed dragon embroidered in thread-of-flame across his chest. His hand was steady when he took yours; his violet eyes never left your face.
You spoke your vows in a voice that did not shake.
When the septon asked if any man knew impediment, silence answered—though you felt Baelor’s gaze like a blade between your shoulder blades from the front row of benches. Maekar stood beside him, face carved from granite, still waiting for the overreach that had not yet arrived.
Aerion fastened his cloak to your shoulders himself—black velvet lined with crimson silk, heavy with dragons—and bent to murmur against your ear as the crowd roared approval:
“Mine now. In the eyes of gods and men.”
Aerion was never content with private victories. He needed witnesses. He needed the sting of eyes on him—especially Baelor’s.
At the high table the feast unfolded in a haze of torchlight, golden plates, and the constant roar of laughter and song. The royal family sat together as tradition demanded: the king at the center, Baelor to his right, Maekar a few seats farther down on the same side, then you and Aerion on the king’s left. Not directly beside one another—you and Aerion were placed with a single empty chair between you and Baelor, a cruel courtesy that put him close enough to hear every word, to see every touch, yet separated by the invisible wall of protocol and polished oak.
Baelor’s storm-gray eyes never left the two of you. Not once.
Aerion knew.
He leaned in at the first course—roast boar glazed with honey and cloves—and pressed his lips to the shell of your ear, loud enough for Baelor and the nearest courtiers to catch the intimacy.
“Gods, you taste better than the wine,” he murmured, just shy of a whisper. His tongue flicked briefly against your earlobe before he pulled back with a lazy grin. Several ladies nearby tittered behind fans; a lord across the table raised his cup in crude salute.
You kept your smile fixed, small and serene, the way you had practiced for weeks.
He did not stop.
When the minstrels struck up a lively reel, Aerion caught your wrist mid-reach for your goblet and tugged your hand to his mouth. He kissed your knuckles—slow, theatrical—then turned your palm upward and pressed an open-mouthed kiss to the center, teeth grazing the skin just hard enough to make you flinch.
“Look at her,” he said to the table at large, voice carrying effortlessly over the music. “My wife. The realm’s most beautiful prize, and she wears my colors now.”
He lifted your hand higher, displaying it as though it were a tourney trophy. Heads turned along the high table. Smiles froze. Baelor’s fork paused halfway to his mouth; his knuckles whitened around the handle.
Aerion’s gaze slid deliberately sideways until it locked with his uncle’s—only a few places away, close enough that the mockery landed like a thrown lance.
He smiled—slow, sharp, victorious—and slid his arm around your waist, fingers splaying possessively over the curve of your hip. He pulled you flush against his side so that your thigh pressed to his beneath the tablecloth. Then, in full view of the royal family, the Small Council, and half the hall beyond, he turned your face toward him with two fingers beneath your chin and kissed you.
Not a chaste bridal peck.
A claiming.
His mouth slanted over yours, tongue sweeping in without preamble, deep and deliberate. One hand cupped the back of your neck to hold you still while the other tightened on your waist. The kiss went on long enough that conversation stuttered around the high table. Maekar’s jaw clenched visibly; the king shifted in his seat, clearing his throat once.
When Aerion finally drew back, your lips were swollen, your breath uneven. He licked his own lower lip, savoring, then turned his head just enough to meet Baelor’s gaze again.
“She kisses like sin, doesn’t she, uncle?” he called down the table, voice light and mocking, pitched perfectly to carry to every ear within ten feet. “I wonder if you ever imagined it. I certainly did."
A ripple of uneasy laughter spread through the nearer benches. Maekar’s hand closed into a fist on the tablecloth; his violet eyes flicked between his brother and his son, calculating, furious.
Baelor did not laugh.
His right hand—the one not holding the goblet—closed around the hilt of his eating knife. The blade sank into the slab of venison on his plate with a wet, forceful thunk that made the silverware rattle and a few nearby goblets jump. He twisted it once, hard, as though the meat had personally offended him. The goblet in his left hand creaked; you saw the ornate stem bend slightly under the pressure of his grip, gold filigree buckling, a thin crack spidering up from the base.
Aerion noticed.
Of course he did.
