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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
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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 10: The Duties of Princes, Regrettably
Summary:
Aerion just wants to plan the new Small Council and gloat over his enemies in cells, but everyone keeps insisting on having feelings at him.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Rhaenyra lingered in the doorway.
Luke lay small beneath the linens, the bandage stark against the white pillow, his breath still coming in careful, measured pulls. The brazier's heat fought a losing battle with the stone chill.
Laenor's hand hovered over Luke's blanket, then settled. He looked down at his son with a sailor's steadiness and a father's helplessness braided together so tightly it made his jaw lock.
"We won't be long," Rhaenyra said. The Princess's voice was calm. The mother's was not.
Aerion stood at the foot of the bed, still as a figurehead carved from driftwood. He'd learned the exact angle to hold his weight to avoid the warning pull in his thigh. Jace sat on the floor beside the bedframe, knees drawn up, his back against the wood.
Rhaenyra's eyes flicked over Aerion first, as if gauging whether he would crack the room open again.
"Stay," she told them both.
Laenor's gaze met Aerion's for a heartbeat.
"We'll send for you if we need you," he added.
Aerion dipped his chin. "He won't be alone."
Jace swallowed. "We've got him."
Rhaenyra's mouth tightened, then softened by a fraction. She reached down, brushed the back of her fingers across Luke's hair—careful, almost reverent—and stepped away.
The door closed with a quiet click.
The room exhaled.
For a long moment, nothing moved except the thin lift and settle of Luke's bandage with every breath, and the slow dance of the brazier's flame.
Jace's voice was a scrape in the quiet. "She won't let them… push for more blood, will she? Grandmother? Daemon?"
Aerion's violet eyes remained fixed on the sleeping form of their brother, unblinking. "Tonight is not about drawing more blood, Jace," he said, his tone flat and certain. "It is about drawing the map for what comes after. Deciding what fills the vacuum they just created."
Jace made a small, wordless noise. He rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his hand. His focus dropped to Luke's hand lying pale on the dark wool.
The quiet stretched, thin and brittle. Jace shifted closer.
"What do you think happens to them now?" Jace asked, his voice barely above the brazier's hiss.
Aerion finally glanced at him. "To whom?"
"Aegon. Helaena." Jace's gaze was fixed on the middle distance, seeing something else. "Their mother's… gone. Their grandsire's in a cell. What's left for them?"
Aerion turned back to watch Luke's sleeping face. "A considerable improvement, I'd imagine."
Jace's head snapped up, a frown etching his brow. "How can you say that?"
"She was a poison well. They drank from it every day. Now the cup is shattered." Aerion's tone was matter-of-fact. "Aegon won't have a crown shoved onto his head. He can spend his days drunk and charming with Sunfyre. Helaena can talk to her beetles without being told to pray for understanding. They might actually be happy now. They certainly won't be forced into a marriage meant to cement a throne they were never meant to have."
Jace absorbed this, his expression troubled. "She was still their mother, Aerion."
"And?" Aerion's single word was a cold stone dropped between them.
"And… I can't imagine it. If it was our mother. Taken away like that. Condemned. However she…" He trailed off, unable to finish the thought.
"If it were our mother in that solar, and us in their place," Aerion said, his voice losing its flat edge and gaining a sharper, darker one, "Alicent Hightower would not have allowed a single moment of pity to be wasted on us. She would have called it justice. She would have called it the will of the gods. She would have told her children that the bastard spawn of a whore-heiress got exactly what their blasphemous existence deserved." He let the ugly truth hang in the herb-scented air. "So save your sympathy, Jace. It's a currency they would never have spent on you."
Jace flinched, his face tightening. He looked down at his own hands, clenching and unclenching them in his lap. "It doesn't mean we have to be like her."
"I'm not being like her. I'm just explaining." Aerion's gaze drifted back to Luke. "They are not destitute orphans. They are the children of a king. Aegon has the most beautiful dragon in the world. Helaena… has whatever strange peace she finds. They have each other. They even have that bitch Aemond, for whatever hollow comfort his rigid disapproval provides. They will be housed, fed, given allowances. Their lives will be softer than ninety-nine out of a hundred people in this kingdom. They will be fine."
"Fine isn't happy," Jace muttered.
"Happy is for songs. Fine is what keeps you alive and out of a dungeon." Aerion sighed, a short, impatient sound. "Your problem, Jace, is you think everyone feels things as deeply as you do. Aegon feels the absence of wine more than the absence of his mother's ambition. Helaena likely feels the shift in the air as a change in the humming of the stones. They are not you. Do not paint them with your own brush."
Jace was silent for a long moment, watching Luke's chest rise and fall. "Do you really believe that? That they won't… hurt?"
Aerion considered. "Aegon will hurt when he's sober and has to think. So he will rarely be sober. Helaena… her hurt is a different color. It already lived in her. This just changes the pattern." He shook his head slightly. "They are not our concern. Our concern is in this bed. Our concern is ensuring no one else ever thinks they can take a piece of us again. Pity for the gilded cage of your enemies is a luxury we cannot afford. It is the first step toward forgetting the knife."
Jace didn't answer. He just kept looking at Luke, his brother's words settling over him like a chill, heavy cloak—harsh, perhaps, but woven from a steel thread of truth he couldn't easily cut.
