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She awakens with a sharp, startled inhale, her chest rising and falling in rapid, uneven beats. The world around her is a haze of gold and shadow—a soft cacophony of hushed voices, the rustle of fine fabric, and the mingled scents of burning spiced candles, delicate rose oil, ink, and crushed herbs, thick as memory itself. Above her, faces hover in the dim golden light: Mother, Father, Granddams, Grandsire—pillars of her world, their gazes heavy with worry. Their eyes, wide with concern, form a fractured halo around her.Slowly, her vision adjusts to the drawing room’s muted glow. Candlelight pools in brass sconces, their wavering flames licking at the dark, casting flickering, elongated silhouettes that stretch and coil like restless spirits. Shadows shift across the violet tapestries, deep and regal in hue, their heavy fabric absorbing the dim light. Embroidered upon them, in delicate threads of gold and silver, her family’s sigil stands bold—a flaming golden sun, its rays entwined with ancient runes that shimmer like ever-present estrelas.This is the emblem of House de Auroré, a name steeped in history, its roots tangled in both reverence and quiet fear. A house of quiet power, of whispered omens, of kings and queens who had once ruled with wisdom, or perhaps something more. They had been sovereigns in a land far from here, their thrones carved from sunstone and sunlight, their banners once unfurled beneath a great sky foreign to Westerosi stars.A bloodline both proud and old, bound to the ever-turning sun—its warmth, its omens, its silent watch over all things. Theirs is a legacy of light and shadow, where truth flickers like dawn through mist, half-seen, never fully grasped.Outsiders still, in a land that was not theirs by birth, but accepted all the same. Westeros had taken them in, many centuries ago, the land and the Children made sure. Folded them into its histories, whispered their names alongside its own legends. Yet there was always a distance, a quiet distinction—acknowledged, respected, but never quite belonging.
A subtle movement at the edge of her sight draws Élynne’s attention—a

séravère

in muted, sea-green robes, the weight of parchment and years woven into every stitch. His hair is thin, wisps of silver like stray ink strokes, and his eyes, cloudy yet keen, flit from her face to the vial of smelling salts in his gnarled hand. He shuffles forward, each step a soft rustle, like pages turning in an old tome. There is a gentleness to him—an insistence rooted in a lifetime of tending to aches and fears.  Yet today, it chafes against her frayed nerves. At that moment, her first thought is one of irritation. She loathes fuss.

For a child of nine, Lady Élynne de Auroré is known for her solemnity and taciturn moods—a girl carved from cold marble and early wisdom, as unyielding as the mist that clings to Emberline Hall’s valleys. With a dismissive swat of her hand, she sends the

séravère

’s presence scattering like startled butterflies—golden and lavender, her hazy mind supplies, forever entwined in a dance as fleeting as the moment itself.
Before she can rise, her parents gently but firmly press her down. Her lord father’s hands—strong, steady, calloused from years of quiet authority—settle her shoulders against the plush Dornish rug. His ember-dark gaze, keen and searching, unfolds over her like a watchful flame. Her mother’s small, cool fingers brush lightly against her forehead, a touch as delicate as a falling petal, yet unyielding in its tenderness. The sharp scent of salts invades her nostrils, a burning tang that makes her flinch; yet, obediently, she inhales as directed. There is no escaping her family’s careful concern, woven around her as intricately as the silken tapestries lining the chamber walls.A bitter tonic is pressed to her lips—it stings the back of her throat, sharp as the sting of ink drying on parchment. She grimaces at its taste before washing it down with a sip of honeyed tea, the sweetness a fleeting balm. Her father lifts her into a seated position with effortless strength, his composed expression a mask stretched over quiet watchfulness. Her mother and maternal granddam fuss softly, their worry manifesting in gentle touches and half-whispered reassurances, smoothing out the tangles in her golden hair as if they could smooth out fate itself. Lord Raviel de Auroré, her paternal grandsire, remains silent but ever-present, his presence a shadow edged in iron and candlelight, unmoving yet watchful as they lead her toward her chambers.Tucked beneath the flowing, gossamer canopy of her childhood bed—cocooned in embroidered quilts and the familiar hush of lavender sachets tucked beneath her pillow—Élynne lets the weight of exhaustion pull her under.And then, the dreams come.︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶It is an assault.In the realm of dreams, she is no longer a child. Gone is the frailty of girlhood; in its place stands a woman, poised and stately—a queen in all but name, molded into the vision her lady mother dreamed for her. The great hall she stands in is vast and unfamiliar, its towering columns wreathed in shadow, flickering candlelight licking at the vaulted ceiling. The air is thick with the familiar scent of melted wax, damp stone, and the faint tang of fire. Not just fire—Dragonfire. It clings to the back of her throat, bitter and acrid, laced with an unspoken promise of ruin. She does not yet know how she knows, only that she does. And that knowledge is a weight on her tongue. And, before her, stands a man—her husband.Prince Aemond Targaryen.His silver hair cascades like moonlit silk down his back, each strand an echo of the old bloodline, of an ancestry steeped in fire and conquest. One of his eyes, a piercing lavender, gleams sharp as Valyrian steel while the other is concealed behind an eyepatch, hiding secrets of its own—a cold sapphire that shimmers with silent disdain. How he makes a stone convey such heavy, awful feelings, she does not know. His beauty is exquisite yet austere, his every gesture exuding a regal detachment, as though he exists in a world separate from hers—above hers, untouchable, unreachable. And in that moment, a cruel realization crashes over her like a tidal wave: he despises her.He does not love her. He never will.Her marriage is a corpse before it has even drawn breath. Aemond slices a blood pouch to fabricate proof of a first night. Each word he speaks is ice, each touch impersonal, practiced, empty—a husband performing the motions of duty, not devotion. A union forged not of love but of political necessity and the grim demands of an upcoming war. She is a pawn. Aemond is a sword. Together, they are nothing.How Élynne and her mother ever believed she would be happy is beyond her. There is no dignity in being unwanted.In the tender days of her childhood, she had watched her parents—a quiet devotion reflected in the gentle way her mother’s gaze softened when her father spoke and the subtle touch of his hand during council meetings. She had never feared a loveless union because love had seemed as inevitable as the changing of seasons, as the rising of the sun. Now, the bitter truth is laid bare before her.Love is not inevitable. It is not even promised.Whispers circulate among the court: ladies sneer behind painted fans, and servants avert their eyes when she passes. The prince’s coldness is an open secret, a spectacle of indifference that leaves her shivering with a mix of shame and anger. They pity her. "Poor Lady Élynne," they say when they think she can’t hear, their voices saccharine with feigned sorrow. "Married to a monster." But she had never thought of him as a monster. They had warned her, of course. That he was bitter. That he was cruel. That he nursed his grudges like an open wound. Even before their betrothal, they whispered of him in hushed tones—half-truths and speculations spun like silk. She had thought them unfair. Shallow in their perception. Aemond had lost an eye and gained a dragon before he was even a man. Of course, he had walls. Of course, he had sharp edges.She had believed—foolishly, blindly—that he would soften for her, that she would be the one to bridge the distance. They would find happiness, surely. At the very least, companionship. Aemond was a scholar, a man of intellect and precision. All things she appreciated herself. She had imagined conversations by firelight, lively debates, quiet evenings spent with books and whispered confidences. She had imagined, at the very least, something to build upon.She ignored how Aemond never spared her more than a polite, obligatory glance. He’s busy, she would assure herself. He’s simply shy around strangers. Never mind that the prince had known her since he was five and she was nine. She had lied to herself so well, she truly believed it.Then comes the war. His elder brother and half-sister wage bitter battles for the throne. Aemond is dispatched to the north, to the Riverlands. She remains behind, a ghost among silk-draped halls, a name on parchment, a wife in title alone. And every moment he is in the Redkeep is marked by indifference and scorn. Every look she rips out of him is detached, annoyed, resentful. Aemond tells Élynne she is hated in so many ways, the hurt builds upon itself, and there is no time to heal in between. Even the relationships she does build are wrong in his eye.Until he dies.His body, broken in the unforgiving cold, his lifeblood seeping into the God’s Eye like wine spilled at a feast. A brutal end at the hands of an uncle’s wrath. The realm will not mourn him, cautionary songs will be sung.And Élynne does not weep.It is horrible, and she averts her eyes from the seven-pointed star and, once more, pretends the Seven do not exist. She won’t take their scolding, not this time. Not from foreign gods who never spoke her name, never knew her prayers, never listened. Not from cold idols who let Him die.As for her Aemond, what is there to grieve, when she has already spent years mourning a husband who was never truly hers? Then comes a horror yet deeper: a revelation meant to undo her completely.A child. Blood of his blood—but not hers. Not of her flame.The bastard son of a prince who never ignored the opportunity to speak ill of his bastard nephews. A child borne of secrecy, hidden trysts, and whispered curses. Conceived with a woman whose eyes gleamed with dark greed, whose lips had pressed against his in shadows, where no vows bound him. Betrayal, even in death. That's Aemond’s legacy, his last slight towards her.The very thought sears her heart, sets fire to every tender hope she ever dared to keep. Hate blossoms within her, not the cold, distant kind Aemond once wielded—but the kind that burns, devours, consumes.Perhaps, in the end, it is not only Dragonfire that lingers on her tongue.It is her own.︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶With a scream trapped in her throat, Élynne jerks awake, her body rigid with the phantom weight of sorrow. Her fingers clutch the silken sheets as though they might anchor her to the present, keep her from slipping back into that nightmare future. The oppressive air of her chamber, heavy with the lingering aroma of burning candles and faint traces of lavender, wraps around her like unseen hands. The scent is meant to be soothing, yet tonight, it cloys—too thick, too suffocating.Her hands search her face, her rounded, childish cheeks, the soft slope of her button nose, the small but growing chest beneath her nightgown—she is still a child, nine namedays. A girl, not a woman bound in chains of duty. And yet, the weight of the future presses down upon her, a fate not yet written but already looming, cruel, and inevitable.Lying still beneath the embroidered canopy, her breath comes in rapid, uneven gasps, her heart beating a frantic rhythm against her ribs, as if trying to escape. The ache of what might be is as palpable as the embroidered patterns on her sheets, each stitch of sun, moon, constellation, star—a silent map of the heavens, a lineage that binds her to duty, to expectation. In that fragile, trembling silence, her mind churns with images of a future she desperately wishes to unmake, to tear apart with her own hands and scatter it into nothingness.A soft creak at the chamber door heralds the arrival of Granddam Isolde—a figure that brings her instant comfort, her presence a testament to past grandeur and lingering power. Once, she had been the most beautiful woman in the Vale, her name spoken in the same breath as queens and higher-born ladies, admired, envied, desired.The Lady of the Forest, they would call her, not merely for her beauty but for the otherworldly air she carried, as if she belonged more to the whispering woods and ancient hills than to the courts of men. She would disappear into the trees for hours, vanishing into the green, and return with secrets in her eyes, the scent of moss and earth clinging to her skin. She still does it now, and Élynne is finally old enough for her mother to allow her to come along. They talk to the trees, caress wild animals, tend to anything that needs extra care.Age has not stripped her of that elegance, nor of the quiet authority she carries like a blade hidden beneath silk. Her form is slight, tiny, as though she were carved from something finer than mortal flesh. Her ears, just a touch more pointed than most, peek through the silver-streaked waves of her golden hair, lending credence to the old whispers of Children of the Forest blood in their line. Blessed with delicate features and a dancing grace, she glides rather than walks, each step measured, quick, delicate.Her gold-green eyes, luminous even in the dim glow of candlelight, seem to pierce through Élynne’s soul, holding the wisdom of something older than one lifetime. There is an eerie sharpness to her gaze, a knowing that makes Élynne’s breath still for half a moment.The blood of the First Men runs thick in the veins of House Corbaston—that is the house granddam Isolde married into. But through House Darcy there is something else—something older, something wilder. Especially within granddam Isolde. And when she looks at Élynne, it is as if she sees more than what is before her.Élynne blinks, disoriented, the haze of her dream still thick around her. Emberline Hall. She is in Emberline Hall, not Corvinal Hold. But why? Memory returns in slow fragments, slipping into place like pieces of an unfinished tapestry. Grandsire Roderick is dead—his terrible presence reduced to nothingness in the stone walls. With no male heir to claim it, Emberline Hall and Corvinal Hold will be hers. It had mattered once. It will matter again.It had made a difference in that future, when her marriage to Aemond—her gilded, frozen prison—had demanded gold, soldiers, resources. So much of it poured into a war that swallowed lives like a starving beast, into a husband who met her gaze with cold detachment, into a fate that did not care whether she lived or died.But it is not winter yet. Her granddam still finds reasons to leave her home, to linger in the company of her daughter and granddaughter. She settles beside Élynne with quiet grace, the faint rustle of silk the only sound in the stillness. The scent of fresh earth and weirwood clings to her, as if the forest has lent her some part of itself, never quite letting her go. Dainty fingers, elegant despite the fine lines of age, gently tuck a stray curl behind Élynne’s ear.“You are trembling, Lynn,” Granddam murmurs, her voice the hush of a secret whispered in the dark.Élynne swallows hard. She wants to tell her, to spill the tangled horror of her dream, but the words rot on her tongue. “It was only a dream,” she lies, though her heart pounds with the truth.Isolde’s gaze gets hazy, gold shining against the green, like sunlight through dense leaves. It is the look of one who sees something beyond the candlelit chamber, something distant, unseen. Her breath is soft, soothing, as the candlelight casts long, wavering shadows that flicker like ghosts along the stone walls.“Some dreams,” she whispers, “are warnings, my dear.”Élynne’s pulse skips. The room suddenly feels smaller, the walls closer. And, ever so slowly, “Do you believe they can be changed?”A long, thoughtful silence stretches between them before a slow, enigmatic smile curves Isolde’s lips. It is not a kind smile, nor is it cruel. It is knowing. A secret carried in the blood, passed from mother to daughter like an inheritance older than their name.“Oh, my sweet girl,” she murmurs, her voice silk and steel intertwined, “I always saw so much of myself in you. We have strength built in, you and I. We carry it throughout your lives. We bend, we endure, we survive. It is written into our very bones.” Granddam Isolde makes another pause, her eyes get that faraway look of one lost in memories. Élynne watches the corners of her mouth tighten, the slight hollowing of her cheeks—signs of recollections that are not pleasant.Élynne thinks of Grandsire Roderick, how his recent death brought her granddam a newfound happiness, like a burden finally shed. It should be a strange thing, shouldn’t it? To watch grief pass a woman by like a shadow that dares not cling? But Élynne had only felt the same. It makes her think of the older Élynne of the visions, if her lack of tears for Aemond meant something similar.She did not cry for her grandsire either. Not for his cruelty, nor for the power he once wielded over granddam Isolde, over her mother and aunts. She had watched her mother sob, her grief an open wound, and thought: Horrible men do not deserve to be mourned.She thought herself stronger than her mother then, always too kind and forgiving to awful people who only knew how to take from her. Her mother, who still reached out with open hands, still wept for a man who had never deserved it. Élynne had looked at her granddam, stoic with her sun-kissed face dry of any unworthy tears, and saw something she resonated with.But where had this Élynne gone to in that horrible, horrible future? Then she remembers another thing of her granddam: she had loved Roderick Corbaston once, in the early days of marriage. When he wore a mask, clever enough to hide the rot in him, when he still whispered sweet words and promises of companionship and understanding to a girl much younger than him. Spun from silver, a lie so finely crafted even the clever Isolde Darcy—heralded for her beauty, for her sharp mind—had believed in it.Élynne cannot even blame Aemond for that, she thinks bitterly. She had built a lie all by herself, brick by brick, shaping it with tender hands and the foolish, desperate hope of a girl who wanted to believe in something gentle beneath all that coldness. She had seen shyness in indifference, mistook silence for restraint instead of disregard. Convinced herself that a man who held his tongue was simply careful with his words, that his distant gaze was the mark of a scholar, not a man who never truly saw her at all.She had wanted so badly to believe in something that was never truly there. And so she had filled the empty spaces herself, painted warmth where there was none, spun meaning from shadows, grasping at illusions with a faith so fierce it blinded her. Had she not secretly mocked those overtly devoted to the seven? Had she not seen her mother-in-law’s religious fervor as a waste of time?And it had cost her so much. Her dreams. Her peace. Her future. Her heart.Even when he had made it clear, on their wedding night, that he did not want her—when his voice had been cold and sharp, his touch absent, his gaze one of quiet repulsion—she had still clung to hope. She had knelt before him in the dim candlelight, whispered pleas against the silence, begged not in words but in the way she reached for him, in the way her eyes searched his face for some sliver of affection. She had hoped, foolishly, desperately, that if she proved herself—if she was soft enough, patient enough, good enough—he would turn his gaze toward her, would see her, want her, love her.But he had only despised her more for it. For what value did she have beyond what she brought with her name? Beyond the lands, the alliances, the legacy of her blood? She was nothing to him. And yet she had still begged.“But sometimes,” her granddam says, bringing them both to the present, her voice smooth as polished stone, “it is not simply given. Strength is not a gift placed in your hands, nor a thing bestowed by the mercy of others. You must embrace it, mold it in the shape of yourself like a special kind of armor.”She lifts Élynne’s chin with the barest touch, her fingers light but unyielding, compelling her to meet those luminous gold-green eyes. “And armor, my dear, is not merely for show. It is meant to protect, to shield, to turn blades away before they can draw blood. It is meant to endure.”Her granddam tilts her head, studying her, weighing her as if she can already see the shape Élynne will take, the kind of armor she will forge. “You must decide what yours will be made of. Will it be brittle, cracked at the first blow? Or will it be tempered, strong, unyielding? That choice is yours alone. And that, that molds fate.”The words seep into Élynne’s bones, igniting a spark of… what? It is not quite determination. It is sharper than that. Not hope, no—not that fragile, fluttering thing she once clung to. Spite? A slow, simmering ember of defiance burns in her chest.
Yes.
She has inherited the gold of her granddam’s eyes, the curl of her hair, and something deeper, something hotter—her dormant anger. It curls around her ribs like a sleeping beast, stretching, waking, remembering. Élynne refuses to be unloved, discarded, a shadow in her own life. She will not kneel again—not in pleading, not in sorrow, not in quiet, useless longing. She can’t possibly allow fate to condemn her to a life of sorrow with a man who sees her only as an obligation. If she is to be a burden, then she will be a heavy one. If she is to be a duty, then she will be one that chokes.Her granddam kisses her forehead, pats down her sweaty curls away from her flushed face, and leaves. All the way to the door, there is concern in her eyes, something unreadable behind the softness, but she does not ask what Élynne is thinking. Perhaps she already knows.Élynne can’t muster the effort to smile. She is too busy grasping onto the fire that has finally begun to burn.︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶The night is a quiet abyss, heavy with the weight of unseen things when Élynne is finally free from the visions. The hush of Emberline Hall is almost unnatural, as if the world itself holds its breath. Moonlight pours through the high windows, washing the room in silver, casting long, distorted shadows that stretch like grasping fingers across the stone walls. The lingering aroma of dried lavender and burning wax fills the air, a mix of comfort and something else—something old, something secret.Her bare feet sink into the thick, plush rug as she moves toward the window, each step silent. She walks as though in a dream, untethered from time, a ghost of herself.Outside, a mist shrouds the Northwest, swirling like restless spirits between ancient trees. The land is a vast sea of shadow and silver, the fog moving with an eerie sentience. Élynne presses her palm against the cool stone of the window frame, feeling the chill as a grounding tether, a silent promise that she still belongs to this moment.She is but nine namedays—a mere child, yet already burdened with memories of a life not yet lived. It coils around her, this knowledge, creeping into the marrow of her bones. She feels older than she did only a day ago. The weight of what she has seen settles in her chest like a stone, cold and immutable.In her mind, images of Aemond’s pale, distant face and the cold touch of his disdain flicker like dying embers. His eye, sharp as a dagger’s edge, holds no warmth, no kindness. But he is not yet a man forged in the fires of war; he is still a boy of five, untouched by the cruelty of destiny.And so, Élynne makes a solemn vow. If the gods of this land, the Valyrian ones, or her family’s Calivore—or whatever cruel force governs fate—have shown her this dark path, then she will unravel it, thread by thread. She will transform it, bend it, shape it with her own hands, like wool in a loom, like a spider, a tapestry of her own makingThe future, once set in stone by the cruel hands of duty and greed, will be rewritten. Even if it means clawing her way through the darkness, even if it demands sacrifice. Even if it means the spill of her own blood. There must be another path. A future where she is loved, desired, and, above all, free.There has to be.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The letter arrives a week later, delivered by a raven bearing the sigil of House Targaryen.Élynne feels its arrival before she sees it, before she even hears the steady echo of boot steps in the corridor. She knows what it says before her father even calls for her.She stands in the sun-dappled library of Emberline Hall, fingers skimming over the gilded spines of the books her ancestors collected. Their leather bindings, softened by time, hold the weight of centuries. The knowledge of old realms, of secrets lost to time, rests at her fingertips. The de Aurorés held onto culture and art as if their lives depended on it. Hoarded it, really, as if beauty and wisdom could keep the world at bay. But no book, no scroll, no dreamt prophecy can change what is to come—unless she makes it so.She smooths the fabric of her deep violet skirts, rolling the silk between her fingers, grounding herself in the sensation of something real, something within her grasp. Then, schooling her expression into one of mild curiosity, she makes her way to her father’s solar.Lord Aldéric de Auroré is seated behind a heavy, filigree-adorned oak desk, the letter spread out before him. The wax seal has been broken, its crimson edges curling inward like the petals of a dying rose. At his side, Lady Ysella watches her daughter with worried, gold-green eyes.She’s their only child. Their heir. Their future. And now the queen calls forth.“Élynne,” her father begins, his voice softer, measured, “a letter from Queen Alicent has arrived.”She steps forward, clasping her hands in front of her. “Has it?”He nods, scanning the parchment again. “She requests that you travel to court to serve as Lady Helaena’s lady-in-waiting.”The words settle over the room like the hush before a storm, like the slow descent of an executioner’s blade. Élynne lowers her lashes, pretending to consider.This is how it began. The end of everything. Her doom. She remembers it clearly from her dreams—from her past.She had gone to King’s Landing, a girl of golden hair and quiet steps, wearing the colors of her house like armor. Helaena and Élynne had taken to each other easily, drawn to their shared softness and their patience. A sisterhood formed in whispers, in stolen moments of peace amid the court’s endless clamor. She became a favorite. The one Hel always wanted near, the one who could listen to her rambles about insects and enjoy every second. And it was through this bond, through the long hours spent in the company of the Targaryen princess, that the path to Aemond had been paved.She had been the best choice for his wife because she was there, waiting, a piece already set upon the board before she even understood the game. Already trusted. Already familiar. It did not hurt that she carried the weight of old bloodlines and coffers filled with gold.This time, that will not happen.She lifts her gaze to her father. Her voice, when it comes, is steady. Controlled.“I do not wish to go.”Lord Aldéric’s brows lift in mild surprise. A flicker of something—concern, curiosity—passes through his sharp eyes. “This is a great honor, Lynn. It is not something we refuse lightly.”“I know, Father,” she says, lowering her voice, adding just the right amount of hesitation, just the right shade of stubbornness. “But I do not think I would like the court. I prefer Emberline Hall.”Her father exchanges a glance with Ysella, who tilts her head slightly. The candlelight catches in her mother’s eyes, a flicker of something unreadable. “The queen must have a reason for choosing you,” she muses. “Your bloodline is old, your reputation unmarred. And Princess Helaena is in need of companionship. You two are but a year apart.”She knows all this, of course. Knows, too, that the one to match her age is not Helaena, but Aegon.His name alone brings a pang to her chest, a sharp, twisting ache that lodges itself deep in her ribs. She pushes the thought away before it fully takes form, before it dissolves her to tears, before it rips her apart. But it lingers, curling at the edges of her mind like smoke, refusing to dissipate.She remembers laughter, slurred and reckless, echoing through the halls of Maegor's Holdfast. The weight of his arm slung lazily around her shoulders, the heat of his breath against her ear as he whispered some half-formed jest that made no sense, yet still made her laugh. She remembers the glint in his lavender eyes when he was being particularly insufferable, the way his grin curled into something softer when he thought no one was looking.She remembers, and she hates that she does.Hates that despite everything, despite all the ways he made himself unworthy, despite the wine-soaked nights and the careless laughter, the weight of expectations he could never quite bear, her heart still aches at the thought of him.Because she saw the way life chipped away at him, piece by jagged piece. Saw the cracks beneath the smirks, the ghosts in his eyes when he thought no one was looking. She saw how his father’s scorn curdled into recklessness, how his mother’s desperation and faith could not mend what the world had already shattered.Élynne saw the pain he swallowed down like the wine he drowned in, the boy who had been taught his worth only existed in a crown he did not want. And still, he was gone.So she forces herself to nod, forces herself to smile as though her mother’s words do not make her chest feel hollow. “Yes,” she says, voice even, carefully measured. “Helaena and I are close in age.”And nothing more. Nothing more, nothing more, nothing more. “I do not doubt that Princess Helaena is lovely,” Élynne replies smoothly. “But I do not think I would suit the court, mother. I am not…” She pauses, searching for the right word. “I am not lively. I am not entertaining. If Queen Alicent seeks a companion to delight her daughter, surely another girl would be a better choice.” She presses her quiet nature to her advantage, lowering her gaze, and there is no need to feign discomfort. “I do not wish to disappoint her.”She must not seem like a good choice. She must not become a fixture of the Red Keep. She must remain as shadowed as the corners of this hall, as unremarkable as a forgotten book upon a shelf. She must not let herself be seen . Élynne knows how this ends. She has felt the weight of cold, golden chains around her throat, the suffocating press of duty turned to shackles. She has known the hollow ache of waiting, of hoping, of realizing too late that some things will never be given freely. That love, once begged for and denied, curdles into something bitter, something sharp and resentful. She knows the pain of being bound to a man who does not want her.She remembers standing in a chamber of red and black, wrapped in silks that felt like bindings, the weight of his gaze pressing down on her. Remembers how she searched his face for softness, for something that might make this easier, only to find nothing. To be met with a wall, with silence, with the realization that her heart had been a fool’s thing, fragile and breakable in the hands of a man who never cared to hold it gently. To hold it at all.Her father exhales slowly, watching her. He is not a cruel man, nor is he unkind. But he is a lord, and lords must weigh duty against desire. And practicality dictates that they cannot easily refuse a queen.Still, a queen can be persuaded. And if not? Then perhaps a girl who knows the ending of the tale can find a way to rewrite it. She does not have to be the meek woman from the visions. She does not have to be a creature of soft sighs and quiet suffering. There is power in being unseen, in slipping between expectation and duty like water through trembling fingers. If she cannot stop what is coming, then she must learn how to wield it. How to twist fate in her favor before it swallows her whole.“Very well,” he says at last. “I will draft a reply. We shall make it clear that while we are honored, we do not wish to impose where we are not needed.”Relief unfurls in her chest, cool and quiet, but she does not let it show. She has learned how to school her features, how to keep her breath even, how to smother hope before it can grow into something dangerous. The first step is taken.She dips into a small curtsy. A measured, practiced thing, neither too deep nor too shallow. A gesture of obedience. Of gratitude. “Thank you, Father.”She turns, steady, careful, poised—but her mother’s voice stops her.“Élynne.”She pauses.Ysella studies her, gaze soft but searching, her brows drawing together ever so slightly. That knowing weight of a mother’s love presses between them, unseen but felt, like a tether pulling tight. It is this—this unspoken understanding—that keeps Élynne from faulting her, from faulting either of her parents.They all thought Aemond would treat her kindly. She remembers the way they had smiled, agreed with her, told her that a dragon’s fire was not meant to burn its own. That though he was quiet, he was steadfast. That he was not like his brother, and that was a blessing.She remembers the moment she realized they were wrong. What a grand revelation, with a single cruel word but no violent act—nothing so simple. No, it was slower than that. It was cold looks across a great hall, words that never strayed beyond necessity, the absence of something she had not known how to name at the time.She once more thinks of their wedding night. The way he had looked at her, past her. The silence that stretched between them like an ocean, swallowing her whole. And still, she had knelt, had pleaded in whispers, in soft hands reaching for something—anything.“You fear something.”The words bring her back. Like a thread yanked taut, snapping her out of memories too heavy for her small frame. A flicker of tension grips her spine, a brief, involuntary tightening, but she smooths her features with practiced ease. She has learned how to hide the things that hurt, how to press them deep where no one can reach. Her hands remain still at her sides, her shoulders loose, her breath steady.She offers the smallest of smiles, light as a sigh. “I am nine, Mother. Other than the dark, what else should I fear?” The lie sits easily on her tongue, well-worn and effortless. Because it is easier to pretend that monsters only lurk in shadowed corners and beneath beds. That fear is simple, childish—a thing to be outgrown like too-small shoes.But to Élynne, fear is the cold weight of expectation settling over her like a shroud. It is a cold voice that does not raise itself but cuts, a touch that never lingers, a husband who looks through her as if she is lesser than the crawling creatures Helaena adores. Her fear is becoming the Élynne of her visions.Ysella does not answer immediately. Then, softly—too softly, as if speaking louder might break something fragile between them—she says, “Nothing at all, my love.”But her eyes follow Élynne long after she leaves the room.︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶She makes herself a ghost.Where once she might have reveled in the quiet splendor of Emberline Hall—lingering in the sun-dappled library, tracing the spines of books thick with dust and wisdom, or losing herself in the hush of the mist-laden woods—she fades.She is careful— oh, so terribly careful. When guests arrive at Emberline Hall, she does not linger where she might be seen, does not allow her name to be spoken with any sort of interest. She is a shadow in the corridors, slipping through doorways before voices reach her, vanishing into forgotten alcoves before eyes can settle upon her.She is quiet. Unremarkable. Forgettable.And if her father receives no further summons from the queen, she knows it is working. But it is not enough. Because fate, she is beginning to learn, is not some gentle weaver at a loom, but a beast with talons—merciless and unyielding.And it does not like to be denied.A fortnight after her father’s first reply, another raven arrives. The bird is sleek and black, its intelligent eyes gleaming as it waits for the message to be taken. It knows, perhaps, that this letter carries something final. Inevitable. This time, the queen’s words are less of a request and more of an expectation. A demand. Like Élynne is already theirs—claimed, decided, inevitable—before they have even seen her face.“Lady Élynne de Auroré is to present herself at court within the month,” the letter says, penned in Queen Alicent’s loopy, deliberate handwriting.There is no room for refusal.She sits stiff-backed in the great hall of Emberline, her spine as straight as a sword’s edge, her hands folded so carefully in her lap that she barely feels the tremor in her fingers. The candlelight flickers, catching the gold stars adorning her sleeves, but she does not fidget, does not let her breathing falter.Her father reads the letter aloud, his voice measured, controlled. But she catches the way his fingers tighten at the edges of the parchment, how his jaw shifts ever so slightly as if grinding down a bitter taste. Her mother’s lips press into a thin line, her paternal granddam remains unreadable, and her grandsire—silent as ever—keeps his gaze fixed on the candlelight flickering over the polished wood.She does not look at them. She keeps her eyes fixed on the woven patterns of the rug beneath her feet, tracing the familiar loops and knots as if they might tether her here, to home, to safety.Granddam Isolde is not here, having gone back to her duties at Corvinal Hold, so they won’t get to hug goodbye before she leaves for Kings’ Landing. One more thing the Targaryens have already taken from her. One more thing they will not even realize they have stolen.Élynne does not argue. Maybe this means that some currents cannot be fought, only navigated. She has already made her attempt. Now, she must adapt.If she must go, she will control what she can. She will fold herself into silk and shadows, a girl with nothing to offer but polite smiles and careful silence. She will avoid Aemond. She will not be noticed.She will not repeat her mistakes.︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶The library is her refuge in these final days, a habit she does dot wish to break from, a place untouched by the demands of court and the tightening noose of duty. Here, the world is quiet, predictable. Here, she does not have to think of the future.The scent of aged parchment and polished oak lingers in the air, grounding her when everything else feels uncertain. The fire in the hearth crackles softly, steady and ordinary, unlike the chaos stirring outside these walls. Beyond the library doors, preparations for her departure continue—whispers of seamstresses hemming gowns, of servants packing trunks, of courtiers murmuring about duty and opportunity and fate. Oh, the irony. But here, within these walls, time slows. Here, she is only Élynne, not a daughter to be given away, not a pawn moved at another’s will.She moves between the towering shelves, running her fingertips over familiar, pristine spines—her mother runs their household with a tight fist, no maid is to slack and leave dust to settle on culture —, letting the texture of the bindings soothe her. A ritual, a comfort. The poets are where she left them, their verses steady and unchanging. The historians, too, their ink-bound wisdom unmoved by the tides of power. The maps tempt her with roads untraveled, places she will never know. Here, everything stays as it should.But today, something is different.Her hands falter on a book she does not recognize. It is tucked away on the highest shelf, almost deliberately out of sight, its presence subtle yet undeniable. The binding is cracked with age, its leather cover darkened by time. This one tome has dust so tick it discolors its dark blue cover, for how long have the maids missed it? How had she, for that matter. She has walked these shelves countless times, traced every title, memorized every misplaced volume, and yet this one has never caught her eye. That, in itself, unsettles her.She pulls it down carefully, ignores the grime as it clings to her skin, feeling the weight of it settle in her palms. Heavier than it looks. As if it carries more than just words.The pages whisper as she turns them, their edges uneven, brittle with age. And there, scrawled in an uneven but deliberate hand, are the words of an ancestor long forgotten.
"Fire is not merely flame. It watches. It knows. It guides."
Beneath the passage, a name is inked in the same soft, feminine strokes: Séverine de Auroré.Élynne frowns. The name is unfamiliar.A chill slides down her spine despite the warmth of the hearth behind her, but she shakes it off. This is nonsense. Poetic ramblings from some long-dead noble —a relative— with an overactive imagination.She reads on, eyebrows pulling together as she scans the curling ink. "It sees us. It chooses us. Those who listen will find that fire does not only burn—it speaks." She exhales sharply, pressing the pad of her thumb against the paper, feeling the texture of the ink as if that might make it less absurd. Fire does not watch. It does not choose. It is a force—dangerous, consuming, indifferent. To suggest otherwise is foolish.And yet.A memory stirs—one she does not want to acknowledge. Nights when the fire seemed to lean toward her, candle flames wavering too perfectly in response to her thoughts. A hearth that roared to life when she stepped near. The heat that never truly burned her, not the way it should have, not even when she wanted to.Élynne had dismissed it all. Coincidence. Imagination. Despair.She should put the book back. Instead, she lingers.Slowly, she closes it, pressing it against her chest. The heartbeat beneath her ribs is steady, but her thoughts are not. She does not believe in stories like this. She is not some wide-eyed child searching for meaning in candlelight. She is not some silly creature devoted to the Seven.And yet, when she leaves the library, the book remains in her grasp.︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶King’s Landing is suffocating. And it smells worse than she remembers.The air is thick with the rank press of too many bodies, the sour bite of unwashed flesh, the pungent rot of discarded waste. Smoke lingers in the streets, clinging to the skin like an unshakable film, and beneath it all, the ever-present tang of the sea—salt and brine curling into the city's filth. Above it, the Red Keep looms. A beast of stone and shadow, crouched over the city like a predator surveying its prey.She stands at the base of its steps, back straight, chin high, though her fingers tighten around the folds of her gown. The fabric is fine but simple—deep violet and gold, the colors and astronomy of her house woven into embroidery delicate enough to acknowledge wealth but not flaunt it. Her golden hair is pinned back in a modest braid, not a single strand left loose to invite scrutiny. She must not invite attention.Her parents flank her as they ascend, a steady presence on either side, though their own gazes flicker with unease. Soon, they will leave, their duty fulfilled. They will return to Emberline Hall, and she will remain. Alone. Or, rather, under Queen Alicent’s watchful gaze.The scent of myrrh and fresh rushes lingers, weaving through the air like a ward against the outside world. It is cleaner here, calmer, as though the weight of incense and order might smother the filth of the city beyond these walls. Or perhaps the filth of the Targaryens that trapped Alicent not quite differently from Élynne. Or maybe it is to ward off the thought of Viserys, his cloying rot, a coward king that had no qualms marrying a child-bride. In all her time around her mother-in-law, Élynne can see her thinking sin itself might be kept at bay by faith and well-scrubbed stone.Alicent Hightower stands at the far end of the room, draped in deep green silk, the bodice embroidered with gold filigree, the seven-pointed star of the Faith glinting at her throat. Her presence is deliberate, measured, meant to remind those in her orbit of both her piety and her power. Her auburn hair is twisted into an elegant coil, a style meant to convey both restraint and authority. Not a strand out of place, no softness left to spill over her shoulders. Queens cannot afford such indulgences. She is so, so beautiful. More than that, she is composed, unyielding in a way that is carved, not inherited. A beauty honed by circumstance, sharpened by survival.With eyes that remember, Élynne takes in everything of Alicen’ts that her children inherited. The roundness of Helaena’s eyes, the arch of Aemond’s brows, the high cut of Daeron’s cheekbones. But Aegon—Aegon is hers in full. The same full mouth, the same waves, the same wayward streak of strength etched into the bones of his being. Where Alicent latched onto her faith, Aegon sought wine. Only their coloring is Targaryen untouched.A pang strikes deep, as sharp as it is unwelcome.There is grace in every feature making her face, even in the faint shadows beneath her eyes. The kind of exhaustion that settles beneath the skin, that no amount of silk or gold can fully disguise. It is in the set of her shoulders, in the way her fingers rest against the arm of her chair, just shy of tense. Even these things she gave Aegon. Not just the sharp cut of his cheekbones, the honeyed touch of his eyes, but the heaviness in them, too. A mother’s legacy, passed down in ways that neither of them had ever chosen. His firstborn’s weight. His ruin and his ruthlessness and his attachment.Élynne wonders if that is why—if it is not only the crown, not only his messes, but this, too, that hardened her against him. If, in him, she does not only see a king who will not rise, but a reflection of all she once was. If she looks at Aegon and does not merely see her son, but a girl of fifteen, clutching the edge of her own fate, terrified and furious and utterly alone.Élynne and her parents kneel."Your Grace," her father intones, bowing his head low. Her mother follows suit, graceful as ever, and Élynne mirrors them, lowering herself with practiced precision.A beat of silence."You may rise," Alicent says at last.Élynne straightens, careful not to lift her gaze too quickly. A lifetime of lessons has taught her that deference is an art—a single misstep can make one seem either too meek or too bold. She measures the moment, unfolding herself with the careful poise of a girl well-trained in the game she was born to play. She is being studied. She can feel it in the pause, in the way the queen's dark eyes flicker over her, assessing, measuring. A predator’s stillness."You have grown," Alicent observes. A simple statement, but there is something in it—a note of curiosity, or perhaps expectation.Élynne does not flinch beneath the scrutiny. "It has been some years since I was last at court, Your Grace." The lie is seamless, as it must be. The Élynne of this time should remember nothing of Queen Alicent at all. The last time she was brought to court, she had been an infant, small enough to rest against her mother’s breast, too young to form words, let alone memories. Every monthly trip her father has made since was solely on business, and Ysella gladly stayed behind, keeping their only child safe in the cradle of home."Indeed." The queen’s lips curve—not quite a smile, more an echo of something that does not reach her eyes. Amusement, perhaps. Or something else entirely.Her mother speaks next, her voice warm but carefully deferential. "We are honored to answer Your Grace’s summons. House de Auroré remains ever loyal."Alicent inclines her head, accepting the words, but her attention does not stray far from Élynne. She is looking for something. A similarity, perhaps. A resemblance. A trace of familiarity she cannot quite name. Élynne keeps her expression serene, her posture perfect. She must be polite but not meek. Pleasant but not memorable. She must give the queen nothing to doubt, nothing to question, nothing to want.Alicent finally shifts her gaze, looking toward her father. "You will return to Emberline Hall before the week's end?""Yes, Your Grace," he answers.A pause. Brief, imperceptible to anyone else—but not to Élynne. She knows this woman. Knows the way her fingers tighten around the folds of her gown before she smooths them away, how the flicker of hesitation is buried beneath a mask of certainty. Alicent Hightower has ruled long enough to hide her thoughts, but not all ghosts can be so easily buried. "I imagine it will be an adjustment, being so far from home."Élynne forces a small, well-practiced smile. Measured. Perfect. "I am sure I will manage, Your Grace."A flicker of something in the queen’s expression—approval, perhaps. Or satisfaction. The way one might look at a cyvasse piece that has been placed exactly where it ought to be. Then, a final nod. "Good. You will find that the court is a place of many opportunities, Lady Élynne. If you are wise, you will make use of them."The words are pleasant, but they are not a mere kindness. They are a warning. A quiet, gilded blade tucked beneath velvet and silk.Élynne curtsies once more, murmuring the expected pleasantries, but before she can step away, Alicent moves.Fingertips, cool and deliberate, touch the curve of her chin, halting her. Élynne stills, breath catching—not in fear, but in something else, something quiet and searching.Alicent tilts her face upward, studying her closely. Up close, the queen’s eyes are lighter than they appear from a distance, a shade like polished amber intertwined with green, rich with something old, something tired.  They are Aegon’s eyes too—except where hers are warm-toned, his are bathed in the vivid, unnatural light of Valyria, shifting between lavender and violet depending on the way the candlelight catches them. Depending on his mood, his wine. Élynne wonders if Alicent’s eyes shift more green than gold along with her fury. The queen’s fingers remain at the curve of her jaw, their pressure so light it is barely there, as if testing the solidity of her. A moment suspended, fragile as spun glass.She looks for something there, and Élynne wonders—wonders what she sees. A child still, despite the weight in her bones. An oval face, cheeks softly rounded with youth, the high cheekbones that will one day sharpen with time, lips pouted without effort, as though perpetually on the verge of speech or silence, the wide, wide-set unreadable eyes—eyes she once thought too large for her face, too easy to mistake for naïveté. A face that does not belong to the unburded child she once was, nor the woman she is yet to become. A braid of golden curls acts as a frame, like a crown of sunfire against a gown of violet, a deliberate strength.She has stared at this face so many times since her dreams began, tracing the fine lines of her own features in the mirror, seeking confirmation that she is still here, still real. That she is yet to be trapped in some despairing fate.And yet, under the weight of the queen’s gaze, she cannot help but feel like something fragile—something being assessed, measured, perhaps even weighed against memory.Élynne sees a girl who is meant to be lovely. A girl meant to be noticed. A girl meant to be something. A doll sculpted with delicate hands, placed carefully upon a shelf, waiting to be chosen, waiting to serve its purpose. She has the face of a girl bred for courts, for admiration, for whispered promises and covetous glances. A face meant to please. A face meant to be claimed. There is beauty in it, undeniable, but beauty is not freedom—it is a brand, a claim set upon her skin long before she understood its weight.Does she see herself?Whatever Alicent is searching for, Élynne is left unclear if she finds it. There is no flicker of satisfaction, no sign of disappointment—only that same quiet calculation, the weighing of things unseen, the measuring of worth. A queen does not waste time with what is unimportant. Whatever judgment she makes, she does not voice it.Her fingers slip away, the touch no more than a passing thing. Not a caress, not a reassurance—only an acknowledgment. Something unspoken passes between them, as ephemeral as the scent of myrrh in the air, as unyielding as the stone walls enclosing them."You will do," she says simply, and the words settle over Élynne like a final decree. The audience is over.She is led to Helaena.︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶Helaena is exactly as she remembers her from the dreams—soft, dreamlike, lost in a world all her own. She hums as they sit together, her fingers deftly twining flowers into delicate shapes—crowns, chains, tiny woven creatures. The petals flutter in her hands, as if drawn to her touch, as if they, too, exist in some quiet realm beyond Élynne’s reach. She whispers of creatures no one else can see, her voice a melody of half-told secrets, of visions drifting just beyond comprehension.She is kind.Élynne knows that if she let herself, truly let herself, she could come to care for her deeply. Could come to love her, even. Maybe she already does, it’s all there in the visions.But she must not.She is friendly, yes. She listens when Helaena speaks, smiles when appropriate, helps with embroidery and books and idle chatter. She does not flinch when Helaena’s hand brushes her hair, does not pull away when the princess rests her head against her lap in the quiet moments Helaena wants only her around. But she does not linger too long. She does not confide. She does not weave herself into Helaena’s life so completely that she cannot escape it. She must remain distant.Even if Helaena tilts her head sometimes, those pale, knowing eyes searching her face. Even if there is a quiet sort of sadness in them, a puzzle she cannot quite piece together. And then, one afternoon, in that faraway voice, she murmurs: "You are not as you were before."Élynne stills. The needle in her hand pauses above the embroidery hoop, her breath catching so softly that she hopes it goes unnoticed. “What do you mean?” she asks, carefully, cautiously.Helaena only blinks, lashes like delicate wings, fluttering as if waking from a dream. Then she smiles—soft, distant. Shakes her head. “The butterflies say the strangest of things.”A cold shiver creeps down Élynne’s spine, crawling on her skin as if the beetles of Helaena’s current embroidery have taken life and moved to terrorize her. The room feels smaller, the candlelight flickers strangely, and for a single, breathless moment, she wonders if she has been seen. Truly seen.She does not ask what else they say.︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶Aemond is five-namedays-old, younger than she is by four years.He is not yet the hardened prince of war that she remembers—not even close. His face is still soft with childhood, his voice not yet cold and cutting. He is just a boy, and yet, already, they laugh at him. His cousins snicker behind their hands, whisper when they think no one listens. They mock his lack of a dragon, because people are so easily cruel, and children are no exception. Rhaenyra’s especially.But she knows what they do not. Knows he will become that boy. That man. And she knows that she will marry him if she is not careful. If she pleases Alicent too much.So she is careful. She does not seek him out. When she sees him in the halls, she keeps her gaze lowered. If they happen to be in the same room, she positions herself behind the other ladies, ensuring that his attention never falls upon her. Élynne often feels ridiculous, sometimes. Avoiding a child. A little boy who some still call a babe. But paranoia is a quiet, creeping thing, and she is not above it. She will not exist to him. And for a time, it seems to work. He does not notice her. He does not see her. Until one day, he does. And fate, with its cruel, unyielding grip, begins to tighten.It happens in the Dragonpit.Élynne is only there because Helaena wishes to watch the dragon keepers tend to the hatchlings, and the best vantage point is a terrace that overlooks the dragonpit’s grounds. The other ladies—handpicked by Alicent, or was it Otto?—claimed they had prior engagements. Or perhaps they were simply too afraid. Élynne stands behind Helaena, hands folded before her, gaze politely lowered as the princess hums, distracted by the screeching creatures below.And then:A prickle at the nape of her neck. A pull, like a thread snagged on an unseen hook. Someone is watching her. She knows who it is before she turns.
Aemond.
It almost hurts to look at him. His face is still rounded by youth, his features untouched by time’s cruel hands. Both eyes, still whole. Yet, at the same time, there is already something sharp in him. Something restless, something wanting. He stands apart from his brother and nephews, hands clasped behind his back, spine straight as a blade. He has not yet bonded to a dragon—not like the others. Instead, he only watches. Always watches.But now—he watches her.Élynne does not freeze, does not stiffen. A lady does not flinch beneath a gaze. She has spent this life and that horrible one trained like a proper maiden to hide what she feels. So she lowers her gaze, turns slightly as if caught in some other thought.And yet, in her periphery, his gaze does not leave her. Not even with so many unbonded dragons around. Something cold coils in her gut. She has been careful. She has been so careful. But now, a shift. A small one. A glance that lingers just a moment too long. He is but a small child, she reminds herself, tries to calm her racing heart. He will be distracted in the next moment by something fast and colorful. It feels like a lie even within the confines of her mind.And suddenly, the path before her feels much steeper.She adjusts. She must.She is as polite as ever, as quiet as ever. She moves through court as a shadow should, speaking only when addressed, slipping between conversations without ever truly being part of them. With Helaena, she allows herself warmth, but only in measured doses.  Friendly, yet reserved. Close, yet never vulnerable.With Aemond, she is nothing at all. She does not avoid him too obviously. Does not flee when he enters a room or shrink from his presence. That would make her noticeable.Instead, she simply does not engage. He speaks? She listens. He looks? She does not meet his eye. He lingers? She moves as if she has not noticed. If he has a Targaryen’s flame, she is the mist of Emberline Hall—impossible to hold, impossible to have.It takes more than a fortnight of this, but at last, his focus drifts elsewhere. Back to wooden swords and wished-upon dragons. The first time she passes him and he does not spare her a glance, she exhales in quiet relief. Now that—that is something she understands. Aemond’s indifference. In that cold, old life she runs from, she dreaded his unacknowledgment. Now, it’s a blessing to have it back. Élynne hopes it stays that way. She knows the danger of his interest. Not personally, no—she never meant anything beyond an annoyance to him, but she was around to witness, to pick up her pieces scattered in the aftermath left in his wake.When Aemond wants something, he is relentless in seizing it.︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶The courtyard is alive with motion. The scent of crushed grass and sun-warmed stone drifts through the air, mingling with the distant salt of the Blackwater. Servants dart between towering pillars, knights shift in their armor, and ladies murmur behind lace-gloved hands. The late afternoon sun spills golden light over the Red Keep, setting the stone aglow. It is the same as it ever was—an unchanging world, a tableau of familiarity. Yet for all the movement, for all the noise, for all the life brimming at the edges of her vision, Élynne sees only him.
Aegon.
He is younger than she remembers. The years have yet to strip him down, to hollow him out, to carve shadows beneath his eyes and sorrow into his skin. Still reckless, still lazy in the way he carries himself, but not yet so broken. Not even close. The ghosts that will one day linger in his gaze have not yet arrived. He is whole.His tunic is slightly rumpled, the collar askew, as if he’d dressed in haste—or never truly cared to be neat in the first place. Aegon has always been a study in careless elegance, a prince who wears his disarray as if it were deliberate, a rebellion against expectation rather than a failure to meet it. His belt sits slightly askew at his hips, a crease in his sleeve betrays where he might have leaned too long against a table, a lock of pale hair falls into his eyes, untouched, unbothered. A goblet dangles from his fingers, swaying idly as he walks, but his steps are sure, his shoulders unbowed by the weight that will come later.She wonders if he even knows what it is to carry true weight. If, beneath the laughter and the indifference, he has ever felt the cold press of inevitability on his shoulders. If he can feel, in the marrow of his bones, the tragedy waiting to unfold. There is something so infuriating, so devastating, about the way he moves—light, unburdened, untouched by the doom she knows is waiting beyond the horizon. He does not yet know the way grief will sink into his flesh, how it will carve him down to something smaller, something lesser, until even his smiles will become ghosts of themselves.She hopes he does not. Hopes, absurdly, desperately, against everything she has seen, that this future will not come to pass. That the great, ugly game for the Iron Throne will dissolve like mist in the air, leaving nothing behind but peace. Aegon deserves happiness. The kind of happiness that lingers in sun-warmed sheets, that curls around a laugh shared in quiet corridors, that is found in the hands of someone who does not wish to shape him, only to hold him as he is. But fate is cruel, and she knows better than to beg it for mercy.Her throat tightens, and she exhales slowly, evenly, though it does little to loosen the ache beneath her ribs. This is nothing. A moment. A glimpse. A cruel trick of time and memory that leaves her feeling stripped bare, as if the past that is her future has reached for her with grasping hands. And yet it grips her, drags sharp nails through old wounds she thought long-since scarred.She will not cry. She has done so already, until there was nothing left in her but raw, aching emptiness. She has grieved him—how much more can one heart endure before it simply stops? There is only so much you can mourn a loved one, isn’t there? And yet it lingers, this sorrow that never fully faded, just settled into her bones, quiet but unyielding. Aemond had thought her ridiculous even during the first fall of her tears. His gaze had been cool, unmoved, as though grief was something weak, something lesser. One more thing to fault her for. He had never understood. Perhaps he never could.The burn is sharp, pressing against the backs of her eyes, but she swallows it down like a bitter draught. She has no right to cry, not here, not now. Not when he still smiles. Not when he is still whole.She has known for years that he drinks—whispered complaints in the halls, the sour breath that carried into their brief encounters, the wine stains hidden poorly beneath his sleeves. The servants spoke of it in hushed voices, careful not to be overheard. The court jested about it in cruel whispers, amusement laced with scorn. It was an open secret, a quiet shame draped over his shoulders like an ill-fitted cloak. It had been enough to keep her away when they were children, when she had been raised to be proper, to avoid excess, to disdain indulgence. She had not allowed him close. Had not wanted to.Not until Aemond.Only when duty bound her to his brother, only when his brother made it clear he despised her, did she deign to look at Aegon. And even then, for quite a while, it was not truly looking. Not truly seeing. To gaze beyond the prince with a cup eternally in hand. She had dismissed him, at first, as so many did, as a man who had nothing of value to offer. A man who had squandered what gifts the stars had given him. Even then, she had kept him at a careful distance, acknowledging but never engaging, polite but never warm. A duty-bound courtesy, no more, no less. She had never expected him to notice. To care.It was only after Aemond, after their wedding night, after so much pain, that she let the walls fall. And Aegon had been there. Not demanding, not pressing, simply there. He had not expected her to endure, to suffer in silence, to prove herself worthy of the burden laid upon her. He had only ever expected her to be.And it had cost her.She had grieved him. In that other life, in that other future, she had watched him crumble, watched him lose parts of himself piece by piece, until the Aegon she had come to know—the Aegon who listened, who laughed, who smiled like the sun breaking through storm clouds—was gone. She had seen the light dim in his eyes, had watched his shoulders bow under the weight of a crown he never wanted. She had held his hands as they trembled, had heard the unspoken plea in his silence, in the way he clung to her when he thought no one was looking.She had mourned him long before the world ever did. And now, standing here, looking at the ghost of the man he will become, she wonders—was it love, in the end? Or merely grief, reaching back through time to clutch at her heart once more?She takes a breath, forcing herself to turn away. The air is thick, stifling, as if the weight of her own thoughts is pressing down upon her. One step, then another. A retreat before she can unravel. Before she can remember too much, feel too deeply. But before she can slip into the shadowed corridors of the Keep, she feels it—a weight, a presence. Unseen, but known. Familiar in a way that sets her pulse to a rhythm she does not wish to acknowledge.She hesitates. And then, slowly, unwillingly, she looks back.His eyes are already on her. Lavender, striking, catching the sunlight in a way that makes them seem almost ethereal. A gaze that hasn’t yet been dulled by sorrow, by loss, by the burdens of a crown. Not yet. Not like before. He is watching her, brow slightly furrowed, head tilted in quiet consideration. As if he sees something in her that even she does not yet understand. As if he is already waiting for her to flee.He smiles. Not the lazy, practiced smirk he so often gives to the world, but something softer. Quieter. Real. It is small, faint, but it is his, and it is kind. Beautiful. The kind of smile she had once thought impossible for him, until she had learned better. Until she had learned him.The kind of smile she used to chase, not because he wished to escape her, but because the world had worn him down. Had left him tired and wary, retreating into wine and laughter that did not quite reach his eyes. She had chased it because it meant something, because it was real, because when Aegon smiled like that, she knew—knew he was still there, still trying, still fighting against the tide of expectation that sought to drown him.And she had loved him for it. Had loved him for the way he never asked anything of her, only gave. Had loved him for the way he had listened when no one else had, for the way he had made her laugh even when she thought she had forgotten how. Had loved him for the way he had been her truest friend, the only one who had seen her, truly seen her, and never turned away.She had not wanted to love him. She had not meant to. But how could she not? And how could he not have loved her in return? They had been the one true friend the other never got to experience before.The way he had looked at her in the quiet moments, when the world was not watching. The way he had always known when she needed to be found, when she needed silence over words, when she needed nothing more than his presence beside her. The way he had held her, once, after Aemond had left her in ruins, with no expectation, no demand, only warmth and steadiness and the silent promise that she would never be alone.Her throat feels tight, her vision threatens to blur, her heart clenches like a fist in her chest. She cannot stay. Not now. Not when she sees him as he is, as he was, as he will be.Élynne looks away.She walks. Not too fast—not enough to be remarked upon, not enough to betray the sharp, aching thing unraveling inside her—but as fast as she is allowed without it becoming a sprint.She does not look back.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Much like her last life, the first time Élynne speaks to Aegon in earnest, it is not by design. She needed to be alone. Away from Helaena’s quiet, searching gaze, away from Aemond’s presence, which lingered like a storm waiting to break.