He laughed again—low, delighted—and leaned in to whisper against your temple, loud enough for Baelor to read his lips if not hear every word.
“Tonight I’ll have you on your knees,” he breathed. “I’ll make you beg for it the way you begged me to spare him. And when you come apart, my name on your tongue.”
Your stomach lurched. You forced your eyes to stay forward, away from Baelor.
But you felt it—the moment Baelor’s control snapped.
The goblet cracked. A bright, audible snap as the stem gave way completely; dark Arbor red spilled over his fingers like blood, pooling on the tablecloth in a slow, spreading stain. He set the broken cup down with deliberate care, the sound of shattered metal on wood unnaturally loud in the sudden hush that had fallen around his section of the table.
He rose.
Not quickly. Not in a rage that would give Aerion the satisfaction of a public brawl. Slowly. With the lethal grace of a man who had decided something irrevocable.
Every eye at the high table followed him—Maekar’s sharp, the king’s startled, Aerion’s amused.
Baelor did not look at Aerion. He looked at you—only you—for one burning heartbeat. In his gaze was everything he could not say: fury, grief, helpless love, a promise that this was not the end.
Then he turned and walked out of the hall.
No slammed doors. No shouted curses. Just the measured tread of boots on stone, the swirl of his cloak, and the sudden absence of him like a wound ripped through the feast.
Aerion watched him go with a slow, satisfied smile, then turned back to you, lifting your hand to his lips once more.
“Poor uncle,” he murmured, kissing the ruby ring itself. “He always did hate losing.”
You felt the pull in your chest like a rope drawn taut. Every instinct screamed to rise, to slip away through the side doors, to find Baelor in whatever shadowed corridor or private chamber he had retreated to. To press your forehead to his, to whisper that you were still his, that nothing Aerion could do tonight or any night would change that. The need clawed at you, sharp and desperate.
You shifted in your seat, gathering your skirts as though to stand.
Aerion’s hand clamped down on your thigh beneath the tablecloth—hard, unyielding, fingers digging into the soft flesh just above your knee. The pressure pinned you to the chair as surely as iron manacles. He did not look at you at first; he kept his gaze on the dancers now filling the floor, smile lazy and pleased, as though nothing of consequence had happened.
Then he leaned in, lips brushing the curve of your ear, voice a low, velvet rasp meant for you alone.
“Where do you think you’re going, wife?”
You froze.
His fingers flexed, bruising deeper, a silent warning. “You belong to me now,” he whispered, each syllable slow and deliberate. “In the sept. In this hall. In my bed tonight and every night after. You do not leave this table until I say so. You do not chase after him. You do not so much as look toward the doors he walked through.”
His thumb stroked once—almost gentle—over the spot he had just marked, a mocking caress. “If you try to rise again, I will carry you out of here myself. Over my shoulder. In front of every lord, every lady, every simpering courtier who watched you swear your vows to me this morning. And I will make sure they all see how eagerly my bride obeys.”
Your breath caught. Bile rose in your throat, but you swallowed it down. You forced your hands to unclench in your lap, forced your spine to straighten, forced the mask of serene composure back into place.
Aerion felt the surrender in the way your muscles went still beneath his grip. He hummed low in his throat—pleased, possessive—and loosened his hold just enough that it no longer hurt quite so sharply. His palm remained flat against your thigh, warm and heavy, a constant reminder.
“Good girl,” he murmured, kissing the shell of your ear again. “Stay. Smile. Let them see how happy we are.”
Across the hall the music swelled into another reel. Couples swirled past in bright silks. Somewhere far down the table Maekar’s gaze burned into the side of Aerion’s head, but he said nothing. The king laughed at some jest from a lord; the feast rolled on as though Baelor had never been there at all.
You sat. You smiled. You let Aerion’s hand stay where it was.
But inside, your heart followed Baelor out those doors—running barefoot through cold stone corridors, chasing the echo of his boots, whispering his name like a prayer.
The doors to Aerion’s chambers closed behind the last departing reveler with a heavy, final thud. The bedding songs faded into distant echoes down the corridors. The fire in the great hearth had burned low, casting long, flickering shadows across the room—shadows that danced over the massive bed like mocking witnesses.
