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Rating:
Mature
Archive Warning:
Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Categories:
F/MGenM/MF/F
Fandoms:
House of the Dragon (TV)A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Relationships:
Aerion Targaryen (Son of Maekar I) & Rhaenyra TargaryenAerion Targaryen & Jacaerys VelaryonAerion Targaryen & Lucerys VelaryonHarwin Strong & Rhaenyra Targaryen & Laenor VelaryonAerion Targaryen & Aegon II TargaryenAerion Targaryen & Aemond "One-Eye" TargaryenAerion Targaryen & Helaena TargaryenDaemon Targaryen/Rhaenyra Targaryen
Characters:
Aerion Targaryen (Son of Maekar I)Rhaenyra TargaryenJacaerys VelaryonLucerys Velaryon (Son of Rhaenyra)Joffrey VelaryonLaenor VelaryonHarwin StrongAlicent HightowerViserys I TargaryenAegon II TargaryenAemond "One-Eye" TargaryenHelaena TargaryenDaemon TargaryenRhaena Targaryen (Daughter of Daemon)Baela TargaryenCorlys "The Sea Snake" VelaryonRhaenys Targaryen VelaryonSilverwing | Alysanne Targaryen's DragonAddam VelaryonDaeron Targaryen (Son of Viserys I)
Additional Tags:
Alternate Universe - Canon DivergenceTime TravelThe Dance of the Dragons | Aegon II Targaryen v. Rhaenyra Targaryen EraI've fallen victim to the TikTok edits of twins Jace and AerionAerion Targaryen vs The GreensDragon Dreams (Questionable)Dark HumorUnreliable NarratorNo Beta We Die Like Aerion (The First Time)Dragon Dreams (Literal)
Language:
English
Collections:
Anonymous
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Published:2025-12-18Updated:2026-07-25Words:386,215Chapters:37/?Comments:7,001Kudos:6,014Bookmarks:1,626Hits:246,098
Burn Them All
Anonymous
Chapter 6: The Game of Thrones
Summary:
Aerion sets the board at Driftmark; Helaena tries to caution him.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Aerion lay in his bed on Dragonstone, staring at the ceiling.
His thigh still pulled when he shifted, and his back felt as if someone had poured molten lead beneath the skin.
Lady Laena Velaryon, dead in childbed. The babe, a son, dead with her.
Laenor's grief had settled over Dragonstone like a fog off the sea. The laughter that usually found him so easily had gone missing. When Aerion saw him, it was in fragments: Laenor standing at a window too long, staring at nothing; Laenor answering questions a heartbeat late. Even Seasmoke's distant cries seemed to make him flinch.
It swallowed everything else.
Aerion's flight—the scandal, the spectacle, the absurdity of a prince stealing a dragon and vanishing into the night—had been trampled flat under the weight of Lady Laena's death. The castle had found a different topic to cling to.
Only his mother had not forgotten.
Ser Steffon Darklyn of the Kingsguard now stood outside Aerion's door by day and followed him at a respectful, unshakeable distance whenever he left it. Aerion could feel the man's presence like a second shadow, a polite one that did not speak and did not blink. Even when Aerion tried to walk faster, Ser Steffon's pace matched him without effort, which was insulting in a way Aerion had no words for.
Aerion stared at the crack of moonlight on the floor and tried to drag the past and future into a neat row, the way maesters did when they used ink to write down dragonfire.
He had flown to Harrenhal. He had saved Harwin from sleeping in the east wing. He had watched Lord Lyonel go into the earth under trees that didn't care about crowns. He had been shouted at until his mother's voice rasped, and he had shouted back until his throat hurt.
And still—
Laena is dead.
That part, at least, was correct. He could see the line in his memory as plainly as if he'd read it that morning: Laena Velaryon, died in childbed.
It was the when that wouldn't sit still.
In the dry, cracked scroll of his past-life knowing, the deaths were clean entries: Harwin Strong, perished in a fire at Harrenhal. Laena Velaryon, died in childbirth. Laenor Velaryon, dead after her. Then—then—Daemon and Rhaenyra, inevitable as a knife finding the gap in armor.
He'd carried it in his mind like a map.
The map was wrong.
Harwin's death and Laena's had been separated by time, in his memory. Years, perhaps. Enough for children to grow into sharper trouble.
Later.
Not now.
Aerion pressed his palm to his forehead.
"Stupid," he muttered into the dark, and then, because one insult was never enough, "stupid, stupid."
He could have sworn Joffrey had been older when Laena died. Old enough to have a wooden sword in his fist.
Joffrey was a baby.
A squalling lump of fury and milk who still smelled like nursemaids. Joffrey could not even walk across a room without being carried.
Aemond Targaryen, standing before the court, declaring he had lost an eye but gained a dragon. Vhagar. Claimed at Laena's funeral. And the fight… the fight had been with Jace, and Luke, and…
…and Joffrey.
The timeline was off.
Did she die sooner? Had his very presence, his meddling, pulled that thread loose? Had saving Harwin somehow… hastened Laena's doom? Was causality a vengeful god, demanding a life for a life?
Or, a more chilling thought, cold and slick as sea-worm oil: Did I just not remember correctly?
Memory was not a perfect ledger. What if he'd conflated events? What if the maester's dry account in his past life had been vague, or wrong? The terrifying possibility was that the world was not bending to his actions, but that he had simply misremembered the order of the chapters.
If Laena had died now, sooner than he'd expected, then they would gather at Driftmark soon. Soon the funeral. Vhagar soon. Aemond soon.
And if the order of days had shifted—
Aerion's jaw tightened.
Laenor's death had been after Laena's, not long after, if the accounts could be trusted. An "accident." A quarrel. Fire in a market. A blade in a shadow. The tale changed depending on who told it, but the ending stayed the same: Laenor removed from the board, and Daemon sliding into his place.
Aerion stood and paced the narrow strip of floor between his bed and the wall. The stone was cold under his bare feet. Each step tugged at his thigh and sent a complaint up his spine. He welcomed the pain.
The fire in his blood, the bond with Silverwing humming like a warm, constant note in the back of his mind, felt suddenly like a taunt. Wings were meant to solve problems. Wings were meant to make the world make sense.
What use were wings if you did not know where the arrows would fall?
He had arrived at Harrenhal just in time to keep Harwin from sleeping where the flames would take him.
He had done that.
He had done that once.
The world had answered by taking Laena instead, as if some unseen hand had tapped the parchment and said, Fine. Here. Take this line, then. But you will pay somewhere else.
Aerion swallowed and tasted bitterness.
He could not even trust his own recollection, and the thought made him want to bite something.
Laenor's face rose in his mind, unbidden.
Aerion's throat tightened. He hated that too.
Soon, the dread whispered, shapeless and persistent. But you don't get to know when.
Driftmark met them with salt and gull-cry.
The wind came off the Narrow Sea and worried at cloaks and veils, tugging at hair, carrying brine and kelp and that iron smell the water had when storms tried to gather. Grey clouds hung low enough that the towers of High Tide seemed to scrape their bellies.
They had gathered on the cliffs above the surf, where the stone dropped away into endless moving darkness. Velaryon banners snapped, pale sea-horses straining against their poles. Lords and ladies stood in careful lines with the royal court arranged behind them like a painted tapestry: the King, the Queen, their children, their sworn swords, their hangers-on, their eyes.
They had all come with their dragons.
Above the castle the air belonged to scale and wing. Caraxes carved slow circles that looked lazy until he tightened a turn and the wind snapped like cloth. Meleys followed higher, redder against the grey, her movements smooth enough to shame the gulls. Seasmoke kept close to the cliffs, pale and quick. Syrax wheeled nearer the shore, gold flashing whenever a thin seam of light broke through the cloud.
On the cliffside Dreamfyre sat with folded wings, her head lifted toward the sea as if listening. Sunfyre perched not far off, bright even under a dull sky, preening at the wind. Farther down the beach, half hidden by dunes, Vhagar lay like a fallen hill, her bulk settled into the sand. She breathed, slow and deep, and the sand around her nostrils darkened with each warm exhale.
Silverwing flew above the island.
A commotion rose among the watchers.