Instead, she finds Aegon. Or rather, Aegon finds her.

"You're an odd one," he muses, and promptly sprawls next to her across the grass beneath a gnarled old weirwood, its red leaves fluttering above them like drifting embers. "Most girls would be clawing at the chance to gain my favor, yet here you are, more than four moons in the RedKeep, looking like you'd rather be anywhere else."

Élynne pauses. She should say nothing, should let the silence stretch until he grows bored and leaves. Instead, she stares down at him. He looks right past her, lavender gaze hazy like he doesn’t expect an answer.

He is barely nine, just like her, and yet he carries himself with the same lazy arrogance that would only grow more pronounced with time. In the vision, he had been a man—a drunk, a wastrel, a king who did not want to be one. And yet, he had been her friend. And in her darkest of times…

Her

only

friend.

When Aemond had been away—gone to his war, gone to his mistress, gone from her in every way that mattered—it had been Aegon who had stayed. He had made her laugh, given her company, offered a place where she did not have to be alone.

Élynne had hated him once, resented his mockery, his hedonism, his selfishness. The way he made a spectacle of himself, as if daring the world to call him a failure so he would not have to prove it himself. But when she needed him, he had been there. She thinks of him then—of the man who had lounged beside her on the terrace of her empty rooms, a cup of wine in his hand and sorrow in his eyes. Sorrow that he did not name, not truly, but she had known it all the same. Of the one who had told her, with that slanted, rueful grin, that they had been bound to their fates from the start. That neither of them had ever had a choice. And she thinks of his saddened smiles. Of his warmth. Of the way he hugged her, strong and unguarded, like he alone understood the weight she carried. Like she was worth holding on to, if only for a little while. Of the grief that had hollowed her when he died.

She should leave now. If Aegon is to be believed, if they are bound to their misery… She should not make the same mistake. She should not let herself soften, should not let nostalgia weave its treacherous illusions. Should not let the ghost of what was—of what could have been—blur the truth of what will be. Because she knows how this story ends. She has lived it, breathed it, mourned it.

Élynne saw Aegon burn before. The first he survived, if only in body. She knows how much that took from him. And then shortly after, the second came as his funeral. A Targaryen Funeral Rite for a short-lived king. Aemond was at least too proud to have him buried like an Andal.

And yet…

"You flatter yourself, my prince," she says finally, setting her book down beside his spill of silver hair on the grass.

Aegon huffs out a laugh, his focus sharpening, drawn back into her eyes. There’s a spark in his, something brighter than she remembers. "Oh, I

like

you."

Yes, you did, didn't you? she thinks. You did, and I—

And maybe this time, she won’t let herself forget that she had liked him, too. That during so much ruin, before and during the war, before all the things that came to quell their light—there had been something else.

Maybe this time, she will not be so quick to let it slip away.

︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶

Aegon is easy.

He is loud, careless, and at times vain—but he is effortless in a way that so few are.

With Helaena, Élynne has to tread lightly, her distance measured and deliberate, keeping their interactions warm but shallow. With Aemond, she has to be careful not to be noticed at all, even now that he hasn’t spared her a glance in a few moons. Aemond's silence is not relief. It is a void she no longer wishes to acknowledge.

But with Aegon? He requires no careful planning, no careful avoidance. He does not ask why she seeks him out, nor does he question her sudden presence at his side. If anything, he welcomes it.

"You again?" he drawls one afternoon, draped over a cushioned bench in the gardens, tossing an apple up and down in one hand. "Are you following me, little dawn?"

Élynne stills.

It is a careless nickname, a throwaway thing, delivered with that familiar slant of amusement in his voice. But she hears it—the easy glimpse of intelligence beneath all the laziness and indulgence he so carefully wears. He does not often show it, but it is there, lurking beneath the wine-soaked smirks and slurred words.

He knows.

de Auroré is not a Westerosi name. It belongs to a tongue far from this land, from a place Aegon has no reason to know, no cause to remember. And yet he does. He knows that it means

of dawn

.

A name tied to a history long predating Targaryen rule. Founded nearly a century before the dragons came, Emberline Hall was not raised by Westerosi hands. Élynne’s ancestors had come from across the narrow sea—foreigners, marked always as such by their name, their customs, the lingering ghost of an accent in their words. Some claimed they had been drawn by prophecy, others by the simple call of fate. Whatever the truth, they had carved out their domain in the remote, misty hills, a castle built upon whispers of destiny and stone shaped by hands that carried another land’s grace.

Aegon should not know this. Should not care. Yet here he is, lounging in the garden, tossing an apple, calling her a name tied to all that came before her.

She watches the apple spin in his hand, his fingers deft and thoughtless in their rhythm. She should not be surprised. Aegon has always known far more than he lets on. Élynne perches herself on the opposite end, plucking an apple from the basket at his feet.

Élynne halts, poised on the edge of turning away. But something holds her there, something foolish and unguarded. She perches herself on the opposite end, plucking an apple from the basket at his feet. "Hardly," she says, taking a bite. "You just happen to be

everywhere

."

That’s the problem, she thinks. He’s everywhere. In her visions, in real life, in each corner of this bloody castle.

He grins, lounging deeper into his seat. "A prince's privilege."

She rolls her eyes but does not leave. She should.

This was how it began—before, long before, or forward in time, however she looks at it, when she let herself have him as a friend. When she let herself love him and then lost him. When grief was an open wound she could never stitch closed. Even now, looking at him, young and bold and whole, she feels it still hurting. An ache, persistent and raw.

She should leave. But she doesn’t.

And so it goes—small moments stole away, conversations that carry no weight, no expectations. Aegon likes to talk, and Élynne likes to listen. He complains about his tutors, about the droning maesters, about how he is always being compared to someone—his father, his brother, his uncle.

She lets him. She does not scold him, does not sneer at his laziness or his grumbling, does not remind him that he is a prince and should act like one. She does not tell him to be better, because she knows he would only hear it as another failure. Instead, she listens.

And that, too, is dangerous.

And slowly, something shifts. Aegon is still careless, still indulgent, still lazy when it suits him—but with her, he is different. Softer, somehow.  The first time Aegon plops himself beside her at a feast, Élynne barely acknowledges it. The second time, she glances at him warily. The third time, she sighs.

It becomes a habit. He finds her in the halls, drapes himself over the bench beside her in the gardens, steals her from Helaena with an exaggerated pout and a dramatic sigh, despite Helaena’s giggling protests. And when his mother’s lectures grow particularly insufferable, he finds her and pulls her into a shadowed alcove, where they sit in companionable silence, Aegon leaning his head back against the cold stone and exhaling like he’s just found sanctuary.

She doesn’t mean for it to happen again. To slip into his orbit. But in the end, she can’t ignore him. Because he’s Aegon. And in the end, she loved him the most. Felt closest to him. He was a true friend.

It’s not that he needs her company—he has his usual drinking partners, his favorite bars, his places to disappear to, his golden dragon—but he seeks her out anyway. Maybe because she is a quiet thing in a world that is always too loud for him. Because she does not fawn over him or scold him, does not sneer or smother. Because she expects nothing, and he is so used to people wanting something from him.

It’s on one of these stolen afternoons that he catches her sketching.

Élynne is seated near a window, where the dying sunlight drapes across her like a veil, turning strands of her hair to liquid gold. The faint glow illuminates the parchment in her lap, her fingers smudged with charcoal, fine streaks darkening the edges of her sleeves. She is utterly absorbed in her work, her brow slightly furrowed, her lips just barely parted, as if the world outside the page has ceased to exist.

Aegon, for once, is quiet. He leans against the stone pillar beside her, tilting his head, catching glimpses of the figures emerging from the page. It is rare to see her so unguarded.

"That your family?"

Élynne startles, the charcoal slipping in her grip, leaving an errant streak across the page. She frowns, swiping at it with her sleeve before glancing at him. "Yes."

Aegon makes no move to leave. Instead, he folds himself onto the seat beside her with the same easy carelessness he does everything, limbs loose and sprawling, as if he refuses to let there be a place in the world he does not belong. He rests his chin in his palm.

"Who’s that?" He points, his left index finger hovering over the sketch of a tall figure.

"My father."

"And that?"

"My mother."

He hums. "They look severe."

She huffs, amused despite herself. "They’re not, always. But they are careful in how they present themselves. It’s… important, at home. Everywhere, really."

Aegon watches her, noting the slight furrow in her brow, the way her fingers hover over the page as if debating whether to add more detail. There is a question in his gaze, and when he asks it feels like he chose a different one. "And what’s home like?"

Élynne hesitates, but he is waiting, watching, and it doesn’t feel like the usual courtly curiosity. He doesn’t ask like he’s looking for leverage or seeking gossip. He just asks. She presses the charcoal against the parchment again, this time drawing not a person, but a landscape. One she knows like the lines of her hand.

"It’s quiet," she says, her voice softer now. "Fog rolls in early, especially by the cliffs. Everything is damp, but in a way that feels… peaceful. The trees are old, some twisted and bare, others lush. And in the mornings, there’s this mist that lingers. It makes the world feel smaller, like a secret only the land knows."

She glances at him, expecting mockery, but Aegon just nods, thoughtful.

"The mist of Emberline Hall," he murmurs. Her home

is

known for it, she supposes. "Sounds peaceful," he muses. His fingers tap against the table, restless. "Better than—" but he stops, shaking his head with a smirk.

Élynne blinks. Of all the things he could latch onto, all the things he could tease her for—he chooses that? And not no tease, but to…compliment?

"You would like it?"

He leans back, considering. "Maybe. Gloomy places have their charm." He glances out the window, where the sun filters weakly through the autumn sky. "Not always looking for a patch of sunlight, you know."

It is the first time he’s ever given her the impression he might long for something different.

Aegon pushes himself up with a groan, stretching. "I have sword lessons soon. But before I go—" He snatches a fresh sheet of parchment from the pile at her side and presses it into her hands.

"Draw me my dragon," he says.

Élynne raises a brow. "Sunfyre?"

"Who else?"

He grins, and before she can protest, he strides away, leaving behind only the faint smell of wine and a slip of parchment clutched between his fingers—a painted study of Emberline Hall, viewed from afar. Mist everywhere.

And sometimes, he listens to her too. Later, in firelit halls, dancing light flickers across the stone walls, casting shifting shadows. Élynne glances at Aegon from the corner of her eye. He’s leaning against the table, one boot propped up on the bench, a half-empty goblet dangling from his fingers. The rich scent of spiced wine hangs in the air, mingling with the wax of melted candles.

She exhales. "You’re drinking too much."