The silence returned, deeper now, filled with the things they couldn't fix and the lines they were still learning to walk.
Aerion watched Luke's sleeping form. His fingers were curled as if Luke still expected to grab something.
Then Luke's breathing hitched.
The bandage rose too fast.
A soft, strangled sound slipped out of his throat.
Jace's head snapped up. "Luke?"
Luke's good eye fluttered open. The pupil was wide, black and drowning in the dim light. It rolled, unseeing, before focusing with terrible slowness on the canopy above. Confusion. Then a dawning, wet horror.
"J'ce?" The name was a slur, thick with poppy and sleep.
"I'm here." Jace scrambled up, leaning over the bed. "Luke, I'm here. You're safe."
Luke jerked, trying to sit up, and the movement dragged a sharp, involuntary gasp out of him. His right hand shot up toward his face—fast, panicked, fingers clawing for the edge of the bandage.
"No—Luke," Jace blurted, scrambling upright on his knees.
Aerion moved at the same time, the half-healed muscle in his thigh protesting the sudden burst, and caught Luke's wrist before the fingers could hook the linen.
Luke fought him.
"Get it off—" Luke's voice rasped. "Get it off, it's— it's—"
His hand tore against Aerion's grip, fingers scrabbling. The bandage shifted a fraction and Luke made a broken, thin sound that turned Aerion's stomach.
Aerion tightened his hold, firm enough to stop him without hurting him. "Stop," he said, flat. "Luke. Look at me."
Luke's eye flicked wildly. It found Aerion's face—silver hair, violet eyes—then skittered away again.
Jace climbed onto the bed beside Luke, careful not to jostle him. "Calm. Calm, you're awake, you're—"
"I can't see," Luke choked out, voice rising. "I can't—"
"You can," Aerion said, and the word came out too hard, like a snapped rein. He forced his tone down, shoved the sharp edge under his tongue. "You can see. Just not… with both."
Luke's breath came in ragged pulls. He tried to yank his wrist again, a desperate little twist. Aerion didn't let him.
Luke's lower lip trembled, then folded under his teeth as he bit down hard enough to blanch it. Tears gathered anyway, spilling quick and hot down the side of his nose, soaking into the linen.
"I'm a—" Luke's voice broke, and the next word came out like he was spitting a rotten fruit. "I'm a cripple."
Jace flinched as if struck. "Don't say that. Luke, don't you dare."
"It's true!" Luke's voice scaled upward, trembling toward a scream. "I'm a prince who's a cripple! What use is that? What do they call a prince who only has one eye?"
"They call him 'Prince,'" Aerion snapped, his patience a thin wire. "The same as before. Your blood didn't leak out with your eye, Luke. You are a Velaryon. You are a dragon-rider. No one with a working brain will call you a cripple to your face unless they wish to find out how well Silverwing cooks meat."
Jace shot him a look, pleading for less fire and more balm. He gathered Luke's grabbing hand into both of his own, holding it tight. "He's right, Luke. You have Arrax. You have us."
Luke turned his face away, shaking. His shoulders hunched under the blanket. He looked suddenly so small that Jace's hand hovered, helpless, before it finally settled on Luke's shoulder.
Luke's breath stuttered. "I'm not… I'm not like you."
Jace blinked. "What?"
"I'm not… I'm not going to inherit anything. Father always said… I was to be a knight. A warrior for Jace. Or a lord admiral, or… something that fights. How… how can I be a warrior with one eye?"
Aerion sighed, a short, exasperated sound. "Symeon Star-Eyes."
Luke's weeping hitched. His good eye, swimming with tears, blinked up at Aerion. "W-what?"
"Symeon Star-Eyes. A legendary knight from the Age of Heroes. He was blind. He fought with a great-sword made of pale crystal. He defended the Nightfort for sixty years. He heard the songs of stars, they say." Aerion recited it like a maester giving a lesson, his tone devoid of comfort, only fact. "If a blind man can be the subject of songs a thousand years later, you can learn to swing a sword with one eye. Your task is easier."
Luke stared, sniffling. The raw panic was receding, replaced by a bewildered, watery contemplation. "A blind knight?"
"A famous blind knight," Aerion corrected, relentless. "Stop sniveling. You have one eye. That is more than enough to see an enemy coming. It is certainly enough to learn your sums, or to read a map, or to command a ship. Depth is an illusion the brain creates. You will build a new one. Grandsire will teach you. The deck of a ship does not attack from the left. The sea is the sea, it does not care how many eyes you have."
Jace, sensing a fissure in the wall of Luke's grief, leaned in. "See? You'll learn. We'll all help. Every day. I'll train with you. We'll figure it out together. You're still you, Luke."
"But I'm not," Luke whispered, the tears beginning again, but quieter now, a ceaseless stream of sheer, accepted misery. "I'm not like you, Jace. You're the heir. You have to be… perfect. Or near enough. And I'm not like Aerion." His gaze flicked to his other brother, a look of awestruck, weary defeat. "I'm not clever like that. I can't make people do things with words. I can't see the strings. I was just going to be the brave one. The one who wasn't afraid of the dark water or the high yard. And now I'm…" He swallowed, the sound thick. "I'm Luke One-Eye."
Jace's face crumpled. "Don't call yourself that. Never."