Heads tilted back. Fingers pointed. A murmur ran like a wave through the crowd as another huge dragon rose into view and joined Silverwing in the sky.
Vermithor.
Bronze in the light, immense, moving with the slow confidence of something that had never needed permission to fly. He curved toward Silverwing and matched her flight with a heavy grace, and for a moment two great shapes circled each other above Driftmark, wings beating in a rhythm that made the air feel alive.
People stared. Some with awe and fear. Some with the brittle kind of devotion men had when they realized gods still walked among them.
Aerion's mind, however, clicked in understanding. Silverwing coiled where Vermithor coiled. When the Dragonmont breathed, those two often breathed with it, a shared heat in the dark. Dragonkeepers had their careful phrases for such things. Pair-bonded. Mated. Words that tried to make a courtly romance of dragon-instinct.
It made sense that Vermithor would follow her now. Silverwing had gone. Vermithor had come after, like a shadow answering the movement of the sun.
Silverwing's attention flicked toward Vermithor. Warm approval rolled through the bond.
For a fraction of a second, Aerion's mind was not his own.
He felt a memory of heat: the warmth of a shared cavern, scales resting against scales in perfect, silent understanding. The other half of the silence. Mine.
The warm pulse sharpened into a silent command, the opening step of a ritual known only to them: Dance.
Vermithor matched her circle in the sky and held it.
Two great dragons over Driftmark, turning in the grey like old memories that refused to die quiet.
Aerion swallowed, suddenly aware of how many dragons had gathered.
So much fire in one place.
All of this for a funeral, he thought bleakly. All of this, and still the dead stayed dead.
He dragged his gaze back down to the gathered court, to the sarcophagus waiting on its stone platform, to the men and women standing in lines that tried to look respectful.
They had set Laena Velaryon beneath the open air.
Her sarcophagus, carved with the sea-horse and old Valyrian glyphs, waited on a low stone platform near the cliff's edge.
The Velaryons stood closest.
Corlys Velaryon stood with his shoulders toward the sea as if he meant to wrestle it and win his daughter back by force. His face was hard with grief. Beside him, Princess Rhaenys held herself like a pale blade sheathed in mourning—still, sharp. Aerion had seen rage in men and women before. Rhaenys's rage was quieter.
Vaemond Velaryon stood a half step forward. Corlys's brother lifted his hands and began in High Valyrian, voice carrying cleanly over surf and wind.
"Ñuhor ȳdra daor hen qēlos."
Our blood does not end here.
Aerion understood every word.
He wished he didn't.
Rhaenyra stood close to the platform. She held Jace and Luke by the shoulders, her fingers splayed across cloth and bone as though she could keep them from being pulled apart by wind, eyes, or rumor.
Jace stood straight. Luke's mouth pinched and kept pinching, his gaze darting to the sea, then away, then back again as if he expected it to do something cruel.
Aerion stood just behind her line, a step nearer Laenor.
Laenor's hand was in his. Aerion had taken it without asking. Laenor's palm felt damp despite the cold, his grip tightening and loosening in little pulses that were meant to be invisible. His eyes stayed on the sarcophagus. His face wore the pleasant, distant mask he used in court.
Aerion watched his father's throat work on a swallow that didn't seem to go anywhere.
Do not you dare, Aerion thought, and tightened his hold. Do not get any ideas about following her. The sea is full. It doesn't need you too.
Vaemond continued.
"Zaldrīzes morghūljagon."
Dragons die.
Vaemond's gaze swept the gathered dragons above them as he said it, then drifted, slow and deliberate, back to the living.
We do, Aerion's mind supplied, the memory of a future where only bones remained flashing behind his eyes. We die. We go mad. We burn each other alive. And then we are footnotes.
"Velaryon ānogar gevives."
Velaryon blood endures.
He paused. He looked, openly now, at Jace. At Luke.
" ... ānogar … sydlivagho … umbagho qumblie."
... blood… must… remain pure.
Jace's expression didn't flicker. Luke blinked, slow and confused, as if he'd felt the sting of the words without understanding them. Rhaenyra's jaw tightened; her fingers dug into Jace's shoulder.
Aerion stared at Vaemond and felt something small and cold settle behind his ribs.
This one, he thought, and it was almost pleasant. This one I can kill. He is a pebble on the road. I could step on him and never trip.
He kept his face still. Ser Steffon Darklyn stood a pace behind him. Aerion didn't look back, but he knew the Kingsguard watched him.
Vaemond continued, voice never faltering. He spoke of the sea taking its own. He spoke of the Driftwood Throne and the weight of legacy. He spoke of Laena's daughters by name, offering them the formal condolences owed to children whose grief had no courtly polish.
Baela stood with her chin high, eyes bright with gried and fury that had nowhere to land. Rhaena's hands were clenched in her skirts, knuckles pale, as if she was trying to hold herself together by sheer will. They both had the Velaryon look.
Between them stood their father.
Daemon Targaryen.
Aerion saw him properly for the first time and his mind went oddly quiet, a sudden, unsettling stillness, as if a dozen internal voices had stopped shouting to watch a sword being drawn.
Daemon wore black, of course. Everyone wore black. The color still seemed made for him in a way it was not made for the rest of them. His hair fell loose and silver-white against his shoulders. His face was set in that carved Targaryen stillness that was meant to look regal but instead looked like boredom. Yet something alive lived beneath it, restless as a snake under sun-warmed stone.
Aerion's eyes snagged on him and stayed there.
He did not know what he felt.
A prickle of dislike, quick and reflexive. A tug of fascination he resented immediately. A sense of… recognition, perhaps, the way one might recognize a cliff edge in the dark from the sound of the wind over it.
Daemon shifted his weight and glanced sideways at Vaemond. His mouth twitched.
Vaemond's voice carried, smooth as silk over a blade. "…and let those who bear the name Velaryon honor it with faces that reflect its truth." His eyes drifted once more toward Rhaenyra's sons.
Aerion felt the air around his mother tighten. He didn't look away from Daemon.
Daemon's shoulders gave a minute jerk.
A sound escaped him. A short, uninvited giggle.
It was entirely the wrong sound to make at a funeral, which was precisely why it happened.
Aerion startled, his head turning fully. The giggle came again, muffled, as if Daemon had bitten it back and failed. His eyes had narrowed with amused disbelief.
Vaemond's voice faltered for half a heartbeat. His nostrils flared, as everyone turned to stare at Daemon too.
Daemon's laughter dissolved into a cough he didn't bother to make convincing. He brought his knuckles to his mouth, a gesture that was an insult disguised as decorum. His gaze flickered, quick as a dagger-toss, toward Rhaenyra.
Aerion followed that glance.
Rhaenyra was staring at Daemon.
Her face held funeral composure, her chin lifted, her eyes dry. Something in her gaze was too intent, too fixed, as if the rest of the world had faded and only her uncle remained.
Predictable, Aerion thought, with an internal eye-roll so hard it nearly made his skull ache.
Then, helplessly, he looked back at Daemon too.
Vaemond finished his eulogy. The last words were spoken with solemnity, and the court bowed their heads and played their roles as if the sea itself had demanded it.
Men stepped forward to the sarcophagus.
The ropes were thick. The pulleys creaked. The platform's edge was set close to the drop where the cliff gave way to open air and foam.
Baela made a choked, stifled noise. Rhaena's hand clutched her sister's sleeve hard enough to wrinkle the cloth. Rhaenys watched without moving, her face pale and furious in the way only a mother could manage.
Laenor's fingers tightened around Aerion's. Aerion squeezed back, small hand braced in silent command: Stay.
The men heaved.
The sarcophagus slid.
For a heartbeat it hung in the air, held by rope and gravity and the last thin threads of ceremony. Then the ropes slipped free.
Laena Velaryon's final weight fell.
The sarcophagus dropped over the cliff and vanished into the sea's mouth below with a muffled crash that the waves swallowed greedily. Foam burst up white against black rock. Gulls wheeled and screamed.
Then the sea resumed its endless argument with the shore.
He watched Daemon's face as the sea took Laena. Daemon's expression didn't break. His eyes tracked the spot where stone had vanished, and something old and tired moved through him—gone in an instant.