Aegon doesn’t even look at her at first, just swirls the wine in lazy circles, watching the dark liquid lap at the rim. Then, with that ever-present smirk, he drawls, "And you sound like my mother."

Élynne tilts her head, unimpressed. "Do I?"

That makes him glance over, one pale brow quirking in challenge.

"Because I doubt Queen Alicent tells you,” she pauses just for the dramatics, just to see his lips twitch in a suppressed smile, “

please stop smelling like a tavern to everyone around you.

"

Aegon snorts, but the sound chokes off as he inhales mid-laugh, nearly spilling his wine down his green shirt. He coughs, eyes watering, and when he finally catches his breath, he wheezes, "Seven

hells,

Élynne!"

She only smiles.

Aegon grumbles, setting the goblet down with an exaggerated thud. He could leave—should, probably. But he doesn’t.

And later, when the wine has gone warm and the candles burn lower, she watches him lean back, eyes half-lidded but thoughtful. And though she cannot say why, she knows he is thinking about something other than the taste of wine.

She starts counting.

Not the cups he drinks—there are too many, and she has never been one to tally another’s vices. But she counts the days he reeks of wine, when the tang of ale and stale laughter gone sour clings to his clothes, when his steps are loose and careless. And she counts the days when he doesn’t. Those are the ones that matter.

When he finds her instead, smelling of lavender soap and the rich oils his maids stock in his chambers—sharp sandalwood, a hint of citrus beneath it. When his fingers, steady for once, tug a curl loose from her braid, twisting it idly between them before reaching, always reaching, for her sketchbook. Clear eyes drinking in the new pictures, lips parting just slightly, as if tasting the shapes of the lines she’s drawn. She’s started drawing more frequently just to see the smile he gives.

It is not perfect. It may never be. Vices are not so easily discarded. She knows. Hers had been her longing for Aemond, and it took his final betrayal—his bastard, the child he’d made with another— for her to finally quit.

But it evens out.

And maybe, just maybe, the balance of it—the give and take, the small victories against the ruin—will be enough.

︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶

The gardens of the Red Keep are quieter than the halls, but they are no refuge. Here, silence is an illusion. Whispers move with the wind, slipping between the hedges, weaving through the roses, curling around marble statues like creeping vines. Every stolen moment is measured, weighed, and stored away for later use.

Élynne had known this before she came. Had told herself, time and time again, that she would not make attachments. That she would not repeat the mistakes of another life.

And yet.

She sits across from Aegon, the dappled sunlight catching in his silver hair as he slouches against the stone bench, one arm draped over the back, the other lazily nursing his goblet of Arbor Red. A smirk tugs at the corner of his lips, amusement flickering in his lavender eyes. Their game of cyvasse is halfway through, but he hasn’t moved a single piece in minutes. Not because he doesn’t see the board. Not because he lacks the wit for strategy. No, he’s too busy watching her.

"You’re awfully fond of me, you know," he muses, stretching his legs out beneath the table, the brush of his boot against her ankle deliberate, teasing.

Élynne doesn’t glance up from the board. Her fingers hover over a piece before settling, decisive, careful. She moves a dragon forward, setting a trap two turns ahead. "I tolerate you."

Aegon scoffs, pressing a hand to his chest as if she had wounded him. "Oh? Tolerate me enough to seek me out every day?"

"

We

seek each other in equal measure,” she corrects, her nose in the air just the way it makes him smile. “And besides, someone has to keep you from doing something reckless," she says smoothly, adjusting a knight on the board. "Like throwing yourself off a tower for fun."

He grins, tilting his head in mock consideration. "Ah, so you’re my keeper now?"

"If you need one, then yes."

The amusement in his expression lingers, but something shifts beneath it—subtle but undeniable, a quiet recognition. The flicker of something deeper, something she cannot name but has seen before, in another life, in another him. He studies her, not with his usual half-lidded boredom or teasing glances, but with an awareness that makes her feel momentarily unsteady, as if she has been laid bare. As if he sees something beneath her skin, beneath the layers of what she is and what she will become.

Aegon has always been more perceptive than anyone ever bothered to give him credit for. People look at him and see only the excess—the drink, the indulgence, the slouching posture of a prince who seems to care for nothing. They do not see the mind behind the mask, the sharp edges hidden beneath laughter and liquor. He survived Dragonfire for a reason.

"You’d make a fine queen," he says suddenly.

She stills.

The words strike like a blade to the gut. Not because she doubts them, but because once, they had been true, at leats partly. Her breath snags, her fingers hovering too long over a piece, nearly knocking it over. For a moment, she is not here, in this quiet space with the scent of nature and warmed wine. She is there, in the other life, standing in the ruins of what had been hers.

She had been a queen once, however briefly. A Consort to a Regent. The duty-bound wife to Aemond. A woman forced to bend beneath the weight of expectation, of war, of grief until she had forgotten where she ended and the duty began.

But Aegon does not say it like a duty. He does not say it like a curse, the way Aemond had once done, as if the title was a chain meant to drag her under. As if she were a gilded thing, beautiful and useful but ultimately lacking. As if all her devotion, all her sacrifice, the gold that fueled a war she had never wanted, had still not been enough to make her something in his eye. Worthy.

The way Aegon says it now—

a fine queen

—sounds so different from the future she has witnessed. It is not a condemnation. It is not a warning. It is something else entirely, something gentler, something real.

Élynne swallows, pushing down the weight pressing against her ribs. The past whispers, but she does not answer, not this once. This is not that life. This is not that throne. And he is not that king.

She takes their friendship now as a grounding fact. A tether to the present, to this moment, to this version of him and of herself. The Élynne de Auroré from her visions would have never been caught near Aegon II Targaryen, not at the tender age of nine. Not when she had been raised to see him as lesser, as weak, as a man doomed to fail.

Yet here she is.

She reaches for her next move, fingers steady as she slides a piece forward, closer to victory. Or perhaps just further from whatever this is, whatever is shifting between them, delicate and unspoken. She does not know if it is to distract him or herself. "You should focus on keeping your royalty first, my prince."

His grin returns, easy as ever, but the look in his eyes lingers, like a secret he’s waiting for her to name.

The war had never broken Aegon the way it had broken Aemond. It had shattered him, yes—had driven him to the edge of ruin, had tested him, had taken things he would never reclaim. But Aegon had never let it take all of him. For all his recklessness, his self-destruction, his endless blunders… Even at his lowest, he had never turned on her. Aegon had stood by her in truth until his last breath. Aegon had never betrayed her.

Not like Aemond had. Not like the war had. Not like the life she had left behind.

And in this moment, Élynne remembers.

The way he had always found her in the quiet spaces between battles and burdens, slipping past guards and courtiers with the ease of someone who had long learned to make himself small when it mattered. The way he had collapsed onto her couch without invitation, sprawled like a lazy cat, silver hair mussed, exhaustion lurking in his half-lidded gaze—but always, always with a smirk tugging at his lips, as if daring her to tell him to leave.

The late nights spent in whispered conversation, when the weight of the world was too much and silence was a comfort neither of them could afford elsewhere. The stolen bottles of wine, the games played by firelight, the moments where their laughter had felt like rebellion in itself. The teasing words, the way he had called her

Sunlight

as if the words belonged only to her. As if she had been something precious, something worth naming.

The way he had looked at her, sometimes, when he thought she would not notice. Like he was trying to hold on to something fleeting. Like he had already made peace with losing her. She never made peace with losing him, so she guesses they diverged there.

She had chosen him as her friend because she had needed one. And because, despite what the world said, despite the rumors and the drunkenness and the weight of a crown neither of them had wanted for him, he had been

good

.

And in the end, he had been more than that. In return for his kindness, his honesty, she had given him something no one else had—someone who saw him, who listened, who did not expect anything from him but his friendship.
But to call it friendship feels… Lacking, somehow. Theirs had been a meeting of kindred souls. She wonders if that Aegon would have agreed to compare it to a bond between a dragon and it’s rider. It felt like that, a bond. 
How his fingers, weak but stubborn, had curled around hers, clinging even as his strength waned. How his breath had rattled in his chest, each inhale a struggle, each exhale a piece of him slipping further from her grasp. Watching the blood leak from his mouth and nose—poison, clear as day—and to only be there, to only offer him comfort as the maester solemnly shook his head. The look in Aegon’s eyes, hazy with pain, but knowing, always knowing. The soft, choked laughter that bubbled from his lips, bitter and resigned.

"You cry too much, Sunlight,"

he had whispered, voice frayed, words sluggish, as if even now, even dying, he wanted to tease her, to make her smile. As if he had known it would be the last thing he could give her.

She had wanted to scream. Wanted to fight, to beg the heavens to shatter, to cry out to Calivor himself—to demand that the gods not take

him

, not him too. Not Aegon. But all she had been able to do was hold him, press shaking fingers against his cooling skin, murmur his name like a prayer, like an offering to a god who would not answer—like something she had only just realized she loved.

And his last smile, faint but there, had been for her.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The solar is warm, bathed in the honeyed glow of the late afternoon sun. Dust dances lazily in the light, stirred only by the soft breath of a passing breeze. The scent of lavender and parchment lingers in the air, wrapping the space in quiet familiarity, a refuge from the world beyond. Beyond the heavy doors, the murmur of courtiers ebbs and flows, muffled yet persistent—a distant reminder that the outside world never truly sleeps. Here, in the hush of needle and thread, in the measured rhythm of hands at work, Helaena hums softly under her breath, fingers twisting a length of silk as she works.

Élynne had always known Helaena to be kind. Gentle. Uncomplicated in the way water carves its path through stone—not through force, but through time and quiet persistence. But she wonders now if she had ever truly seen her. In her past life, she had been

fond

of her sister-in-law, of course. How could she not? Their relationship had been close, filled with soft moments of companionship that built up true closeness. They had spoken in hushed tones beneath heavy drapes, shared quiet laughter in dimly lit corridors, stolen moments of peace in gardens untouched by war.

But fondness is not the same as understanding. Had she truly noticed the hazy weight of her eyes, the way her smiles never quite reached them? Had she seen how Helaena’s hands would still, mid-stitch, as if caught in a thought too deep to voice? Had she paid attention to the way she sometimes turned her head at nothing, eyes unfocused, lips parted as if hearing words from somewhere beyond the reach of others? Or had she only seen what was easy to see? The softness. The sweetness. The parts of Helaena that did not demand anything difficult from her.

Élynne swallows, the weight of realization pressing against her ribs. In all the time she had spent mourning what was lost, she had never thought to wonder what Helaena had seen. What Helaena had known.

Because perhaps Helaena had always known.

Perhaps she had looked at Élynne all those years ago—across candlelit tables, over cyvasseboards and spindles of thread, through the chaos of war and whispered grief—and seen something Élynne had been too blind to recognize in herself. Perhaps she had always understood more than Élynne had ever given her credit for.

"You’re worried," Helaena murmurs, not looking up from her embroidery.

Élynne startles, realizing she has been staring. She blinks down at her own work, at the dragonfly taking shape beneath her fingers. The golden thread gleams like captured sunlight against the silk, delicate and precise, yet somehow fragile in her hands. And yet, her stitches feel clumsy now, the thread slipping between her fingers like something half-remembered.

"I’m always worried," she admits.

Helaena only smiles, the kind of smile that makes it clear she has always known. "Yes. I know."

Perhaps too much.

Élynne hesitates. She wants to turn the conversation away, to leave it untouched—but curiosity holds her still. "You…

saw

something last night, didn’t you?"

Helaena nods, her fingers never pausing in their work. Her stitches are steady, unfaltering, as if the visions that haunt her are no more distracting than a passing breeze. "A child with one eye and two faces," she says softly, almost absently. "One face is old, one is young. Another watches. She does not know which one is real."

Élynne swallows. She does not need to ask what it means.

Her gaze lingers on Helaena, searching. For what, she isn’t certain. Understanding, perhaps. Reassurance. She takes in the soft curve of her face, the gentle lilt of her lips, the distant yet knowing glint in her lilac eyes. She remembers another Helaena—a woman older, broken, bruised by grief. A woman who had sought her, not for touch but for quiet words and companionship. A woman who had once told her she was loved, just not in the way she thought it to be.

Memories press against the edges of her mind like a tide against the shore—inevitable, unrelenting, dragging pieces of the past with them, sharp as sea glass.

Élynne exhales, fingers tightening around the silk in her lap. She does not look up, does not acknowledge the weight of the past settling over her like a shroud. The needle

bites

her thumb, and she watches, detached, as a bead of blood wells at the surface before sinking into the soft, shimmery fabric. A stark bloom of red against gold, a wound that vanishes too quickly, as if it had never been there at all. The proof lingers onto the fabric, clings and mars forevermore.

Her lips twist in displeasure. She had meant this as a gift for Aegon, a quiet bribe to stop him from stealing hers. A foolish thing, maybe. Sentimental. But he had always liked the things she made, had always plucked them from her hands with a smirk and some half-hearted jest, twirling them between his fingers like a prize. He had worn the last one until it fell apart. She had pretended not to notice, only gifting him more.

Perhaps Helaena sees. Perhaps she has always seen more than she lets on—the way Élynne’s hands shake when she thinks too much, the way her smiles never quite reach her eyes when the past lingers too closely. Perhaps she knows.

But does it matter?

Élynne looks at her, at the quiet kindness that has never wavered, at the goodsister who has never asked for more than Élynne could give, who has never demanded or judged, only

been

. She does it even now, letting Aegon steal her favorite lady-in-waiting away for hours on end, a smile on her face every time she leaves and comes back, as if she does not mind, as if she understands.

And she decides—no. It does not. All that matters is that Helaena is kind. That when Élynne sits here, with a needle in her hand and ghosts pressing against her ribs, she does not have to explain.

That Helaena does not pry, does not push, does not offer empty platitudes meant to smooth over what cannot be smoothed. She only hums softly as she embroiders, the gentle rhythm of her hands steady and unbothered, as if the weight of a thousand memories is not sitting between them. As if she does not feel the way Élynne’s grief seeps into the room like a fog.

And for now, that is enough.

For now, it is enough that she is not alone. That someone in this world still looks at her without expectation, without suspicion, without the weight of what came before. That when she presses too hard on the fabric, when another small bead of blood wells at the tip of her finger, Helaena does not ask why her hands are unsteady. She only reaches forward, quiet and careful, and presses a handkerchief into her palm. A small kindness. A simple thing. But Élynne swallows hard, and for a moment, she doesn't feel like she is drowning.

︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶

The dream takes shape gently, like the first light of dawn unfurling over a sleeping world—soft and warm and golden.

Not of Aemond. Not of battle cries carried by the wind, nor the distant clang of steel meeting steel. Not of cold nights spent in a bed too large, stretching endlessly around her like a void. Not of waking to silence where there should have been steady breath, steady warmth.

No.

This time, she dreams of Aegon.

Not the Aegon of now, the careless boy who laughs too loud and drinks too much, forever slipping from the grasp of duty like sand through open fingers. Not the drunken king slouched upon his throne, drowning in excess and expectation. But an older Aegon. A man she has known before, and yet—somehow—not the same.

Weary, yes. But lighter, unburdened. A man who has learned how to breathe again.

Unburnt.

They sit together in a garden untouched by the world beyond its walls, a sanctuary removed from the weight of crowns and consequence. Unknown and hidden away in some nameless place where peace still lingers. The air hums with the scent of lavender and something richer, something golden—honeysuckle curling along ancient stone, blooms of buttery yellow and pale lilac thick around them. The light is soft, filtering through climbing vines that twist along the walls, casting dappled shadows across their hands.

Aegon holds a teacup in his hand, cradling it with an unfamiliar delicacy, fingers curled loosely around porcelain as though rediscovering the act of holding something without breaking it.

"You always made it bearable, you know," he says, tilting his head back against the sun-warmed stone, eyes half-lidded in the late afternoon glow.

Élynne exhales a quiet laugh, shaking her head. "That is hardly a high compliment."

Aegon smiles, lazy and unguarded. "It is from me."

He turns then, tilting his chin just enough for their eyes to meet—lavender bleeding into marigold, twilight melting into dusk. Just full. Just real.

"I hated all of it," he says simply. The words do not bite; they do not wound. They only exist, laid bare between them like a bridge half-built, waiting. "But I never hated

you

."

There is no bitterness in his voice, no edge to his words. Only truth, laid bare between them like the stretch of garden path that leads nowhere, and everywhere.

The dream lingers, like the last embers of a fire.

Then, it fades before she can answer.

︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶

Élynne does not know if the visions are a gift or a curse. Perhaps they are both. Perhaps they are neither.

She has dreamt before—terrible, clawing things that sink their teeth into her mind and do not let go. They leave her waking in a cold sweat, breath ragged in her throat, hands trembling against the silk of her sheets. The past follows her into sleep, relentless and unkind.

But now, the dreams are changing. She no longer sees only that dreaded past. Now, the future bleeds into the dark. She sees things that should not be, moments strung together like pearls on an unraveling thread. Conversations that have never been spoken.

Aegon, laughing in a way he never has—full-bodied, unrestrained, as if joy is something he has learned to hold without fearing it will break. Aemond, looking at her—truly looking, his gaze stripped of expectation, of obligation. As if, for once, she is not a burden to bear, but something else entirely. Helaena, bright and unburdened and sane—her laughter like bells, her lilac eyes clear, unshadowed by things only she can see.

Élynne does not trust them. She does not trust

anything.

She does not trust softness, not when she has learned that dreams are cruel, that hope is sharp-edged and waiting to cut. But the dreams continue. And she cannot stop them.

︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶

The corridor was dim, lit only by flickering torchlight that cast long, wavering shadows against the cold stone walls. The air was thick with the scent of old smoke and damp stone, the weight of midnight pressing in from all sides. Somewhere beyond the open archways, the wind howled through the night, restless and hungry. It carried with it the distant sound of the city below—muted voices, the clatter of hooves against cobblestone, the faintest echo of a song sung by those too deep in their cups to care for the hour.

Aegon leaned against a pillar, the smooth marble cool beneath his fingertips, his head tipped back as if the weight of the world pressed down upon him. His hair, silver in the torchlight, was tousled, falling into his eyes, and he made no move to fix it. His tunic was rumpled, the collar askew, one sleeve slipping down over his wrist like an afterthought. There was something almost careless in the way he stood, a man perpetually on the edge of collapse, yet never quite falling. The scent of wine clung to him, rich and cloying, drowning out the cold.

Élynne had seen him like this before. Had found him in dark corridors and empty halls, lingering like a ghost in his own home, avoiding the places where people expected things of him.

But tonight felt different.

"You think he hates you now," Aegon had told her, his voice thick with drink, low and uneven, but not soft. Not this time. His smile was lazy, lopsided—but there was nothing warm in it. Only bitterness, curdled and sharp, something too jagged to be dulled by wine. "You think

this

is bad?"

Élynne exhaled slowly, weary down to her very bones. The exhaustion had settled deep, an old, familiar ache, wrapping tight around her ribs like iron bands. It had been there for so long now that she no longer remembered what it felt like to breathe without it.

"Aegon—"

"You could leave," he interrupted, turning his head just enough to look at her. His eyes, too bright in the dim torchlight, shimmered with something she did not want to name.

She blinked. It took her a moment too long to realize—he was holding back tears.

"And go where?" she asked, her voice quiet, as if anything louder might shatter him where he stood.

Aegon let out a huff of laughter, sharp and breathless, tilting his head back once more. For a moment, she thought he might say something cruel—twist the knife, as he so often did when the world pressed too hard against him. But instead, all he said was,  "Anywhere."

But they both knew the truth.

There was no

anywhere

for the wife of Prince Aemond. No beyond. No escape. There was only the Red Keep, its walls as confining as a prison cell, or wherever else Aemond saw fit to take her. Her world had been carved into shape by duty, by expectation, by the choices of men who saw her as nothing more than another piece on the board. That was the measure of her worth—to be wanted only when it suited him.

And yet, for a moment—for the space of a breath—she had let herself imagine it.

Some place beyond the Red Keep, beyond duty, beyond him. A life of her own making, untouched by war or politics or the heavy weight of expectation.

Lys, maybe. The city of pleasure, of sapphire waters and soft-spoken promises. A place where no one knew her name, where no one cared who she had been before. Where she could wake with the sun on her face instead of cold stone at her back. Where laughter drifted through the open windows instead of whispered secrets curling through the halls. A world that belonged to her alone.

Or, perhaps… not entirely so. The next thought crept in unbidden, slipping past her defenses like a whisper in the wind. She pictured it—the faintest thread of a dream woven between the cracks of her reality.

And, once more, Aegon.

Not the prince, not the heir—simply Aegon.

She saw him there, stretched out on a sun-drenched terrace, half-drunk on spiced wine, lazing in the heat like a contented cat. His silver hair tousled by the sea breeze, his tunic unlaced, his skin bronzed from days spent beneath an open sky. No crown, no duty, no ghosts clinging to his heels.

She could see herself too, draped in Lysene silks, lighter than anything she had worn in the Red Keep. Not a lady. Not a wife. Just a woman with salt on her skin and laughter in her throat. She imagined wandering the markets, their hands brushing as they passed through the bustling streets, his voice at her ear—teasing, warm, unburdened. She imagined late nights beneath lantern-lit courtyards, the scent of citrus and jasmine in the air, his head in her lap as he murmured nonsense just to make her smile.

In that life, he wouldn’t need to drown himself in wine. He would drink because he wanted to, not because he had to. She pictured him as he might have been. Sun-warmed and drowsy, laughter in his voice instead of bitterness, his hands in her hair instead of perpetually curled around a cup. She could almost hear it—the sound of his cadence, lighter than she had ever known it, calling out to her as he chased the waves. And she—she would not sit awake in the dark, waiting for footsteps that never came.

A fantasy. A foolish, fragile thing, but one that made her breath hitch all the same. The thought had been intoxicating, dizzying in its impossibility. The air had seemed lighter then, the walls less suffocating. But it had been a dream, nothing more.

She exhaled, forcing the fantasy away, pushing it deep into the quiet, hidden corners of her mind where all impossible things belonged. Yet, when she looked at Aegon, she knew—he had seen it too.

Their eyes met, and for a fleeting moment, it was as if the walls of the Keep had fallen away. As if he could see the world she had imagined—the warm shores, the open skies, the life without shackles. And worse still, as if he longed for it just as much as she did. The weight of it pressed between them, thick as the humid night air, too heavy to name, too much to acknowledge.

Aegon moved first. Slowly, carefully, as if afraid she might startle, he pushed off the pillar and closed the space between them. His hand lifted, fingers grazing her cheek, a touch so light she barely felt it, yet it sent something sharp and shattering through her ribs.

She should have moved. She should have pulled away. She should have said something, anything. But she only stood there, breath catching, pulse loud in her ears. Aegon’s thumb brushed the curve of her cheekbone, and his lips parted as if he might speak.

She did not let him.

“Goodnight, Aegon,” she said, too quickly, too stiffly, stepping back before he could say whatever it was he meant to. Before she could do something reckless, something irreparable.

Then she turned, hands clenched, skirts whispering around her as she walked away—too fast, nearly fleeing. She did not look back. She could not. And when she reached her chambers, heart pounding, breath unsteady, she told herself it meant nothing. It had to mean nothing.

It was only Aegon.

Only her friend. The one who stole her silks and dragged her into his mischief, who complained at her bedside when he was hungover, who had, from the moment they became close, always been there. So it was nothing. It had to be nothing. Because if it were something, then what did that make her?

She exhaled sharply, pressing cold fingertips to her burning cheeks, willing away the ghost of his touch. He had been drunk, that was all. Soft-hearted and foolish as he always was in the late hours, when the wine had worn him thin. And she had only imagined the way his hand lingered, the way his eyes softened, the way the air between them had grown thick with something unspeakable.

She was lonely. That was all. He was, too. That was all.

Friends comforted each other. Friends sought solace in the dark, in quiet spaces where no one else could see them fraying at the edges. It was not longing, not want, not anything dangerous. It could not be. Because she belonged to Aemond.

And Aegon—Aegon was just her friend.

Her mind’s need to see a better life with him, that was only her wish for his happiness always at the forefront of her thoughts. She forced herself into bed but sleep eluded her into the night. But at some point, exhaustion had won, because when she had woken, it had been to an empty bed. And the silence that always came after.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The grass beneath them is soft, cool against her skin, carrying the scent of earth, crushed clover, and the faint sweetness of summer. The blades tickle at her fingers where they rest against the ground, damp with the lingering kiss of morning dew. Above them, the sky stretches wide and unbroken, an endless expanse of blue so bright it almost hurts to look at. The air is warm, but not stifling, stirred by a breeze so lazy it feels like the earth itself is exhaling.

The world feels still, save for the distant chirping of birds and the rustling of leaves overhead. For once, the walls of the Red Keep do not press in on her, do not loom like a silent thing waiting to devour. Here, in this rare moment of peace Aegon has stolen for them, there is only the open sky and the quiet.

His voice drifts through the quiet, low and thoughtful. "You ever think about running away?"

The question makes her breath hitch.

Élynne turns her head sharply, but Aegon does not look at her. He lies beside her, arms folded behind his head, silvery hair spilling over the grass, his gaze distant, lost somewhere in the endless blue above them. He looks almost at peace, but she knows better.

It is a casual question, tossed into the air like an idle thought. And yet, it is not. She feels it in the way her chest tightens, the way something old and aching stirs deep inside her.

"You are a prince," she says, measured and careful. The words are gentle, but there is something else beneath them—a warning, maybe, or a plea. "Where would you run to?"

Aegon hums, a faint smile ghosting across his lips. It is not a happy smile. It is a thing made of longing and something softer, something sadder. "Anywhere."

The same word. The same answer. In another life, he had spoken it in the dark, wine-sweet and broken. Spoken once in the dark, thick with wine and sorrow. Spoken now in the golden light of day, a wistful echo of something already lost. And even now, even here, it makes her chest ache.

At last, he turns to her, his lavender eyes warm but searching, always searching. He has a way of looking at people like he is trying to solve a puzzle he does not quite understand. Like he is hoping, just once, the answer might not disappoint him. "You?"

She swallows, but it does nothing to ease the sudden tightness in her throat. The taste of it lingers, bitter and metallic, like the ghost of blood on her tongue. For a moment, she is not here. She is not lying in the grass beside Aegon, beneath a sky too blue to be real. She is somewhere else—somewhen else.

The past is a wildfire, creeping in at the edges, licking at her thoughts with the heat of memory. Flashes of red and gold. The roar of Dragonfire. The acrid scent of burning flesh, the suffocating heat pressing against her skin like an iron vice. The clash of steel, bright and screaming. The sharp sting of a blade glancing off her arm, the sticky warmth of blood seeping through the silk of her sleeve. The scent of ash thick in her lungs, the taste of ruin settling deep in her bones.

Pain. Loss.

Would she run, like Aegon suggested once, and does again now?

Had

she run? She tries to grasp at the memory, but it shifts like sand through her fingers, elusive and cruel. The one thing she never dreamt of is her death.

How did she catch it then? Had it been quick—a blade in the back, a fall from one of the higher floors? Or had it been slow, drawn out, a desperate fight against the inevitable? Had she begged? Had she screamed? Or had she simply let go? The thought chills her, even beneath the warmth of the sun.

Aegon shifts beside her, the grass rustling with the movement, and for a moment, she clings to the present, to the scent of crushed flowers and wine, to the quiet rhythm of his breath.

Élynne tells herself she is here. Not there. Not yet.

She forces herself to meet Aegon’s gaze, to anchor herself in the now, in the warmth of sunlight and the quiet hum of summer. Her voice does not shake when she answers, but there is something hollow in it, something brittle.

"I wouldn’t."

A lie.

Aegon hums again, soft and knowing, but he does not call her on it. He does not have to. Even in this first year of their friendship, he reads her far too well, his gaze cutting through the careful veil she drapes over herself. It had unsettled her, in that life, how easily he sees. How easily he understands.

It had been like that back then too, in another life, another time, when they had stood on opposite ends of something vast and crumbling. She had worn her duty like armor, and he had worn his ruin like a crown. And yet—somehow—they had found each other in the wreckage.

Perhaps that is why they had bonded so quickly.

Élynne could see beyond his careless smirks, beyond the wine-stained breath and lazy, lopsided grins, to the raw thing beneath—the thing that still bled. And Aegon? Aegon had seen past her lies. Past the pretty, practiced words and the even prettier smiles. And the worst part—the most terrifying part—was that he had never needed her to be anything else. He did not demand honesty, did not pry where she did not wish to give. He simply looked, and he knew. And he never once held it against her.

And so, much like before: the truth, though unspoken, lingers between them. She does not believe it herself. And Aegon—Aegon, who sees too much and always has—lets her. Because he has always let her. Because he knows her well enough to understand that some truths must be denied before they can ever be faced.

He turns back to the sky, exhaling slowly. The silence stretches between them, but it is not empty. It is filled with all the things they do not say.

︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶

There had been a night—she remembers it too well—when she had stood at the edge of the Redkeep, her breath ragged in her chest, her hands trembling at her sides. The gates had been open.

Beyond them, the road stretched out like a beckoning hand, winding into the unknown, into the vastness of a world she had never truly been a part of. She could still feel the weight of it—possibility, fear, the sharp, breathless ache of standing on the precipice of something irrevocable.

Aegon had been there. Not beside her, not yet, but close enough. He had found her in the quiet hour before dawn, barefoot on the cold stone, staring out at freedom as though she could already taste it. His voice had been hoarse with drink, but his gaze had been sharp, unsettlingly clear.

"You won’t do it."

She hadn’t looked at him. She hadn’t needed to. "You don’t know that."

"I do."

He had come closer then, close enough that she could feel his warmth in the cold. Close enough that she could hear his breathing—measured, steady, so at odds with the wreckage in his eyes.

"If you were going to run, you wouldn’t be standing here thinking about it."

She had hated him for that. For seeing through her. For voicing the doubt she had been trying to silence. For making her feel, in that moment, like the gates had already closed before she ever made a choice.

She had stayed. Not because of him. Not entirely.

But he had been right. She had stood there, long enough for the night to deepen, long enough for the chill to settle into her bones, long enough for the weight of indecision to press down on her shoulders until it became something unbearable. She had stared at the road beyond the gates as if it might reach out and take her, as if the mere sight of it could undo everything—her duty, her name, the hands that held her in place.

And yet, her feet had never moved. She hadn’t wanted to run. She had wanted the

idea

of it. The fantasy of escape more than the act itself.  To believe she was someone who could turn her back and walk away, who could slip into the night and become something else, someone else—unburdened, untethered,

free.

But that wasn’t the truth. It had never been the truth. Because in the end, she had done what she had always done. She had hesitated. And the moment came to pass.

"If you go," Aegon said, voice quieter than she had ever heard it, "I’ll stay with you until it’s time to say goodbye."

The offer had startled her,

hurt

her in a way she hadn’t been prepared for. Not because of

what

he said, but because he had

meant

it. And because, for a brief, fragile moment, she had wanted to say

yes

. So she nodded, and he sat beside her, wordless as the night stretched on.

She did not know how long they stayed like that—long enough for the stars to shift in the sky, long enough for the torches behind them to burn lower and lower. As the last light of dusk melted into true darkness, she had exhaled, slow and heavy, and turned back toward the castle.

She hadn’t said a word. She hadn’t

needed

to. Aegon had only nodded, as if he had known all along. As if he had been waiting for it. When she reached for his hand, he gave it freely, fingers curling around hers, warm and steady. They walked in silence, step for step, through the winding corridors, past the quiet halls, until they reached her rooms.

He did not ask why she had stayed. She did not ask why he had waited. Because she knew.

Because Aegon never said what mattered most—he only showed it, in the way he lingered, in the way he watched her when he thought she wouldn’t notice, in the way he made no move to leave her alone in the fading light.

He followed her inside, step for step, without question, without hesitation. Not as a prince, nor as a man bound by duty, but as something else. Something softer. Something that, for all his flaws, still felt

true.

Instead, he helped her into bed, his hands gentle as he pulled the blankets over her, as if she were something delicate—something breakable. He did not fumble, did not reek of wine, did not make a joke to fill the silence the way he so often did. Tonight, there was only quiet patience, only a steadiness that she rarely ever saw in him.

He smoothed a hand over the covers, a slow, absent motion. As if grounding himself. As if memorizing the sight of her like this—safe, untouched by the world outside. She felt his fingers brush over her hair first—light, aimless, like he was memorizing the texture of it against his skin. Then, without thinking, without speaking, he trailed his hand down, fingertips grazing the curve of her cheek, a touch so careful it sent a shiver through her. She looked up at him then, and for a long moment, neither of them moved.

There was something unreadable in his expression—something heavy, something searching. She did not know what he saw when he looked at her like that, with his lips just slightly parted, his brows drawn together as though caught between words.

He bent down, pressing a kiss to her hair, soft and lingering, and something inside her clenched tight, twisted sharp.

She wanted to ask him to stay. The words sat heavy on her tongue, curling at the edges of her breath, so close she could taste them. If she spoke them aloud, would he listen? Would he hesitate, just for a moment, before slipping beneath the covers beside her? Would he be warm against her back, his presence a quiet shield against the night? Would he make the silence feel less empty, just for a little while?

But she knew the whispers it would start. Knew the looks they would receive. Knew the consequences of what could be mistaken, what could be

assumed.

And so, when he pulled back, when he lingered for just a heartbeat longer, she forced herself to stay still, to bite down on the words before they could betray her.