"Why not?" Luke mumbled, turning his face back into the pillow, hiding from them. "It's what they'll call me when we're not listening. It's what I'll see in the glass. It's what I am."
Aerion watched him, this small, broken creature who saw the truth so clearly and was letting it drown him. He felt that old, hot wire of frustration ignite. A prince with one eye was still a prince. A dragon was still a dragon. It was simple. Why couldn't the boy see it?
"Fine," Aerion said, his voice dropping. "Luke One-Eye. A name for a song, then. But make it one they sing in fear." He leaned closer. "One day, you might even wield Dark Sister."
The image in his own mind was crystalline, borrowed from a future not yet born: a pale, one-eyed man in black furs, a white dragon coiled on a weirwood throne, the sleek, dark fang of Dark Sister at his hip.
Aerion kept his face smooth.
Luke swallowed, the panic shifting again, turning into something aching and wet. "I don't want to be—" He broke off, shaking. "I don't want to be… scary."
Jace's hand slid up, cupping the back of Luke's head carefully. "You don't have to be scary," he whispered. "You can just be Luke."
Luke's breath hitched. "But I'm going to look—"
"You'll look like you survived," Aerion cut in.
Luke's shoulders shook, and he tried to pull his hand again, away from Aerion's grip, as if he wanted to curl in on himself and vanish. Aerion let go of his wrist slowly, watching him like a hawk.
Luke immediately curled his hand into the blanket, fingers gripping hard enough to whiten. He didn't reach for his face again. He stared down at his clenched fist like it belonged to someone else.
Jace brushed Luke's hair back with his fingers, a slow, repetitive motion, like he was smoothing a sail in a storm. "They punished him," he said, voice thick. "Did you hear? Grandsire— the King— they—"
"I heard," Luke whispered, and his voice was small, almost lost.
Aerion stepped closer to the bed, his shadow falling across Luke's blanket. "Aemond was punished," he said, crisp. "His grandsire is in a cell. His mother is locked away to pray at walls. And Aemond himself is a ward here. He will remain here on Driftmark. He will not see King's Landing or Vermithor for a year. And I," a faint, cruel smile touched his lips, "will ensure his time here is instructive."
Instead of calming him, this made Luke cry harder, his small body shaking with silent, heaving sobs.
The tears came harder, suddenly, violently, his breath catching on sobs that shook his whole small body. He turned his face into the pillow, trying to smother the sound.
Jace panicked in a different way than before. "Luke—Luke, hey—"
Aerion's irritation flared, hot and useless. Why wasn't it working? Vengeance was a perfectly good balm.
Luke's shoulders shook. "I don't want—" he choked. "I don't want him here. I don't want to see him. I don't want—"
"I know," Jace whispered, voice cracking. He climbed fully onto the bed now, careful with his weight, and wrapped his arms around Luke. Luke clung back, fingers twisting in Jace's tunic.
Jace's face pressed against Luke's hair. His own tears slipped free, quiet and ashamed. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
Luke sobbed harder,. "I thought—" he gasped, shaking. "I thought I was going to die. I thought— I thought he was going to—"
Jace made a broken sound. "Don't— don't think about that. Don't."
Aerion stood at the side of the bed, hands clenched behind his back so tightly his knuckles ached. He watched them—Luke curled into Jace, Jace trying to be big enough for both of them—and felt something in his chest twist into a shape he didn't like.
He wasn't built for this. This … wet work. The trembling, the apologies, the holding. He could threaten princes. He could manufacture prophecy. He could cut rot from a realm.
He could not stop his little brother from crying.
Luke's sobs slowed into hiccupping breaths. His face was damp and blotched, his lashes clumped. He looked at Aerion through his one open eye like he was searching for the right lever to pull.
"I wanted to be brave," Luke whispered. The words were ugly with honesty. "I was brave, wasn't I?"
Jace's arms tightened. "You were," he said fiercely. "You were braver than any of us."
Aerion's throat tightened. He hated it.
Luke swallowed. His lip trembled. The tears came again, but quieter this time, less panic, more grief.
"I hate it," Luke whispered.
"I know," Jace said, pressing his forehead to Luke's again for a heartbeat. "I hate it too."
Luke made a small, wounded sound and clutched Jace's sleeve again. Jace held him, rocking slightly, and his own eyes spilled over. He blinked hard, trying to keep the tears from dropping onto Luke's bandage like some sort of curse.
Aerion watched, jaw tight, and felt the familiar itch of rage return—muted, banked. He could already see the corridor. Aemond's face. The sound of the slap.
He could also see Luke's face now: pale, frightened, trying to be brave and failing.
Aerion dragged in a breath, slow. He needed to pull Luke away from the edge again, but talk of legends and swords didn't work. Luke was a child. He needed something stupid and safe.
Aerion hated stupid and safe.
He did it anyway.
"Alright," Aerion said, abruptly.
Jace looked up, startled, tears on his lashes. "Alright what?"
Aerion ignored him. He leaned forward slightly, eyes on Luke, and began in a voice that was almost flat—like he was reciting a thing he'd heard once and didn't approve of.
"Tower, tower, stone so proud," Aerion said.
"Greedy root and greedy crown.
Grows and grows to drink the sun—
thinks the sky is something won."