Vaemond bowed his head with satisfaction. Daemon's mouth twitched again. He hid it less well this time. A low, helpless snort escaped him.
Aerion felt his shoulders lift with a small, wicked joy that did not belong at a funeral and did not care.
Laenor's hand trembled. He stared out at the place where Laena had disappeared as if he expected her to surface and speak, laughing at the notion of being contained by stone.
Aerion tugged, a sharp, grounding jerk.
Laenor blinked. His smile tried to appear. It came out thin.
"You're crushing my fingers," Laenor murmured, voice rough.
Aerion kept his eyes on the sea. "Better than you leaping after her," he muttered back.
Laenor's throat convulsed. A sound that might have been a laugh tried to form, cracked, and dissolved into a ragged breath.
Behind them, murmurs began as the court shifted, as people began to move and pretend they had no curiosity about who would speak to whom, who would meet whose eyes, and other such courtly nonsense.
Aerion's grip tightened on Laenor's hand again.
Laenor glanced down, brows drawing together. "Aerion…"
Aerion did not answer. He watched Alicent.
The Queen stood with her hands folded, face solemn, eyes clear. She looked toward Vaemond, then toward Rhaenyra's children. She carried grief with ease. Aerion saw it—the faintest flicker of approval she tried to hide beneath mourning.
Hatred leapt up in him so fast it tasted like metal.
He hated her.
He hated her.
He hated her.
Alicent's gaze drifted, caught Aerion for half a heartbeat, slid away again as if he were a flame she'd decided to keep at a safe distance.
Aerion's fingers tightened on Laenor's hand until his father flinched.
Aerion did not answer.
Above them, dragons wheeled and screamed.
Laenor finally pulled his hand free, flexing his fingers with a worried frown. "What is wrong with you?"
"Nothing," Aerion said, his voice flat. His eyes were still on the queen. "I'm just counting."
"Counting what?" Laenor asked softly.
Aerion didn't blink. "How many steps it is from here to Vaemond Velaryon."
Aerion left Laenor's side the moment the last guest shuffled from the cliffside into the blessedly enclosed (if no less miserable) courtyard of High Tide.
Laenor stayed near the cliff's edge with Ser Qarl at his shoulder, staring out at slate water where Laena's stone coffin had vanished.
"Ser Qarl."
"My prince," Qarl said, his easy smile not quite reaching his eyes, which were tracking Laenor's slumped form across the courtyard.
"You are to watch him."
"I usually do."
"Not like usual," Aerion said, his voice dropping to a low, serious murmur. "You are to watch his drink. Who he speaks to. Watch the sea if he looks at it for too long." He leaned in. "If he so much as sniffs a puddle with intent, you are to sit on him. Am I understood?"
Qarl's smile turned genuine, a flash of startled amusement. "Sit on him."
"Use your initiative. The principle is containment. He is not to have an accident today. Or any day soon. This is your only task."
"And what is your task, my prince?" Qarl asked, one brow lifting.
"Mingling," Aerion said crisply, and turned on his heel.
The pulled muscle pinched and burned, threatening to fold him. Aerion kept his back straight.
Ser Steffon Darklyn shadowed him at a measured distance, helm tucked beneath one arm. Aerion could feel eyes slide to Steffon, then to him, then away again.
Braziers burned along the courtyard walls, their smoke dragged sideways by the sea wind. The flames gave the stones a dull sheen. Long tables had been set beneath canvas awnings strung between carved pillars, their cloth snapping and creaking as if the wind wanted to tear the whole affair loose and fling it into the Narrow Sea.
People stood in knots that formed and broke and formed again, drawn by rank and fear and hunger for new knowledge. Cups were lifted. Cups were set down untouched. Conversations began with all the grace of a sword drawn in the dark.
Rhaenyra's household and Alicent's had been forced into the same space again, and the air remembered it. It held the tension like a breath trapped behind teeth.
Aerion threaded between velvet skirts and damp cloaks, a small figure among countless silver hair. He offered shallow bows. He accepted deeper ones. He kept his hands folded in front of him to discourage anyone from taking them.
It did not work.
A lordling's wife caught his sleeve as he passed, all perfume and watery eyes. "My prince," she breathed, voice trembling with sympathy that had been practiced in a mirror. "Such a dreadful loss."
Aerion looked down at her fingers on his arm as if she'd laid a soiled handkerchief there.
Her grip slackened instantly.
He nodded once, a motion so stiff it seemed to creak. "It was."
She blinked, hungry for softness. She did not receive it and Aerion moved on.
Voices slid behind him like knives drawn from sheaths.
"—without a saddle, mind you—"
"—to the Riverlands on bare scales—"
Aerion's jaw clamped shut, his flight being talked back and forth like a choice piece of gossip at a feast: bravery and madness served on the same platter, depending on the teller's taste.
A small cluster had gathered near a table of cheeses that looked damp from the weather. A young lord from the Stormlands appeared both horrified and impressed.
"Climbed right onto the beast's neck like a—" he searched for a word that sounded properly scandalized, "—like a squirrel on a hawk!"
An older lady from House Celtigar sniffed. "The mind reels. I would not cross a courtyard on a pony without a proper seat."
A bookish man lowered his voice. "That is not the part that chills the blood. It is the dream."
"A dream," someone repeated, almost resentful of it.
"He saw the fire at Harrenhal," the ink-stained man continued. "In detail, Lord Strong writes. He came because he knew."
Faces shifted. Fear replaced gossip's easy heat. Bravery could be praised. Folly could be mocked. Omens sat in the throat and refused to swallow.
"The King…" the man hesitated, eyes flicking toward the royal party. "I was told that when the raven came, he went quiet. Then he started murmuring."
"Murmuring what?" the Stormlander asked, too eager.
"Dragon dreams," the man whispered back. "Over and over. His eyes were… bright."
Bright.
That he could use.
Aerion moved on, pain setting his pace.
Near the awnings, another pair traded a different portion of his story with the casual relish of people who preferred disasters they could picture.
"Princess Rhaenyra on her dragon," a Redwyne murmured, lips pursed. "Hair undone, cloak half-fastened. She flew to King's Landing first, convinced he'd gone there."
"Ser Laenor went the other way," the second replied, voice lowering. "Straight to Driftmark. Lord Corlys had boats out. Nets. Divers. They thought they'd haul the prince up swollen, tangled in kelp."
Aerion's stomach turned.
He had pictured flames, stone, Harwin's face. He had not pictured Laenor's face over black water, searching for a body that would never be found because it had not yet been made.
"And the King ordered Prince Aegon and Princess Helaena into the sky, too," the Redwyne added, almost pleased to possess such a detail.
Aerion found himself near the courtyard's heart, where the court's pulse beat loudest.
Alicent stood with her ladies near one of the braziers, hands folded, veil pinned neatly, face composed for public grief. People approached her as supplicants. She received each condolence with a small nod and sorrow that never creased in the wrong place.
Aerion watched her mouth curve with all the right shapes.
He hated her.
Otto Hightower stood close by, robes heavy, the Hand's chain catching brazier light with a dull gleam.
Hand of the King.
Again.
Aerion's fingers twitched. His nails bit into his palm.
Lyonel Strong was ash, and Otto had returned as if summoned by the smell. Aerion stared at the old man's hands and imagined how easily bone could break beneath a dragon's jaw. The thought warmed him.
Two men near Otto spoke in low tones, their words chosen to sound sensible.
"A concerning precedent," the taller murmured. "A prince who acts on dreams answers to no law. Only the voices in his own head."
"The King calls it a blessing," the other replied, tone faintly disapproving. "Otto's return steadies the realm. Order is needed."
Steadies, Aerion thought. Chains.
Otto's gaze touched Aerion briefly before it slid away, calm.
Aerion wanted to throw something at him.
Alicent turned her head and met Aerion's eyes across two bodies and a curl of smoke. Her gaze held a fraction longer than courtesy required.
Aerion did not bow.
Alicent's lips tightened, an almost invisible betrayal of composure. Her eyes slid past him as if he had ceased to exist.
Aerion's breath went shallow with rage.