Aegon’s hand lingered at the edge of the covers, as if he might speak, might move, might change his mind. Then he exhaled, something barely-there and tired, and stepped away. "Sweet dreams, Sunlight."

So she let him go. “Sweet dreams, my prince.”

And when the door closed behind him, the silence was colder than it had ever been before.

︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶

The room reeked of wine and old despair, the air thick with it, pressing down on her lungs. It settled into the stones, into the tapestries, into her skin, cloying and inescapable. The candlelight flickered, throwing long shadows against the cold walls, elongating them, warping them, making everything feel stretched thin—like the last remnants of something that had already begun to unravel.

Aegon sat slumped in his chair, his posture loose, almost boneless, yet there was a sharpness to him, a coiled tension beneath the exhaustion. The firelight kissed the ruined side of his face, glinting off the ridges of old burns, while the other half remained caught in the gloom—beautiful still, but marred by something deeper than scars. His eyes were rimmed red, his lips curled into something that was not quite a smile, not quite a frown—something caught between defeat and defiance.

He had been drinking. He had

always

been drinking. And yet, when he reached for her, his touch was steady, his palm warm over hers—the only warmth she had known in too many days, too many moons.

"It won’t always be like this," he rasped, his voice rough, worn thin from more than just the drink—from exhaustion, from grief, from the crushing weight of a crown neither of them had ever wanted.

Élynne let out a sharp breath, something bitter and cracked sitting at the back of her throat. Her fingers curled against the rough fabric of her skirts, gripping something, anything, to tether herself. "How do you know?"

Aegon’s gaze softened, and it made something in her twist and pull, aching beneath her ribs.

The man before her was a ghost of the boy she had known. Gone was the reckless laughter, the careless grin, the easy shrug of shoulders that had once borne no responsibility. The Aegon who had laughed too loudly, who had turned duty into a game, had been swallowed whole by war, by fire, by loss.

What remained of him was a man stitched together with old wounds—some visible, some not. A man who had learned too late what it meant to carry the weight of a kingdom on his back. A man who no longer ran from it, but was being crushed beneath it all the same.

Still, he smiled—soft, sad, broken at the edges. She found him beautiful then, even with half his face burned, even with the grief that lived in his eyes like a specter.

"Because nothing ever lasts, Élynne," he murmured. "Not even this."
She had hugged him then, cautious, her hands light against him, mindful of the bruises and burns that bloomed across his skin, of the wounds half-healed but never truly mended. He did not flinch, did not pull away. Instead, he sighed, a shuddering exhale against her hair, and his arms came around her, hesitant at first, then tighter, surer. His grip was firm, as if grounding himself in her presence, as if anchoring them both against the tide of everything they could not change. He clung to her, the way a drowning man clings to driftwood—not with desperation, but with quiet, weary acceptance.
His breath was warm against her hair, steady despite the wine, despite the ghosts that haunted him. The press of his lips lingered against her golden curls, a whisper of something unspoken, something that could have been a promise in another life.

She could feel the rapid beat of his heart, too fast, too fragile, as if it knew time was slipping through his fingers. His chin brushed the crown of her head, and when he spoke again, it was softer, hoarser, barely more than a breath.

"You always were the brave one," he murmured.

Élynne’s fingers curled against the fabric of his tunic, tightening, knowing this moment was slipping away even as she held onto it.

"I don’t feel brave."

"You stayed," Aegon said simply. As if that alone was proof enough. As if he had never expected anyone to choose to stay.

Emotion sat in her throat, heavy and unsaid, as Aegon’s hold on her loosened. He pulled back just enough to look at her, one hand lifting, slow and deliberate, as if he feared she might vanish the moment he let go. His fingers brushed against her hair first, then her cheek, the touch feather-light, reverent. The callouses on his fingertips were rough against her skin, a contrast to the softness of the moment. His thumb lingered at the curve of her jaw, and in his eyes, she saw something raw, something unspoken. Regret. Longing. A thousand things neither of them would ever say.

But then, as if remembering himself, Aegon let his hand fall away. The distance between them stretched wide, filled with everything they had lost, everything they would never have.

She wanted to tell him the truth. That she had stayed for him. She did not care about crowns, about thrones, about the weight of history pressing down upon them both. In the end, it was his presence—his friendship, his warmth, fleeting as it was—that had kept her from breaking.

She had wanted to believe him. Wanted to make him understand. His words were the only thing keeping her from drowning. His presence—flawed, fleeting, fragile—meant more to her than he would ever know. He had been her only friend in a world that had long since turned to ash. But she had waited too long.

Aegon died before she could.

︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶

The dreams are

different.

That is the simplest way to describe it.

Not in the way they used to be—jagged, feverish things of fire and ruin, of desperate, slurred laughter and dull, vacant eyes staring at nothing. No lingering scent of wine clinging to the air like a ghost. No crumbling thrones, no weight of regret pressing against her chest like an iron brand searing through flesh and bone.

These dreams do not burn. They drift. They glow. They breathe.

She sees Aegon, but not the way she remembers him. Not the boy who drowned himself in drink, who smothered sorrow beneath indulgence, who turned joy into armor, wielding laughter like a blade against the world that had never wanted him. Not the hurt, love-starved eyes she is once more becoming familiar with in the boy who clings to her side, seeking something he does not have the words for. No, the Aegon in these visions is something else entirely.

They show him

laughing

—truly laughing. A sound full and golden, unburdened, warm and rich, absent of that sharp, brittle edge she had come to know too well. There is no slur to his words, no drunken sway to his step, no ghost of exhaustion carved into his bones. No. His eyes—lavender bright, once dulled by excess—are clear. Open. Free. She watches him move through these visions with a lightness that does not belong to the man she remembers. His hands do not shake. His shoulders do not bow beneath the weight of a crown he never wanted. There is no wariness in his smile, no hesitation, no fear of what tomorrow might bring. His smiles are easy. Real.

And he is happy.

Not the hollow, fleeting kind of happiness that flickers before being swallowed whole. Not the reckless, desperate joy of a man who has never known what it is to be enough. The kind of happiness that does not come at the expense of something else. The kind of happiness she had once thought impossible for him.

She does not trust it.

It feels too much like a lie, like a trick of her own mind—a cruel mirage shimmering just out of reach. Some desperate attempt to sand down the jagged edges of what was. A wish carved out of longing, painted over a past that has already scarred itself into her bones, written itself into the marrow of who she is.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The chamber had been cold.

Not the fleeting kind of chill that came with an open window left unattended, nor the crisp bite of autumn before the leaves turned. No, this was the kind of cold that did not simply exist—it clung, it burrowed. The kind of cold that settled into the very bones of the Red Keep, seeping through the stone, creeping through the cracks in the windows, curling beneath the door like a patient thing, waiting. The hearth burned low, its embers glowing dimly, smoldering like dying stars in a sky long abandoned. But the warmth never quite reached them.

Aegon sat slumped in a chair near the fire, one leg sprawled out, the other bent lazily at the knee. His cup rested against the armrest, half-full, his fingers curling loosely around the stem. The scent of wine clung to him, thick and stale, weaving into the air, into the very fabric of the room, as inescapable as grief. His tunic was wrinkled, his hair mussed, a careless ruin, his face streaked with the remnants of tears hastily wiped away.

His gaze passed over her, through her, as if she were nothing but another wraith among the many that haunted these halls.

“What are you still doing here?” His voice was rough, scraped raw, as if it had been wrung dry from too many nights of drink and screams and too little sleep. I made him sound like he was worn down to his last fraying thread, unraveling with every breath.

Élynne stiffened. She had lingered too long. Standing in the threshold as though waiting for something she could not name.

"I..." Her mouth opened, closed. Her hands curled into fists at her sides.

Say something. Say anything.

Aegon huffed out a breath, tilting his head back against the chair. "You should be with your

husband

."

The words landed like stones in her chest, sinking deep, cold and heavy. Her throat tightened.

You

know

I have not seen him in

weeks.

You

know

he does not

want

me. You know—

But she said nothing.

Aegon sighed, lifting his cup once more, the movement slow, careless.The firelight caught the gleam of the liquid within, deep red, dark as a wound that would never close. He tipped it towards his lips.

"Go to bed, Élynne."

The words were an ending. A severing. Dismissal sliced through her, leaving something hollow in its wake. Because Aegon had been her friend. Aegon, who had once been full of life, even when drowning in sorrow, even when lost in self-destruction. Aegon, who had laughed, who had burned bright, even as the fire consumed him.

But now, he was a man undone, a ruin of himself, waiting. For the drink. For the blade. For the poison to finally take him under.

And she—she had become nothing more than a ghost in his halls, a flickering shadow with no idea how to pull them both back into the light. Trapped in the space between what once was and what would never be, she drifted through his ruin, unseen, unheard, tethered by a loyalty that felt more like mourning.

︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶

The gardens are thick with the scent of summer blooms, lush and heavy, the perfume of roses and lilacs hanging heavy in the air. Golden afternoon light spills in dappled patches through the canopy of trees, dancing across the stone pathways, turning ivy-covered walls into lattices of shifting gold and shadow. The soft murmur of the fountains should bring peace. A gentle trickle, a whisper of water over marble.

It is why Élynne has come here.

But peace does not exist where courtiers gather. She hears them long before they enter her line of vision. A chorus of laughter, bright and musical on the surface, yet sharpened at the edges, a knife concealed beneath a silken sleeve. A cluster of noble ladies, seated beneath the shade of a carved stone pavilion, sipping from delicate goblets, their silken gowns spilling around them like flower petals. Or like a bed of thorns. Pretty things, practiced things. Born into court, raised to thrive in its treacherous waters. Their laughter drifts through the air, musical and light, but there is an edge to it—something sharp hidden beneath layers of lace and honeyed words.

Élynne is used to being watched. Whispered about. Judged. Their gazes skim over her like merchants appraising a piece of flawed silver, their smiles practiced, sharp as embroidery needles. She does not falter. She never has. The quiet, cutting assessments. The way noblewomen watch her as though she is something to be studied, weighed, measured—and always, always found wanting. It was the same when she was Aemond’s wife, when she was queen consort, when she mourned Aegon.

Apparently, she mourned him too much. A wound does not close when it is expected to, nor does a heart forget because the world commands it. But they do not understand. They never have.

“…not much of a lady, is she?” One of them titters, muffled behind a jeweled hand. Lady Alina Tyrell, most likely. The ringleader, the one who wields cruelty like an artist wields a brush.

“She hardly speaks,” another muses, voice lilting, coated in false sweetness. “Perhaps she’s simple.”

A third, emboldened, lets out a light, cruel laugh. “Or mute. Would explain the way she just stands there—like a doll someone forgot to wind up.”

A doll. A thing. A curiosity without a voice or a will of its own. Delicate and ornamental, meant to be placed upon a shelf and admired—but never to act, never to want.

Aemond would have enjoyed that description, Élynne thinks bitterly. Would have smiled that thin, knowing smile, the one that never quite reached his eye, and murmured some obnoxious thing about propriety. About duty. About the virtues of silence.

Élynne had never been silent. Not truly. Especially not now.

“Maybe she was raised in a barn,” someone murmurs, and this time, there is no attempt to mask the bite in it.

Élynne remains still. She has long since learned to ignore them. Let their words pass over her like a breeze through the trees—stirring, rustling, but never taking root. What was it Granddam Isolde likes to say? Something about ducks and water. She loses herself trying to remember the phrasing.

“Gods, you’re all

dull

.” Aegon’s voice cuts through the air as lazily as a cat stretching in the sun, but it lands like a blade.

The ladies freeze.

Even Élynne, who has long since learned to ignore the murmurs at court, stills.

Aegon strides into their midst without so much as a glance in their direction, moving as he always does—with the careless confidence of a boy who has never known consequence. He does not slow his step. Does not afford them even the dignity of a second look. He simply moves forward, utterly unbothered, as though their whispered cruelty is beneath his notice.

He reaches her with practiced ease, his fingers brushing against her wrist in quiet familiarity before he slides her arm into the crook of his elbow. Like it is second nature. Like it is something remembered, not learned. And it had been, once. Back then—the only light in that horrible vision. Even with the drink and the disillusionment, until the world pulled them apart, tear by tear, breath by breath.

Aegon does not care. Never has. He does not even look at them. Not even when he says: “No wonder no one likes you, darlings” he sighs, tone as bored as if he were commenting on the weather.

The effect is immediate. The ladies, so used to weaving their little nets of cruelty, suddenly find themselves ensnared instead. Lady Alina’s lips part in shock. The other two exchange startled glances, caught between offense and uncertainty. Another girl stiffens, color rising high on her cheeks. A fifth sneaks a nervous glance toward her companions, as if unsure whether to laugh or retreat. They are not used to being seen. Not like this.

Aegon had never cared enough to involve himself in courtly gossip—until now. Élynne, to her own quiet surprise, feels warmth bloom in her chest.

He is yet to acknowledge them. Oblivious or uncaring to the silent storm he’d stirred, turns to her with a fully. His expression shifts—softer now, easier, a window into the boy he is peeking through the jaded exterior.“Come,” voice still smooth but laced with something gentler, something just for her. “I’ve had a terrible idea.”

She arches a blonde brow. Curious despite herself. “Oh?”

He tilts his head, mock-serious. “Let’s go bother my nephews.”

She exhales, half a laugh, half exasperation. “And here I thought you wanted to be a good influence.”

Aegon scoffs, poorly disguising a grin, already leading her toward the Red Keep with not a single glance behind him. As if the moment never existed at all.

“Why start now?”

The highborn ladies watch them go, their whispers snuffed out, their stares burning into Élynne’s back.

︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶

"Looking in the wrong place, lacking trust," Helaena tells her one afternoon, idly twisting a strand of silver hair between her fingers, watching the way it catches the light.

Élynne frowns, looking up from her book. "What do you mean?"

Helaena’s lilac gaze flickers—unfocused, or perhaps focused on something just beyond sight. For a moment, Élynne feels small. "Shadows stretch longest behind," Helaena says, as if that explains anything. "But even the longest shadow fades at dusk."

Élynne’s throat goes dry.

Her hands tighten around the worn leather of her book. She thinks of the visions. Of flickering images, fractured like light upon water. Of the two futures—the one slipping away and the one only just beginning to take shape. And she thinks of Helaena. Of that far-seeing, far-knowing look—the one that lingers now, heavy with meaning, as if waiting for something unspoken.

"What do you see?" she asks.

Helaena smiles. Soft. Serene. Unreadable. Élynne wishes she stayed silent.

Helaena’s fingers abandon her hair, moving instead to twist a loose strand into a delicate knot. They both watch in silence as it unfurls moments later, springing back into soft, silken waves. The movement is hypnotic, like the slow unraveling of a thread, the undoing of something fragile yet inevitable. It is so much like Aegon’s, Élynne realizes distantly. The same shade of moonlight, the same softness when it brushes against a shoulder. The same unruly weight, always falling back into place no matter how often it is pushed aside. Helaena brushes hers, of course, the care and length keeping it tamer than her brother’s.

And then—she remembers.

Not this Aegon, not yet, but the one she has already seen. The one she is still learning not to long for.

Her chamber had smelled of myrrh and aged parchment, of rain from the open window and the faintest trace of wine on his breath. Aegon had come straight from the bath, his tunic loose at the collar, hair damp and curling at the ends. He always found his way to her in these quiet hours, when the weight of the world slipped from his shoulders and he could simply be.

"You’ll ruin the sheets," she had said, feigning disapproval as he all but collapsed onto the bed beside her.

"Then let them be ruined." His voice was drowsy, low, softened at the edges.

She had turned the page of her book, pretending not to watch as he stretched out, arms tucked beneath his head. His hair fanned over the pillow, gleaming silver in the candlelight, and before she could stop herself, her fingers twitched. An old habit—one he had never minded, one she should have long abandoned.

"If you're going to stare, you might as well touch."

He had said it without opening his eyes, a slow, knowing grin tugging at his lips. She had scoffed, reaching for his hair before she could think better of it, smoothing it back only for it to fall forward again. Always falling forward. Always finding its way back to her fingers, again and again.

Aegon sighed, low and content, and let his head tip back against her shoulder.

"You’re going to braid it again, aren’t you?" he mumbled, voice thick with sleep.

"Would you stop me if I was?"

"Never."

She had smiled, her fingers threading through the silver strands with practiced ease. Not to tame them—Aegon was never meant to be tamed—but simply to touch, to hold. It meant nothing, of course. She told herself that every time. That there was nothing in the way his breath evened when she touched him, nothing in the way he lingered here, always here, when he could have been anywhere else. Nothing in the way her heart beat too fast, too loud. Nothing.

Élynne blinks, her pulse unsteady, her fingers curling into her skirts as if to ground herself.

Helaena watches her, gaze unreadable, as if she knows. As if she sees everything. The princess tilts her head in that quiet, distant way she has, her expression not quite here, not quite elsewhere.

"Some roads bend where none expect," she says. "Some lead forward. Some only circle back."

Élynne has not spoken of her visions. Not to anyone. Not to the ones who would call it madness. Not to the ones who might listen too closely. Her heart stills.

"I don’t know what you mean."

Helaena’s lilac gaze lingers, searching—sifting through words unspoken, secrets held too tightly. Sharp in a way few ever notice. Sharp in a way even fewer understand.

"Dreams whisper, but fear shouts," she says, her voice soft. "One drowns the other."

Élynne feels

cold

.

"Looking in the wrong place," Helaena murmurs again. She blinks, a movement long and fluttery, and her gaze drifts to a butterfly demanding her attention. "Some close their eyes and still see. Others stare and remain blind."

It is the second time she has spoken in riddles.

Élynne does not know what it means. Or, at least, that is what she tells herself. A comfort woven from fragile threads, unraveling the longer she holds onto it. But she knows, deep in her bones, that Helaena does. Knows in that quiet, distant way of hers, as if she is watching something unfold beyond the veil of sight, beyond time itself.

A cold weight settles in Élynne’s chest, heavy as stone, sinking deep, as if her very bones wish to root her in place. She thinks of the visions. Of the threads of time twisting and fraying at the edges, refusing to be neatly woven into certainty. She thinks of the past-that-is-not-the-past, the future-that-may-not-be.

Candlelight, wavering and soft, casting golden halos on damp skin. The warmth of a presence not meant to linger, yet never truly leaving. A boy—no, a man—standing at the foot of her bed, his silhouette outlined in the dim glow, loose tunic clinging where his skin is still damp, the scent of myrrh and spiced wine curling through the air like a secret.

Aegon.

He would take the space left vacant by his brother, not as a replacement but as if the emptiness had always been carved for him all along, waiting. And they would talk into the first rays of sunlight, their voices weaving through the hush of the early hours—soft, unhurried murmurs, heavy with things left unsaid. Laced with understanding, with a solace so rare and fragile it felt almost fragile.

Aegon’s gaze—deep, unreadable—lingered on her like a question left unanswered. Searching. Always searching. For what, she never knew. And yet, every time, she would wonder—did he find it in her? That elusive something, that truth he never spoke aloud? She knew she found it in him. That connection. That quiet, unshakable knowing. A tether neither of them expected, yet neither could break.

Élynne should not remember the way his presence settled around her like a second skin, how the quiet between them was not empty, but something full, something fragile. How her fingers ached to reach for him, to smooth the creases from his brow, to map the shape of something she refused to understand.

And here is Helaena—his sister, her dear friend—one more person she could not save. Twisting strands of moonlight between her fingers, spinning fate into knots only to let them unravel again. Speaking in riddles that are not riddles at all. Warnings. Promises. Truths draped in silk and shadow, slipping through her fingers like grains of sand.

Truths she has spent a lifetime refusing to name—might spend another still, if only she could get away with it.

The fire crackles beside them, casting long shadows against the stone. It dances in Helaena’s eyes, glinting off silver lashes as if she holds secrets even the flames dare not touch. The air is thick with the scent of lavender and aged parchment, a familiar comfort, yet it does nothing to soothe the growing unrest curling in Élynne’s stomach.

In moments like this, for all her visions, for all the glimpses she has seen of what was and what could be, Helaena makes her feel blind. As if she is the one grasping at whispers, as if she is the one left searching in the dark.

︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶

The Red Keep looms behind them, a fortress of blood and stone, its high walls casting long shadows over the city below. From the outside, it stands unshaken, an empire carved from rock and will, its towers clawing toward the heavens. From within, Élynne knows, it is a cage—one gilded in power, in privilege, but a cage all the same.

She hesitates at the threshold of the hidden postern gate, the narrow passage barely wide enough for two. The scent of damp stone clings to the air, mingling with the distant tang of the sea. But they’re children of ten namedays old, smaller than any adult they know. Aegon is already through, the hood of his cloak drawn up, turning back to grin at her with the reckless ease of a boy who has done this far too many times before.

"Come on," he urges, extending a hand as if he were leading her into something grand, rather than something foolish. There’s mischief in his eyes, but something else, too—something weightless, fleeting. "Or do you mean to stand there and let the night go to waste?"

Élynne crosses her arms. "And if we’re caught?"

Aegon scoffs. "Then I shall tell them I kidnapped you, and you can feign innocence."

"You’re assuming they would believe me."

"I’m assuming they wouldn’t dare lay a hand on you. Or me." His smirk falters—just slightly, just enough. Something unreadable flickers in his expression, a ghost of a thought that vanishes before she can name it. "Besides, we won’t be caught. I’ve done this before."

This, more than anything, gives her pause. She has always known Aegon found ways to slip free of his royal shackles, but hearing it said so plainly unsettles her. How many nights has he wandered these streets

alone

?

The wind is cool, carrying the scent of the city—salt from the Blackwater, roasting meats from the lower streets, the acrid tang of burning tallow. It is wild and real and nothing like the perfumed air of the Keep, nothing like the suffocating corridors lined with wary smiles and sharper tongues.

Élynne sighs. "Fine."

Aegon grins like a Daeron caught stealing sweets, grabs her wrist, and pulls her into the night.

The streets of King’s Landing pulse with life, a world apart from the cold grandeur of the Keep. Here, the air is thick with the sound of shouting vendors and laughing drunks. The glow of torches and lanterns gilds the streets in shifting gold, casting shadows that dance like specters along the winding alleys. Street performers weave through the crowds—fire eaters and knife jugglers, minstrels strumming old songs while dirty-faced children dart between legs to collect fallen coins.

Élynne keeps her hood low, fingers curling around the rough fabric. The cloak—stolen? Borrowed? She does not know how Aegon acquired it—itches against her skin. The rest of the clothes are similar, simple and coarse, belonging to someone of a lower station. A squire, perhaps? It’s also meant for a boy: dark trousers, a beige shirt, worn-out boots. Only her socks are hers, soft and new, a quiet rebellion against the disguise. A knitted cap completes the outfit, hiding her long curls. She is about to complain—just to see him roll his eyes, just to earn that easy, good-natured laugh—but then she sees him

breathe

.

He moves through the city as if he belongs here, as if the weight on his shoulders has lightened the moment he stepped beyond the Red Keep’s reach.

She has never seen him like this. Only…

The thought takes her elsewhere, to another life, another city night, where he had taken her hand just like this. But then, he had been older, his shoulders broader, his grip firmer yet still so gentle. The streets had been much the same—loud, chaotic, alive—but he had led her somewhere quieter. Not a tavern, not a brothel, but a small place, nestled between taller, grander buildings. A restaurant, run by an old woman whose hands were wrinkled but strong, whose eyes crinkled with warmth when she saw him.

"Aegon! You finally came back to visit this old crone."

"How could I not, auntie?"

he had said, laughing as he let her cup his face with the tenderness of a mother. Élynne remembers the way the woman had fussed over them, scolding Aegon for staying away too long, patting Élynne’s hands as if she were a granddaughter. She remembers the smell of warm, spiced broth, the sound of a ladle clinking against a clay bowl. The way Aegon had looked at her across the table—tired, but unburdened, just for a little while.

And now… Now, in this life, he tugs her along, past crowded streets and raucous laughter, past drunken nobles and merchants arguing over prices, until he stops in front of a small, unassuming building. Élynne’s breath catches.

It’s the same place.

The sign above the door is newer, the paint less faded. The steps don’t sag quite as much. But she knows this place, knows the scent of simmering broth and herbs wafting from within, the way the light spills onto the street like a soft golden glow. And then:

"Aegon?"

The door swings open, and there she is. Younger, but unmistakable. The same warm, sharp eyes, the same knowing smile. The woman wipes her hands on her apron, shaking her head with fond exasperation.

"Look at you, still sneaking around like a street rat."

Aegon laughs, slipping easily into a role he has played before. "I’d be offended if I didn’t know how much you loved me, auntie."

Élynne, however, is staring at the woman, at the softness in her face, the way her brow creases not in judgment, but in gentle scolding. And for the first time, she realizes who this woman reminds her of.

Queen Alicent.

The woman looks like she could be a Hightower. Not a perfect match—her features are a little sharper, her skin kissed by the sun in a way noblewomen’s rarely are. But the coloring is there, the high cheekbones, the large doe eyes, the fine-cut nose, even the way her brow creases, thoughtful and discerning. She could be a cousin. An aunt. A distant relative, perhaps.

Or maybe not so distant.

Élynne swallows, something uneasy stirring in her chest. Bastards happen. They happen more often than noble families like to acknowledge. Take Aegon’s older sister, for exemple. Or the Aemond of her visions, her mind supplies, as much as he liked to badmouth his cousins. And what would be done with a girl born of the wrong circumstances, carrying the right blood?

Perhaps she would be sent away. Perhaps she would be given just enough to make a life for herself, but not enough to ever reach back to the family that made her. Perhaps she would end up here.

And then—Élynne wonders, with a sudden, sharp pang—if Aegon saw it too. If that had been what softened him to this place in that other life. A flicker of something familiar, of something lost.

Because he had never had a granddam. He had never had a mother who looked at him like this, with warmth, with gentle exasperation. There was never someone of his blood who should have loved him unconditionally, who actually did.

Élynne swallows hard. She thinks of her own granddams, of the warmth of their presence, of their laughter. Her mother’s mother, all sharp wit and hugs and knowing, kind eyes; her father’s mother, quieter but just as affectionate, always tucking stray locks of hair behind Élynne’s ear as if she were still a child.

She has both of them. She has her father and mother, her grandsire. A family whole and strong and loving. She was the one to leave, to die somehow, that Élynne from the visions. The grief of it crashes over her suddenly, sharp and staggering. She was their only child. She had left them to grieve her. Her father, who had always called her his brightest star. Her mother, who had whispered lullabies in the dark. Her granddams, who had spoiled her, loved her, treasured her. Her grandsire, strong and steady, the foundation of them all. She had been loved. She had been so, so loved.

And she had left them all behind.

She does not realize she has gone quiet until the old woman speaks again, drawing her back.

"And who’s this? One more little beast like you?"

The woman had asked if they were related in that other life, too. Élynne remembers the moment with startling clarity, the teasing lilt in her voice, the flicker of curiosity in her eyes. She had blamed her hair for it then, and she blames it now.

While not as pale as true Targaryen silver, her hair is close—closer than a Lannister’s, at least. House de Auroré is known for its gold: golden hair, golden eyes, a lineage kissed by the sun itself. The sun is their banner’s symbol for a reason. Light, resilience, legacy.

But it is night now, and in the dim glow of lanterns, the woman cannot see her eyes, cannot place what should set her apart.

As for their features? They look nothing alike. She prides herself on it. Not because Aegon is anything to scorn—far from it. He is beautiful, in a way that is almost unfair, with Alicent’s finely sculpted features and the ethereal coloring of his father’s blood. The kind of beauty that makes people stare, even when they shouldn’t.

But to look like

Aegon

—to share enough with him to be mistaken for

kin?

Something in her resists the very notion. The thought sits strangely in her chest, unsettling and unnameable, like an instinct buried too deep to unravel. It’s just… something in her recoils at the very notion, though she cannot quite name why. She is not his sister. Not his cousin. Not his blood.

And yet, in another life, the question had been asked just the same. Had irked her in the same way.

"This is Élynne," Aegon says, grinning, just as he had in that other life. "She’s my truest friend. She has never had real food before, can you imagine?"

"A

crime,

" the woman declares, already ushering them inside. The warmth of the room envelops them, and for a moment, it is just as it was before.

Élynne shakes the thoughts away, buries them deep. She is here now. She is alive now. That's what matters.

Across the table, in the flickering candlelight, Aegon looks at her—not as a prince, not as the boy who would one day be king. Just Aegon. Just a boy, ten namedays old, hair in loose waves from the damp air. The golden light softens him, rounds out his sharp edges, makes him seem younger still. And Élynne, for all her restraint, cannot help but smile.

Aegon laughs too easily, smiles too freely, the way only a child can. He greets the woman’s cats like old friends, scratching them behind the ears as they purr and curl against him. He drops bits of food into their waiting mouths, unbothered by their boldness. The woman sighs in long-suffering amusement but does not stop him, muttering about how the beasts will grow too fat to catch their own meals.

The door swings open, bringing a gust of salt-tinged air, and in steps her husband—a man of the sea, weathered by wind and time. He smells of brine and old wood, his coat heavy with the dampness of the docks, but his voice is warm as he greets them, a rolling, lilting thing shaped by years at port taverns and sailor’s halls. With a chuckle, he settles in and, as he always does, begins to spin his tales.

He speaks of monstrous waves that rose like giants, of ships swallowed whole, of beasts lurking beneath the water with eyes like lanterns in the dark. His hands move as he talks, mapping out the rise and fall of the sea, the way a ship might pitch and groan beneath an unforgiving storm.

Aegon listens, rapt, elbows braced against the table, chin in his hands. He drinks in every word, the candlelight flickering in his eyes, shining like lavender opals. He has never been to sea, only heard of it from his grandsire, from knights and traders, but here, now, it is as if he sails upon those dark waters himself. As if in is mind, he is not a prince but a cabin boy, a deckhand, a rogue slipping between ships in the dead of night.

And Élynne, watching him, witnesses it all again. Not just this Aegon, the boy before her, but the Aegon of her visions—the young man who had brought her here before, older, wearier, but with that same light in his eyes. The past and the present blur, overlapping like ink bleeding through parchment. She remembers that other night, the warmth of it, the quiet kindness of his gesture. She sees it in this Aegon too, unshaped by time, untouched by sorrow—just a boy who has never yet known what it is to break.

This is the Aegon the court never sees. Not the drunken fool they will mock one day, nor the reluctant prince his mother despairs over. Not the reckless shadow of a man raised to be a disappointment. Only their deep bond in that other life had let her glimpse him this carefree, and even in this one, it is a rare sight, with her befriending him in their childhood. This is the boy who might have been if he had never been born to a crown. Or a weak father. Or an upcoming war.

For now, at least, Élynne tells herself, watching the firelight dance across his face, illuminating the curve of his grin and the unguarded joy in his eyes, he is only a boy, laughing at an old sailor’s tales. Only a child with wind-ruffled curls and sea-bright eyes, unburdened for a fleeting moment by the weight of the name he bears.

But fate will not always be so kind. And it is not kind to her, either. Because she is not just a girl, not anymore. The visions stole that from her.

A year ago, she had been bright-eyed and full of dreams, no heavier burdens on her shoulders than the lessons she struggled with or the petty squabbles of childhood. A year ago, she had been untouched by grief, by the cruel weight of knowing what was to come. But then the memories had started—ghosts of another life pressing against her own, seeping into her dreams and waking hours alike. She has lived and loved and died before she even turned ten. And what child could come out of that unscathed?

So she watches Aegon—watches the ease in him, the lightness—and feels a pang of something raw, something bitter. It isn’t fair. Not for him, not for her. Some part of her innocence ended at nine, and how sad is that?

But selfishly, desperately, Élynne lets herself pretend—for now—that it does not matter. Pretend that they are still just children, that the world has not already begun to shape them into something else. Pretend that this moment, this night, will last forever. It doesn't, of course. Nothing ever does. It's what that older Aegon said to comfort her, once upon a time that never happened but just might.

The old sailor’s voice grows quieter as the night deepens, his words slowing, the weight of his years settling into his bones. His wife clicks her tongue at him, muttering about how he should have been in bed an hour ago, but there’s no real bite in it. Aegon grins, ever the charmer, and thanks them both with a flourish, pressing an exaggerated kiss to the old woman’s knuckles.

"Flatterer," she scoffs, swatting at him, making him chuckle. "You’ll grow up a right troublemaker, I can see it in your bones."

"My bones are quite innocent, madam," Aegon protests, all wide-eyed mischief.

Élynne rolls her eyes but hides a smile. She thanks them as well, dipping her head in a way that is both polite and warm. The night air greets them as they step out, cool against their faces after the warmth of the tavern.

For a moment, neither speaks. The city hums around them, quieter at this hour but never truly still. The scent of salt and roasting meat lingers in the air, mingling with the faint, distant notes of a street musician’s lute.

Then Aegon shifts beside her, something alight in his gaze. "Come on," he says, the words slipping between them like a secret. "There’s something I want you to see."

He doesn’t wait for her to question him, just starts walking, his pace brisk with purpose. Élynne follows without thinking, drawn forward by the same force that always seems to pull her toward him, even when she knows better.

They weave through the winding streets, past shuttered windows and lantern-lit courtyards. The stones beneath their feet are slick with the remnants of a late rain, glistening under the glow of torches. Somewhere, a dog barks; somewhere else, laughter echoes, the kind that belongs to men with too much ale in their veins.