Luke blinked at him, confused. Even his crying faltered.
Jace stared as if Aerion had grown a second head.
Aerion continued, unbothered by their disbelief.
"But high is the tower—high, high still—" he went on, and his mouth twitched, almost annoyed at the rhythm, "
"and wind has teeth and sky has will.
A dragon doesn't climb a stair.
A dragon simply takes the air."
"That's not—" Jace started.
Aerion cut him a look that said: die.
Jace shut his mouth with a hiccup of laughter.
Aerion's gaze never left Luke. His voice stayed steady, intentionally plain.
"Golden dragon, hungry bright,
"Counts his blessings, counts his right.
Wants a crown because it shines—
wants what isn't his by lines."
Luke made a weak, disbelieving sound. "Aerion."
Aerion did not acknowledge the interruption. He spoke over it, as though the sound had never occurred. "Listen," he said.
"Seahorse swims where salt is deep,
"Holds his vows and doesn't sleep.
Takes the storm and takes the bruise—
doesn't boast and doesn't lose."
Jace's shoulders shook. He buried his face in Luke's hair to stifle a sound caught between a laugh and a sob.
Aerion's tone sharpened for a beat, then softened again, like he caught himself.
"And there are little sea-dragons," he said, and his eyes flicked—quick, precise—over Jace, then Luke, then away again.
"Four sparks riding on the tide.
One in green, one in grey—" He broke off, irritated by his own choice. Tried again, looking at the wall. "—one in bronze, one in cloud, one in storm, one in bright."
Luke's one eye narrowed, still wet, still hurt. "That's awful."
Aerion lifted his brows. "Yes."
Luke stared at him. A tear slid down and caught at the corner of his mouth. He wiped it away with the back of his hand, careful not to touch the bandage.
Aerion doubled down, stubborn as a nailed board.
"Tower whispers, tower prays," he said.
"Counts its sons in candle haze.
But sea remembers. Sea is old.
Sea keeps oaths when men turn cold."
Jace made a strangled sound, half laugh, half breath, and gripped Luke tighter.
Aerion's voice dropped, the sing-song thinning into something closer to a promise.
"And when the tower cranes its neck,"
"and thinks it sees the world to break—
dragon wings will blot its light.
Sea will rise. The oaths will bite."
A beat.
Then he finished, quieter than the rest, like he'd run out of room to pretend this was only a silly thing.
"High is the tower," Aerion said softly,
"but a dragon has wings."
Silence settled.
Luke's breathing was still uneven, but it wasn't frantic. His shoulders stopped shaking. He blinked slowly, exhausted, the tears drying into tight tracks on his cheeks.
Jace brushed Luke's hair back again, gentler now. "There," he whispered. "There you are."
Luke's eyelids drooped, heavy as lead weights. "M'tired," he murmured, the words slurring into the pillow.
"Good," Aerion said, and the word came out sharp—a command. Then he forced himself to correct it, to sand the edge off. "Sleep."
Luke's eye drifted toward Aerion again, drowsy but clearer. The raw terror was gone, replaced by a deep, weary wariness. "Don't let him—" he started, voice slurring around the old fear, "don't let him come near me. Ever."
Aerion's hand, resting on the blanket, tightened until his knuckles showed white. The promise he'd made in the hall was one thing. This was different. "He won't," Aerion said. "His life here will be a long, grey misery. You will never have to see him unless you wish to throw an apple at his head."
That almost-ghost of a smile touched Luke's lips again. His eyelashes fluttered, too heavy to hold up.
Jace stayed close, not moving his hand from Luke's shoulder.
Luke's breathing slowed, deepened. His head sank back into the pillow, all the fight and fear leaching out of him, leaving only the profound weariness of the deeply hurt. The brazier hissed softly in the corner. The sea, ever-present, kept grinding its teeth against the cliff below, a patient, rumbling lullaby.
Luke's eye closed.
For a long moment, the only movement was the slow, steady rise and fall of the bandage on his face. Each breath seemed to stitch the frayed edges of the room back together, pulling the shadows into a softer shape.
In the new quiet, Jace's whisper was barely audible, raw with gratitude and a lingering tremor. "Thank you."
Aerion didn't look at him. He kept his gaze fixed on the sleeping face of their brother, on the stark white linen that marked the new shape of their world. He gave a single, slight nod. The watch, for now, continued.
The fire had burned down to stubborn, glowing embers by the time the latch lifted.
Aerion didn't look up from the heavy tome balanced on his knees. The Fires of the Freehold: A Bestiary of the Conquest. The illustrations of Meraxes's skeletal structure were passably detailed, though the author's speculation on draconic digestion was laughably naive. He'd been using the dry prose as a whetstone to keep his own mind sharp against the dull grind of waiting.
Jace was a heap of blankets on the floor beside Luke's bed, having succumbed to exhaustion an hour prior, his soft snoring a counter-rhythm to Luke's deeper, medicated breaths. Aerion had taken up the watch by default, a small, irritable sovereign in a kingdom of sleepers.
His mother entered first, a silhouette of black and weary purpose. Laenor followed, looking drained. Daemon was a shadow behind them, smelling of night and cold stone.
Aerion marked his page with a finger and closed the book with a soft thump. The sound made Jace stir but not wake. "Well? The Hand. The other vacancies. What's the dispensation?"