Ser Steffon shifted a half step closer.
His gaze slid again, unwilling, toward Otto.
Hand of the King.
Suspicion sat heavy in Aerion's gut. Men did not return to power by accident. They returned because someone opened the door.
Aerion turned away before his face betrayed him and stalked toward the awnings where wine waited and the men there pretended to speak innocently.
Rhaenyra stood apart with her household, black-clad and rigid, Jace at her side like a small blade. Luke hovered close to his mother's skirts, eyes too bright, fingers worrying the edge of his sleeve.
Every so often Rhaenyra's gaze flicked toward Aerion, then away again, as if she could not bear to look too long.
Aerion pretended not to notice.
A group of Driftmark captains spoke nearby, voices roughened by salt and work.
"Daemon's returned…"
"Ten years gone…"
"With the girls…"
Aerion's head turned before he meant it to.
Daemon Targaryen stood at the far side of the courtyard with his daughters, as if his body alone could keep the world from laying hands on his children.
Aerion told himself to look away.
His eyes stayed.
Daemon lifted a cup and drank without tasting, gaze roaming the courtyard with the lazy watchfulness of a man who had lived too long with blades.
Aerion's mind went quiet in the same dense, watchful stillness he'd felt watching Silverwing on the cliffs—a focus that absorbed all the noise.
He did not know what to feel.
Baela murmured something to her father, too low to catch. Daemon's eyes softened for a breath. His hand rose and touched the back of her head.
Aerion watched the touch and, without meaning to, found himself copying it in his head: a gesture that pretended it was nothing while admitting it was everything.
Courtiers drifted near Aerion again, hungry and cautious.
"—so close, the crown princess and the queen—"
"—after Dragonstone, and those rumors—"
"—four boys and none with their father's look—"
Aerion's jaw tightened. A hot lance of pain shot up his thigh as he shifted. He kept his face a smooth, pale mask.
One of the men noticed him, went pale, and bowed too fast. "My prince. Forgive— we spoke without thought."
Without thought, Aerion echoed silently. No. Every syllable is a carefully placed stitch in a shroud.
He leaned in a fraction, just enough that the man's breath caught. "Then let your next words be chosen with a little more wit. Or a lot more silence."
The man's eyes darted to Ser Steffon, then back to Aerion. "Of course, Your Highness."
Aerion straightened and walked on, leaving them with their shame.
He found a column that shielded him from the worst of the wind and paused long enough to breathe through his nose. The sea below struck rock in a steady rhythm. The sound steadied his temper.
Ser Steffon stopped a pace behind him, silent.
Across the courtyard Laenor still stood near the cliff with Qarl, face turned toward the water. Qarl spoke to him in low tones. Laenor's shoulders rose and fell once, a breath dragged up from somewhere deep.
Stay upright, Aerion thought. Where I can see you.
His eyes caught Daemon again and stayed there without his consent.
Daemon's head turned suddenly, as if he'd felt the weight of being watched.
His eyes found Aerion.
It felt like a hand closing around the back of Aerion's neck, curious, faintly amused. Daemon's mouth twitched, the ghost of that funeral giggle returning for a heartbeat. But there was also a piercing, evaluating sharpness.
A hot, unwelcome flush crawled up Aerion's neck and up his face. He didn't understand it, and he hated it. He didn't blink. He didn't look away.
Daemon's gaze dropped once, quick, to Aerion's stiff stance and favoring leg, then rose again to Aerion's eyes. A question lived there, silent and sharp. What are you, then?
Aerion answered with a flat stare that meant nothing and dared everything.
Daemon's mouth curved, faint. He lifted his cup in the smallest salute imaginable.
A cold thrill prickled down Aerion's spine, equal parts alarm and recognition, like a dragon's shadow passing over you in bright daylight. His pulse kicked once, angry about it, as if his body had committed treason without permission.
Then Daemon turned away and spoke to his daughters, and the moment vanished as if it had never existed.
Aerion exhaled through his nose, slow.
His thigh hurt. His pride hurt most of all.
The wake carried on around him, full of silences that refused to end and words that did not know how to sooth.
His eyes, drifting in search of something to despise, found Helaena.
She sat on the steps that led up into High Tide, half tucked beneath the awning's shadow as if the court might forget her if she stayed still enough. Her gown was black, gone darker in patches, the hem damp with sea spray and careless feet. A thin shawl clung to her shoulders where the wind had worried it wet; she did not seem to notice, or if she noticed, she did not care. The damp made her look smaller.
While courtiers polished their sorrow, Helaena leaned close to the stone, intent upon a spider. A scrap of thread clung to her finger, white against her skin. The creature skittered, stopped, lifted its forelegs like a tiny knight deciding whether the world was worth dueling.
"Dragons of flesh," Helaena whispered, eyes fixed on the small creature. "Spinning threads. Green and black. Tangled. Tangled. Tangled."
Aerion's mouth tightened.
He limped toward her and lowered himself onto the step beside her. The motion sent a hot warning up his leg. He sat next to her.
Ser Steffon Darklyn paused a few paces away, far enough that he would give them privacy.
"Aunt," Aerion said.
Helaena hummed without looking up.
The spider took two steps onto her palm.
A pleased hum vibrated in her throat. Aerion found himself thinking, annoyed by the thought, that she was genuinely glad to see him. Or at least, not displeased. As if his presence was just another odd creature that had wandered into her world and decided to stay.
"You've been busy," he said, nodding at the spider, which was now exploring the rim of her box with delicate, probing legs.
"The webs have been loud," she replied. "And you flew away on the silver lady. The mountain wept ash when you left. I heard it in the drains."
"A fortnight," Aerion said, stubbornly. "I was gone a fortnight. The mountain is fine. If it wept, it was from boredom. Or indigestion. It's been eating your mother's prayers for years. "
Helaena's lips twitched, almost a smile.
"Time is a moth's wing," Helaena said, finally looking up at him. Her eyes were clear, unsettlingly focused. "It beats once, and the world is different. Mother says I am to be a bride. She says I will marry Aegon."
Aerion wasn't surprised. He'd known it was coming, another stitch in the tapestry of Hightower ambition. "Are you pleased?" he asked, his tone flat.
Helaena considered the spider. "The cage is being polished. It has always been there. Knowing its shape does not make it fit better." She didn't say no.
"Try not to marry the fool until I've figured out how to poison his wine," he said.
She hummed again, a soft, absent sound. "The wine is already poison," she murmured to the spider. "He just likes the taste."
Aerion's gaze slid across the courtyard without meaning to.
Aegon and Aemond had broken from their post by a pillar and were watching them. Aegon said something, his face wearing its familiar smirk. Aemond lingered a step behind him, spine straight, face composed, intense and disapproving.
Seven hells, Aerion thought, rolling his eyes so hard he felt a muscle twinge in his temple. Can a man not speak to a prophetess and her damp little spider without an audience?
"Your brothers are staring," he muttered.
Helaena's lips curved faintly. "They stare at storms. They stare at you."
Aerion watched Aegon lift his cup and say something to Aemond, grin flashing. Aemond's gaze flicked again toward Aerion and Helaena, then away, as if he'd been caught doing something improper.
Aerion snorted. "They will go blind from it."
Helaena's hand touched Aerion's sleeve.
The contact startled him. Helaena rarely touched anyone. He had seen with his eyes Alicent reaching for her and finding only flinches. Helaena pressed her fingers to Aerion's arm anyway, light and careful, almost hesitant.
Aerion frowned.
She did not seem to notice his surprise. Her eyes had gone distant again, seeing past stone and smoke into some private maze. The damp on her hem darkened as another gust threw spray up the steps. Helaena didn't even blink.
"The flames at Harrenhal," she said, her voice dropping to a whisper meant only for him and her eight-legged prisoner. "Did they have eyes? The green flames… they watch. They have hawk-eyes. They perch on towers of grief."
Aerion had long since given up trying to translate her metaphors into neat sense. He answered the feeling, not the poetry. "The fire is out. The eyes are blind."
Helaena absorbed this, her brow furrowing slightly. "You put them out. With silver wings. That changes the song. The hawk is still hungry. It will look for other eyes."