He did not speak at first. He simply watched you stand beside the great bed in your shift, arms wrapped around yourself as though the thin linen could shield you from what was coming. The firelight painted bruises already forming on your wrists from where he had gripped too hard during the feast, dark purple blooms against pale skin.
Aerion stepped closer. His fingers caught the lace at your throat and tugged once—sharp, impatient. The shift slipped down your shoulders.
“You’re shaking,” he observed, almost tenderly. “After all this time, you’re still afraid?”
You did not answer. You could not. Your throat had closed around the word no.
You backed away a step, arms crossing over your chest, the shift clinging to you like a second skin. "Aerion... not tonight. Please. The feast was long. I'm weary. We can wait until—"
"Wait?" He laughed, a sharp, mocking sound that echoed off the stone walls. He closed the distance in two strides, fingers wrapping around your upper arm hard enough to make you wince. "You've made me wait long enough, my sweet flame. All those pious excuses, all that coy distance. Tonight, you learn what it means to be mine."
You twisted in his grip, trying to pull free. "I don't want this. Not like this. Let go—"
His free hand cracked across your face so hard your vision whited out for a heartbeat. The slap echoed sharper than any tourney horn. Your lip split; copper flooded your mouth. Before you could draw breath he backhanded you again—opposite cheek this time—harder. Your head rocked sideways; you tasted blood and salt.
"You don't get to say no anymore," he said. "You beg. You thank me. You scream my name until your throat bleeds. That’s all you do now.”
He shoved you backward. You hit the edge of the bed and went down in a tangle of limbs and torn lace. The mattress gave beneath your weight; the canopy overhead swayed like a funeral shroud. He climbed over you, silver hair falling forward to curtain his face, violet eyes bright with something feral and triumphant. His hand tore the front of your shift from neck to navel in a single violent rip. Cool air struck bare skin; you tried to cover yourself, curling inward.
He caught your wrists, slammed them above your head, and ground them into the furs until the bones ached.
“Fight me,” he whispered, breath hot against your ear. “Go on. It makes me harder.”
You did.
You kicked out, heel connecting with his thigh—not hard enough to hurt, but enough to make him hiss. "Stop fighting," he growled, knee forcing your legs apart. "It only makes it better for me." He leaned his full weight down, breath hot against your neck.
Then he bit down—right over your pulse—teeth sinking deep enough to puncture skin. You screamed; the sound tore out of you raw and involuntary. Blood welled; he licked it away in long, deliberate strokes, humming with pleasure.
“Delicious,” he said against the wound. “I’ll mark every inch of you before dawn."
He forced your thighs wider with brutal strength, nails gouging crescents into the soft inner flesh. You bucked again—desperate, sobbing—and he slapped your breast, hard, the crack of palm on skin ringing through the room. Then the other. Again. Again. Until both were bright red and throbbing.
"Aerion, please—no, I can't—"
He bit down on your shoulder then—hard, deliberate, drawing blood. You cried out, the pain sharp and blooming. "You can," he murmured against the wound, licking it clean with a slow swipe of his tongue. "And you will. Every night until you beg for it. Until you forget his name."
He caught your chin—hard enough that your teeth clicked together—and forced your gaze back to his.
He smiled then—slow, pleased—and kissed you, deeper this time, teeth catching your lower lip until you tasted copper. His hands roamed without gentleness: bruising your hips, pinching the soft skin of your inner thighs, dragging nails down your ribs hard enough to leave red welts. When you flinched he laughed softly against your mouth.
“You’ll learn to like it,” he murmured.
His fingers dug into your thighs, spreading them wider, nails raking red lines down the soft flesh. You bucked once more, a desperate sob escaping, but he only laughed again—that low, cruel sound that chilled you deeper than the stone floor ever could.
He entered you without warning, without care, driving in to the hilt in one savage thrust. The pain was blinding—tearing, burning, wrong. You cried out, body arching off the bed in instinctive rejection. He groaned, long and guttural, hips snapping forward again and again, each stroke punishing, claiming, violating.
You turned your head to the side, staring at the embroidered dragon on the hangings, willing yourself somewhere—anywhere—else. Baelor’s solar. The godswood. Anywhere but here, beneath a man whose touch felt like violation even though the sept had declared it lawful.