His mother's gaze swept to where Jace slept. She held up a hand. "Not now, Aerion."
"Why not?" he kept his voice low. "Otto's network won't dissolve with his arrest. They'll be scrambling."
"We have names," Laenor said, rubbing his temple. "The persuading takes time. And the King's seal."
From the doorway, Daemon's voice was a lazy drawl. "The fledgling hawk already wants to dictate the hunt. Eager."
Aerion shot him a glare but turned back to his mother. "So? Who?"
She walked to Luke's bedside, her back to him. "Tomorrow. You need sleep."
"I'm not tired."
"You are." She turned, and in the dim light, her face was just his mother's, seeing a boy in a chair. "You've held the line here long enough."
Aerion opened his mouth to argue, but a traitorous yawn cracked his jaw. He snapped it shut, furious with his own body.
Laenor moved to Jace's side, crouching. "Jace. Come on, lad. Time for a proper bed."
Jace stirred, mumbling. He pushed himself up, blinking, his eyes finding Luke, then Aerion, then his father. Then, without a word, his hand reached out and closed around Aerion's where it rested on the book. "C'mon."
Aerion stared at the hand engulfing his. It was warm, slightly damp from sleep, and utterly presumptuous. He was a dragonrider. He had just helped unmake a Hand. He did not need to be led to bed like an infant.
"I can walk by myself," he grumbled.
"Could've fooled me," Jace muttered, his voice thick. But the grip didn't loosen. If anything, it tightened.
Ah.
The last time Aerion had been this tired, this simmering with silent, furious energy in the aftermath of a crisis, he'd been left 'asleep' in his bed at Dragonstone. Jace had woken to find an empty space where his brother should have been, and a panicked household whispering of a silver shadow vanishing toward the Riverlands in the dead of night.
As if I'd fly off now, Aerion thought with a spike of irritation. The work here was done. The King's justice had been a cleaner cut than any dragonflame. And besides, Silverwing was likely drowsing on a wind-scoured Driftmark cliffside, Vermithor a sulking, bronze shadow nearby. She wouldn't answer a midnight summons for mere restlessness.
Jace pulled again, a gentle, insistent pressure, and Aerion, after a heartbeat of pointless resistance, let himself be hauled to his feet. He let himself be hauled to his feet; his stiff leg tingled, and the half-healed pull in his thigh bit at the movement.
Laenor stood. "Straight to bed. We break our fast with the King and his children in the main solar. Dress accordingly."
Aerion rolled his eyes. "I always dress accordingly. It's Jace who looks like he's been dragged behind a cart half the time."
It was a tired, old insult. The weakest of their many barbs. Jace, who would normally fire back with something about preening or Lysene affectations, simply sighed. A long, weary, bone-deep sound. He gave Aerion's captured hand another tug toward the door. "Shut up and walk."
Aerion went. Arguing required energy, and the yawn had betrayed him. He allowed himself to be pulled from the room, casting one last look back at the dim tableau—his mother a silhouette by Luke's bed, Laenor watching them go, Daemon's unseen smile still hanging in the shadows like a blade in its sheath.
The Rogue Prince's gaze was tracking the linked hands of the two princes with the quiet intensity of a man recognizing a pattern. The fierce one, dragged to heel by duty and a brother's grip. How familiar. Aerion made a point to scowl at him before the door closed.
The corridor was cooler, the salt-chill of Driftmark seeping through stone. Torchlight painted their linked hands in shifting orange and black as Jace, half-asleep and moving on instinct born of a hundred nighttime journeys to the nursery, navigated the turns. Aerion followed, his own steps automatic on the familiar path to the chambers they'd been given. His mind, however, detached.
It was an indignity, but a small one. Jace needed to perform his duty as the eldest, to shepherd and lead, to prove—to himself more than anyone—that he could hold things together. That he could keep his wayward, fire-touched brother from vanishing into the night to solve problems with tooth and claw. Aerion could afford to grant him this one victory, this pointless bit of caretaking. It cost him nothing but a little pride, and pride was a currency he had in surplus. He had enough to spend a little on Jace's peace of mind.
The hold was a leash Jace believed he held. Aerion simply chose, for now, not to chew through it. Let him have his illusion of control. It made him easier to manage.
His thoughts began to drift downstream. The image of Luke, small and broken, bled into another, older memory: the scent of leather and steel, the solid wall of a man's chest, the feeling of being held aloft in arms that could break a man's neck but were kind in truth. Harwin.
He would need to write, to let him know, before he found out from rumors. Aerion began composing the letter in his head, the words forming with precision as Jace steered them around a corner.
Ser Harwin,
Luke was attacked by Aemond. A knife. He has lost his left eye. The maesters say he will live, but he will never see from it again.
There. The facts, first. No pretty words. Harwin would prefer it that way. He had never had patience for velvet wrapping around a blade.
The King has acted. Otto Hightower is arrested for treason. Alicent Hightower is to be confined to a motherhouse for seven years. Her war is over. Aemond remains here on Driftmark, a ward of Lord Corlys. He is separated from Vermithor for a year.
He would include that detail. Harwin would appreciate the poetic justice: the boy who coveted a dragon so desperately, kept from it.