A chill, unrelated to the sea breeze, traced his spine. He pushed it aside. "Helaena," he said, and there was a rare note of blunt, almost gentle exasperation in his voice. "You don't have to talk to me in riddles. You can just… say the words."
She went very still. The constant, dreamy motion of her hands ceased. She looked at him and for a moment the veil of visions seemed to thin. There was a startling, direct clarity in her violet eyes, like a door opening onto a dark room. She said nothing.
Instead, she gently tipped her box, letting the spider crawl onto her palm. She presented it to him, a living, eight-legged offering.
"This one weaves at night," she said, her voice returning to its soft, singsong murmur. "She catches the dreams that fall from towers and wraps them in silk. Soon, the black thread will pull. The needle will be sharp. An eye for an eye—" Her gaze flicked, quick as a knife-point, toward the dunes. "—but the wrong one will weep."
Aerion opened his mouth, a retort about melodramatic spiders dying on his tongue. He never got to voice it.
"Conspiring with the spiders, sister?" Aegon's voice was loud, too bright. He loomed above them, all damp velvet and careless swagger; perhaps he'd mistaken the funeral for a tavern. Aemond stood at his shoulder, grim. "Planning the downfall of the realm with our… prophetic nephew?"
Aerion didn't bother to look up. He kept his gaze on Helaena's spider, now scurrying back to the safety of its box. The strange little pocket of quiet Helaena always carried with her snapped shut, replaced by the familiar, grating noise of his uncles.
"She was telling me about her upcoming wedding," Aerion said, his voice devoid of all inflection. "It sounds delightful. You must be thrilled."
Aegon's smirk faltered for a second. Aemond's gaze sharpened, drilling into the side of Aerion's head. The throbbing in Aerion's thigh returned with a vengeance, a perfect counterpoint to the headache now blooming behind his eyes.
"Never mind that. You look well," Aegon said, then immediately spoiled the attempt at courtesy. "For a boy who tried to fly himself into legend."
Aerion finally lifted his eyes, slow. "You look damp," he replied. "For a man who never goes anywhere without a cup."
Aemond's mouth tightened. He remained standing, hands folded behind his back in that earnest way that made him look like a little lordling playing at court. His gaze kept sliding to Aerion's posture, then to Aerion's leg.
Helaena hummed to herself, shutting the spider's box with care, her attention already drifting away from the three of them like mist from water.
Aegon leaned an elbow against the balustrade and looked down at the courtyard as if the entire wake had been arranged solely to inconvenience him. "Well," he said, dropping his voice into something almost conspiratorial, "you truly did it."
Aerion's eyes narrowed. "Did what."
"Flew to the Riverlands without a saddle," Aegon said, as if reciting the most entertaining part of a scandalous song. "On the Good Queen's dragon. Crossed half the realm with nothing but stubbornness and stupidity between you and the ground." He clicked his tongue. "You caused a delightful fuss. Father even dragged me into the sky for you."
Aerion's mouth curved. "You say that as if you would have done better."
"I'd have had the sense to be properly drunk first," Aegon retorted, grinning, proud of his own filth.
Aemond ignored him. "Was it true," he asked. "Did you truly have a dragon dream?"
Aerion stared at him, considering whether Aemond deserved honesty, then decided he did not deserve the satisfaction.
"No," Aerion said sweetly. "I flew to Harrenhal because I was bored."
Aegon snorted, pleased despite himself. "Seven save us."
Aemond's cheeks colored. His eyes stayed fixed on Aerion with that infuriating intensity of his. "Silverwing," he said, refusing to be diverted. "Is she… is she truly yours?"
"Perhaps." Aerion's attention shifted back to Aemond, who was still waiting for a real answer. "Why, uncle? Jealous? The Pink Dread not fulfilling your needs?"
Aemond's cheek twitched. A flush crept up his neck. "There are no dragons in King's Landing to claim," he stated, his voice tight. "You had an advantage."
A slow, sweet smile spread across Aerion's face. "I told you I would claim a dragon first. I keep my promises."
The flush on Aemond's face deepened to a furious red. He looked away, jaw working. "A fortunate opportunity," he muttered, grasping for dignity, "not a test of merit."
"She's very soft," Aerion mused, as if Aemond hadn't spoken. "Under the scales, right behind the jaw. Warm. She likes it when you scratch there."
Aemond's eyes snapped back to him, full of a hunger so raw it was almost painful to see. He opened his mouth, a retort or another question on his lips, but it died as Helaena suddenly stood up.
"Oh," she breathed, her face alight. She was staring at her palm, where a large, iridescent green beetle clicked its wings. "A messenger. I must hear the news." And without another glance at her brothers or nephew, she drifted away, following the beetle's path along the stone railing.
Aegon watched her go, his mouth twisting. "We have nothing in common."
Aerion let out a small, mean snort. "Of course you do."
Aegon's brows rose. "Do we."
"She's your sister," Aerion said, tone airy.
Aegon's face flushed, offended. "You—"
Aerion lifted a hand, cutting him off with a gesture borrowed from his mother, an old habit he'd never admitted to having. "Don't fret," he said, voice mild. "You're still prettier."
It wasn't new. He'd tossed that same little bone before, just to watch Aegon choke on it. The reaction never dulled.
Aegon went very still.
Aemond coughed once into his fist.
Aegon's mouth opened and closed. The flush spread from his face down his neck, mottling his skin horribly.
"You," Aegon finally spat, jabbing his empty cup toward Aerion. "You are a demon. A vile, malicious little demon. If only Silverwing had dropped you from the sky and saved us all the trouble."
Aerion's eyes flicked to the cup. Back to Aegon. Unmoved. "If only."
Aegon shoved past him, shoulder cracking into Aerion hard enough to make his leg flare with pain. Aerion didn't give him the satisfaction of a wince.
"Wine! Where in the Seven Hells is more wine?!"
Silence folded in after him.
Finally, Aemond spoke, his voice low and flat. "He did look for you."
Aerion met his gaze, all pretense of sweetness gone, leaving only a flat coldness. "I didn't ask him to."
"No," Aemond agreed. He studied Aerion for another long moment, his eyes missing nothing—the careful way Aerion distributed his weight, the pallor that hadn't quite left his face since his return, the absolute, unshakeable defiance in his posture. "You would have done the same," Aemond said, and it wasn't a question.
Aerion's thoughts spun, quick as whetstone sparks: Aegon postures, Aemond remembers. Useful. Dangerous. He kept his face still.
"I would have looked harder," Aerion corrected flatly. "And I wouldn't have needed a summons."
Aemond remained.
He stood in the space Aegon left behind, quiet again, his gaze fixed on Aerion with that same hard attention.
Aerion shifted slightly on the step, enough to ease his thigh. Pain sparked and he smothered the wince before it could form.
Aemond's eyes dropped to the movement. Then back to Aerion's face.
"You did not fly there because you were bored," Aemond said softly.
Aerion's smile thinned. "No."
Aemond hesitated. "Was it frightening?"
Aerion looked out over the sea, where grey water beat itself against black rock with endless patience. Silverwing's warmth lingered in his memory like a phantom sun against his skin.
"Yes," he said, simply.
Aemond's expression shifted in some small, unreadable way.
Before Aerion could say more, Helaena returned.
"It has one eye," she announced, as if this was the realm's most important news. "One, one. The web likes what's missing."
Aerion closed his eyes for half a heartbeat. The image of the great shadow of Vhagar, patient and waiting on the sand, pressed against the inside of his skull. Another page from the book.
When he opened them, Aemond was still staring as if he meant to bore a hole through Aerion's skull and crawl into it to rearrange his thoughts.
Aerion rose.
His thigh protested of course, a sharp pinch that made his jaw set. He took a step down, then another, keeping his pace measured. Ser Steffon Darklyn shifted behind him. The Kingsguard's eyes flicked once to Aemond, then back to Aerion, ready to intervene if necessary.
Aemond shifted too, as if he meant to follow.
"Aemond," Aerion said.
It was rare that he called his uncles by their given names.
Aemond halted. "What."