Aerion noticed.
Of course he did.
He grabbed your jaw again, forcing you to look at him.
“Eyes on me,” he snarled. “Not him. Never him again.”
When you did not obey quickly enough, his palm cracked across your cheek—open-handed, sharp, ringing. Your head snapped to the side; stars burst behind your eyelids. The sting bloomed into heat, then numbness.
“Look at me.”
You did. Tears slipped free despite your effort to hold them back. Tears streamed down your face as you met his eyes—wild, triumphant, devoid of anything but possession. He slapped you again—lighter this time, just enough to sting and remind—then wrapped his hand around your throat, squeezing until spots danced in your vision.
Say it," he rasped, pace never faltering. "Say you're mine."
You shook your head, lips pressed tight.
His grip tightened; black edged your sight. "Say it, or I'll make this last all night."
"Yours," you choked out, the word breaking on a sob.
He slowed then—not out of mercy, but to savor. Each thrust deliberate, punishing. When your breathing hitched he smiled wider.
“That’s better.”
He came with a shuddering groan, burying himself deep, teeth sinking into the curve of your shoulder hard enough to break skin. Warmth flooded you—his release, his claim, his victory. He stayed inside you long after, softening slowly. "Good girl," he whispered, stroking your hair with mock gentleness as though you were a favored pet.
He rolled off eventually, pulling you against him like a trophy, arm heavy across your waist. His snores came soon after, wine-heavy and deep.
You lay there, body aching—bruises throbbing on your arms, thighs, throat; the bite mark pulsing hot; your cheek swollen and tender. Blood trickled from your lip; you wiped it away with a trembling hand.
Slowly, carefully, you slipped from his grasp and stood on unsteady legs. The mirror showed a stranger: split lip, swollen cheeks, throat ringed with purple fingerprints, breasts mottled red and blue, thighs striped with nail-marks and handprints, bite marks weeping blood on both shoulders and the curve of one breast.
You moved to the basin, scrubbing silently, methodically, until your skin was raw. Then you returned to the bed's edge, far from him, curled into yourself.
Sleep did not come.
But in the dark, you whispered Baelor's name like a vow.
One day, this would end.
One day the wildfire would turn on its master.
One day, Aerion's cruelty would be his undoing.
The night deepened in the Red Keep, the feast's distant music long faded into the hush of sleeping corridors. Baelor moved through the shadows like a ghost in armor, boots muffled on stone, breath shallow and ragged. The wine from the high table had not dulled him—it had sharpened the edges of his fury until every heartbeat felt like a war drum. He told himself he was only checking the halls, only making sure the guards were posted, only ensuring the Keep was secure after such a public spectacle.
But his feet carried him inexorably toward Aerion's private wing.
He meant to stop at the outer door, to listen for a moment, to assure himself that the screams in his head were only echoes of imagination. Then he would turn back. He had promised Maekar time. He had promised himself restraint.
He reached the heavy oak doors—black-lacquered, dragon-carved, sealed with iron bands. A single torch guttered in its sconce, throwing long shadows. No guards; Aerion had dismissed them with a laugh hours earlier, claiming privacy for his wedding night.
Baelor stopped. Pressed his palm flat to the wood. Listened.
Silence at first. Then—a muffled cry. Sharp. Raw. A woman's voice, cut off as though choked.
His blood turned to ice.
He knew that voice.
Another sound followed: a low, pleased laugh, Aerion's, unmistakable even through the thick door. Then a thud—something heavy hitting flesh or mattress—and another stifled scream, this one bitten off into a sob.
Baelor's hand closed into a fist against the oak. Every muscle in his body coiled, screaming to kick the door down, to burst in, to tear Aerion off her with bare hands if he had to. His sword hilt dug into his palm; he had not even realized he had drawn it halfway from the scabbard.
The scream came again—higher, more desperate—and something inside him snapped.
He reared back, boot lifting to drive the door inward.
A hand clamped onto his shoulder from behind—iron-hard, unyielding—yanking him away with brutal force.
Baelor spun, sword coming up in a blur, only to find Maekar's face inches from his own: violet eyes blazing, jaw set like granite.