The matter of our birth is legally settled. Father affirmed us before the King and the court. The King has threatened death for any who speak otherwise. It is done.
He paused the mental dictation. Adequate. And still something underneath it shifted, alive and ugly and hard to name.
The next line came slower, like a reluctant confession dragged across his teeth.
Luke is brave. Jace blames himself. Mother did not waver.
He didn't add I couldn't stop him from crying. He didn't add I don't know what to do with it when they break.
He swallowed the rest.
The King is dying. Probably. But he remembered himself, in the end. You would have approved of the sentencing.
A grim nod, imagined. A brief, solid warmth.
We are safe. For now. Do not do anything stupid. Stay away from fire.
He would sign it simply:
Aerion.
Jace pushed a door open with his shoulder. Their shared chamber waited inside, quiet and smelling of clean linen and old sea-damp.
Jace finally released Aerion's hand—only to immediately take his sleeve instead, steering him as if Aerion might wander off mid-step. He shut the door with his heel and leaned back against it for a heartbeat, eyes closed.
Jace peeled off his outer layer with clumsy exhaustion and let it fall over a chair. He didn't light more candles. He didn't speak.
Aerion undid his own fastenings with efficient hands.
Jace climbed into bed first without ceremony, shoving the covers down and then up again, restless. When Aerion didn't immediately follow, Jace lifted his head.
"Don't start," Jace muttered, voice thick with sleep and leftover fear. "Get in."
Aerion hesitated just long enough for the moment to matter, a tiny, silent assertion of choice. Then he stripped to his shirt and slid in beside Jace.
Jace shifted at once, turning his back toward Aerion, then changing his mind and turning back again. His hand found Aerion's forearm under the blankets—warm, searching, and then settled there with quiet finality.
Aerion went still at the contact.
Jace's voice came out smaller than it had any right to. "Just… stay."
Aerion stared into the dark, throat tight with a thing he refused to name. He let his arm remain where Jace had put it. He let the hand stay.
"I am staying," Aerion said, and meant it in the narrow way he allowed himself to mean things.
Jace exhaled, a long breath he'd been holding for hours. His forehead drifted forward until it pressed lightly against Aerion's shoulder, the gesture so unconscious it could almost be denied.
Aerion didn't move away.
He lay there, rigid at first, listening to Jace's breathing slow.
The letter finished itself in his head, neat and finished and ready for ink.
Tomorrow, he told himself.
Jace's grip tightened once—sleep claiming him, instincts still guarding the door.
Aerion stared at the ceiling until his eyes burned, and sleep finally dragged him under.
They broke their fast in the long hall at High Tide, where the windows looked out on a hard grey sea and the tapestries smelled faintly of salt and sorrow. The table had been laid too carefully—bread still steaming, bowls of honey and figs, fish set out with lemon and herbs—like order could be plated and passed hand to hand.
Viserys sat at the center, wrapped in dark cloth and furs despite the brazier's heat. His crown was on. That alone kept people's spines straight.
To one side, Rhaenyra and Laenor with their boys; to the other, Alicent's children in a neat, tense line. Corlys and Rhaenys anchored the far end, Daemon lounged, Baela and Rhaena silent beside him.
There was one empty chair.
Aerion saw it the moment they entered. A stab of hot, irrational fury shot through his chest. After yesterday. After everything. He dares to be absent? He didn't look at it again. Looking again would have been admitting it mattered, and he refused to give the chair, or the coward who should be in it, that power.
Behind Aerion's shoulder, a white cloak settled into place without ceremony. Ser Steffon Darklyn did not hover. He stood steady and watchful, eyes moving over the hall.
No one mentioned the missing prince. Viserys least of all. The hall filled with small sounds instead: the scrape of knives, the soft clink of cups, the controlled murmur of words that meant nothing.
"The maester assures me the swelling is much reduced," Rhaenyra said to Rhaenys, her voice a careful, public thread. "He's resting quietly."
"A child's resilience is a blessing of the Mother," Rhaenys replied, the words perfectly courteous.
Daemon leaned toward Corlys, his voice a lazy drawl. "The wind's turned westerly. It'll be a smooth sail back to the capital. For those who are sailing."
Corlys grunted, tearing a piece of bread with more force than necessary. "Smooth seas make for restless crews. They prefer a fight."
At the other end of the table, Alicent's children were quiet. Helaena was not eating. She had a boiled egg, untouched, before her. Her fingers worked at the delicate pale-blue wool of her sleeve, teasing a loose thread into a tiny, anxious coil. The color suited her, softening the silver of her hair and the distant focus of her gaze, which was fixed somewhere beyond the stone walls. Aerion noted it. No green. He doubted she would wear the color again.
Aemond sat beside her, clad in a severe, unrelenting black. He held himself with his usual rigid posture, but it seemed brittle now, like a statue left too long in the rain. Deep, bruised shadows pooled beneath his eyes, dark as ash. His lips were pressed into a thin, bloodless line. He hadn't slept. He must have spent the night staring at the ceiling of whatever cell they'd given him, Aerion thought, and the image sent a thrill of satisfaction through him.
Aerion's mind, almost without his permission, began ticking through a list of petty torments. Have the servants 'misplace' his belongings. Ensure his lessons with Corlys were on the most tedious aspects of tide charts and cargo tariffs. Make his life a long, grey, monotonous misery.