Aerion let his gaze travel over Aemond's face. He let the pause stretch until Aemond's shoulders tightened with impatience.
He kept his voice low, a murmur meant only for Aemond's ears and the indifferent wind. "I know what you're going to do tonight."
Aemond's face went perfectly blank. "I have no idea what you mean."
"Don't lie. It's beneath you." Aerion's tone was dismissive, almost bored. "You're going to go down to the beach, to try to claim Vhagar."
Aemond's jaw tightened. His gaze slid away, toward the dunes.
"If you do," Aerion continued, "there will be consequences. You will lose a part of yourself you can't get back. Something will be taken." He tilted his head slightly toward where Helaena stood, humming to her beetle. "The web likes what's missing, doesn't it?"
She is the only one left," Aemond countered sharply. "The only one worthy. The others are taken, or they are too small."
Helaena's fingers brushed Aerion's sleeve again, light as a moth. She had drifted closer again without anyone noticing, beetle cradled on her fingertip like a jewel.
"The big one sleeps," she murmured, watching the beetle walk in slow circles. "The big one dreams of fire and old bones."
Aemond's breathing sharpened, quickening in his throat. "Vhagar is mine to claim."
Aerion looked up.
The sky over Driftmark hung heavy and grey, the clouds moving like slow herds. Somewhere above that cover, wings beat and beat again, vast enough to make the air feel bruised.
Aerion let his gaze follow the sound as if he could see through cloud and distance by spite alone. "Vhagar is not the only one."
Aemond's mouth tightened. "Name another."
Aerion's eyes dropped back to him. "You saw him."
Aemond's brow furrowed. Suspicion came quick, as it always did with him. "Vermithor?"
"Vermithor," Aerion confirmed. He saw the calculation begin behind Aemond's eyes. A king's dragon. Jaehaerys's mount. "He followed Silverwing here. He'll stay near her tonight, somewhere on the island. He has no rider."
"Why?" Aemond's voice was a rasp. The suspicion was even stronger now. "Why would you tell me this? Why would you… help?"
Aerion's lips curled into a sneer. It wasn't a kind expression. It was full of a weary, contemptuous frustration. "I'm not helping you, you dense fool. I'm telling you that Vhagar is not for you. But he is here. He is a chance."
Aemond stared at him.
Aerion met it without blinking.
Aemond's throat worked. The pride in him fought. The fear in him listened.
Helaena watched the beetle pause at the edge of her nail and murmured, almost fondly, "If he takes the wrong path, the thread snaps. If he takes the right path, the thread tightens."
Aemond's gaze flicked to her again, unsettled.
Helaena looked up at him with calm eyes. "Choose carefully," she said, and went back to her beetle as if that settled the matter.
Aemond's mouth tightened until it seemed he might bite through his own tongue. He looked back to Aerion one last time.
Aerion held his stare.
Aemond's shoulders rose with one sharp breath. He turned on his heel and walked away, his back rigid, his steps quick and controlled.
Aerion watched him go.
Helaena's fingers drifted back to Aerion's sleeve. "Bronze is a quieter colour than green," she whispered. "But it holds an edge much longer."
Aerion left Helaena to her beetle, and her damp little kingdom of stone and shadow.
Ser Steffon's shadow fell in beside him at once. At least, he had the good manners to keep a measured distance.
He crossed the courtyard at a pace his thigh could tolerate. Every step tried to remind him that Silverwing's neck had been a long way from Dragonstone to the Riverlands and back again. Aerion kept his face smooth.
Jace and Luke stood with two girls.
Daemon's twins.
Baela and Rhaena looked alike the way stormclouds looked alike: same shape, different threat. Both had silver hair, violent eyes, and warm brown skin. Pretty with the blood of old Valyria.
Aerion approached them.
Jace saw him coming and his expression sharpened at once. Suspicion sat on him like a second cloak—no, like armor. Aerion caught the flicker of remembered rage in his brother's eyes and thought, not without irritation: he's still furious.
Jace had slept half on top of him the night before, limbs tangled over Aerion's body, as if Aerion might sprout wings in the dark and slip through the door if he wasn't pinned.
Luke's mouth quirked the moment Aerion's "court face" appeared. Luke loved nothing so much as watching Aerion pretend to be proper.
"Aerion," Jace said, his voice carefully neutral. "These are our cousins. Lady Baela, Lady Rhaena. Our aunt Laena's daughters."
Aerion executed a small, perfect bow, the picture of a courteous prince. The mask settled over his face as easily as breathing. "My ladies. I am deeply sorry for your loss. Your mother was… a dragonrider of great renown. The realm is lesser for her passing."
It was sincere enough to pass.
Rhaena blinked at him. "Thank you, my prince," she managed.
Baela gave a curt nod, her gaze assessing him with a sharpness that mirrored her grandmother's. "We did not have the chance to meet before."
"A regrettable oversight," Aerion said smoothly. "But it seems fate has a way of gathering us. Twins, all." He gestured vaguely between himself and Jace, then to Baela and Rhaena. "The gods are either amused or lazy."
Jace's gaze stayed on Aerion. "Why are you here," it seemed to say. "What do you want."
Aerion ignored the question on Jace's face. He asked the easier ones first, as polite princes did.
"Please, tell me about Pentos," he said to the twins, voice smooth.
Rhaena's eyes flickered, then dimmed again. "It was warm," she said. "Full of scents. Spices. Fruit. People who stared at us as if we were… painted."
Baela's mouth curled. "They were frightened," she said, and sounded pleased by the memory. "They pretended they weren't. They stared at Father and then tried to sell him silk."
Luke leaned in a fraction, eager despite the gloom. "Did you fly much?"
Baela's eyes sharpened. "Every chance we had."
Rhaena glanced down at her hands. "Mother liked the wind," she said. "She laughed more in the sky."
Aerion inclined his head again, properly. "She would have been hard to forget," he said, and the sentence came out true enough that it surprised him.
Baela's eyes stayed on him. "You didn't know her."
Aerion's smile did not slip. "That has never stopped anyone from mourning at court."
Baela's nostrils flared, then she gave a slow nod. A point, grudgingly granted.
Jace's stare stayed on Aerion like a hand at his collar.
A silence gathered. The courtyard's noise pressed in—cups clinking, low talk, wind tugging at awnings. Far off, a dragon cried, and the sound ran along Aerion's spine like a bow drawn tight.
He chose his next words with care.
"And Vhagar," Aerion asked lightly. "What will become of her now?"
Rhaena's head lifted at once. Her eyes went distant, fixed on dunes and the shape that lay there like a sleeping hill. "I will claim her," she said, and her voice shook once, then steadied. "She was Mother's. She should stay with us."
Baela's jaw tightened and nodded.
Aerion gave Rhaena a small, approving nod. "A worthy ambition, my lady, " he said gently. "You should pursue it with haste."
Luke made a small, startled sound—almost a laugh, almost a what are you doing?
Jace's eyes narrowed.
Baela's head snapped up. "Haste? Why? She is grieving. We are all grieving."
Aerion shrugged one shoulder, a deceptively casual gesture. "A dragon of that size and history… she will not remain unclaimed for long. Grief does not pause ambition." He kept his voice gentle, almost apologetic. "It would be a terrible thing if another sought to… step into that saddle before Laena's own daughter could honor her."
"Who would dare?" Baela demanded, her voice rising.
Aerion met her fierce gaze, his own utterly calm. He would not name Aemond. "It matters not who. Only that it could happen. The sooner you secure your birthright, my lady, the safer it will be." He let his eyes drift meaningfully toward the high, dark windows. "Tonight would be best. While the island sleeps. Before anyone else's grief hardens into a plan."
Rhaena stared at him, her earlier resolve now mixed with a dawning anxiety. Baela looked from Aerion's implacable face to Jace's suspicious one, her own mind racing.
Jace's hand closed around Aerion's wrist, sudden under the sleeve, firm enough to be a warning. His voice stayed polite for the twins. "Aerion."
Aerion turned his head slightly toward him, still smiling. "Brother."
Jace's eyes cut. The suspicion in them finally found a voice. "What are you doing?"
Luke leaned closer to Jace, a grin fighting his mouth. "He's doing a thing," Luke murmured, clearly delighted.