At last, Aegon slows. They step into a small, unassuming square, quieter than the rest of the city. The noise of King’s Landing is softened here, distant but ever-present, like the whisper of waves to a sailor’s ear. At its center, a street performer stands before a gathered crowd—a girl no older than twelve, balancing a flaming torch on the tip of her finger. The fire flickers, casting shifting shadows across her face, illuminating the fine angles of her youthful features. The crowd murmurs in awe, held captive by the impossible delicacy of her control.

For a moment, Élynne sees peace within the flames. Or something like it. A feeling half-formed, slipping through her fingers before she can grasp it.

Then Aegon nudges her lightly, pulling her back to the present. "Reminds me of you somehow."

She blinks, glancing at him. His tone is casual, but there’s something thoughtful beneath it, something she doesn’t quite know how to name. Élynne feels her cheeks warm. She scoffs to cover it, though she suspects it’s a weak effort. "She’s talented."

Aegon’s gaze flickers downward, toward her hands, where the fabric of her cloak trembles ever so slightly. "When you paint, it’s like that, you know?" His voice is softer now, no note of teasing. He watches her carefully, like he’s waiting for something.

Élynne says nothing. She isn’t sure what to say.

The performer finishes her act with a flourish, bowing low as the crowd erupts into cheers. Coins clatter into her basket, a shower of copper and silver, but it’s the single gold dragon that gleams brightest as it lands.

The girl’s eyes widen.

"Buy yourself a feast, little flame," Aegon says, grinning.

The girl gapes at him, then beams, dipping into another deep bow. Aegon only laughs, already turning back toward Élynne, that grin of his softening into something almost unreadable. "Come on. We should go before someone recognizes me."

Élynne raises an eyebrow. "Considering the gold coin you just tossed, I’d say it sounds possible."

Aegon scoffs, "As if I’m the only lordling running around town, Élynne."

They slip back into the crowd, moving with the ease of those who have spent their lives learning how to disappear in plain sight. The streets stretch before them, dark and winding, and for a moment, it feels like they might simply walk forever, slipping between shadows, untouched by the weight of who they are.

Sharp, rhythmic sound of boots striking cobblestone. Élynne stiffens. The sound is too measured, too familiar.

"Gold Cloaks," Aegon mutters, and when she looks at him, expecting to see worry, she finds only delight. Lavender gleams, bright with reckless amusement.

"Aegon—"

"Run!"

He doesn’t wait for her response. His fingers close around her wrist, warm and insistent, and then they’re moving. They weave through narrow alleys, dodging startled pedestrians, laughing breathlessly as they go.

The Gold Cloaks fall behind, their clanking sounds lost to the wind. Aegon only grins, triumphant, the night’s adventure scrawled across his face in exhilaration.

And despite herself—despite the foolishness of it all—Élynne laughs, too.

︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶

The firelight flickered, casting long shadows across the cold stone walls. The air smelled of roasted meats and clove-spiced wine, of wax and burning tallow. Laughter rang through the hall, hollow and sharp, a sound that did not touch her.

She sat alone at the feast, the weight of the court pressing in around her. Their voices blurred together, meaningless chatter over clinking goblets and the scrape of silverware against polished plates. Aemond was not here. He had left days ago on another campaign, and she doubted he had spared her a second thought.

It should not have mattered. She had been raised on tales of duty, of patience, of the quiet fortitude a woman must bear. But in her home, duty had never meant lovelessness. Her parents had been proof of that—partners in all things, bound not only by vows but by devotion. She had grown up watching their love woven into the small, quiet moments—her father pressing a kiss to her mother’s wrist as she embroidered, her mother tucking a cloak around his shoulders when he fell asleep at his desk. A love that was steadfast, unwavering. A love that made duty a joy, not a burden.

She had believed, foolishly, that she would have the same.

He was quick to set her straight. On their wedding night, when she reached for him with soft words and hopeful hands, he did not meet her with cruelty—no, cruelty would have meant passion, even in the shape of scorn. Instead, he was indifferent. Distant. He did not touch her, did not even try. When enough time had passed to be believable, he rose from the bed without a word. She watched as he retrieved a small pouch from his belongings, as he tipped its contents onto the pristine sheets—dark red blooming against white linen, a false testament to a union that had never taken place.

And then he left. No explanation. No apology. No acknowledgment of the way her heart had cracked open in that moment. Only the quiet, practiced efficiency of a man who had never intended to be a husband in truth. He left her alone in the dark. No farewell. No pause at the door. Only the echo of his retreating footsteps, louder than any rejection could have been.

And yet, she did not learn. Not at first. Not for a long time.

Instead, she clung to hope, foolish and stubborn. She softened her voice, made her words gentler, thinking perhaps he found her too sharp. She changed the way she dressed—finer fabrics, richer colors, gowns cut to flatter the form in ways the women at court whispered men favored. She let down her hair, then braided it again, then tried something new entirely. She smiled more. Then less. Then not at all.

She learned his favorite books and read them, hoping to have something to speak of that might interest him. She learned Valyrian better than she ever cared to, just so she might answer him in it. She learned the names of every battle he admired, every general he respected, every lesson the histories could offer.

She tried. By Calivor’s flame, she

tried

. And nothing worked. His eye only looked at her worse. Like she was a thing to endure. Like she was in the way. Or rather, he looked through her. Through the gentle offerings of conversation, through the careful way she reached for him, as if she might find something human beneath all that cold, unyielding steel. He shunned her love like it was a weakness, something to be discarded in favor of sharper, crueler things.

And yet, she had still turned toward him, still waited for him to turn back. Foolish. Foolish girl.

Her gown was not green, not tonight. She could not find it in herself to wear the colors of the Hightowers. Instead, she wore deep purple, the shade of twilight over the moors, embroidered with constellations of gold and silver thread. Her house colors, a quiet rebellion, a whisper of home in a place that would never be hers.

Even if she was far from the northwest of the North, far from Emberline Hall, where mist clung to the cliffs like breath against glass, where the weirwoods grew vivid and sprawling, their crimson leaves a whispering canopy. Not like here. Not like the Red Keep, where the godswood was only a relic, contained, caged like everything else in this place.

Her hair, curled and braided into an intricate crown, gleamed beneath the candlelight. A queen’s adornment, though she was no queen. A reminder of duty, though she longed to forget. Every part of her appearance was immaculate. Perfect. As expected.

And yet, she felt hollow.

A goblet was placed beside her. She turned—and there was Aegon.

She stiffened before she could stop herself. His movements were slow, deliberate, his expression unreadable. He had been drinking, of course. He always was. A mess, they called him. A disappointment. A stain upon his house. She had never thought much of him beyond that—never wanted to.

And yet, when he looked at her now, his gaze was sharp. Too sharp. “I thought I might find you sulking,” he murmured, sinking into the seat beside her.

She scoffed, turning away. “I am not

sulking.

” Her voice was steady, clipped. But there was no real fire behind it.

Aegon tilted his head, watching her in a way that made her feel… seen. Too seen.

“Mm,” he hummed, a habit she wasn’t sure began with him or Aemond, a small thing they had in common. But where Aemond’s hum was calculating, considering, Aegon’s was different. Gentler. Lazy. It made her feel like he saw straight through her, and somehow, still cared enough to keep looking. She could not begin to fathom why. “Then what would you call it?”

She exhaled, trying to hold so much within. The weight of it pressed against her ribs, heavy, aching. “A quiet moment.”

Aegon smirked, swirling the wine in his cup. “You’ve always have those,” he mused. “Even when we were children, did you know? Always off to the side. Big eyes far away. Thinking.”

He said it like a fact. Like a truth he had known for far longer than she realized. She did not even realize he saw her during their childhood. She certainly tried to avoid him.

Élynne stiffened, her back straightening even more. She hated that he noticed. “Why do you care?” she muttered.

Aegon took a slow sip of his wine. And when he answered, it was quiet, too quiet for a man like him. “I don’t think anyone else does.”

Something in her chest ached. A sharp, twisting pain, like a wound long closed reopening. The way he said it didn’t mean to cut, it was the softest she had ever heard him sound. But it did. She knew he was right. Élynne looked at him then, really looked at him.

His lids were heavy, his lips wine-stained, his usual smirk dulled at the edges. But his eyes—his eyes were clear. Not clouded by drink, not fogged over with mindless pleasure-seeking. And she thought, perhaps, he had never truly been the mess she told herself he was. Perhaps, all this time, he had simply been drowning. He was drunk, yes. But not senseless. Not unfeeling. And for the first time, she wondered if he was just as lonely as she was.

The vision blurs at the edges, like ink bleeding through parchment. And then it is gone.

She wakes to find her head resting on Aegon’s shoulder, back to their ten-year-old forms. The weirwood’s pale branches stretch overhead, its blood-red leaves rustling softly in the late afternoon air. Orange sunlight spills through the gaps, casting blurred patterns on the damp ground. The Red Keep looms beyond the garden walls, distant and indifferent, but here—beneath the watchful eyes of the old gods—everything feels quieter. Softer.

Aegon’s also asleep, his breathing slow and deep, most likely from the time spent as her personal pillow, from the wine he still trades for water. His cheek is pressed against the bark of the weirwood, his silver hair tangled in the knots of its ancient roots.

He’s more controlled now, doesn’t complain when she replaces his goblet with a cup of tea, doesn’t flinch when she looks at him too closely. The sharp edges remain, of course—they always will—but here, Élynne as his company, he lets himself rest.

Her book on Westerosi geology is halfway off his lap, its spine bent where his fingers had idly played with the pages before sleep claimed him. She had been making him read her things from the lessons he ran from. It had not taken much convincing—just a tired roll of his eyes, a muttered "you're relentless"—but he had stayed. He always did, in the end.

She brushes a silver, heavy curl away from his face. The sunlight catches on his hair, turning the pale strands almost white, the sharp angles of his face softened in sleep. Like this, he looks untouched by sorrow, untouched by the weight of expectation. Just a boy, safe beneath the boughs of an ancient god.

And she wonders if there’s any hope for them. For Aegon to find happiness, to wake one morning and not feel shackled to a life he never asked for.  For her to find freedom, to stop waiting for something that will never come.

The Aegon from that sad, tragic life would tell her otherwise. A prompt, bitter ‘no’ leaving his chapped lips, his voice rough with cynicism, quiet with exhaustion, eyes glassy with the dull sheen of a man who expects nothing good.

She never told him he was the single beauty of her days. The only one to make the silence, the war, her marriage, the greif, and so many other horrible things, he made them all bearable.

And now, as the afternoon light flickers through the weirwood’s branches, she wonders if she ever will.

︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶

It is different from the others. Softer. Warmer.

The air is crisp with the lingering chill of morning, yet sunlight spills through the high windows, golden and gentle, painting soft patterns across the floor. The scent of damp earth and fading night still clings to the stones, mingling with the distant salt of Blackwater Bay. Dew still clings to the edges of the ivy creeping up the old stone, tiny beads of water catching the light like glass.

Hidden away in one of the Red Keep’s quieter courtyards, near the weirwoods, the world beyond feels far. Muted. As if this place exists apart from it all. Somewhere beyond this forgotten, neglected little corner, the Red Keep stirs to life, but here, time slows.

She is sitting on a cushioned bench, her skirts tucked around her, a book in her lap. The velvety fabric pools around her, gold embroidery catching the dim light, constellations stitched into the fabric like secrets only she can decipher. And beside her—Aegon.

His head is tilted back, silvery hair spilling over his shoulders, the faintest smile playing at his lips. His lashes, pale as frost, flutter against his skin, his breath even and unhurried. His brow is not furrowed in irritation or weighed down by expectation. He looks… lighter. A version of him she rarely gets to see.

He is not drunk. Not melancholy. He looks…

content.

“You are staring,” he murmurs without opening his eyes.

Élynne flushes, snapping her gaze back to her book. Heat rises to her cheeks, traitorous, betraying her in a way words never could. “I am not.”

Aegon chuckles, shifting closer. The scent of leather and spiced wine clings to him, but faintly—here, he is not drowning. And beneath it, there is something wilder, something untouched by court and duty. He smells of dragon, of charred embers and sun-warmed scales, as if he had flown with Sunfyre in the earliest hours before the castle woke.

Their shoulders brush. Makes curls of silver and gold mix, their strands tangling in the light like threads of a tapestry. It’s how near he gets—so near that the loose strands of her hair brush against his own, gold and silver intertwining, indistinguishable where one ends and the other begins. A breath, a heartbeat, that is all that separates them. She doesn't move away.  Ignores a voice that sounds similar to her mother's, telling her how improper it is to be so near a man one is not married to.

“Yes, you are.”

She exhales, shaking her head. It’s too warm in the chamber, her pulse too quick, and she blames it all on him. “You are insufferable.”

He turns then, resting his cheek against his palm, studying her. His eyes, a shade too keen for someone half-lost in morning stillness, hold something unreadable. Something quiet. Something dangerous. Heavy, but not in the way she is used to. It does not strip her down to something small, something lesser.The sleeve of his coat brushes her shoulder, and she suppresses a shudder.

“And you,” he muses, voice quieter now, almost contemplative, “are lovely when you scowl.”

Élynne’s breath catches in her throat. Her fingers tremble against the pages, creasing the words, but she does not look away.

And then—a hand. Light. Gentle. Aegon reaches out, brushing a stray curl from her cheek. His touch is hesitant, barely there, but it leaves something behind, something fragile and aching.

The vision fades like mist into a different morning light. She is left with the ghost of a touch that had not happened. And the racing of her own heart—foolish, unguarded, and seeking.

She blinks, breath hitching, and she is no longer in the quiet courtyard, no longer bathed in the warmth of a dream. One of the pretty, impossible ones, as she titles them in her mind. The kind that lingers like the last light of dusk, bleeding into the edges of waking. The kind that leaves her grasping at the echo of laughter, the brush of silver against gold, the phantom warmth of something never truly hers.

The scent of dragonfire and spiced wine is gone. In its place, the cool hush of her chambers in the Red Keep. The sun filters through the gauzy curtains of her chambers in the Red Keep, a softer, paler glow than the golden morning of her dream. The gauzy fabric billows with the morning breeze, pale as milkglass, shifting like ghosts against the stone.

The room is modest by courtly standards—smaller than the chambers of a princess, but not so meager as to be unkind. She is a noble lady, after all. Her bed is slightly rumpled, the sheets pushed aside from restless sleep. Her sketchbook lies open on the table beside it, pages creased where she last touched them. A shelf by the window holds neatly arranged books, the spines well-worn from her hands. An embroidery hoop rests atop the cushioned chair, silken thread glinting in the early light—unfinished, like the thoughts she cannot bring herself to voice. The scent of lavender lingers in the air, a small comfort against the weight of waking.