His survey of Aemond's misery was interrupted by a shift of white in the corner of his vision. Ser Criston Cole stood sentinel a few paces behind the Green children, his face a mask of stony piety. No one spoke to him. No one acknowledged him. He was a ghost in a white cloak, already fading from the story. Aerion looked at him for a beat, remembering the rumors he and Laenor had set loose like rats in the walls. White cloak clean, white cloak bright… He felt nothing. The man was already ruined. A solved problem.
Slowly, Aerion lifted his gaze from his uncle and his hound. Viserys was looking at him.
His milky, sunken eyes held a tired, penetrating focus. There was a question there, or perhaps an assessment. It was the look from the solar, stripped of its feverish intensity, hardened into something quieter and more enduring. Is it done? it seemed to ask. Did the root stay cut?
Aerion met the look and gave a single, shallow, utterly correct nod of his head. The movement was small, a prince acknowledging his king's regard. It was the most dutiful gesture he had ever performed. He let his own face smooth into an expression of grave attentiveness, the very picture of a grandson humbled by the weight of recent events. He even allowed his shoulders to soften, a subtle show of deference.
From his place down the table, Daemon watched the exchange, and rolled his eyes.
Aerion didn't look at him. He kept chewing.
"Eat, eat," Viserys said once, his voice a dry rustle that cut through the low murmurs.
Aegon's chair remained empty. The bread cooled anyway.
Aerion kept his hands busy. He tore a piece of dark loaf. He spread honey with precision. He ate with the deliberate focus of someone determined to give no offense, no opening. Across from him, Jace drank water like it was medicine, his gaze fixed on the middle distance. Luke wasn't there, of course. His absence was the only one anyone allowed themselves to feel, a palpable hollow at the table.
Laenor, attempting normalcy, turned to Jace. "The Seahorse is being re-rigged. I thought, when Luke is well enough, we might take her out. Just a short trip. For the air."
Jace blinked. "Yes, Father. That would be… good."
When Viserys finally pushed his cup away with a tired, satisfied motion, chairs scraped back, and people stood to leave the table.
As Aerion stood—the shift tugging at his thigh—Daemon was suddenly beside him, a hand clamping on his shoulder, steering him away from the others with a grip that was half-guard, half-menace.
Ser Steffon shifted a fraction behind Aerion, not stepping between—Daemon was Daemon—but the movement was there, a white shadow adjusting its angle.
Daemon leaned down, his breath warm against Aerion's ear.
"The dutiful grandson," Daemon murmured, his voice a low, mocking rasp. "I used to do that too, you know. For my grandsire. The Old King. All solemn eyes and bowed head. Convinced him I was the realm's most precious, obedient little prince."
Aerion kept his gaze forward, posture still impeccable. "How inspiring."
Daemon gave Aerion's shoulder a slight, painful squeeze. "He wised up." A cruel, reminiscent smile touched his lips. "He was a clever old man. Cleverer than my brother by a league. He saw through it faster than you'd think."
He paused, letting the silence thicken. "And when he realized what I really was…" Daemon's lips curled in a memory that held no warmth. "…he let my dear grandmother, the Good Queen Alysanne, plan my wedding to Rhea Royce. A land-locked, bronze-clad mare from the Vale, to tie me down, to blunt my edges, to bury me in sheep shit and silence. A 'reward' for my service. A 'suitable match' for a 'spirited prince'."
Daemon's eyes found his. "So be very, very careful what you do with that pretty, pious face you're making for Viserys. He's not as clever as the Old King, but he's desperate. And desperate men make arrangements for the problems they can't solve."
He released him with a shove that was almost playful and melted back into the dispersing crowd.
Aerion stood motionless for a moment. Viserys was not the Old King.
But for a heartbeat, a ghost flashed behind his eyes—a girl with hair like night and haunted eyes, another unwanted second son, another problem neatly shelved on a distant, miserable shelf. Daenora. The name was ash on the tongue of his memory. He slammed the door on the thought before it could take shape. No.
He was not Daemon. He was the Heir of Driftmark. The Sea Snake's grandson. A future Lord of the Tides. Viserys could not simply dispose of him like an unwanted second son. He shut the thought down, hard, locking it away in the same deep place where he kept the taste of wildfire. No. That was a different kind of madness, born of a different kind of fear.
His gaze swept the thinning crowd. He saw Jace lingering with Laenor, saw his grandparents' retreating backs, saw the tight cluster of black and blue that was Alicent's remaining children under the watchful eye of their ghostly knight.
And the empty chair sat there like a deliberate insult.
Aerion's anger returned.
Fine. One problem at a time. The absent coward first.
He headed for the corridor, his white knight following without a word, and intercepted Helaena in an alcove off the main corridor, where a tapestry of the Merling King offered some privacy from passing servants. "Aunt."
She turned her wide, placid eyes on him. "The fly is trying to remember the taste of the fruit bowl. It's confused. The window is clear, but the sweetness is gone."
"Where in the seven hells is Aegon?" Aerion asked, his voice low, cutting through her words.
Helaena's fingers plucked at the sleeve of her dress. "The sun is hiding in a bottle," she murmured. "It doesn't want to shine today. It's afraid if it shines, they'll ask it to be the sun for the whole sky again, and it's so very tired."