Aerion's fingers shot out and pinched Luke's hand hard and quick.
Luke yelped under his breath, then bit his lip, eyes watering with offended amusement.
Aerion turned his polite, empty smile on his brother. "Offering counsel to our cousin, Jace. As family should."
He kept his face pleasant and his voice soft.
"Think on it, Lady Rhaena. Do not let hesitation be the thief of your inheritance."
Jace finally released his wrist. He couldn't openly contradict Aerion without undermining him in front of the twins, and he couldn't undermine him without letting the twins wonder why. Aerion had trapped him in courtesy and family and the stupid rules decent people obeyed.
"You should listen to him, Rhaena," Jace said through gritted teeth. "He has a… unique perspective on these matters."
It was the closest to support as Jace could muster, and it was laced with so much warning it was nearly a threat itself.
Rhaena looked from Aerion's concern to Jace's strained endorsement to her sister's conflicted intensity. Grief and a desperate, daring hope warred in her eyes.
"I'll go," she said suddenly, the decision solidifying as she spoke. "Before the moon reaches its zenith. Baela… will you come with me? To the base of the dunes?"
Baela nodded once, sharp. "Of course."
"Good," Aerion said, injecting a note of final, warm approval into his voice. He gave another slight bow. "The gods be with you, my ladies. Your mother will be watching from the sea."
As the twins turned away, already speaking in low, urgent tones to each other, the pleasant mask fell from Aerion's face like dropped porcelain. He was left with the raw aftermath: Luke gingerly massaging his wrist, and Jace's blistering glare.
"You pinched me," Luke accused, but there was a hint of awe in his voice, as if he'd just witnessed a master at work.
"You were giving me away," Aerion said flatly, not looking at him. He flexed his own wrist, where Jace's fingers had left phantom impressions.
Jace moved into his space, his voice a low, furious hiss meant for no one else. "What was that? What are you doing? You just sent a grieving girl to confront the largest dragon in the world in the middle of the night because of one of your… your feelings!"
"I sent her to secure her legacy," Aerion corrected, his own voice cold and precise. "To prevent a much larger problem. One you'll thank me for avoiding."
"I don't want your problems!" Jace shot back. "I want you to stop creating them! You fly off and nearly get yourself killed, you come back and Mother hasn't spoken a full sentence to anyone in a week, and now you're playing cyvasse with our cousins' lives? What is wrong with you?"
Everything, Aerion thought. Everything is wrong with me. My blood is wildfire, it burns. But he couldn't say that.
"I'm preventing something that would hurt us, Jace," he said instead. "You'll see. Or rather, you won't. That's the point."
Jace stared at him, searching his face for some crack of doubt, some sign of the scared boy he still expected to find beneath the chilling certainty. He found none. He deflated, the anger leaching away into weary dread. He scrubbed a hand over his face. "Are you sure?" The question was a plea. "About any of this? Or are you just… guessing?"
Aerion let out a soft, derisive snort. "Of course I'm not sure. The map is smudged and I'm reading it by lightning flashes. But I am sure that doing nothing will be worse."
Luke, who had been watching this exchange with wide, confused eyes, finally spoke. "Worse than a girl getting eaten by Vhagar?"
"Yes. Obviously." Aerion said coldly. He turned his gaze to Luke as if explaining a basic sum. "It's simple, Luke. If Rhaena claims Vhagar, she becomes the greatest dragonrider in the world. And she becomes kin we must bind close. One of us"—his gaze flicked between himself and Jace—"will likely wed her. That power will sit with our blood, not against it." His mouth tightened. "As she is now—grieving, dragonless—she is nothing. She is… useless."
Jace flinched as if struck. "It is not up to you to decide our marriage prospects! And she is not a broodmare for your grand strategy!"
Aerion looked at him, genuinely puzzled, like he couldn't decide whether Jace was pretending to be naïve or had somehow managed to become it. "Of course she is. That is what marriage is . Or have you been listening to the songs?"
The faintest smile touched his mouth, sharp at the edges. "Do you think our grandsire the king will live forever? When he dies, that pious whore of a queen will try to shove her drunken fool of a son onto the throne our mother was promised. What will stop her, Jace? Courtesies? Vows? Decorum perhaps?"
He leaned in, his voice dropping, relentless. "Swords stop her, Jace. And dragons are the sharpest swords of all. The more dragons we have, the less the realm will be inclined to follow Aegon's claim. It's not about our prospects. It's about war. Vhagar must fly for us."
Luke's mouth had fallen open. Jace just looked sick. "You see all this… in a dream?"
Aerion met his brother's haunted gaze and gave a single, slow nod. "In my dreams, someone else claims Vhagar. And we cannot allow that. Or what follows." His eyes flicked, almost involuntarily, to Luke.
Jace caught it. His own anger faded into something colder. He stepped closer again, his voice dropping so only the three of them could hear. "What follows, Aerion? Tell me."
Aerion shook his head once, a sharp, final motion. "Blood. A debt paid in flesh. A line drawn that can't be uncrossed." He met Jace's worried eyes. "Rhaena with Vhagar is a shield."
Jace's hand shot out, grabbing Aerion's wrist again, not in anger this time, but in a grounding grip. "Have you told Mother any of this?"
Aerion shrugged, a tense roll of his shoulders. "She's scarcely in a mood to hear me breathe. I believe I'm still being punished for leaving the island without leave."
Luke let out a soft, hopeless sigh. Jace closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose as if battling a migraine. "We can't keep doing this, Aerion. We can't just… act on your dreams and hope for the best."
"We aren't hoping," Aerion said, his voice regaining its edge. "We are acting. You said it yourself—I have a unique perspective."
Jace opened his eyes, his decision made. It was the look of the heir, not the brother. Resigned, practical, and grim. "We will tell her. After. After this is done, whatever 'this' is. We will go to her together, and you will explain it all. Everything."
"Fine," Aerion said. "After."
Aerion found Ser Qarl where the courtyard thinned toward the sea-facing arches.
Laenor was there too.
Ser Qarl hovered at his shoulder, close enough to catch him if he crumbled.
Laenor didn't turn when Aerion approached. His hand was wrapped around a cup he hadn't been drinking from. His knuckles were pale.
Aerion stopped beside him and waited for the wind to fill the silence.
"Father," Aerion said at last. The word came out quieter than he'd intended.
Laenor's throat worked. "There you are," he murmured, as if Aerion had been lost for years, not hours.
Aerion studied his face. Laenor's easy, courtly smile was gone. The mask had slipped, leaving only the hollow-eyed, exhausted man beneath.
Aerion's jaw tightened. He turned his head, pinning Qarl with a look.
"Ser Qarl."
Qarl's eyes slid to him. That easy charm was still there, but it had dulled around the edges, worry grinding it down. "My prince."
"You are to put him to bed," Aerion said, brisk and mercilessly practical.
Laenor's lips twitched, almost a ghost of humor. "Aerion—"
"Go," Aerion cut in. "You've done enough standing. You may lie down. That is your duty."
Qarl's brows rose a fraction. "His duty," he echoed, amused despite himself.
Aerion's gaze didn't waver. "Your duty is to ensure he performs it."
Qarl's mouth quirked, a brief, startled grin. "Aye. Containment."
Aerion nodded, satisfied, and then he added, quieter, "Do not let him wander to the water."
Laenor finally turned his head. His eyes were red-rimmed, but dry.
"I'm not going to throw myself into the sea," he said, voice rough with something that wanted to be a laugh and couldn't manage it.
Aerion stared at him, unblinking. "See that you don't."
Laenor held his gaze for a beat, then looked away, as if the sheer, unvarnished certainty in Aerion's eyes was too much to bear.
Qarl shifted, gently, and took Laenor by the elbow with the calm competence of a man who had carried too many drunk friends home. "Come on," he murmured. "Bed. Before your son orders the tide to drag you there."
Laenor let himself be guided. He moved like a man walking through mud.
Aerion watched them go until they disappeared into the shadowed passage.
Only then did he breathe.
He turned, intending to find a shadow to nurse his own aches in, and nearly walked into his mother.