Beyond the heavy wooden door, the soft, distant murmur of Helaena’s voice drifts through the corridors, lilting and bright. Life moves forward, as it always does. But Élynne lingers, heart still caught in the remnants of a dream that felt too real, too close.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Élynne stirs at the faint creak, the sound nearly swallowed by the hush of her chambers.It is quiet, so quiet that for a moment, she thinks she might have imagined it, a trick of her restless mind playing against the heavy stillness of the night. But then—there. The barest shift of shadow where there should have been none, a presence that does not belong.She tenses, finds it hard to breathe. Her fingers clutch at the linens draped over her, so tight she thinks the ovals of her nails might rip into the fabric like talons. It isn't fear that grips at her—not truly—but something colder, sharper. Something that curls in the hollow of her stomach and spreads like ice through her limbs. Her mind leaps ahead to find reasoning. A trick of the firelight. A dream lingering at the edges of wakefulness. A ghost, perhaps, slipping through time and memory.The dim glow of the dying hearth flickers weakly, embers pulsing in the dark like the last heartbeat of something dying. The shadows, deep and endless, stretch long across the stone floor, licking up the walls in jagged fingers. In their depths, something moves.She gasps, heart slamming into her throat, and she reaches frantically for the heady, ornate candle holder on her bedside table—“Seven hells, Élynne. It’s just me.”His voice is familiar, rough with drowsiness, threaded with something that might have been irritation but lacks the sharpness to make it true.“Oh,” she exhales, all fight or fight leaving her in the same gush of air.Yes. Aegon. Makes sense.The Aegon from her visions had always known the numerous hidden corridors of the Red Keep. Had taught her some of them himself, when his voice had been older, rougher, edged with something bitter and exhausted. He had traced the paths for her in hushed tones, his breath warm against her ear, his hands secure over hers, guiding both over cold stone. Remember these ways, Sunlight. Know them as you know your own name. And now, here he is, standing before her.A figure half-carved from darkness, lingering at the threshold of the passage, the faintest glint of silver catching in the fire’s glow. The hearthlight flickers over the tousled mess of his hair, turning it pale gold in one moment, silver-bright in the next. His tunic, wrinkled from sleep, hangs loosely on his frame. His feet are bare against the icy stone.He says nothing else at first, only sways slightly where he stands, his weight shifting lazily against the passage’s doorframe. The only other sound in the room is her quick breathing.Élynne exhales sharply, pressing her palm flat against her racing heart. Relief makes way so annoyance blooms, and she carelessly pushes her free mass of curls away from her face.“What in dawn’s name—Aegon!,” she hisses, a stubborn strand falling back into her eye. “Do you mean to frighten me to death?”Aegon grins, lazy and lopsided, though the flickering fire casts the shadows in such a way that it makes him look more boyish than mischievous. He’s truly both, her mind supplies; a nine nameday pest she somehow loves. His eyes, half-lidded with something not quite sleep, glints with tired amusement. He looks exhausted, she notes with concern. Miserable.“You’re awake,” he observes as if she had simply been waiting for him.“I am now,” she mutters, no true reprimand in her voice. Not for him.He had always been like this—heedless of boundaries or decorum, slipping in and out of spaces as if the world itself was his to roam. Seeking company when solitude became unbearable. It should have annoyed her more than it did. Instead, it was the best part of her days.She opens her mouth to tell him off, just for the sake of it, just to watch him huff and roll his eyes at her, maybe whine. But then he shifts, his weight settling more comfortably against the passage frame, his head tilting ever so slightly, and something in her mind cracks. A memory.Hers, but not quite. One that lives within her all the same. Another life. Another bedroom. The fire lower, the room grander. Aegon had come to her chamber then, too. But older. Weary. Reckless. Bruised in ways that had nothing to do with battle. His fingers trembling where they clutched the doorframe, his mouth had tasted of wine when he slurred her name into her neck, his hold at her waist sad and lonely. She had been frightened, then furious—of the shadows he dragged into her room, of what his presence meant. She had scolded him. He made her laugh. Then she caved, offering comfort and taking from him in return, just as freely given.“You frightened me,” she had snapped at him, much the same as now. And even in those beginnings of them, Élynne could not muster her voice to be steadier, colder.And Aegon—older, heavier with drink yet still wearing that same smirk—had laughed, low and rough, his voice curling around the words like smoke.“Did I?” he had replied, lazy and knowing.But that bedroom had not been her own. That bedroom had belonged to Aemond. Not that he had ever been there. The memory—or the illusion of it—unravels like thread through her fingers, slipping back into the recesses of her mind. She turns her face away, swallowing against the rush of memory and sight that threatens to consume her. That had been another life, one she should not remember. Can’t even fathom why she does.Aegon, this Aegon, is nine namedays old. Still round-faced with youth. Still the boy who scowls at his lessons and whines about his duties but does not yet carry the weight of a kingdom on his shoulders.His lips part slightly, as if he might ask her something. Makes her wonder if he sees something in her face. Something strange, something he can't quite place.But all he says is:“Élynne?” His voice is soft now, uncertain. It anchors her to the present, grounds her against the tides of something too vast, too impossible to name.Élynne exhales slowly, the weight of exhaustion settling in her bones, and sits up. The embroidered linens pool around her waist, the warmth of sleep fading too quickly. The dim glow of the hearth flickers weakly against the stone walls, casting long, wavering shadows that seem to breathe with the fire.Her voice is quieter than she intends, edged with both weariness and familiarity. “What do you want, Aegon?”Aegon lingers in the doorway, a slouched silhouette against the firelight, his nightshirt wrinkled and slipping off one shoulder. His bare feet shift against the cold stone, hesitation visible in every small movement. For a moment, he looks like he might turn back. Retreat into the dark, winding path he came from. But then he shrugs—an old, careless motion, one that doesn’t quite reach his too-tired eyes.His gaze skitters toward the flames, avoiding her as if he doesn’t want to be truly seen. “I can’t sleep,” he mutters, voice rough, frayed at the edges.That much is obvious.She knows a sleep-deprived Aegon from a mile away—his restless energy turned sluggish, the usual mischief in his face dulled by something quieter, heavier. His eyes, too big in his face, look almost bruised beneath the firelight, the pale lavender turned violet, washed in tired shadows. He is not a boy meant for sorrow, but it lingers on him all the same, clinging to the edges of him like an old ghost.Élynne exhales, breath shaky as it leaves her, and pushes her covers away. The warmth of sleep clings to her skin, but it cannot banish the cold settling in her chest.By the old gods and the new, she thinks bitterly, by the Seven, by Calivor’s flame and grace…She hates it.Hates the way the firelight catches on the hollows of his face, how exhaustion drapes over him like an ill-fitted cloak. Hates the way his shoulders—that can be so carelessly thrown back in defiance—seem smaller now, drawn inward like a boy trying to make himself disappear. Everything this world does is bring him sorrow. And there is no prayer, no god in any realm, that has ever stopped it.And she knows—just as much as he knows the paths of these secret corridors, just as much as she knows the boy standing before her—that she cannot turn him away.Élynne sighs but gets up, gestures to the settee near the hearth as she takes a seat herself. “Then come sit. If you’re going to haunt my passageway, you may as well do it comfortably.”Aegon hesitates only for a moment before moving, padding across the stone floor and dropping onto the settee with an undignified sprawl. He tucks his legs up, an ungainly tangle of limbs, curling into himself in a way that makes him look small. Lets his head fall against the backrest. He smells of wind and candle smoke, of warm wool and something faintly sweet.Aegon does not ask for a distraction. But Élynne knows him too well—knows the restless way his fingers tap against his knee, the way his breath hitches before he speaks, as if already anticipating a reply he dreads. A story, a conversation, a silly debate—anything to pull him from the quiet thoughts that settle on his shoulders like a weight too heavy to bear.In that other life, the one buried in visions and memory, older Élynne helped older Aegon sleep many times like this. When he was burned, when his skin peeled and his body ached in ways that would never truly heal, his raspy voice would ask her for one more tale, one more reason to keep his mind from his pain. He would say, with a pained smile, that she dulled the hurt. Her eyes had blurred with tears then—silent, useless grief—and he had only smiled and held her hand with his uninjured one.She thinks, now, that he liked knowing someone was still around to cry for him.Élynne leans back, gaze tracing the erratic flicker of the fire, gathering her thoughts. “Have you ever looked at the stars and wondered if they were watching you in return?”Aegon tilts his head, blinking his pretty eyes like he’s unsure whether he misheard. “What?”“The stars,” Élynne says. “My family, our vassals… the de Auroré people believe each one has a purpose. As they are of light, of fire, given to us by Calivor. Some guide rulers, others protect warriors. Some foretell fates.”Aegon’s brows furrow, intrigue slipping through his usual veil of indifference. “Which ones guide rulers?”Interesting, that he latches onto that, Élynne thinks. Not the warriors' stars, not the fates' omens—only the ones that mark a ruler. He certainly is not asking for his half-sister. The Aegon of her visions had not wanted the crown—not until he could no longer ignore it. And then, when all other choices had burned away in pain and sorrow, he had met its weight with a strength no one had ever expected of him. A strength he tries so hard to bury, even now in childhood.She wonders, then, if it could have been different. If the burden had been his by right and not by force. If it had been laid upon his shoulders with reverence instead of neglect. If Viserys had—perhaps not loved him—but cared. If a father’s gaze had ever softened upon him, if a hand had ever rested on his head in quiet pride.Élynne regrets never asking that version of him. The one who had known both power and pain, who had long since learned that the latter would always outweigh the former. Aegon had told her so many things in the quiet of night, but she had always held back on that. His voice had turned hoarse, breath had hitched between words, when he had curled into himself as though making his body smaller might make the ache inside him more bearable.He had cried, voice raw, wondering —as though he could not fathom it— what made him so unlovable. As though he were searching for an answer in the dark, grasping at something that was never there to begin with. As though, if he could only understand, it might hurt less.She had reassured him every time. Had whispered again and again that he was good and kind and worthy of love. Had cupped his face between her hands, traced soothing circles over his knuckles, let him press his forehead against hers when the weight of it all became too much.And still, he never quite believed her.So how could she ask: If your parents had loved you, would you have wanted the crown? Too cruel a question for a man who had known nothing but cruelty. Aegon had sought her for light, and Élynne—helpless, devoted—had refused to give him anything else.She lifts a hand, her fingers tracing delicate arcs in the air, as though she might carve the night sky itself into the thick stone walls of the Red Keep. For a moment, it is easy to imagine—stars pressed into cold stone, flickering with secrets only the heavens know.“There is one called Luz d'Constantino ,” she says, turning to him with a smile that carries the quiet warmth of fond teasing. “Or, Constantino’s Light, for your non-Liorén speakers.”Aegon rolls his eyes, then sticks out his tongue. It’s childish, but welcomed, a flash of the boy beneath already-made pain.Élynne giggles before continuing, undeterred. “It shines brightest at the start of autumn, marking the turn of the season. It is said that kings and queens born beneath it will have reigns filled with both great prosperity and great strife.”Aegon snorts, the sound touched with dry amusement but also something else—resignation, perhaps, or a truth too sharp to laugh at outright. He shifts closer, their arms brushing, and Élynne finds him warmer than the fire—Dragonlord that he is, burning even in repose.“Sounds like every ruler.”Élynne smiles. Pretends she does not see the flicker of recognition in his eyes. Pretends neither of them recalls that he, too, is an autumn child.“Perhaps. There’s also another— Lantèrna de Luverné. It means—”“Luverné’s Lantern,” Aegon interrupts softly.Élynne blinks, surprised into silence. It’s the second time he has shown knowledge of something from her culture, and yet she had not expected it. Not from him—Aegon, the prince no one thought to teach, the boy no one thought to prepare.Shame prickles at her skin, sharp and immediate. She, of all people, should know better. Aegon’s intelligence is not a revelation—it is a truth, one she has known for so long, even when others refused to see it.His cheeks begin to redden—just the barest flush, catching the glow of the firelight. She recognizes the shift in his posture, the slight tension in his jaw, the way his gaze flickers away as if bracing for mockery or dismissal. And she knows, if she lets this moment linger, he will shut himself off again.So she continues, smoothly, as though she had not noticed. “That one does not mark a ruler, but the person meant to guide them.”Aegon blinks, once more at peace and intrigued. “And what does that mean?”“It means even kings are not meant to rule alone.”The fire crackles, its golden light twisting into shapes that dance and shimmer in the hush of the room. Heat warps the air, the shadows stretch and coil—but it is only the fire, surely. Light and movement. And yet, for a moment, Élynne swears they are reaching, shifting, curling with an intelligence all their own.She stares, transfixed. Something in her chest tightens, as if the flames are curling outward, calling for something unseen. Like a child reaching for its mother, the description slithers into her mind.Aegon yawns, his breath warm as a whisper against her shoulder, his weight pressing against her like an inevitability. There is no hesitation to it, no conscious choice—just the quiet surrender of a boy seeking warmth.“That’s a lot of fancy words for ‘people need advisors,’” he mumbles.Élynne hums, amused, the sound soft, almost absent. But her gaze lingers on the fire. The way it moves—not just flickering, but shifting, twisting, as though aware of being watched. It is only the fire. Only the restless dance of heat and light, curling over the logs in slow, deliberate licks.Imagination. It must be. A trick of the eyes, a fancy born of too little sleep and too many half-formed thoughts. The flames cannot listen. They cannot stir at the sound of her voice, cannot lean forward as though waiting. They cannot answer.And still…Aegon’s voice pulls her from her thoughts, softer now, on the edge of sleep. “Which one are you?”Élynne blinks. “What?”“The stars,” Aegon mutters, his voice half-lost to drowsiness, his words slow, drowsy. Slipping free like thoughts he wouldn’t voice fully awake. “Are you the king’s star or the guide’s?”“Why would I have a star?”Aegon exhales, a soft huff against her skin, something between frustration and fondness. More feeling than words. “You would. Now choose.”Élynne hesitates, her breath catching, the weight of his words settling over her like an old cloak, worn and familiar. She thinks of the visions she never speaks of. The shifting threads of fate that tangle in her dreams, in her waking hours, pulling her forward and back and sideways. The other life.Finally, slow and soft, she says, as though the answer is too distant to hold, “I do not know.”Aegon hums, a sound that is neither agreement nor argument—only acknowledgment. Or maybe just tiredness. He burrows deeper into her shoulder, his face pressing into the curve of her neck, as if drawn to the quiet steadiness of her. His breath is steady, warm. Even now, his closeness is an anchor, pulling her toward something just beyond the edge of understanding—toward the visions she does not chase, but which always find her. “Well…” Aegon mutters, his voice barely more than a sigh. “If I get to be the king’s one, you can be the guide. Sounds fair.”Élynne smiles faintly. A small thing, barely there. But real as her love for him. “Goodnight, Aegon.”But Aegon is already drifting off, the firelight painting golden shadows across his face, shifting and flickering like an unseen promise.︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶The feast is dull, stifling in its predictability, suffocating beneath the weight of ceremony.Long speeches, meat either roasted to leather or left too pink, and wine turned just a touch too sour. The air is thick with the clash of scents—over-seasoned venison, the sickly perfume of the ladies seated nearby, the faint trace of beeswax and smoke from the countless candles overhead. And then, of course, the lords, draped in their customary pleasantries, their laughter measured, their praise offered with a practiced ease that fools no one.At least she is not alone in her suffering.Between courses, two of her aunts rise from their seats, their embroidered sleeves brushing against the table’s edge as they move with effortless grace toward the head of the hall. Lady Roséva Staunton and Lady Noévianne Massey have long mastered the art of courtly conduct, and they do not approach Élynne until they have first spoken to those of higher station.They pause before the King and Queen, lowering their heads with practiced elegance. Their words are quiet, laced with warmth and deference—well wishes for His Grace’s health, polite inquiries exchanged with Queen Alicent, respectful nods toward Aegon and Aemond. To Helaena, their tones soften, their words careful and kind.Only when such courtesies are seen to, do they turn their attention to Élynne, their approach as seamless as if they had simply drifted toward her on the tide of conversation.Lady Roséva is the first to lean in, voice hushed with wry amusement. "Your uncle is at it again," she murmurs, "extolling your father’s hunting skills as though he witnessed the kill himself. Your father, Norwest of North he may be, had to bite his tongue, I’m sure."This alone makes Élynne stifle a giggle. Aunt Roséva loves nothing more than to poke fun at her husband. Beside her, Lady Noévianne clasps Élynne’s hand, her smile tempered with quiet amusement."And the feast drags ever onward, are you finding enjoyment?" she muses. "A test of endurance, for a girl your age, if ever there was one. Though your father seems more concerned with whether you’ll survive the season unscathed."Roséva hums, tilting her head. "He mentioned something about your health—said you’ve been looking pale and pensive, which, knowing him, means you failed to laugh—through letter, might I add—at one of his dreadful jests."Noévianne chuckles. "Truly dire, that. He was convinced you must be on the brink of collapse."Roséva’s lips quirk. "You know how he gets. A single line and suddenly it’s a dire prophecy of Calivor."The joke is an old one, a shared amusement at how her father could turn the smallest change in her demeanor into a matter of great consequence. The cross to bear of an only child.Élynne rolls her eyes but smiles despite herself. "Did he send you both to diagnose me, then? Or merely to remind me of his dramatics?""Both," Noévianne replies smoothly, squeezing Élynne’s hand. "Though I suspect we needn't worry. Your wit seems intact."“As it always is.”Her cousins linger just behind them, poised and measured in their presence. Alévianne Massey, ever composed, watches with a knowing glint in her eye, waiting for a lull before stepping forward. "If it eases your father’s worries," she says lightly, "you seem perfectly well to me. No signs of imminent collapse.""Not yet," Isalora Massey murmurs, smothering a yawn behind delicate fingers. "But give it another hour."Roséva smirks. "Spare her, Isalora. We wouldn’t want to prove her father right."Élynne huffs a quiet laugh, shaking her head. "Flames forbid. He’d have me sent home before the next course is served."The conversation lingers there, balanced between jest and familiarity, a shared amusement that tempers the dull edges of the evening.Then, as duty demands, her aunts and cousins drift back to their seats, leaving behind only the warmth of their presence, a brief respite before the night resumes its dull rhythm.Élynne sits beside Helaena, her spine straight, her face carefully composed, her role of dutiful lady as natural as breathing. At the high table, Queen Alicent and Otto Hightower speak in hushed tones, their words swallowed by the murmur of the hall.He’s here again.His presence a constant shadow draped over the royal family. Back home, it was declared. Can’t be away from his beloved family, the Hand had said to the King with a smile, and Viserys, ever trusting, ate it right up. By Calivor, how he stayed alive as king for so long is the right question. She thanks all the gods in existence Alicent passed down a better intellect to her children.She watches the old man closely, the careful way he leans in when speaking to Alicent, the feigned warmth in his gaze when addressing the King. Élynne knows how much Otto loves them. Oh, she does.On Helaena’s other side, Rowenna Strong leans in slightly, her voice lowered, excitement brightening her dark brown eyes. "I finally finished the manuscript you lent me," she whispers. She nearly vibrates with eagerness, hands twitching as if still holding the pages.A soft flush rises in her cheeks, an eagerness that makes her seem even younger, girlish in a way she often tries to hold in. For court, for propriety. Élynne was the same, once. If there is one thing the visions gave her, besides bringing her and Aegon close so many years earlier, is the freedom from the burden of other’s gaze.The Strong blood is, indeed, strong, Élynne muses, watching the movement of dark brown hair. There’s no mistaking it. The curve of Rowenna’s jaw, the deep-set eyes, the distinct pug nose—put her beside the Princess’s boys and none would question if she were Rhaenyra’s child."You were right about the ending—it was beautifully tragic.""I told you," Helaena murmurs back, her fingers idly twisting the edge of her sleeve, voice soft like her mind is already slipping into some distant dream. "And the embroidery? Did you finish the garden scene?""Not yet," Rowenna admits with a small sigh. "I keep getting distracted. Butterflies are tricky to get right. The stitches never sit as neatly as yours."Helaena hums, half a smile forming. The ghost of amusement, fleeting, but here all the same. "I'll show you again later."Élynne remains composed, listening but saying nothing, content to let the conversation drift between them. She plays the role well—the quiet observer, the lady of calm composure. It’s a role she gave herself, but it is satisfying to stick to her internal script all the same. Even if it pangs her at times, to not participate as much in Helaena’s conversations. She loved hearing her talk about insects, about her favorite plants, and loved to share hers right back. If she closes her eyes and lets the visions take shape, she is certain she’ll hear their laughter, their long prose, their deep friendship. Élynne took so much of Helaena’s love in that other life, with no qualms of giving hers in return. So perhaps it's only fair to let the other ladies have some of it this time.Speaking of them, Helaena’s ladies scatter across the hall, finding their own amusements. Myrielle Lannister laughs over candied lemons with the many, many Baratheon girls. Sabetha Wylde is engaged in a tense, almost combative discussion with her elder brother. Alarra Peake is not speaking to anyone at all, but watching, tracking the movements of a high-ranking lord with sharp, calculating eyes.At Alara’s antics, Élynne presses her lips together to keep from laughing. She remembers her trying to convince them to craft wall-climbing shoes just a sennight ago.Aegon is slouched in his seat to her left, fingers absently tearing at a crust of bread. When she glances at him, he sighs loudly, tipping his head back like a man crushed beneath some great and terrible burden.“You’re being dramatic,” Élynne says, careful to keep her voice low.“I’m suffering,” he mutters back, just as petulant, just as pitiful.She bites back a smile. “It’s a feast, not a battle.”"I’d rather be at battle."Élynne snorts, shaking her head. Liar. In her visions, Aegon loved the call of battle as much as she did—which is to say, not at all. The clang of steel, the stench of blood, the senselessness of it—it held no thrill for either of them. It did not make him any less brave, but it set him apart from many men. From his father, his wretched, kinslaying uncle, from the lords who revel in war, from the poets who weave glory into something far grander than the slaughter it is. From his brother, especially.Aemond longed for battle. He did not just hunger for it—he craved it. He longed for the sight of blood as an addict craves his poison, as a hound scents fresh meat and cannot help but salivate. For all of Aemond’s reprimands about Aegon’s lust and drunkenness, his sharp-edged lectures, his sneering disapproval, it was Aemond’s vice that truly made Élynne’s stomach turn. Even now, she can see it—see the way his fingers would twitch when the hall got too quiet, the way his eye would sharpen at the mere mention of war. The way he used to watch men who had killed before, as if jealous of the stains on their hands.She takes a sip of her heavily watered wine—a precaution she also took with Aegon’s cup, pleased to see he drinks it without complaint. With Helaena, of course, she never has to worry.Aegon is exaggerating, as he is prone to, but beneath his dramatics, there is a restless energy to him tonight. His fingers drum against the table, his knee bouncing beneath it, his eyes sharp despite the slouch of his posture.He is watching the room. Like a restless beast, twitchy and caged, searching for something, anything, to amuse him.He straightens. His entire body, once heavy with boredom, alights with interest. He turns to her, and there’s a shine to the lavender of his gaze.“Do you want to play a game?”Élynne eyes him warily. She knows Aegon’s games. “What kind of game?”Aegon smirks, a boyish glint rightfully back to his expression.“A guessing game.”She lifts a brow, intrigued. “Go on.”He looks around the room once more, then leans in slightly, voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. His breath smells faintly of wine, but not the kind that is heavy enough to dull his sharpness. “Watch Lord Merryweather.”Élynne follows his gaze. Plump, red-cheeked, Lord Merryweather laughs heartily at something Lord Wylde just said."He only ever laughs when Wylde makes a joke," Aegon says. "If Wylde laughs first, Merryweather follows. If Wylde doesn’t, Merryweather stays quiet."Élynne studies them carefully. And there it is. Wylde chuckles again, and right on cue, Merryweather joins in, a fraction too late.Aegon grins. There’s something wolfish about it, a flicker of cleverness beneath the slothful exterior. "See? That means he wants something from him."She frowns slightly, intrigued. “How do you know that?”Aegon shrugs. "I watch. People do the same things over and over. They don’t even realize it.”Élynne considers this. Her gaze sharpens. She watches the lords more closely now, trying to see what Aegon sees.Her eyes land back on his grandsire.“What about the Lord Hand?” she asks.Aegon’s smirk widens. “Easy. When he taps his fingers against his goblet, he’s annoyed. When he stops moving altogether, he’s furious."Élynne watches carefully. Otto’s fingers are motionless.She glances toward Queen Alicent, speaking softly to him. The flicker of tightness in her mouth, the stiffness in her posture—She’s the reason Otto is angry.Aegon laughs at the look on her face. “See? It makes things more fun, doesn’t it?”Élynne rolls her eyes, but she can’t deny the game is entertaining."What else?"And so it goes. Aegon, lazy and half-bored, making observations that Élynne carefully tucks away. She starts playing along, pointing out the things she notices, having him confirm or deny them—Lady Redwyne always lifts her chin when she lies. Lord Beesbury squints when struggling to remember. Aegon grins at her like she’s a particularly promising student.He does this without realizing how valuable the information actually is. He thinks it’s just a way to pass the time at feasts, but Élynne recognizes the usefulness of it. He may not want power, but he sees everything. He watches, he learns. If Aegon notices these things at nine namedays, what will he notice as a man-grown? What has he noticed about her? What did the older Aegon notice about her, in that other life?Did he know, as he lay on his deathbed, blood leaving his mouth, his nose, exactly who poisoned him?The feast drags on, but suddenly, it’s not quite so dull. And later, long after Aegon has already forgotten, Élynne lays in bed, her mind reeling.︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶The castle is quiet at this hour.The kind of quiet that feels stolen, as if the world itself holds its breath. It lingers in the dim corridors, in the hush of tapestries stirring faintly with the breeze from the arrow slits. The hush before the servants begin bustling, before the lords and ladies stir in their chambers. The sky is only just starting to lighten, streaks of pale gold and pink creeping along the horizon.Élynne blinks blearily as her chamber's secret passageway swings open, its old iron hinges groaning in protest, the sound intruding on the last wisps of sleep. Aegon grins down at her from the doorway, his silver hair unkempt, mischief alight in his eyes.“Get up,” he whispers loudly.She groans and turns over, pulling the covers over her head. “Go away.”But then she hears the shuffle of smaller footsteps, hesitant but eager. A softer presence, lighter on its feet. Helaena.“What’s going on?” Élynne mumbles, peeking out from the blankets, a curtain of blonde hair half obscuring her vision.Aegon is already rummaging through her wardrobe, pulling out her cloak. “We’re going on an adventure,” he declares.Élynne sits up slowly, blinking sleep from her eyes. “I have lessons,” she says, though it sounds half-hearted even to her own ears. But she turns to give them a look, “As a matter of fact, so do the both of you.” Aegon snorts. “Not today, we don’t.”Helaena shifts from foot to foot, her hands trusting the embroidered fabric of her cloak. It's a pretty thing Élynne helped embroider, all butterflies and bluebells. The fabric pools around her wrists, too long for her delicate hands, just the way she wanted it. She’s excited but nervous. “Are you sure we won’t get in trouble?” she asks.Aegon turns to her with a dramatic flourish. “Helaena, we are Targaryen Royalty. We are meant to go on grand adventures.” “I’ll remind you I am but a mere lady.”“You're with me,” Aegon says, glances at his sister, half-flushing, and then hastily corrects himself. “Us. You're with us.” He tosses Élynne’s cloak at her. “Besides, I already planned everything.”That wakes Élynne up a little more. She raises a brow, pushing away tangled, pale blonde curls from her face. “You planned this?”Aegon scowls, insulted. “I can plan things.”Helaena giggles, and Élynne sighs but swings her legs out of bed, resigning herself to whatever madness he’s cooked up.They slip through the castle like ghosts, Aegon leading them with surprising certainty. The secret halls are cool and dark, the sconces lining the walls all out. The only light coming from the torch he holds, barely flickering with their dying embers. He knows exactly where to go, which turns to take, when to pause and listen. Élynne watches him with quiet curiosity. He really has planned this.At one of the hidden passageways, a basket waits, covered with cloth. Aegon smirks, lifting it slightly. “See? Breakfast.”Élynne exhales a laugh. “I don’t know whether to be impressed or worried.”“Why choose?” Aegon says smugly. “Be both!”They weave through the hidden tunnels, excitement building with every step. Helaena hums under her breath, the tune dreamy and distant. Aegon nudges Élynne every now and then, his grin widening when she stops protesting and starts enjoying this.Then, finally, they emerge outside—into the crisp morning air, where the scent of damp stone, smoke, and the earth-heavy musk clings to the breeze. And ahead of them, rising like a monument to power and wonder, stands the Dragonpit.Helaena gasps softly. Élynne stills.Aegon, grinning like a boy who has stolen something and gotten away with it, spreads his arms. “Surprise.”“You’re impossible,” Élynne mutters, but she can’t quite keep the smile from tugging at her lips—not when he looks so unguardedly happy.Aegon leads them forward, his steps light with the kind of reckless confidence only he possesses. Like a mischievous fox. Or a dragon, she supposes. A hatchling testing the strength of his wings. There are no guards or dragonkeepers in sight—he timed this well. When they slip inside, he has somehow acquired a key for the path they take. Twisting and turning in the huge, cavernous building, the air is warmer. Thicker. Filled with the deep, ancient scent of dragons, like lived-in flames.Élynne feels him before she even reaches him—heat, power, something ancient and knowing curling in the air around him.
Sunfyre.
Élynne has seen him before, of course, but in her memories. Just like this—up close, in the golden light of dawn, his scales shimmering as he lifts his great head. A living jewel, a thing of molten gold and flame. His wings, a delicate contrast of pink against his gilded body, shift slightly as he regards them. Huge and heavy. Growing by the day. Unchained, as Aegon likes him—free, as he is meant to be.He is beautiful in a way that feels almost unreal, beyond the magical impossibility of dragons, like something pulled from a dream. Formidable. And so, so loved.Aegon and Sunfyre loved each other in a way poets dream and cry and die about. Love each other, she corrects herself. She’s in the present, blessedly so.Here, Élynne gets to watch Aegon move close to his perfect, golden boy. Sunfyre lowers his head, and Aegon presses against him without hesitation, arms wrapping around his great snout, fingers stroking over warm scales. The dragon exhales, a slow, contented rumble, nudging closer. Like they wish to fuse into one.She is close to crying, can feel the burn of tears in the making. But how could she not? She saw the love of their bond, special even amongst dragonlords. Then she witnessed the pain and grief Aegon lived in after Sunfyre’s death. She knows what this love will become. She has seen the loss, the unbearable hurt that follows.Élynne blinks against the weight of the memory—not a memory, not yet.With one more kiss to his boy, Aegon turns to her, his eyes bright and alive and happy. Sunfyre, sensing his rider’s focus, turns to look at her as well. Maybe the visions have finally turned her mad, but Élynne swears she sees the beast smile.Aegon watches her expectantly. “Well?”“He’s…” Élynne searches for words. They feel inadequate. “Magnificent.”Aegon beams. “ I know! ”His love in question puffs up with pride, gold scales catching the light like liquid metal, gleaming brighter somehow, as if he understands every word. She does not doubt he does.Helaena wanders further in, her lilac eyes shimmering with wonder, a rare moment of pure clarity sharpening her usually distant gaze. “I want to see Dreamfyre.”Aegon raises a brow. “You want to?”Helaena nods, conviction settling over her like a mantle, steadier than they have ever seen her. Aegon, already happy as he is, gives an appreciative look. Élynne knows why—for a Dragonlord, Helaena does not fly as much as her brother. As Aemond did later on.So they go.Dreamfyre is all pale blue, slender scales ripple like moonlight on water, kissed with silver markings that glint with every movement. She is bigger than Sunfyre, older and more imposing. But she croons when Helaena approaches, and there’s something almost tender in the way she lowers her great head.“We’ll be over with Sunfyre, Hels,” Aegon tells his sister, already pulling Élynne back to his dragon.“Alright,” is all Helaena says, her voice a murmur, distant, as if already lost in the dreamscape of her bond with her mount. It makes Élynne smile, and she vows to herself that she will bring Helaena here more often—to remind her that she belongs among dragons, no matter how often she drifts.Before she can protest, Aegon tugs her forward, leading her to the golden beast lounging in his cave.Sunfyre stretches, utterly at ease, the embodiment of regal laziness. His gilded scales catch the dim light, molten gold flowing over muscle and sinew, his vast wings half-spread in a careless display of his magnificence. He is beautiful, otherworldly—something out of a forgotten legend given breath and fire.Aegon gestures toward him, eyes alight with mischief, with affection. “Go on,” he urges, a teasing lilt to his voice. “Touch him. Rhaenagon issa raqiros, Sunfyre. ”
Meet my friend, Sunfyre.
Oh. Oh, Aegon. Élynne turns to him, biting her trembling lip, and smiles. He returns it, bright and pretty and alive. And all this happiness from introducing her to his golden boy.She can’t even hesitate. Not after this. Sunfyre watches her now, his great head tilting ever so slightly, unreadable eyes like pools of pale lavender-blue fire. Not hostile. Not entirely welcoming. Assessing.Élynne lifts a hand, pressing her palm to the smooth, warm expanse of gold. Beneath her fingertips, the heat of him pulses, a slow and steady thrum—like the heartbeat of the sun itself. Sunfyre exhales, a low, rumbling sound vibrating through his chest. A huff. A warm gust of air blown right into her face, ruffling her hair.Aegon snorts, barely stifling a laugh. Élynne, however, does not react. She meets Sunfyre’s gaze, unflinching, refusing to look away.Another pause. Another breath.Then, the great dragon settles. His wings fold neatly at his sides, the tension in his frame dissolving. An acknowledgment. A test passed.Aegon claps her shoulder, grinning. “See? He likes you. I knew he would.”Élynne exhales, only now realizing she has been holding her breath. She does not know what, exactly, she has proven to him—but Sunfyre has accepted her, then and now, and that is enough.Aegon nudges Élynne’s shoulder. “You should ride him.”Élynne turns to him, so fast in startlemnet her hair whips across his face.“What?”Aegon, still grinning, spits out a strand of her hair, undeterred. “Sunfyre. You should fly with me.”Élynne hesitates. Dragons are not foreign to her, but she has never ridden one. Older Aegon offered older Élynne many times, she remembers. She refused each one. It’s forbidden, she would say, dangerous. Not meant for her. No Targaryen blood, much to Aemond’s displeasure. A fact he never let her forget. One more reason for his dismissal of her. What good is a wife that does not share in his birthright?“You should, Élynne,” Helaena’s voice drifts from the cave entrance. Élynne turns to find her standing there, bathed in half-light, her smile quiet and knowing. “You’ll love it.”And Élynne—against all reason, against every old fear and shame—believes her.Still, reason. Reason, reason.“We’re not dressed for it. I’m in my nightgown.”Aegon flashes a triumphant smirk, opening his cloak to reveal riding leathers beneath, as if he had anticipated this exact argument.Helaena follows suit, shrugging open her own cloak.Aegon strides to the basket tucked away in the shadows, retrieving a bundle of clothing and boots. Clearly his.“You’ll have to wear mine, I’m afraid. Hels is shorter.”And so, when Aegon, Helaena and Sunfyre watch her expectantly, she finds herself wondering. What if—Helaena giggles like she’s seen her answer. Gathers the clothing from her brother’s hand. Before Élynne can protest, she takes her arm in a firm but gentle grip, tugging her toward Dreamfyre’s alcove.“Stay where you are, Aegon! Saddle your dragon—I’ll help Élynne change.”He nods, already moving, and the princess does just that.Soon, Élynne is clad in riding leathers that do not quite fit but will serve well enough. The scent of Aegon clings to them—something warm, spiced with wine and smoke. She returns to him, to Sunfyre, who is now fully saddled, his restless energy rippling beneath golden scales like sunlight dancing on water. His wings twitch, eager, his claws flexing against the stone. Aegon stands beside him, waiting, his hand already extended. No hesitation, no doubt—just the quiet certainty that she will take it.Élynne grips his hand without thinking, and muscle memory makes her squeeze it once, twice, thrice. A silent rhythm, a ghost of something old and unforgotten.A beat.Aegon responds in kind, his touch echoing hers, and something deep within her chest twists, sharp and aching.A memory, a whisper from a life that does not exist but never leaves. In another time, in that path her visions have shown her, he used to do this without thinking. The silent ritual of her family, a language spoken only in touch.Élynne remembers the first time he noticed, the way his brow had furrowed in curiosity. Why do you do that? She had flushed then, embarrassed by the intimacy of it, but she told him anyway— It means I love you. It means I hope you’re well. And after that, he never stopped. In passing, in the quiet moments between words, even in his sleep. In grief that drowned. Even when feverish and burnt, clinging to the edges of consciousness, his fingers would still press against hers—once, twice, thrice. Pressing out the message like a prayer.Her heart aches. She’ll tell him the meaning, she vows.Élynne lets him pull her forward. Lets him help her climb onto Sunfyre’s back, the unfamiliar weight of the saddle settling beneath her. She grips the pommel tightly, her breath catching as Aegon swings up behind her. He straps them both to the saddle, tugs to make sure it is secure. Then his arms are bracketing hers as he takes the reins.Above them, the sky yawns wide, the cavernous opening spilling golden light onto golden scales. Sunfyre gleams, too radiant to look at directly, like a creature sculpted from sunlight itself.“Ready?” Aegon asks, voice low near her ear.No.But she nods anyway.Then, with a great push, Sunfyre surges forward, the world tilting beneath them as he takes to the sky.Élynne gasps, clutching the saddle as the ground vanishes beneath them in a blur of stone and shadow. Aegon's arms cage her in, steady but loose, letting her find her own balance. The wind roars past them, cold and biting, yet somehow exhilarating—like an unspoken challenge, daring her to let go of fear.Sunfyre’s wings beat once, twice—each powerful stroke pushing them higher, faster. The force of it presses Élynne back against Aegon, her stomach lurching with the sheer, impossible momentum.Then they break through the cavern’s opening, and the world explodes into color.The sky swallows them whole—vast and endless, painted in deep purples and golds as the first fingers of dawn stretch across the horizon. The clouds are scattered like silk, tinged in soft pinks and oranges, shifting and parting as Sunfyre carves his path through them.The sun is rising. And for the first time, Élynne understands why dragons and their Targaryens chase it.Below, the castle is a distant thing, its mighty walls reduced to specks, its towers mere pinpricks against the endless blue. The wind tangles in her hair, steals the breath from her lips, but she doesn’t care. She turns her face into it, feeling it rush past her, cold and sharp and alive.Aegon laughs behind her, bright and reckless. “Gods, look at you,” he says, voice near her ear, full of something like pride. Like knowing.Élynne doesn’t need to ask what he means. She is smiling. Flying.Below them, the castle sprawls like a great, slumbering beast, its towers and walls softened by distance and the hazy glow of morning light. From up here, the stronghold that once felt so immense is reduced to a collection of sharp angles and winding courtyards, the red stone of the fortress glowing like embers beneath the kiss of dawn. Tiny figures move through the keep, unaware of the dragons soaring so far above them.Beyond the castle, the city unfurls like a tapestry, a living, breathing thing. Narrow streets twist and turn in chaotic patterns, choked with houses pressed too close together, their rooftops a patchwork of slate and clay. Smoke coils lazily from chimneys, the scent of bread and salt carried on the morning breeze. The docks are already alive with movement, ships rocking in the harbor, their sails snapping as merchants and sailors shout their daily bargains.Further still, past the city walls, nature stretches in all its untouched beauty. Rolling green hills cradle golden fields, the farmlands cut into neat, sprawling patches. Rivers snake through the land like veins of silver, glinting in the sun, their waters rushing toward the sea.And the sea— it is endless.A deep, shimmering blue, so vast it seems to bleed into the sky, only broken by the occasional crest of white waves. The morning sun catches the surface, scattering gold across the water, as if the gods themselves have spilled molten treasure into its depths.A sudden roar cuts through the wind, and Élynne turns just in time to see Dreamfyre burst from the cavern below, a vision of pale blue and silver streaking toward them.She is slower than Sunfyre, older, but her wings slice through the air with effortless grace. She soars past them in a wide arc, catching the morning light along her scales, making her seem almost ethereal—a creature carved from sky and ice.Atop her, Helaena rides as if she were born to it, her pale hair unbound, streaming behind her like a banner. She does not shout or call out—she simply tilts her head toward Élynne, her soft, knowing smile untouched by the rush of wind.For a moment, their eyes meet. Élynne does not know what Helaena sees, but whatever it is, it makes her smile widen, gentle and understanding.Then, with a shift of her body, Dreamfyre banks sharply, spiraling downward with breathtaking speed.Aegon whistles low, amused. “Show-off.”But Élynne only watches, still breathless, still caught in the wonder of it all.With a sudden laugh, Aegon leans in close, his breath warm against Élynne’s ear. “Hold on.”She barely has time to obey before Sunfyre surges forward, his massive wings beating with a force that sends them shooting toward the sky. The air sharpens, wind tearing at her hair and clothes, and for a moment, all she knows is motion—rushing, weightless, exhilarating. Sunfyre twists mid-air, a graceful roll that has her stomach flipping, then banks hard to the left, circling back in a wide arc.From below, Dreamfyre roars—a challenge, an answer.Helaena moves as if she and her dragon share one soul. With a flick of her wrist and the slightest shift of her body, Dreamfyre obeys, angling her wings sharply and diving down at an alarming speed. The force of it cuts through the air with a keening whistle before, at the last second, Dreamfyre snaps her wings open, catching the wind and lifting herself into a dizzying spiral upward. She rolls mid-ascent, a fluid, effortless motion, before leveling out, wings stretched wide, hovering like a living star.Aegon clicks his tongue, eyes alight with mischief. “Not bad,” he calls out to his sister. “But can you do this?”Sunfyre responds before Élynne can protest.With a powerful thrust, he launches into a steep ascent, higher and higher, until the air thins and the world shrinks below them. The sky is endless, an expanse of blue so deep it feels like it might swallow them whole. Then, with an almost playful flick of his massive wings, Sunfyre twists—flipping completely upside down for a heart-stopping moment before rolling back into place.Élynne gasps, her breath stolen, her fingers digging into Aegon’s arms as she hears his delighted laugh behind her.Not to be outdone, Helaena and Dreamfyre streak forward, matching their climb, then abruptly folding their wings close—plummeting like a falling star. They drop faster, faster, a blur of pale blue and silver against the sky, until Dreamfyre flares her wings open at the last second, catching the wind with breathtaking precision and shooting forward once more, her momentum carrying her right alongside Sunfyre.Helaena is laughing, unguarded and free, her smile wide, her face bright. Élynne has never seen her look more alive.Aegon exhales, then shakes his head. “Alright, alright,” he screams to his sister, to be heard this high in the air. “You win.”Helaena beams, the victory meaningless but full of joy.Élynne, still clutching onto Aegon for dear life, can only exhale shakily.Aegon squeezes her waist, his voice teasing but warm. “Not bad for your first time, huh?”She breathes out a laugh, still dazed, still wind-touched. “Not bad,” she echoes, and realizes, somewhere in the dizzying height of it all—she means it.The morning sun hangs high in the sky by the time they begin their descent, its golden light glinting off Sunfyre’s shimmering scales like molten gold. The air is warmer now, the city below fully awake, the streets already bustling with movement. From above, King’s Landing stretches out in layers of life and color—the winding streets and slanting rooftops, the markets blooming with bright awnings, the banners rippling in the sea breeze. Beyond the walls, the fields roll out in soft greens and yellows, sloping toward the deep blue expanse of Blackwater Bay. Ships drift lazily in the harbor, their white sails catching the light like scattered pearls upon the water.The Dragonpit looms ahead, its great domed roof casting long shadows over the hilltop. Below, the dragonkeepers are already gathered, waiting with practiced patience, their grey robes blending with the dusty ground.Sunfyre touches down first, his landing heavy yet graceful, talons digging into the stone. The moment they settle, Aegon moves, one hand firm at Élynne’s waist as he helps her dismount, his grip steady despite the lingering rush of flight. She slides down carefully, her legs unsteady beneath her, the exhilaration still thrumming in her bones.Aegon gives her a glance and a smile before turning to Sunfyre. His expression softens, all the usual sarcasm and sharp edges smoothing away as he steps closer, pressing a hand to the dragon’s great golden neck.“Nyke jorrāelagon ao, ñuha zaldrīzes,” he murmurs in High Valyrian, his voice low, affectionate. “Ao issi sȳz. Sȳz, issa jorrāelagon.”Élynne stills, the words curling in her ears like an echo from another time. The Élynne from her visions had learned High Valyrian—to impress Aemond, once upon a time. Not that it had worked. But here, now, she understands Aegon’s murmured words with ease.
I love you, my dragon. You are good. Good, my love.
Sunfyre croons low in response, pressing his massive head into Aegon’s touch. The sight of it tugs at something deep in Élynne’s chest. For all his sharp tongue and careless airs, Aegon loves deeply, wholly.Across the way, Helaena has already slipped off Dreamfyre, her touch reverent as she runs her hands along the dragon’s pale blue scales. Dreamfyre leans into her, great and terrible and utterly gentle beneath Helaena’s hands.Aegon finally steps back, giving Sunfyre one last pat before turning away. The dragonkeepers move in carefully, speaking softly in their hushed Valyrian tones as they take the reins, guiding the dragons back into the depths of the pit.Élynne watches them go, feeling the weight of the morning settle upon her shoulders.By the time they reach the waiting carriage, the rush of flight has faded, replaced by something softer, something quieter. The inside of the carriage is shaded and cool, the city sounds muffled beyond the wooden panels.Helaena leans her head against the window, her gaze distant but peaceful.Aegon stretches out beside Élynne, his eyes half-lidded, his body sinking into the plush seat with a boneless ease. He smirks, tilting his head toward her.“So,” he drawls, “ready for another flight?”Élynne huffs, shaking her head with a tired laugh. “Give me a day.”Aegon chuckles, settling in as the carriage begins its slow journey back to the Red Keep, the morning light spilling through the curtains, warm as dragon scales.︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶The library is quiet, save for the soft scratch of Élynne’s charcoal against parchment. The air is thick with the scent of aged vellum and candle wax, the remnants of last night's study lingering like whispers between the towering shelves. Light filters in through tall windows, casting long golden streaks over the polished wooden tables and the endless rows of books—some bound in cracked leather, others gilded and pristine, untouched by time. Dust dances lazily in the slant of sunlight, disturbed only by the occasional flutter of a turning page.Aegon lounges beside her, one leg lazily hooked over the armrest of his chair, the very picture of indolence, yet oddly still. His book—Valyrian tales, all in his mother language—lies open before him, but his gaze is elsewhere, drawn instead to her hand’s steady, deliberate movement. His golden, caught in charcoal and shadow, takes shape beneath her fingers—Sunfyre, wings unfurled, his eyes fierce and watchful, as if waiting to take flight from the page itself.She knows, without doubt, she must later give it a wash of color. Not just for the sake of the art but for the sake of him—for the small, unguarded flicker of pleasure she knows she’ll see when she does. Because Sunfyre is not just any dragon. He is his, and Aegon, for all his faults, loves beautifully the things that are his.Élynne doesn’t look up, but she feels his gaze, steady and lingering. Not scrutinizing, not even truly watching—like he’s lost somewhere in thought, caught in some current he can’t name. She lets the silence settle between them, stretching just long enough to become noticeable before she tilts her head, the barest hint of amusement curling at her lips.“You know,” she says lightly, her fingers smudging a shadow along Sunfyre’s wing, “I never took you for the sort to be awake before noon, let alone indulging in morning flights with your sister.” She flicks her gaze up then, meeting his with quiet curiosity. “Should I be worried? Has the world turned on its head?”Aegon snorts, but it lacks real bite. He shifts in his seat, one hand coming up to toy with the corner of his book, but his fingers curl against the edge like he needs something to anchor himself.Élynne hums, as if contemplating, holding in a spark of mischief that she lets bloom at the edges of her smile. “Or perhaps,” she muses, her tone light but prodding, “it’s simply that you and Princess Helaena are—what’s the word? Humm.. Bonding. ” A pause, just long enough to watch the way his fingers still. “And wouldn’t that be new?” Her lips part in mock thoughtfulness before she bites down on a knowing smile. “Care to explain, my prince?”Aegon stiffens. Not much, just a twitch of his fingers where they rest against the pages, but she catches it all the same. When she finally lifts her eyes to him, she finds him flushed, a faint wash of pink creeping up from his collar like the pretty of Sunfyre’s wings. He huffs, looking away, his jaw working as if the words are something to be chewed through before they leave his mouth.“She seems… more, I don’t know, fun? Now that you’re around,” he mutters, the words shaped like something unfamiliar on his tongue. “Not just talking to creepy, crawling things she loots from the gardens. Still weird, though.”Élynne blinks. Once. Twice. Her fingers still against the parchment, the weight of his words settling in like a stone dropped in water.That… doesn’t make any sense.The Aegon from her visions had never done that. He had been a storm that passed over Helaena without ever touching her, letting her drift—adrift—in her own world. He had ignored her and her strangeness tenfold, allowed her to become a ghost in their family’s halls, seen but never truly acknowledged.In this, Aegon and Aemond had been alike. Two men, so different in temperament, yet both so gifted at making their wives feel unseen. She and Helaena had bonded over that, once. In that other life. Except… Aegon had never been repulsed by Helaena. That, at least, had been true. Their three children stood as proof.So why? Her grip tightens faintly around the charcoal, but then she exhales, loosening her hold. It doesn’t matter. Now it stands as a chance. For things between them not to be the way they were. Élynne is glad. Whatever the reason, she is glad it is like this—that Helaena is not alone, that there is something soft in the way Aegon looks at her now, something that wasn’t there before.Aegon shifts under her gaze, rubbing the back of his neck. “What?” he grumbles, self-conscious, his irritation a flimsy thing—more defensive than truly annoyed.Élynne exhales, a small smile tugging at the corner of her lips. “Nothing,” she says, returning to her drawing. Her fingers resume their work, softer now, more careful with the strokes. “It’s good. You should keep at it. Your sister loves you, you know?”He scoffs but doesn’t deny it.Her eyes flicker down to the sketch once more, but her mind drifts elsewhere.If they marry—the thought lingers, heavier than it should, curling in the spaces between certainty and doubt—, she is not sure they should… In that other life, it had been miserable for them both, a union made of duty and neglect, of words unspoken and solitude left to fester. She remembers it in flashes, fragmented and sharp—the cold, the distance, the slow, creeping decay of affection turned to indifference. The weight of a crown that sat ill on his head, the burden of expectation pressing them both into something brittle, something doomed to crack. But even then, the indifference had never meant they did not love each other. It was simply that neither knew how to love the other in the way they were envisioned to.Aegon had always found it hard to love his sister as a Targaryen should. Not because he did not care—he did, in his own reluctant, fumbling way—but because love, for their family, was something twisted, something gnarled by centuries of expectation. To love was to take, to own, to bind oneself in ways that often felt more like shackles than devotion. And Aegon, who had never wanted to be tied to anything, least of all a throne, had not known how to hold Helaena without feeling caged himself.But this life is not that one. Not yet. Perhaps it never will be.Aegon is different now—perhaps only slightly, but enough. His eyes do not hold the same vacant glassiness, nor does his laughter taste of something bitter, something drowning. He is still lazy, still reckless, still full of sharp edges softened only by wine and indulgence, but there is something else too—something more. A flicker of warmth where before there had only been resignation. A willingness, however begrudging, to try.Perhaps now it will be different.Élynne hopes they will have a chance to make something better. Not the love of songs or grand romances, but something real. Something that does not rot beneath the weight of history.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

It happens at night, in her sleep, but it is not like the others. It does not creep in like a whisper, soft and uncertain, nor does it shimmer at the edges like a half-formed prophecy. It crashes over her, dragging her under, a tide of horror so overwhelming that leaves her gasping, shaking, her nightclothes damp with sweat, her pulse a drumbeat of panic against her ribs.

She sees Aegon as King.

But not her Aegon—not the man she has known, not the one she knows now. The ones she has watched with exasperation and reluctant affection. Not the reckless, careless, laughing prince who still, in his way, has a heart that beats beneath his indulgence.

This Aegon is hollow-eyed and ruined, his crown askew, a golden mockery of kingship upon his head. His skin is sickly, pale with excess, slick with sweat—not the sweat of battle, but of decay. Of wine and wasted years. His hands tremble, unsteady and decorated with small cuts as they grasp at the arms of the Iron Throne, his knuckles white as though even he fears slipping from power.