"Stop," Maekar hissed, low and lethal. He shoved Baelor back two paces, away from the door, pinning him against the opposite wall with a forearm across his chest. The pressure was not gentle; it was the hold of a man who had wrestled armored knights to the ground and would do it again if needed.
Baelor snarled, trying to shove past. "Let go. You heard her—"
"I heard," Maekar said through clenched teeth. "And I know what happens behind that door tonight. But you will not break it down."
Baelor strained against the hold, armor creaking. "He's hurting her. Right now. While we stand here—"
"And if you charge in like a bull in rut, what then?" Maekar's voice was a whip-crack whisper. "You kill my son in his marriage bed? On his wedding night? The king hears the commotion, the court wakes, the Small Council convenes at dawn to decide who swung first. Kinslaying—again. The realm fractures over it. You die on the block or in exile, and she is left widowed and shamed, Aerion's martyr-bride. Or worse: Aerion lives, claims self-defense, and the king—our father—chooses the son who gave him heirs over the brother who spilled blood for a woman's honor."
Baelor's breath came in harsh bursts. "She screamed."
Maekar's grip did not loosen. "I know. And it tears at me too. But this is not the night to end it. Not like this. Not when every eye in the Keep is still on the wedding. Give me the time I asked for. When the moment comes—and it will—I will be the one to chain him. Not you. Not with your blood on my hands."
Baelor stared at the door. Another muffled sound came from within—lower now, more broken—and his face twisted in agony.
Maekar leaned closer, voice dropping to something almost pleading. "I will not lose you, brother. Not to him. Not tonight. And I will not lose my son to your blade, even if he deserves the Stranger's kiss for what he's doing. Walk away. For her. For the realm. For me."
Baelor's sword arm trembled. Slowly—agonizingly—he lowered the blade. Maekar's arm eased off his chest, but the hand stayed on his shoulder, steadying, restraining.
Baelor exhaled, ragged. "If he kills her with this—"
"He won't," Maekar said flatly. "He's cruel, not suicidal. Dead women don't scream his name."
Baelor closed his eyes. "I can't leave her there."
"You can. And you will." Maekar turned him bodily, guiding him down the corridor. "Come. Back to your chambers. We'll speak at dawn. I'll have eyes on that door all night. If it goes too far—if he truly endangers her—I will act. But not you."
Baelor laughed—a broken, ugly sound. “For now,” he echoed. “Meanwhile I stand here like a fucking coward.”
Maekar studied him for a long moment. Something flickered in those hard violet eyes—regret, perhaps, or the first crack in his own iron certainty.
“You were never the emotional one,” he said quietly. “Daemon was the hothead. Aegon the reckless. You were the steady one. The one who weighed costs. The Hand. The heir. When did that change?”
Baelor closed his eyes. “The moment she looked at me for the first time and I realized the realm could burn and I would still choose her over it.”
Maekar exhaled through his nose, a sound that might have been a curse or a prayer. “Gods damn it all.”
He finally released Baelor, stepping back but staying close enough to block the passage to the doors.
Baelor did not move at once. He paced instead—three steps one way, three back—like a lion newly caged. His hands flexed and clenched; his breathing slowly steadied, though the storm in his eyes never quite settled.
“I’ll find her tomorrow,” he said at last, voice rough. “I need to see her. I need to know she is alright, that she’s still… still herself.”
Maekar nodded once. “You will. I’ll make sure of it. But you do it quietly. And you keep your sword sheathed until I say otherwise.”
Baelor stopped pacing. Met his brother’s gaze.
“If he leaves so much as one mark,” he said softly, “your promise ends. I will not wait for him to ‘overreach.’ I will end it.”
Maekar did not argue. He only sighed again—long, bone-deep, the sigh of a man who had suddenly realized he had not one wildfire dragon to contain, but two.
“Come,” he said, jerking his head toward the darker end of the passage. “Back to your chambers. Sleep if you can."
They walked in silence, Baelor's steps heavy, every one pulling him away from the woman behind that door. Behind them, the torch flickered, casting their shadows long and twisted against the stone.
Inside the chambers, the sounds continued—lower, more resigned.
Outside, Baelor walked away with Maekar's hand still on his shoulder, the taste of helpless rage bitter on his tongue.
part 4 here <3