Rhaenyra stood a few paces away, having approached as silently as the mist. She was still in her mourning blacks, her face pale and composed, but the strain of the day showed in the tightness around her mouth and the shadows beneath her eyes.
"Aerion," she said, her voice low. "It is late. You should retire. "
Aerion squinted pointedly at the sky. The sun, though shrouded by haze, was a distinct, pallid disc hanging above the western cliffs. "It's still day, Mother."
"It is late enough," she amended, her tone leaving no room for debate. "You are recovering. You need rest. Ser Steffon will see you to your chambers. Your brothers have already gone."
Aerion's eyebrows climbed. "They abandoned me?"
"They went to bed," she corrected, crisp. "As you are going to do."
Then she turned, cloak whispering, and walked away before Aerion could manufacture another objection.
Aerion watched her go.
And because he watched, he saw it.
Rhaenyra wasn't heading towards the family quarters. She was moving with purposeful, swift grace across the central courtyard, away from the thinning crowd of mourners. And ahead of her, slipping through an archway that led to the more secluded lower gardens and the path to the beach, was the familiar, dark-cloaked figure of Prince Daemon. He had just concluded a conversation with his brother, the King, who remained seated on his makeshift throne near the hearth, looking small and sorrowful.
Aerion's eyebrows shot up. The pieces clicked together with an almost audible snap. The dismissal. The haste. The direction.
Ah.
A slow, incredulous grin spread across his face, sharp and full of teeth.
His mother was truly one of a kind. Here she was, at her husband's sister's funeral, with said husband likely upstairs drinking himself into a stupor of grief, and she was slipping away to… what? Confer with her uncle? In the gardens? At sunset?
The sheer, brazen audacity of it. He felt a spike of something almost like… appreciation. She really was dragon-blooded. No wonder she was still furious with him. He'd upstaged her in the recklessness department.
His grin widened.
"Come, Ser Steffon," Aerion said, his voice suddenly light, almost cheerful. "A final duty. I must pay my respects to my grandsire before I retire. It would be the height of discourtesy not to."
"My prince, your mother was quite clear—" Ser Steffon began, the weariness in his voice a familiar song.
"—that I should retire. And I shall," Aerion interrupted smoothly, already moving. "Immediately after I salute the King. One does not neglect a king, ser."
His limp was barely a hitch as he carved a path through the dwindling crowd towards the hearth.
Viserys sat hunched in his padded chair, a goblet of wine untouched on the table beside him. He looked old, the rot and the grief gnawing at him from the inside. Ser Harrold Westerling stood behind him. The King's face brightened markedly as Aerion approached, a genuine, wobbly smile breaking through the gloom.
"Aerion, my boy," Viserys said. "Come, come. I feared you'd been spirited away to bed."
"I wished to bid you good evening, Your Grace," Aerion said, executing a perfect, if slightly stiff, bow. He let his mask settle into place: the clever, respectful, good grandson.
"And I am glad of it. Sit, for a moment. Your leg pains you." Viserys gestured to a nearby stool.
Aerion sat, arranging himself with careful propriety. They spoke of inconsequential things for a moment: the chill of Driftmark compared to King's Landing, the wind, the sea, and Jace and Luke and how they were faring.
Viserys was pathetically eager for the company, his lonely eyes drinking Aerion in.
Then his gaze sharpened, subtle and hungry in a way Aerion recognized.
"And tell me," the King said, leaning forward slightly, "about Harrenhal."
Aerion's eyes widened with just enough humility to look sincere. "Your Grace?"
"Your dream," Viserys pressed, voice lowered as if the world might steal it. "The dragon dream. The fire. The flight. I want to hear it from you."
Aerion felt a vicious little pleasure curl in his belly.
Outwardly, he softened. He made himself look smaller. Shyer. As if the attention embarrassed him rather than fed him.
"It was… strange," Aerion said carefully. "I saw it as if I was there. The smoke in the corridors. The crack of timber. A ceiling groaning like something alive." He paused, letting the image settle. "And I saw Ser Harwin. Sleeping where the flames would come."
Viserys went still, rapt.
Aerion tilted his head, as if reluctant to admit it. "It wasn't like a normal dream. It was… knowing. I woke with it in my bones."
Viserys's eyes shone. "Dragon blood," he whispered, almost reverent. "Old Valyria still speaks in you."
Aerion lowered his gaze, modest as a septa.
Viserys's tone turned sober. "It was dangerous. Beyond dangerous." His mouth tightened. "When I learned you were gone, I feared…" He swallowed. "I feared Silverwing had taken you on a longer journey."
Aerion's face twitched into an involuntary grimace.
Viserys sighed, heavy. "A cruel one. Like Balerion did with poor Aerea. She returned…" His voice faltered with the horror of it. "Not truly returned at all."
Aerion maintained his mask of polite attention, though inwardly he grimaced at the mention of the girl who'd returned from Valyria cooked from within. "I had no choice, Grandsire. The dream was… insistent. A fire so real I could smell the smoke upon waking." He embellished just enough, painting a picture of desperate, prophetic duty.
Viserys reached out with his good hand, patting Aerion's arm. "I understand the pull of such dreams. But you must promise me, promise your mother, you will not take wing into the night again. Not like that. If you have such dreams, come to me. Write to me. My ears are always open to you. We are of the same blood. We bear the same burdens."
Aerion felt a vicious, private thrill. He understood, in a way that Viserys didn't, that his grandsire was offering him a channel. A private line. A way to steer the King's attention away from Otto's careful hands and Alicent's praying mouth. A way to make himself indispensable.
Outside, he looked touched.
He let his eyes widen with a convincing mix of gratitude and modest reluctance. "You are too kind, Your Grace. I… I will try to be less impulsive."
"Good, good." Viserys looked immensely relieved. His hand squeezed Aerion's arm. "Your mother… she was beside herself. Laenor too. Remember that your valor can also be a weapon that wounds those who love you."
Aerion nodded, the picture of contrite understanding. Then, summoning an act of will that felt like lifting a stone, he leaned forward and wrapped his arms around the King in a brief, stiff hug. It was like embracing a bundle of scented bones and velvet.
Viserys stiffened in surprise, then melted, his one strong arm coming around Aerion in a powerful, genuine embrace. He held him for a moment, then pulled back, his eyes suspiciously bright. "Ah," he murmured, his voice thick. "You remind me of your mother. At that age."
Aerion made himself produce a small, bashful smile, ducking his head.
Viserys glanced past him, searching the courtyard. "Where is Rhaenyra? I think I shall retire. This damp weighs on an old man's bones."
Aerion widened his eyes, innocent as a lamb. "I saw her walking away," he let his face remain a blank page of innocent observation. "with Prince Daemon." He pointed vaguely towards the archway leading to the gardens and the beach. "Some time ago. I am not sure where they were going."
Viserys's fond smile froze, then shattered.
"What."
Aerion blinked. "Yes, Your Grace."
Viserys leaned forward. A slow, dark flush crept up his neck. "Are you certain?"
Aerion nodded, wide-eyed. "Yes, Your Grace. Is something wrong?"
Viserys went redder, then caught himself, forcing a smile back onto his face as if it hadn't been ripped away.
"No. No, of course not. Never mind, sweet boy. Pay no heed." He pushed himself to his feet with a grunt, waving off Ser Harrold's assisting hand for a moment. "We shall break our fast together, you and I. Tomorrow."
"Of course, Grandsire. I look forward to it." Aerion rose and bowed again.
He watched as Viserys shuffled away, leaning heavily on Ser Harrold, his earlier warmth replaced by a agitated, troubled energy.
Ser Steffon appeared at Aerion's side. "Your chambers, my prince?"
Aerion turned, the last vestiges of the sweet grandson melting away, revealing the sharp, knowing grin beneath. "Lead on, Ser Steffon," he said, falling into step beside the knight.
He tucked his hands behind his back and began walking, limping slightly. "The game is starting."
Ser Steffon blinked, his weary, loyal face creased with confusion. "Game, my prince?"
The only game that matters, he thought. The game of thrones.
Notes:
History doesn't repeat, but it sure does rhyme.
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