His people do not love him. His council does not trust him. His banners, once proud, are torn and burning in the streets, their sigils blackened to ash. His enemies mock him, their laughter carried on the wind, sharp as knives.

And his siblings—her friends, her family—are scattered or dead.

Helaena stands on the edge of Maegor’s Holdfast, the moonlight painting her in ghostly silver. Her eyes are vacant, distant, as though she sees a world beyond this one. She is muttering to herself, words lost to the wind—until she steps forward. Until she falls.

Aemond lies on the frozen ground, his silver hair streaked with blood. One eye is wide and lifeless, frozen in a sightless stare. The other socket is empty, a black void where vengeance once burned. His sword is gone. His body is discarded, not with the dignity of a warrior, but with the indifference of carrion.

And Aegon—

her Aegon

—sits slouched upon the Iron Throne, alone.

His goblet has fallen from his fingers, red wine pooling like blood at his feet. His head lolls back against the cold steel, his breath heavy with drink, his vision too blurred to see the sword that comes for him.

And when it pierces him, when the blade drives deep into his chest, he does not cry out. He does not curse or fight.

He laughs.

His final breath leaves his lips not in rage, nor sorrow, but in laughter—bitter, broken, jagged as shattered glass. As if he had always known it would end this way. As if he had never believed he was meant for anything else.

The vision ends, but the horror does not fade. It clings to her, thick as tar, seeping into her bones, whispering that this is not a dream to be forgotten.

It is a fate to be stopped.

She wakes gasping, her throat tight, lungs straining as if she has been drowning in airless dark. Cold sweat clings to her skin like a second layer. Her shift sticks to her back, damp with fear. Her stomach churns, nausea twisting deep in her gut. Her hands tremble as she pushes herself upright, the remnants of the vision clinging to her like a phantom touch.

For five moons, she has watched, waited, prayed that gentle hands might steer fate. But no more. That future—the ruin, the blood, the laughter that is not joy but surrender—cannot come to pass. She cannot let it.

The realization slams into her like a blade to the gut, a cruel and unforgiving strike that steals her breath. She has been idle. Hesitant. Naïve. Too cautious. Too slow. Too hesitant in the face of time slipping away.

And aren’t these accusations familiar, rattling around in her mind like old ghosts, impossible to silence? Aemond would hurl them at her, his voice cutting like ice, each word a jagged wound—his anger burning brighter than his dragon’s fire, relentless in its fury. She can almost hear it now, the sharpness in his tone, the venom laced in every syllable, his eyes alight with judgment. He had always seen her as weak, as someone who falters in the moments that demand strength.

No Targaryen blood, not worthy enough, and so—no one. He had made it clear that, in his eye, she was always beneath him, always lacking in the very blood that gave him his power. And maybe, just maybe, he had been right. The thought stings more than it should, but it is true. But that truth does not matter now. The time for his accusations has passed. Now, only action remains.

The room is suffocating, the very air thick with the weight of history, of schemers and secrets, of whispered betrayals buried in its stone. The Red Keep is a viper’s nest, coils tightening around her with each passing moment.

She throws off the covers, the sheets tangling around her limbs, and rises in a swift, jerky motion. Her bare feet strike the cold stone floor with a sharp, resonating sound, sending a jolt of chill up her spine. She paces, back and forth, like a caged animal, restless and frantic, her hands tugging at her curly, golden hair, gripping it as though trying to rip out the thoughts that won’t stop swirling. The tangled strands slip through her fingers like fragile threads of her sanity, only adding to the chaos. She pulls at it, viciously, as if the pain might give her the release she needs, tangling it more than the vision ever did. Her mind races, like prey caught in the snare of some unseen predator, clawing desperately for an escape, only to find the jaws closing in from every side.

Then, as she fights for breath, another vision seizes her—a flicker, swift as a striking snake, but no less cruel.

She sees herself—older, but not old. The stones beneath her are slick and cold, slick with a dark, nameless wetness—she cannot tell if it is rain or blood, pooling beneath her in slow, unrelenting rivers. Her hair is tangled, matted with filth and gore, the strands heavy with the weight of decay. Her body is broken, discarded like an old doll, abandoned on the unyielding cold stone. There are no mourners, no grieving whispers—no soft hands reaching to pull her from the brink of death. The world outside seems to turn on, indifferent and cold.

The halls echo with the harsh sound of footsteps—footsteps that never stop, never falter. Faces pass in the periphery, blurred and unseeing. No pause at her side. None even turn to look. The world moves forward, uncaring, while she is left to rot, forgotten, a shadow in a place that no longer remembers her name.

Alone.

The image vanishes, but the weight of it remains, crushing her chest, pressing into her ribs with a suffocating force, wrapping around her throat like an invisible hand, tight and unrelenting.

Was this it? Her true end?

It doesn’t feel right—not like certainty, but possibility. A glimpse of a road she may walk, but not the only path. Not that particular one either. Death comes for all, but how had it come for her? Was she struck down amidst battle, abandoned by those she trusted? Had she faded into obscurity, cast aside like a pawn whose usefulness had run dry?

She swallows hard, but the questions remain, festering like an open wound.

Élynne thought small nudges would be enough. A word here, a suggestion there—delicate whispers in the dark, gentle guidance to nudge him toward a better path. And yes, she has tried—tried to be subtle, to spin caution into careful, humorous counsel, hoping he would see the sense in it, hoping the world would bend around him without force. But she has not truly fought for him—not for his future, for her own, for

all of them.

Now, the realization hits her, as sharp and cold as the steel of a dagger, and she understands—truly understands—what is at stake.

Aegon cannot simply be better. Better is a fragile, fleeting thing, easily shattered in the face of ambition and ruthlessness. Better will not be enough to secure his place on the throne, or to protect what is left of their fractured world. He must be more. Glorious. He must be a king worth following—a king whose name strikes fear into the hearts of his enemies.

A king who commands, not simply by birthright—and, as long as Viserys falters, weak-willed and broken beneath the weight of his crown, Aegon has none—, but by the power of his will and the force of his spirit.

Aegon must be a king worth fearing.

Her gaze drifts to the hearth, to the flames flickering in the dark. They are restless, writhing—as if shifting with the torment of her mind, licking at the edges of the stone as if clawing for escape. They twist, violent, unpredictable, mirroring the storm inside her.

And then, as her resolve hardens, they still. The fire straightens, burning high and clean, fierce with purpose.

She presses a hand to her chest, forcing her breath to slow. She needs to act. Not tomorrow. Not next moon. Now.

By dawn, she has a plan.

First, the dying king. Viserys is fading, his body rotting while he yet breathes. His frailty, Élynne thinks with no remorse, is a testament to his own neglect, a slow decay mirrored in the crumbling state of the realm he has failed to secure. If he lives longer—just a little longer—Aegon will have time—time to rise in the lords’ esteem, to gain the trust of those who question him, time to learn what it means to wield power with conviction, time to become the man she knows he could be.

Maybe even—and this is the softened optimism, the fragile hope that slips past her hardened resolve—the sunlit hope older Aegon often mocked her for—time for Viserys to finally see Aegon for what he truly is. A son not just born of his blood, but one worthy of his legacy. A real heir. Wasn’t it what he wanted? What he sacrificed everything for, even tearing apart the woman apparently he loved? What he had risked it all for, in the cold, brutal cutting of his first wife to ensure this very moment?

Then, Aegon’s training. She will make him

fight

, because a king who cannot wield a sword is no king at all. Always at the mercy of those who can. The thought burns through her like wildfire, consuming the last remnants of her hesitation. She will forge him, shape him into something more than the forgotten, drunken prince he has allowed himself to be. She will make him stronger, pull him from his complacency, force his hand if she must. Let him curse her, scowl at her, rail against her all he likes—but he will not be helpless when the time comes. Not when the weight of a crown demands more than indifference.

And beyond that—his mind. Aegon hides behind wine and laughter, even now at nine-namedays-old, masking his true potential in distractions and indulgence. But she has seen it. The sharpness in his gaze, the flicker of focus that burns briefly when he stops pretending. She has seen the warrior beneath the fool, the ruler within the rogue. He is smart—smarter than he lets himself be, smarter than anyone believes. And that is the danger, isn't it? Aegon hides himself, cloaks his mind in shadows, unwilling to wield his intelligence because he fears what it could demand of him.

There are no illusions about that. There’s no escaping his grandsire’s insatiable thirst for power, nor his mother’s endless demands. Both will carve their marks upon him, pulling him in opposing directions, each with their own expectations, each wielding their own influence.

One way or another, the weight of the crown will press on him like stone, an unyielding, suffocating burden—heavier than any sword, more permanent than any wound. The lords will test him, they will seek to bend him to their wills, the court will chew him up, spinning intrigue like webs around him, waiting for any sign of weakness to sink their fangs into. And mercy? Mercy will be a luxury, a gift given only to those who have the power to demand it. It will not be given freely.

And she—she must survive it, survive the storm she knows is coming, survive the way the world will twist itself around her truest friend’s crown. No more soft words. No more whispered promises. No more waiting. No more hoping something else will shape his fate, that the gods will take pity on them, or someone else will step in to do what must be done.

The future bends for those who seize it. For those with the strength to break it over their knee and force it to obey. It must. It will

have

to.

︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶

The air is crisp in the quiet stretch of woodland beyond the city walls, the scent of damp earth and pine is thick in Élynne’s lungs. Dawn has barely begun its crawl across the sky, the first hints of gold and rose peeking through the treetops as she moves carefully over the uneven ground. She had left the castle before even the earliest servants stirred, slipping past the guards with the ease of someone who had learned long ago how to go unnoticed when she wished to. It was a skill she had not been born with but had learned well—from Aegon.

Not the boy she knows now, but the one she has seen in her visions. The restless prince, the reluctant king, the shadow slipping through the Red Keep's hidden corridors like a ghost. He had moved unseen when he needed to, slipping past guards, courtiers, even his own family. And he had made sure she knew how to do the same.

"Listen well, Sunlight. You’ll need this, someday."

He had shown her the secret passageways woven through the castle much like veins, the narrow staircases hidden behind carved panels, the forgotten tunnels leading beyond the walls. And so, now, when she had needed to disappear before dawn, she had known exactly where to step, where not to be seen. Aegon had never let himself be truly trapped. And neither will she.

She has always loved the forest.

If there is one thing the realm knows about Lady Isolde Corbaston, née Darcy, it is that she belongs to the woods as much as any creature born beneath their boughs. Herbs, roots, flowers—plants that could heal as well as harm. A lady of the earth, sharp as flint and rich as soil, with hands that smelled of crushed leaves and wisdom. And she has ensured that Élynne knows them too.

"A lady should know how to save a life, but she should also know how to make a man regret threatening hers,"

Granddam Isolde would say, sharp-eyed and wise, her fingers deft as they stripped a stem of its leaves. She would press dirt-streaked greens into Élynne’s small palms, the scent of earth and bitter roots thick in the air. As a younger child, Élynne had once wondered—if Granddam knew so much of poisons, why did Grandsire Roderick still draw breath? The thought had puzzled her, lingering like the aftertaste of pennyroyal.

With two timelines in her head—perhaps even a third, though she dares not name it yet—, it has been years and only months since those lessons in the mist-laden groves of Emerline Hall, the green heart of Corvinal Hold, and the sun-dappled gardens of Silverwing Keep. But in every place, in every passage of time, Élynne has never forgotten them.

Now, as she kneels among the undergrowth, her fingers brush over the small white blossoms of feverfew, nestled between the roots of an old oak. Its scent—sharp and slightly bitter—rises in the damp air. Feverfew will do well enough—it will summon warmth beneath her skin, summon aches in her bones like an old sickness returning. But it is not enough. Not for what she needs.

She moves deeper into the brush, past a low thicket of brambles where blackwort grows in small, twisted clusters. She plucks two stems with careful hands. Blackwort will sap the strength from her limbs, make her sluggish, as though the very marrow in her bones has thinned to water.

Then, finally, she finds it—a single stem of baneberry, its dark red fruit hanging low like droplets of congealed blood in the early dawnlight. Not enough to do her true harm, but just enough to make her nauseated, pale, trembling. It is the final piece. The last stroke of her artistry.

She takes only what she needs, tucking the plants into the folds of her cloak before making her way back toward the Red Keep. The steady rhythm of her pulse beats against her ribs—not with fear, but with something close to exhilaration. She has studied enough to know her limits, to ensure that the concoction she will brew is safe—unpleasant, yes, but measured. A carefully crafted affliction.

As she walks, she murmurs a quiet thank you to her grandmother.

"I hope I make you proud, Granddam," she whispers, pressing her fingers to the bundle of herbs.

By nightfall, Élynne will be burning with fever, weak, and shaking. And by morning, the Qohorik "physician" she has so carefully selected will find himself summoned to King’s Landing.

︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶

The bitter taste lingers on Élynne’s tongue as she swallows the last of the concoction. It is foul—earthy and acrid, with an aftertaste that curls in her stomach like something rotting, something wrong. But there is no turning back now. The leaves and roots are already gone. She burned them to cinders first, one by one, watching as the flames devoured every brittle edge, every fragile vein. The scent—sharp, green, unmistakable—had filled the chamber for only a moment before it was reduced to nothing but curling embers and thin, ghostly smoke. No trace. No evidence. Nothing left behind to betray her. Only then did she lift the cup to her lips.

She exhales through her nose, willing herself to keep it down. The cup trembles in her grasp, but she sets it down with steady hands, though she knows they won’t remain so for long.

She takes slow breaths, counting them.

One.

Two.

Three.

By the tenth, a prickle of warmth begins to creep up her spine. By the twentieth, her limbs feel heavier, her head clouded. A thick fog settles behind her eyes, blurring the edges of the room, turning the fire’s glow into something distant, unreal. Good.

She leans back against the cushions, curling into herself as she lets the sickness take hold.

Her family will worry, but they must. Let them wring their hands, let them fear—for once, let them feel powerless. She has taken care—chosen only what will weaken her, not what will endanger her. A careful balance, a blade’s edge she walks alone. If all goes to plan, they will send for the healer she wants, the one she needs in King’s Landing. The risk is hers to bear.

She closes her eyes and lets herself drift.

︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶

The fever burns hot. It devours her from the inside out, relentless and cruel. She tosses in the sweat-damp sheets, her limbs tangled and heavy and aching. The world outside her fever presses in and recedes, a tide she cannot escape.

Soft fingers brush against her wrist, a gentle, fleeting touch—so unlike the others. A voice follows, distant but familiar, muffled like a whisper through water.

"Élynne?"

Helaena.

She forces her eyes open, but the room is shifting, shadows stretching in ways they shouldn’t. Helaena’s face wavers before her, the candlelight painting her in gold and shadow.

Élynne’s throat is dry, each breath scraping like sandpaper. But she summons what little strength she has, grips at the last threads of clarity. “My—my letter,” she rasps, voice barely more than a breath. Her bedside table—yes, it should still be there. “To my parents. Send it.”

For a moment, silence. Something that feels like considering. A beat too long, a Élynne wonders if she made up Helaena in her delirium. Then, a soft promise, steady despite the haze surrounding her.

"A fast raven will take care of it," Helaena assures her, her fingers squeezing Élynne’s hand—warm, reassuring. Real, then.

Oh, thank the stars.

Élynne exhales, her body sinking back into the fever’s grip, the world growing distant once more.

Voices blur together—Helaena’s again, murmuring something she cannot grasp. Then another, strained and sharp with something like worry. Queen Alicent.

Then—clipped, urgent, a command, not a plea:

"More cool cloths. More remedies. Find something that works. Where the fuck is a competent Maester when you need one?"

Aegon.

His voice finds her in the abyss more times than she can count.

She does not know how many are real and how many are imagined. Aegon’s voice threads through the fever like a lifeline, anchoring her to the present, pulling her back from the deep.

Others come and go—Helaena’s ladies-in-waiting. Rowenna Strong, sweet and capable. Myrielle Lannister, her voice like silk, smooth and concerned. Sabetha Wylde, thoughtful and precise. Alarra Peake, hovering just behind the others, subdued in her worry, but ever present. They speak, but their words scatter like leaves in a storm.

But Aegon—Aegon remains.

She does not know if he sits at her bedside. If he paces the chamber, restless and unsettled. If the worried edge in his voice is real or simply a fever dream spun from memory.

Élynne only knows that she has been here before.

She sat by his bedside, whispering reassurances, willing his fever to break. That she has worried herself sick over his ailments, that she has prayed for his strength when he could not.

And now—now, the roles are reversed.

It is not a nice feeling. And she hopes—truly, fervently—that he does not feel as helpless, desperate, as she had all those times before. She would not wish it upon him. Not then, certainly not now.

Then—another voice. Not one she knows. Deep, assured, foreign in a way that does not quite belong to Westeros.

A stranger.

Élynne forces her eyes open. The world tilts—too bright, too sharp—but she pushes through the haze. A face hovers above her, unfamiliar but composed, calm in a way that steadies the unease curling in her gut.

The healer.

Her

healer.

Cool fingers press against her wrist, lingering just long enough to measure the flutter of her pulse. Then her forehead—steady, assessing. Their touch is light, clinical, and there is no hesitation in it.

A pause. Then, turning to Aegon and Helaena, his voice quiet but unwavering: “She is fevered, but not past saving.”

Élynne exhales. The words slip through her, sinking deep, carrying away something tight and coiled in her chest. More things happen, Aegon and the healer talk, something is poured on her tongue, there’s smoke she inhales, some nine clean scent that eases her breathing.

She knows this man. Not in this life, but in another.

Had never seen his face then, only his letters. His words, written in ink that bled dark and certain across parchment, had been a lifeline when all else was lost.

And like so many other things from that life, she remembers him. So, she wrote to Seyvar Orlann again. It was easier to convince him this time, knowing what to say to gain—if not his outright trust, although she is certain that will come in time—his curiosity. He might be a better, kinder man, but he is still prey to his mind’s craving for knowledge.

Élynne is not grieving, she tells herself. She is not. But the last dream left her scared, reminded her of the older Élynne, desperate, searching for someone who could help. Using her father’s connections, loosing sleep in her search, bypassing the maesters who were too proud, too slow, too incompetent to heal a king who

should not have died

.

The letters had gone back and forth for months. Seyvar had been skeptical at first—wary of Westerosi politics, wary of a royal court in the mess of a civil war, that would not easily accept a foreign healer’s methods. But she had convinced him. She had worn down his hesitations with logic and determination and the promise of the reform of knowledge so lacking in Westeros.

And just when he had agreed to come—just when she had

won

—Aegon had died.

The grief had swallowed her whole, but she had still written one last letter.

Do not come to King’s Landing.

The King is dead.

When Aegon—her Aegon—had been taken from her by poison, when she had been left alone with a cold husband and a court that whispered of her grief as if it were something unseemly. Seyvar Orlann had been across the narrow sea, too far to help, but he had sent her his condolences.

True

condolences, not the empty platitudes of courtiers and lords.

He had also sent her a remedy—a small parcel, wrapped with care, containing an herb to prevent poisoning—a gesture of kindness that had meant more to her than she could ever say. She had held onto that letter long after Aegon’s body had cooled, burned, then turned ash.

But in

this

life—this

Viezora,

as her ancestors would have called it—Aegon lives. Élynne intends to keep him that way for a long, long time.

This is only the beginning. She has spent

a whole moon

plotting, planning, writing letters in careful, measured words. She has spent nights poring over all the ailments the maesters struggle with, all the failures she has seen them make—helping to solidify her case when the time comes. Revised her notes and drawings of each plant granddam Isolde taught her. Brewed each in smaller doses, as a test, just enough to make her dizzy but not take full effect. She planed and prepared.

Another letter—

the

letter—tucked safely within the first. A letter meant for Seyvar Orlann. Her family’s only job: to send it.

A foreign healer would never be allowed to step foot in the Red Keep without cause. Alicent would never accept one, not when the maesters still have their hooks in her trust. But for her daughter’s favorite lady-in-waiting’s sake? For a girl wasting away in her sickbed while the maesters fumble? Helaena’s lilac eyes are big and lovely and heart-wrenching.

And now, the first step is done. Seyvar Orlann is here. Now, she only needs Alicent to keep him. To see his skill, witness his competence,

want

him here. And to think of

Viserys

.

Because Elynne cannot walk into the Queen’s chambers and say,

Oh, look, my Queen, here is a very foreign healer for your dear husband the King.

The queen, however, can come to that thought herself.

Élynne just has to let her.

“She was burning,” Aegon says, voice quieter than usual, subdued. “The maesters—they—” His hands twitch, restless. “They did not know what to do.”

“They seldom do,” Seyvar Orlann replies simply, removing his hand from Elynne’s wrist. “But she is young. Strong. She will be well soon.”

Elynne blinks slowly, focusing on Aegon beside her. Aegon shifts beside her, his presence warm and solid—

alive

—, fingers brushing against her face as if to reassure himself.

His gaze is still fixed on Seyvar, but his hands have traveled to her messy curls. “You are certain?”

A small pause. Then a measured nod. “I would not say it if I was not.”

Aegon swallows. His fingers curl briefly into her hair before releasing it, then he smooths the strands away from her damp forehead.

Helaena leans forward, eyes bright and pretty, and

oh

, Élynne loves them both so much it

hurts

. She wants to blame the fever but knows it is simply the truth carved into her heart.

“You are awake,” she says, almost in wonder. “We were afraid.”

Aegon does not speak, but Elynne can feel the way his hand hovers, uncertain, still near her face.

At the edge of the chamber, Queen Alicent watches.

She is silent, but Élynne sees the calculation in her gaze, the way her bitten fingers twitch against the folds of her gown. She is wary—of the foreign healer, of the unknown. But Élynne also sees the way her sharp eyes note the healer’s confidence, the way they move with quiet authority, unshaken by the fever that has kept the castle on edge for more than a sennight.

︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶

AEGON I

The chamber reeks of fever and herbs. It clings to the heavy tapestries, seeps into the damp linens, lingers on Aegon's skin like a sickness of its own. The air is thick with it, oppressive, but he does not leave. He will not.

Élynne lies in the great bed, her breath shallow, her skin ashen. Her golden lashes flutter against her too-pale cheeks, and sweat beads at her brow despite the cool cloth Mother presses there. The room is too still, too quiet. The kind of quiet that hangs like a held breath, waiting for something to break.

The maesters had come and gone, mumbling useless reassurances, prescribing the same draughts and poultices that had done nothing. They’d offered nothing but time. “Her body must fight,” they had said.

And what if it

couldn’t

?

Élynne is his first friend. The first that is truly his. When he introduced her to Aunty Serena as his truest friend, it was no exaggeration. That he took her there—into the one space that still feels safe, the one older woman in his life who treats him with something close to kindness—it was a declaration in itself.

Not that she knows that, of course. It’s too many words, too much to say all at once, and he isn’t good at that sort of thing. But the feeling stays. Heavy in his chest, solid like something real, something that might not disappear when he turns away.

Élynne has brought color and warmth into this dreaded Red Keep, a bright thing in a place that swallows the light whole. No judgment, no expectation—just her quiet, steady presence. A weight he doesn't mind carrying, a shadow that doesn't smother.

To have her absent from his life is a cruel thought. A raw, open wound, a cut too deep to heal right. A thing that never stops bleeding, festering beneath the surface, poisoning him slow.

So if she’s gone…

Aegon’s throat tightens.

The Qohorik physician is nothing like the maesters. No grey robes, no chain weighing him down. He is dark of skin, sharp-eyed, his hair tied back in a long, sleek braid. He smells of strange spices, of incense, of something metallic Aegon cannot place—like blood, like steel, like something ancient.

He does not bow. He does not wait for leave. He moves to Élynne’s bedside without a word.

Aegon does not like it. Does not like the ease with which this stranger steps into their space, into their desperation, as if it belongs to him.

And yet, he watches.

The physician works swiftly, methodically. He unrolls a leather bundle of knives—not crude things, but slim and gleaming, delicate as a jeweler’s tools, their edges glinting.

At first, Aegon thinks he means to bleed her, and his stomach twists with disgust. But the man only pricks her finger, rubbing a drop of blood between his fingers before lifting it to his nose, inhaling like he’s seen the most pompous lords appraise fine wine.

Aegon scowls. “What are you doing?”

The physician does not look at him. Does not answer. He tilts Élynne’s chin with careful fingers, pressing his thumbs against her throat, lingering there as if feeling for something just beneath the skin.

Alicent stiffens beside Aegon, but she does not stop him.

“She is fevered,” the physician finally says, voice low and thick with an accent Aegon cannot place. “But not past saving.”

No useless prayers, no vague assurances. Just certainty.

Aegon wants to believe him.

The healer moves quickly after that. He pulls a phial from his belt, the glass stained with residue from a dozen past uses. With practiced precision, he unstoppers it and pours a measured amount into an empty phial.

The chamber fills with a sharp, pungent scent—bitter and acrid, curling through the air like smoke. It lingers, cloying at the back of Aegon’s throat. With ease, the physician adds water, swirling the mixture until it turns a cloudy lilac hue—the same shade as Helaena’s eyes.

Satisfied, he sets the vial against Élynne’s lips, his touch steady but gentle. "Drink," he murmurs, his voice low, assured.

Aegon moves before he can think, his fingers snapping around the man’s wrist. “What is that?”

The physician does not flinch. His dark gaze meets Aegon’s, calm, unreadable. “It will break the fever.”

Aegon doesn’t release him. He should let go—he knows he should—but he doesn’t. His pulse thrums in his ears. He does not know this man, does not know if he should trust him, if Élynne would even

want

this stranger’s hands on her.

But then he looks down at her again—at her trembling fingers, at the way her breath rattles like that annoying little toy Daeron loves so much—and his grip loosens.

“Do it,” he says.

The physician nods once. Smooth, unbothered, as if he had never doubted the outcome. He tips the strange medicine onto Élynne’s tongue, then turns to his satchel.

He pulls out dried leaves and crushed powders, muttering to himself in a language Aegon does not understand. He sets a small iron dish over a brazier, adding handfuls of dried herbs.

Smoke curls up, golden and thick. It does not smell like the maesters' remedies—not damp, not putrid, but sharp and clear, like pine resin and cold air before a storm.

The physician gestures toward Élynne. “She must breathe it.”

His mother hesitates. Her fingers flex against her skirts, knuckles pale. “Is it safe?”

The man does not answer immediately. Instead, he looks to Aegon.

Aegon understands, all at once, that this is a test. Not for Élynne. For him. As if the man expects something from him. As if he is waiting.

Aegon swallows. His mouth is dry. His heart pounds against his ribs. “It’s safe,” he says. He does not know if it is. Not truly. But he believes it.

For Élynne.

His mother exhales, then nods.

The man shifts Élynne slightly, tilting her toward the smoke.  He kneels beside the bed, murmuring in his strange tongue, watching.

Minutes pass.

Then, something changes.

Élynne’s breathing evens. The sweat at her brow cools, the tension in her small frame easing, like a bowstring loosening after being drawn too tight. Her fingers relax, no longer clutching at invisible nightmares.

Aegon leans closer, heart pounding. “Is she—?”

The physician dips his chin. “She is coming to, yes. Will fully wake by morning.”

Aegon should feel relieved. He should feel grateful.

Instead, he feels

furious.

Because it should not have taken this. It should not have taken some foreigner—some stranger from Qohor—to care enough to

act.

The maesters had been willing to wait. The lords and ladies had been willing to wait. If she had died, they would have

let her.

They would have sighed, muttered their empty condolences, and carried on. The Red Keep would not have mourned her. The court would not have wept. They would have whispered about it over their wine goblets, trading idle words of regret before moving on to the next trivial amusement. Even his mother, who stands here now, brow furrowed in worry, would not have cared the way Élynne deserves. Not truly. Not deeply. Not in the way Aegon knows she should be mourned if she were lost.

Aegon’s jaw clenches. He looks around, takes in her respectable but meager chambers, the sparse furnishings, the thin drapes that let in too much cold. The bed is too large for her small frame, swallowing her in its vastness. The sheets, damp with fevered sweat, cling to her like bindings, holding her in place. The fire in the hearth crackles feebly, as if struggling to warm the room at all.

He thinks of the little bits and pieces she’s told him of Emberline Hall. Of the light-drenched corridors, the way the morning sun must paint golden patterns across the stone. Of the hush of the gardens, her favorite place—an oasis, she called, pretty golden eyes away in a happy memory. Untouched by duty, where she could steal a moment to herself and simply be. The mist, soft and hers. And the many people—because Élynne is

loved

—who would have fought harder for her than this.

Her parents are coming, he knows, and he cannot fault them. If he had the power, he would bring them here himself, would make the very stones of this keep tremble to hasten their arrival.

He thinks of what she left behind—the halls of her own home, filled with things that were

hers

, that smelled of her, that carried the warmth of her presence. A home that would grieve her, unlike this place, which would simply forget.

She does not belong here. Not in a place that treats her life as disposable. Not in a castle that would have let her slip away as if she were nothing more than a forgotten whisper in the wind.

His nails bite into his palms, but he welcomes the sting. It grounds him. Fuels him.

He does not want to wait anymore. And he will not.

︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶

It takes less than a day for Élynne to feel stronger. The heaviness in her limbs lightens, her thoughts sharpen. Another day, and the fever is gone entirely.

The healer stays.

"For Élynne’s sake," Lady Ysella de Auroré's letter insists on it; a mother’s concern, the Queen surely understands.

But Élynne knows better. There is more beneath those words. Has learned that nothing in court is ever done for one person's sake alone. This time is no different.

She closes her eyes briefly, savors this small little thing that feels closer to victory. The first step is done, she tells herself once more.

Now, she only needs to wait.

︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶

HELAENA I

Helaena watches.

She always watches.

People think she does not listen when they speak, that her mind drifts too far from the world around her to understand. Like a moth flitting toward a candle flame, too distant, too delicate to land. But she does. She simply sees it differently.

She had seen Élynne in the woods. Not with her eyes—not in the way others might understand—but she had seen her all the same. A flicker of a girl moving between the trees, her hands careful as they plucked leaves and roots from the earth. The whisper of her skirts against the underbrush, the hush of a secret kept between her and the soil. The sharp scent of something bitter. A cup tilting, the surface trembling, catching a sliver of moonlight before it touched waiting lips.

And then, a fever.

So when Élynne recovers and people fusses over her—Aegon, especially, clear for everyone to see—Helaena does not say much. She only hums under her breath and studies Élynne with knowing eyes.

“You walked alone,” she says one afternoon, while they sit in the gardens. The sun, close to setting, drapes them in gold, casting long, lazy shadows. The light slips through the leaves, dappled and soft, illuminating her friend in a way befitting of her. Aegon would agree, even if only to himself, that Élynne was made for sunlight.

Élynne stills. Just for a second. But Helaena notices.

“I was in my chambers,” Élynne replies lightly, smoothing out the folds of her skirts.

Helaena only smiles, twirling a flower between her fingers. A butterfly lands on a petal, weightless, curious. “Not before.”

Élynne says nothing.

Helaena does not need her to.

She lets the silence settle, watching Élynne’s hands as they curl against the fabric of her dress. She knows what it means when people fidget like that. Like a beetle with too-small wings, unsure if it should take flight. Like Aegon does.

Because Helaena sees that, too.

She sees the way his hand twitches when Élynne speaks, like he wants to reach out and stop her from slipping away, vanishing into air like mist at dawn. She sees the way he watches her—really watches her—when he thinks no one is looking. The way his drinking slows when she is near, even when she does not ask him to. The way his voice softens when he speaks to her, even when he tries to lace it with sharpness.

Aegon does not know it yet, but Helaena does.

She hums again, low and sweet, watching the petals tremble between her fingers.

Most people—her brother included—do not believe in dreams.

But Helaena does.

︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶

The first time she saw him after the battle, he barely looked like himself.

The room was dim, thick with the weight of sickness and silence. The fire in the hearth had burned low, reduced to embers, casting flickering shadows against the stone walls. The air was heavy, thick with the acrid scent of burnt flesh and bitter, cloying healing salves that clung to her throat like smoke.

Aegon lay slumped in a sickbed cradle, his body swathed in bandages, the wooden frame creaking faintly beneath his weight. The cradle had been designed to keep him propped upright, to stop the wounds on his back from festering, but it left him looking fragile—trapped within it like a bird in a broken cage. His once-silver hair, so often mussed from laughter and her fingers and wine, was matted with sweat, darkened where blood had dried.

Élynne hesitated in the doorway, her stomach twisting, her fingers curled so tightly into her skirts that the fabric crumpled beneath her grip. She had braced herself for this, for the ruin left in the wake of his war with Rhaenyra, but nothing could have prepared her for the sight before her.

His face—half of it a ruined landscape of charred and peeling flesh, raw and red, glistening in the firelight—was barely recognizable. The skin was stretched too tight, cracked in places where blood seeped through in thin rivulets. His left eye, once sharp and keen, was a swollen mess of burnt flesh, and his lips were split, as if he had bitten down on them to keep from screaming.

Her stomach churned. She had never seen men gutted on the battlefield, had never watched knights topple from their horses with gaping wounds, had never smelled the sickly stench of death clinging to the air after a lost fight. The only wounds she had ever known were the faded scars of old warriors—the knights employed by her father in Emberline Hall, the men who accompanied visiting lords—injuries long since healed, their pain nothing more than a distant memory.

But this—this was different.

This was fresh, raw suffering, not yet dulled by time. And above all else, this was

Aegon.

Aegon, who had once grinned at her from across candlelit dinners. Who had stolen goblets from her hands only to down them in a single gulp, laughing at her outrage. Aegon, who had always lounged too carelessly, sprawled across chairs and cushions with an irreverent smirk, as if the weight of the crown would never find him.

Aegon, who had held her hand in the quiet of the night when neither of them could sleep.

Now he looked so small within the cradle, his body barely able to shift against the stiff linens cushioning him. A king brought so low, swallowed by silks that once meant comfort but now seemed to entomb him. More ghost than man.

That alone terrified her—the notion that he might still leave her. That she might wake to find the cradle empty, the linens cold, the man she had known reduced to nothing but memory.

She stepped forward, the stone floor cold and sleek beneath her slippers, the sound too loud in the hush of the chamber. His head shifted slightly. Not much. Just enough.

His one good eye cracked open. For a moment, he simply looked at her.

His lips moved, barely a thing, no sound to carry the effort, just the ghost of a breath. But she saw it—the shape of her name forming, fragile and wavering, as if even that small effort might shatter him.

Élynne.

It was not a plea, not a question. Just a knowing, a recognition. As if, even through the haze of pain, through the ruin of his body, he had been waiting for her.

And gods, she had never loved him more.

Despite everything—despite the ruin of his body, despite the agony that must have hollowed him out from the inside—he still smirked. Still looked at her as if he were merely waking from some long afternoon’s rest, as if he were simply pleased to see her and nothing else had changed.

A small, faint thing. Barely more than a twitch of his lips, brittle and painful, like it might crack apart at any moment. But so achingly, unbearably kind.

“Not my best look, is it?” His voice was hoarse, barely more than a rasp, but it held the same wry lilt it always had. As if this was just another game to be played, like he wasn’t lying there, bound by the cradle as though his body could no longer bear its own weight, burnt and broken.

Her throat tightened. Aegon had always masked pain with humor, always turned suffering into something flippant, something careless. But this—this was not a jest. This was a shield. A wall hastily rebuilt over ruin.

She swallowed hard, forcing herself to move closer. The basin beside the bed was filled with water darkened by old blood, the cloth beside it damp and stained.

Her hands trembled as she reached for it.

Without a word, she sank into the chair beside the bed and, with the lightest touch she could manage, pressed the cloth against his uninjured temple.

His good eye fluttered shut at the sensation, his breath hitching, then slowly, carefully, releasing.

Something almost like relief.

“You should be resting,” she murmured, her voice quieter than she intended.

His lips curled again, the ghost of his old self flickering beneath the ruin.

“Can’t rest,” he muttered. “Not when I’ve got such a lovely visitor.”

Élynne let out a sharp breath—a sound that was not quite a laugh, not quite a sob.

She shook her head. “Idiot,” she whispered.

Aegon hummed softly, and for a moment, there was nothing but the slow but steady rise and fall of his breath, the distant crackle of dying embers, the unhurried drip of melted wax from a candle forgotten on the bedside table.

Then, after a long silence—so quiet she almost missed it—he rasped, “You

stayed.

”

She hesitated, her fingers stilling against his brow.

“I stayed,” she admitted.

His eye opened again, the exhaustion deep, but something else lingered there, something fragile, something searching.

“Good,” he murmured. “That’s good.”

She wished she could tell him that it was more than duty that had kept her here. That it was him. That it had only ever been him.

From the moment she let herself see him—not just as a prince, not just as the drunken disappointment of his family, not just as the reckless, sharp-edged thing the world had made him—but as Aegon. From the moment she let him look at her and truly see, let him read her back with all her baggage, all her bruised dreams and buried griefs, all the fears she never spoke aloud.

And stars above, he had. With that same reckless tenderness, he gave so freely, like a man who had never learned to hold anything with care but still tried, still reached.

It had always been him.

Instead, she simply continued wiping the blood from his brow, her touch impossibly soft, feather-light, as though he might shatter beneath her hands.

She wanted to believe that tenderness could mend what had been broken, that careful hands and whispered reassurances could smooth over raw wounds and dull the agony carved into his skin. Her fingers traced over the safe planes of his face, aching with the need to piece him back together, to weave flesh over ruin, to make him whole again.

Her presence alone felt like a fragile tether, the only thing keeping him anchored to the world, to her, to the fleeting moment where he still breathed, still existed, still lived.

That was her biggest fear. Not the war, not the crown, not even the ghosts of what had been lost—but this. She wasn’t sure when her world had stopped revolving around Aemond and his indifference, when his cold dismissal had ceased to wound her. Perhaps it had happened slowly, like the turning of seasons, or all at once, like a breath drawn too sharply. But somewhere along the way, he had faded into insignificance.

Because Aegon mattered more.

She just wanted him here—not just alive, not just breathing, but whole. And more than anything, she wanted him with

her.

But he was slipping—fading like ink in water, like something precious and fleeting she had no power to keep.

And gods, how she wished she could pull him back. Back to golden afternoons and whispered laughter, wine-slicked smiles and warm hands reaching for hers in the dark of a bedroom where his brother had abandoned her. Back to before. Before duty had ground him down, before the war had torn him apart, and the weight of a crown had turned him into this brittle, broken thing lying before her.

︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶

AEGON II

Aegon does not like feeling small.

He is a prince. That, at least in theory, should mean he is powerful. Commanding. Untouchable. That is what his mother wants, what the maesters whisper, what everyone on his mother and grandsire’s side expects.

And yet, when Élynne was sick, he had felt small. Like a boy, not a prince. Useless. Just sitting at her bedside, watching her skin burn hot and pale all at once, waiting for someone else to fix it. He could not fight it. Could not threaten it. Could not make it stop. Not even his father’s absence from this life has made him feel this incompetent.

Now she is well again, moving through the Red Keep with the same bright, determined energy as before. But something has changed. Something in her, something in him. Or perhaps it is simply him that has changed.

Aegon hates it.

At first, he avoids her. Not in an obvious way—Élynne is too clever for that, and he has no desire to explain himself—but he finds reasons to slip away. The usual distractions: the yard, the dice games, the sweetwine that makes his limbs warm and his thoughts heavy. But it is hollow. Everything feels hollow.

Because when he closes his eyes, he still sees her. Not as she is now—Élynne, whole and infuriating and beautiful like no one else is and alive. But as she was, her face drenched in fever-sweat, shivering under the covers, breath too shallow, skin so pale it had scared him.

It lingers. The fear. The helplessness. The sick, twisting feeling that he could have lost her, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He hates that it lingers.

So instead of running from it, he does what no one expects: he starts paying attention.

The healer—this Qohorik physician, with his strange powders and careful hands—is still in the Red Keep. His mother says it is for Élynne’s sake, but Aegon sees her watching the foreigner, sees the calculation in her eyes. His mother does nothing without reason. The healer is useful, and Queen Alicent values usefulness above all else. He is not sure what she is thinking, but he is thinking something of his own:

The maesters would have let Élynne linger. Would have droned their useless prayers and dripped some bland tincture between her lips and called it a cure. But this man had known. Had not prayed, but acted. Had looked at Élynne and known exactly what to do.

Aegon does not believe in miracles. But he does believe in results.

So he starts watching. He lingers near the healer more than before, not saying much at first. Just observing. The man burns herbs Aegon has never seen, crushes powders into fine dust, hums lowly under his breath as he works. Every movement is deliberate. Precise. Aegon wonders what it would feel like—to be so certain in what he is doing. And Aegon—restless, useless Aegon—finds himself wanting to know.

One afternoon, he finally speaks.

“What did you give her?”

The healer does not look up, only continues grinding something fine and red between his fingers. “Many things, my prince.”

Aegon scowls. “Do not talk to me like I am a child.”

At that, the healer lifts his eyes—dark and knowing. He studies Aegon for a long moment before finally answering. “Then do not speak to me like a boy demanding answers.”

Aegon clenches his jaw, nods once, but says nothing.

The healer relents, returning to his work. “A tincture of white willow bark, for the fever. Crushed frostmint, to ease the sickness in her stomach. And a little powdered valerian root, to make her sleep.”

Aegon listens, turning the words over in his mind. He does not know these herbs, but he should. He should have known them before Élynne had needed them.

The healer smirks, as if he sees something in Aegon—something the boy himself has not yet named. “Curious, are we?”

Aegon scoffs, crossing his arms. “No.” But the lie tastes bitter in his mouth.

Later, Élynne finds him. Of course she does. He had known she would. She is stubborn like that, persistent. And he is… not as good at avoiding her as he is everyone else.

She does not call him a coward, though perhaps she should. She doesn’t scowl, doesn’t demand answers, doesn’t pry like others might. Instead, she smiles and says, “Thank you.”

Aegon blinks. The word lands strangely, like a piece of a puzzle he doesn’t recognize.

Thank you?

“For

what?

”

She gives him a look—the kind that makes him feel stupid, like he is missing something obvious—and says simply, “For staying.” Then, a tilt of her head, a lift at the corner of her lips, something smug, something knowing. “You stayed.”

Aegon does not know what to say to that. Makes something twist inside him, something unfamiliar and unwelcome. It unsettles him, like a hand pressing against a bruise he didn’t realize he had. So he does what he always does when he feels uncomfortable: he makes a joke.

“I only stayed because you looked ridiculous, all sweaty and half-dead.”

Élynne laughs, rolling her pretty, golden eyes, and just like that, the moment passes. Like it never happened. Like it doesn’t matter. The tension in his chest loosens. He is safe again.

But later, alone in his chambers, Aegon looks down at his hands. His fingers curl, remembering. He remembers how tightly he had clenched them as he watched her fever burn. How small she had looked in that bed. How wrong it had felt. How useless he had felt.

He never wants to feel like that again.

︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶

The Red Keep is silent, hushed like a held breath, the weight of its very existence pressing against the stone. The halls stretch empty, void of life save for the occasional flicker of torchlight, shadows licking the walls like restless spirits.

Élynne lies in bed, staring up at the ceiling, the carved patterns twisting and shifting in the dim light, a labyrinth of knots her mind cannot untangle. Her body is restless, though the fever has long since burned away. Sleep refuses to take her.

Her thoughts drift—caught in a slow, inevitable current. To Aegon, who had stayed by her side while she was ill, slouched in his chair, fidgeting, grumbling—but never leaving. To Queen Alicent, who had watched the foreign healer work with careful, considering eyes, her bloody fingers pressed together in silent calculation. To Helaena, clutching their friendship between delicate fingers like a silken thread, even as Élynne tries to pull away.

Little things. Small shifts in the current. But not enough.

She is no longer in the safety of her chambers. The air thickens, changes. Warm and electric. She is in the Queen’s solar, the fire burning low, its embers pulsing like the last heartbeat of something dying. There but not all at once. No physical body to contain her, just invincible, all-seeing eyes. Shadows stretch long along the stone walls. But it is not now.

It is years from now.

Aegon stands before his mother, his expression a mask, but the tension in his shoulders betrays him. His hands curl into fists at his sides. Not in anger. In something quieter. He does not know where to put them, how to hold himself, how to breathe. She wants to hold him, to take his hand and run and run and push people away if she has to. He’ll know a good secret passage, she’s certain, and they’ll be far for everything that causes this sad look to mar his face.

Aemond stands at the far corner of the room, a looming specter with a sharp profile and a sharper gaze. One-eyed, arms crossed—more guard than prince, watching the brother he deems unworthy of the crown, watching, waiting, ensuring Aegon does not slip away like sand through clenched, violent fingers.

Viserys is dead.

Élynne does not hear the words spoken, only sees the way they settle over Aegon like a cloak of lead, too heavy to bear but impossible to remove.

At first, there is resistance. She can see it in his eyes, the clench of his jaw, the slight shake of his head, his body coils like a creature about to bolt.

No. No, I do not want this.

Something shifts. Not all at once. It’s a slow unraveling. The tension in his shoulders eases—but not in relief. In resignation. The moment where the fight drains from him—not because he believes he should be king, but because he no longer believes he has a choice.

Élynne knows that look.

It is the look of someone who has been pulled in too many directions. Stretched thin, frayed at the edges, shaped and reshaped until he no longer knows where he ends and duty begins. It is the look of someone who has been told too often what he must be.

Élynne gasps into the dark, her sheets twisted in her hands. The room is too quiet. The fire in the hearth sputters, throwing weak, dying light. She presses a hand to her forehead, steadying her breath.

The ghost of the vision lingers, clinging like mist, refusing to fully leave her. This is new.

She has never experienced a vision like this.

They are usually from her point of view, a replaying of memories she knows to be true. But Élynne of that life was not present after Aemond dragged Aegon back to Maegor’s Holdfast.

So why has she seen it?

What does that mean for her Sight? Is it shifting? Expanding? Becoming something else entirely? Will they get worse somehow?

But beyond that—beyond the unraveling mystery of her own mind—there is something greater to consider.

She had been so focused on Aegon’s future, so intent on unbinding his fate from the chains wrapped around his wrists, that she had nearly forgotten Alicent’s part in it.

If she is to change things, she cannot simply change Aegon.

She must change the Queen’s mind as well.

︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶

ALICENT I

The Qohorik physician, Seyvar Orlann, does not work like the maesters.

Alicent sees it immediately.

He does not drape himself in chains, does not speak in the slow, measured tone of men accustomed to being obeyed without question. He moves with quiet purpose, his hands sure and steady as he works, never hesitating. He burns strange herbs and mixes unfamiliar powders, but there is no mysticism to it—no tedious prayers, no muttered incantations to the Seven. Only action.

And Élynne—fevered, trembling Élynne whom her two eldest adore adores—had begun to recover within hours.

Alicent does like to believe in the possibility of miracles. But proof is even easier to believe.

The maesters are not incompetent. That would be too simple. No, they are learned men, wise in their own ways. But they are slow. Cautious. Political. They measure their remedies with the same precision as their loyalties.

And Viserys—

Her fingers tighten in her skirts, tips burning from her earlier pickings at their frayed skin.

Viserys worsens by the day. The maesters assure her he is in no true danger. That his aches and wounds will heal in time. That his body merely needs rest. As if she is young and simple.

Alicent watches him, and she knows.

She has spent too many nights listening to his labored breath, watching the way his hands tremble when he lifts a goblet. She has smelled the rot in his flesh, no matter how often they cleanse it with ointments and wrappings. The Citadel’s men murmur about treatments, about patience, but he is dying all the same.

And yet it is Élynne—a child—who secures a healer with true skill.

It unsettles her.

She watches the Qohorik work, listens to the quiet, efficient way he answers Aegon’s questions—Aegon, who never asks about anything of value, suddenly watches with sharp, wary interest. Alicent says nothing, only observes.

Keeping the man in King’s Landing is practical. For the children. For their health.

But a more dangerous thought lingers beneath the surface.

Does she dare?

Does she step outside the Citadel’s grasp? Does she take a risk on something foreign, something unknown?

The maesters are trusted. The Citadel wields quiet, insidious power over the throne, over her son’s throne. To turn away from them, even in part, is no small thing.

But what if she must?

Her gaze drifts to Viserys, slumped in his chair, and she wonders if she has already waited too long.

︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶

It begins with a whisper, a ripple disturbing the still water of daily routine. Élynne does not force the healer into conversation with the Queen. She places him near—just enough to be seen, just enough to be noticed. A shadow at the edge of her awareness, unobtrusive yet present. He is there to monitor her health, after all.

She lets the first thread weave itself during a quiet morning, when the halls are still and the world has not yet fully woken.

"Prince Aemond was coughing again last night, your grace. I hope he is faring better today," Élynne remarks absently—ignores the distaste curling in her gut at even uttering his name—smoothing a wrinkle from Helaena’s sleeve as they prepare to visit the gardens.

Alicent does not react at first. Her hands remain steady, her expression unshaken. But later, when Aemond enters the chamber, her eyes flicker toward him—watchful, assessing, as though hearing the rasp of his breath for the first time.

A drizzle of rain dampens the stones outside, making the Red Keep’s corridors cool and hushed, the scent of wet stone mingling with the faint trace of burning candle wax. Élynne does not sit with the Queen, of course. Instead, she lingers by Helaena’s side, as is expected.

She notices the way Helaena stares at her untouched meal, her fingers absently tracing the rim of her goblet, over and over, a rhythm only she understands. The healer, Seyvar Orlann, is present—standing a respectful distance away, observing as always.

“Please finish your meal this time, my princess.”

That evening, Élynne does not speak directly to Alicent. She does not need to. The Queen’s gaze lingers on Helaena’s untouched plate, and Élynne sees it—the flicker of recognition, the way something shifts behind those carefully guarded eyes.

Aegon stretches lazily on the couch in the sitting room, a half-empty goblet in his hand. The candlelight catches the purpling bloom on his forearm, the splay of bruises creeping down to his hand. He rubs at them idly, absently, as if they are nothing more than a passing ache. Élynne notes it, does not comment, but she files it away—one more piece of the puzzle.

Later, at supper, with wine in hand and the evening's weight heavy on their shoulders, Élynne lets the words slip easily, as though they belong in the conversation.

"Prince Aegon bruises too easily," she observes, her tone light, almost careless. She swirls the watered wine in her goblet, watching the softer shade coat the sides. "Has he always?"

Queen Alicent glances at Aegon, who lounges in his seat, a grin playing at the corner of his lips as he says some half-hearted jest to a smiling Helaena. Her eyes linger on the bruise, her gaze sharpening, the way a hawk’s might before a dive. Her fingers curl slightly around her own cup, knuckles paling beneath the delicate skin.

Seyvar Orlann kneels beside a servant, tending to a twisted ankle when Alicent passes by. A flickering candle in her hand, she does not stop, does not acknowledge him. But Élynne, watching from a floor above, catches it—the brief pause in her step, the way her gaze lingers. The way her fingers tighten ever so slightly on the brass holder of the candle. The quiet competence in Seyvar’s hands, the ease of his work, does not go unnoticed.

It happens over tea, the warm fragrance of honey and chamomile weaving through the quiet room, filling the air with a soft, almost heavy sweetness. The steam rises gently from the cups, curling like tendrils around the room.

"Tell me," she says at last, her voice quiet, but insistent. A command dressed as a request. She places her cup down, the sound delicate, almost too gentle for the weight it carries.

And so, Seyvar speaks. His words are measured, carefully chosen, each one deliberate, precise, as if laying out truths like a physician setting bones. He does not embellish, does not rush, simply offers his knowledge with the quiet confidence of a man who knows the value of his craft.

Élynne does not need to press further. The words have already taken root.

Queen Alicent listens. Truly listens. Her gaze is steady, her posture unchanged, but something in the air shifts. The tension in her shoulders eases, just barely. A breath drawn in a room that has been holding it for too long.

The Queen does not make her decision then. She waits.

But later, on another night, when Élynne departs the Queen's chambers, Helaena’s arm warm and steady in hers, they pass through the corridor in companionable silence, the quiet hum of their footsteps on the stone floors the only sound.

And as they round a corner, Élynne notices it.

A figure entering the Queen’s chambers, moving with the quiet purpose of someone summoned rather than dismissed. The flicker of candlelight illuminates the face just enough—Seyvar Orlann.

A shift in the air, small and imperceptible to anyone else. But to Élynne, it is everything.

The healer will stay.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

A knock sounds against the heavy oak door of Helaena’s solar, the sound a gentle yet deliberate intrusion upon the quiet.Alicent steps inside first, her movements measured, poised as ever, her presence like a blade wrapped in silk. Élynne follows half a step behind, her own steps careful, controlled. The air is thick with warmth, the kind that lingers in places meant for solace, for soft-spoken words and unguarded moments. Sunlight filters through the windows, catching on the shimmer of silks, the gold-threaded embroidery of cushions scattered about. The faint scent of holly and blue hyacinths, beeswax, and sunlight lingers, a quiet, known kind of comfort. It whispers of its princess all over.Helaena stands near a low table, her moonlight-silver hair cascading down her back, the ends curling softly, swaying with every slight movement. Her delicate fingers brush against a spool of thread, forgotten the moment she turns. Her lilac eyes, framed by long, silvery lashes, widen in recognition as they meet Élynne’s gold ones. The round, flushed face of a girl of recent eight-namedays-old—youthful, untouched by grief—stares back at her.Helaena is almost two years younger than both Aegon and Élynne herself. It is the face Élynne knew she would see, of course. The face of a girl still radiant with childhood, untouched by sorrow, as she is, as the Queen is.And yet, for one slip-second, Élynne braces for something else—expects, absurdly, the older Helaena, the grief-stricken Helaena of her visions, the one who had known loss too intimately, whose brightness had been dimmed by the weight of fate.But that is not the Helaena standing before her.This Helaena is all light, all warmth.Her entire face transforms, alight with unguarded joy, the kind of joy that knows no hesitation, no fear of being unwelcome.“Élynne!” she exclaims, delighted, as if greeting an old friend rather than a girl she has never met before. Not Lady Élynne. Not the stiff, practiced formality of the court, that endless dance of propriety. Simply her name—light as air, as natural as breathing.Élynne remembers. Of course, she remembers.It is an ache, sudden and etched and deep.They were close, in the visions, in the other life, in the threads of fate that tangled before—or ahead. Before marriage, before duty, before expectation pressed between them like a closing door. Helaena had been warmth and laughter and whispers in the dark, had been the first to step past the fragile wall of names and titles, the first to call her something more than a lady, more than what was expected of her.She steps forward quickly, the skirts of her sage-green gown—embroidered with lavender dragonflies in the shimmery tread that most likely comes from Essos—shifting like water, movement unhindered by thought. There is a glimmer of something girlish in it, something untouched by the weight of courtly restraint. It is instinct, the urge to close the space between them, to share a breath, a whisper, a secret kept just for them. To speak softly, as they had in that life when they would reach out not with hands but with quiet understanding.But Élynne does not move.She smiles, small, too careful, the edges of it brittle as shattered glass. Then, she dips into a graceful curtsy. “Your Grace.”Helaena falters, just slightly.Alicent notices. She does not move, but Élynne catches it—the subtle stillness, the flicker of surprise in her sharp amber-green eyes before it melts into something softer. Something knowing. Something pleased.She must think this is a good sign—that Élynne’s careful composure is a mark of poise, of gentility, of the sort of demeanor that would suit a girl bound for the royal family.But Alicent does not know.She does not know the ghosts Élynne carries.Élynne’s mind is full of another life, shoved into her head without consent, without care for the pain it brings. Another version of this moment, where Helaena had been warm against her side, where her laughter had been something Élynne had tried—desperately—to preserve.Only to lose her anyway.It is a blade between her ribs, slow and twisting. The ache of it is a familiar, hollow wound, one she has carried since the first of the visions shattered into her mind. The Helaena of those fragmented memories had been a beacon of fragile hope—one Élynne had clung to, foolishly believing she could protect her. If she had only been smarter, faster, kinder, more attentive, she could have held on to that light.But she hadn’t. And it had all fallen apart, much like everything else in that life.So Élynne keeps her distance. Keeps herself locked behind a wall of propriety, polished and impenetrable. Her expression does not betray the storm within her chest; the poised Lady Élynne of House de Auroré, a paragon of decorum. Her spine is straight, her chin held high, her gold eyes bright but guarded. She is all the things she is meant to be, everything expected of a noble daughter. Every bit the lady her father molded her into, the dutiful daughter her mother expects.And Helaena notices.The brightness in her dims, like a sun slipping behind clouds. The light remains, but muted, as if she is standing in the shadow of something unseen. She still smiles, still welcomes her, but there is something dampened now, subdued, uncertainty that wasn’t there before.Her lilac eyes, so bright and eager just moments before, dim slightly. A subtle hesitation flickers across her face — confusion, uncertainty, a glimmer of the self-doubt that Élynne knows haunts her. In that other life, Helaena had always been able to see more than most, her insights carrying a weight no one seemed to understand. She had seen Élynne’s wounds when no one else had, had reached out with quiet, gentle warmth.Now, Helaena’s fingers twitch as if she might reach out and touch—a tentative motion that stills in the space between them. The silence stretches, a breath too long, and Helaena’s smile wanes, folding in on itself. The brightness dims, tempered by the distance Élynne maintains. The unspoken wall that keeps Helaena’s kindness from reaching her.And Élynne hates herself for it. For the distance she creates out of fear, for the way she cannot bear to let Helaena in, to feel that warmth again and risk losing it once more. For the way she wants to reach out and bridge the space between them, to let Helaena’s joy unravel the knot in her chest.But she can't. She won't. Not when she knows what comes after. It is a painful loop, this want quarreling with the grief, but one she must endure.So Élynne watches as Helaena's gaze flickers, uncertain, searching for a crack in Élynne’s polished mask. When their eyes meet, Élynne sees a reflection of that girl who once trusted her, who once laughed so freely. The girl she failed.Alicent frowns.But she says nothing, and Élynne thinks, Good. Let her think me cold. Let her find me unsuited. Do not see me as a good choice for your heartless son you praised so much.Before the silence can stretch too long, another knock sounds at the door. After the Queen’s soft invitation, one by one, the other ladies enter, their voices a murmur of greetings, their movements as graceful and rehearsed as a courtly dance. The whisper of silk against stone, the rustle of skirts, the practiced dip of curtsies—it is all expected, all effortless.First to step forward is Myrielle Lannister. The golden lion of her house gleams on the delicate chain at her throat, her red-gold hair a halo of polished curls framing a face both proud and poised. Her curtsy is low, precise, measured—the mark of someone well aware of her status as a cousin to the Lord of Casterly Rock. Myrielle's green eyes flicker to Élynne, assessing, guarded, yet a flicker of warmth dances there.Élynne remembers—the Myrielle of her visions, the girl who stood by her through whispers and courtly cruelty. She had been the one to console Élynne when Aemond's indifference bit deepest, when his cruelties left invisible scars that ached beneath her soul.Myrielle had not understood, at first, the strange, unspoken bond that formed between Élynne and Aegon when it came later. who watched their easy friendship with wary confusion. She had watched their easy laughter with wary confusion, a cautiousness sharpened by her own understanding of how precarious affection could be in a court full of sharpened tongues. And yet Myrielle still stayed—her loyalty fierce, coiled beneath layers of poise and pride. The kind of loyalty that lingered even when wounded, even when it could not fully comprehend.Élynne recalls the way Myrielle had once said, watching Aegon and Élynne laugh together, “It makes sense in some odd way. I only wish it hadn’t taken so long.” There had been something sad in her voice then, a tremor that Élynne could hear even now—like a crack in a porcelain mask. In her soft green eyes, in the tilt of her head, there was a sorrow that Élynne could not—would not—ever place. A grief wrapped in resignation, an ache left unnamed.Sabetha Wylde follows — practical, sharp-eyed, with a wry mouth always on the verge of a smirk. There is confidence in her step, a slight swagger that borders on insolence yet remains just shy of offense. Her gown is elegant but less extravagant, the cut and fit more practical, as if chosen for someone who does not have the patience for excessive frills. Sabetha’s gaze catches Élynne’s for a moment, a glimmer of recognition, of shared wit.Élynne remembers the Sabetha of that other life — her second favorite among Helaena’s ladies, a girl whose sarcasm could sting but whose honesty could soothe. She had once quipped about Élynne’s friendship with Aegon, a sly grin on her face: “Where's your lapdragon, then?” Élynne had laughed despite herself, because Sabetha always said what others would not. She remembers the way Sabetha often bickered with her older brother, a constant struggle against being reined in—and Élynne had always understood. She had been grateful to be the sole heir of House de Auroré, her people clinging to their independence and Calivore's faith even as they bent to Westerosi customs.Alarra Peake steps forward with barely contained excitement—bright-eyed and smiling, her auburn hair gleaming in the sunlight, her curtsy a little rushed but no less earnest. There is a warmth to her that seems to fill the room, a brightness that cannot be dimmed even by the suffocating decorum of court. Her joy is infectious, a buoyant spirit barely tempered by the expectations of her station.In those shadowed memories of a life both lived and imagined, Élynne recalls Alarra's unyielding optimism—the way she could lift the mood of an entire room with a single laugh, the way her kindness felt so genuine it could not be doubted. It is a small comfort to see her here, unchanged by the cruelties and shadows that would come later.Lastly, quiet Rowenna Strong, her gaze lowered, her steps careful and unassuming. Her hair is a dark, mousy brown, braided neatly back, her hands clasped delicately before her. She curtsies last, her voice barely above a whisper as she greets the princess. Rowenna is from a cadet branch of House Strong — a cousin distant enough to be of little consequence, yet here she stands, one of Helaena’s ladies.Élynne remembers the least of Rowenna from that other life. She had been kind, gentle with Helaena, but a quiet presence, unassuming. There had been no falsehood in her sweetness, no glimmer of envy or ambition. Even in that broken future, even when the world had sharpened and splintered, Rowenna had remained kind. The sort of gentleness Élynne had often yearned for but could never quite believe in.None of these girls, in any of those fractured visions, had ever mistreated Helaena. They had not been the false-hearted courtiers who wore honeyed smiles and whispered barbed words. Here, in this room, there is no malice—only the softness of youth and the tentative hope that girlhood friendships might last.Helaena is sweet to them, as she always is, as she cannot help but be. Gentle, shy but welcoming, kind. But her enthusiasm does not return the way it had when she first saw Élynne.She answers questions politely, offers soft smiles, but there is a hesitance in her now, a quiet retreating, as though she has curled in on herself.It is Alarra who eases her, as she always does, with a soft smile and a gentle word. She draws Helaena’s attention to a lovely piece of embroidery resting by the window, admiring it with genuine interest. She does not force conversation, does not press for more than Helaena is willing to give.Helaena brightens at that, her fingers tracing the delicate stitches, her voice soft but animated as she speaks of the colors, the blend of thread like a field of flowers in bloom.But she only fully relaxes when Myrielle turns to Élynne.“My mother told me about Emberline Hall,” Myrielle says, her voice carrying the careful ease of someone who knows exactly what they are doing. “She says the roses there bloom more brilliantly than any in the warmer lands. Is that true, Lady Élynne?”Élynne blinks.This was deliberate.Myrielle has always been sharp, even now as a child of nine namedays. Sharp enough to see the distance Élynne has built, sharp enough to know when to tear it down.She exhales, slow and measured, and nods. “It is true. The soil is rich from the old riverbeds, and the winters are not harsh enough to dull the bloom. The land has Calivore’s blessing. At least, that is what my grandsire often says.”And Élynne supposes it is somehow true. She finds it hard to believe in the old tales, the legends of how her family came to have so much land in the cold, unyielding North. How the Starks, with their iron-willed lords and wolf’s blood, had come to either end or subdue them—and failed. How the land itself had rebelled, had shielded the golden-haired, golden-eyed de Aurorés. How the Children of the Forest, seldom seen even then, had emerged from the deep woods to stand before the Starks and tell them plainly: the land was waiting for them.In every proper Westerosi history book, there is a chapter titled The Claiming of the Northwest. The stories say her ancestors did not arrive as conquerors, but as exiles—refugees with a certainty that defied reason. They built Emberlin Hall, a fortress of fire and light that defied not only the North’s bleakness, but the kind of architecture the kings of Westeros thought possible. The ground did not shudder to swallow their foundations; the rivers did not rise to drown them; the forests did not twist in defiance. The land did not reject them. Instead, it had welcomed them, cradling their foreignness as if it had been waiting all along.When the Starks came, they had expected to put down a challenge, to demand fealty from a presumptuous house of strangers, or end them altogether. But the de Aurorés did not fight. They did not kneel. They stood—golden and unmoved—as if they had known the land would rise to defend them. The earth trembled, the wind whispered in a language unknown, the trees bent as if bowing. And the Children of the Forest came, their eyes aglow like verdant fireflies in the dark. They told the Starks plainly: the Northwest had waited for its true stewards, and they had come. Winter has its king, they had said. But so does Flame.To war against the de Aurorés would be to war against the land itself. So the Pact of Winter and Flame was made—a tenuous, enduring balance. The de Aurorés would never kneel. The Starks would never demand it. Yet in war and winter, they would stand together. The land had chosen, and the North had listened.It is a story Élynne grew up with, embroidered in tapestries and whispered by granddam Maegelle by the fire. A tale that feels more myth than truth, yet it is etched into her family's blood and bone.She felt it, even as she left home this time, in the weight of the sunstone beneath her feet, in the draft that curled through the cold corridors of Emberlin Hall. She does not believe in myths, not truly—and yet, when she walked the lands of the Northwest, she felt something watching, waiting. The land itself, perhaps, breathing beneath her feet.And perhaps that is why her visions come—why they feel both a curse and a call, a pull from the earth that is both home and foreign, that either way knows her as its own. The land is in her blood, ancient and unyielding, whispering in dreams she never asked for but cannot shake.Helaena shifts at the sound of her voice, her hands stilling on the embroidery. Her fingers hover over the silken threads, momentarily suspended—a moment caught between action and stillness, the delicate balance of something fragile.“That sounds beautiful, my lady,” the princess’ dreamy voice reaches her, gentle and unguarded, like a ripple across still water. It pulls Élynne from her musings, from that ever-churning tangle of memory and foresight.And then, Élynne makes the mistake of looking at her.Helaena’s face is softer now, the ethereal quality of her lilac eyes settling into something tangible. She is watching Élynne—not just with interest, but with quiet, unmistakable relief.It is a look Élynne knows—has known in another life, in flashes of laughter and whispered secrets shared between sisters, in the ghost of a world that slipped through her fingers. She knows what it means to be seen by Helaena, for the girl to reach out with that gentle, unspoken acceptance.The weight of what she remembers—what she has lost—presses against her chest. There is too much in the space between them, too many threads of what could have been, what might still be.Élynne looks away.