Aerion's jaw worked, the muscle tightening. "His chambers. Is he in his chambers?"
Her eyes snapped back to his, and for a fleeting moment, the distant haze cleared, replaced by a piercing, unnerving lucidity. It was like watching a cloud thin to reveal a sharp, cold star. "If you go," she said, her tone dropping into something nearly ordinary, almost warning, "Don't knock too loud," she added. "You'll spill what's left of him."
Aerion held her gaze for a heartbeat longer, then gave a single, curt nod.
He turned and walked.
Aegon's chambers sat on an upper level, close enough to the sea-facing side that the air tasted like salt even through stone. Two guards stood nearby, but they didn't block Aerion. One stepped aside the moment he approached.
Aerion didn't bother asking permission.
He opened the door.
The smell hit first.
Wine. Old wine and new wine, sour-sweet and clinging. Stale sweat. Something burned and bitter in a brazier that had been fed herbs meant to mask a mess and had failed. Under it all, a faint trace of citrus oil—someone had tried to clean and given up.
Aegon lay sprawled across a driftwood-framed bed, one arm flung over his eyes. Loose silver-gold hair had fallen in a bright spill over the pillow and his temple, strands stuck to his cheek where wine and sweat had dried. An empty flagon lay on its side near his hip, a darker one, still half-full, was clutched loosely in his other hand, resting on his stomach. He didn't move as Aerion entered, but his breathing hitched.
Aerion stepped in and shut the door behind him.
The sound made Aegon flinch. His head rolled slowly to the side. His eyes, when they found Aerion, were the color of spoiled amethysts, the vibrant violet drowned in a bloodshot haze. Recognition swam up from some deep, murky place within him, slow and laboring.
"Well," Aegon mumbled, voice thick. "Look at that."
Aerion stood over him.
"What," Aerion's voice utterly devoid of warmth, "are you doing."
Aegon blinked. "I'm… celebrating," he slurred.
Aerion didn't smile. "Celebrating what."
Aegon's mouth twitched, not quite forming the smirk he aimed for. "That I'm not currently the one in a cell. Or a motherhouse." His gaze slid off Aerion. "Yet."
Aerion took two steps closer. The floor creaked. Aegon's fingers tightened around the bottle like he expected it to defend him.
"You didn't show," Aerion said.
Aegon's eyes narrowed faintly, the silver of his lashes catching the low light, as if thinking hurt. "I noticed."
"The King ordered it. Everyone sat there like dolls in a mummer's show. And the King's firstborn son was notably absent. Do you understand what that looks like?"
Aegon turned his head, meeting Aerion's gaze with effort. "It looks like me not sitting at a table."
"It looks like defiance," Aerion countered, stepping closer. "Like you making a point."
Aegon stared at him for a long, silent beat. Then he laughed.
It cracked halfway through, dissolving into a wet cough that wracked his frame. His face contorted, and he swallowed hard, grimacing at the taste. He pushed himself up, propping himself on a trembling elbow, and reached for the half-full flagon on the bedside table, fumbling for the cup beside it.
Aerion watched, the rage in him crystallizing into something murderous. This was the weakness that had allowed the rot to grow in the first place. While Luke lay bandaged and Aemond schemed and their mothers fought, this… creature was reaching for another drink.
As Aegon's shaking fingers finally closed around the cup's stem, lifting it in a pathetic toast to nothing, Aerion's hand shot out and closed around the gobletl. For a fraction of a breath their fingers touched—Aegon's damp and unsteady, Aerion's cold.
Wine sloshed over the rim, splattering the sheets in dark stains.
Aegon's head snapped up. The haze in his eyes thinned. For the first time since Aerion entered, Aegon looked properly awake.
"Aer—" he started.
Aerion did not look at him. He turned, and hurled the cup into the brazier.
The impact was a dull clang. The remaining wine, volatile, hit the hot coals with a WHOOSH.
A gout of flame erupted from the brazier, licking up the stone wall behind it. The room flared with sudden, hellish light, painting their faces in stark, dancing shadows. The heat washed over them, like a breath of dragonfire.
Aegon yelped, scrambling back against the headboard, his arms coming up to shield his face. The flagon in his lap tumbled to the floor with a thud, miraculously not breaking.
Aerion stood in the flare-light, unmoving. The fire painted him in colors.
For a heartbeat the only sound was the brazier's angry crackle and the small, ragged noise Aegon made as he tried to remember how to breathe.
Then—outside—the unmistakable, urgent thunder of a gauntleted fist.
BANG. BANG. BANG.
"My prince!" Ser Steffon's voice, sharp with alarm, cut through the oak. "Prince Aerion!"
Aerion didn't answer at once.
He stood in the flare-light, shoulders rigid, chest rising too fast for someone who prided himself on composure. His jaw worked once, then again, grinding down whatever wanted to climb out of him. The line at the corner of his mouth twitched as if it wanted to snarl.
Aegon lowered one arm a fraction and looked at him through the gap. The firelight caught his face and made it look carved for a moment.
He looked… startled. Then intent.
Because he'd seen it.
He'd seen the line in Aerion crack. He'd seen the thing Aerion kept leashed.
The flames died as suddenly as they'd risen, leaving behind a black scar on the stone, the acrid stench of burnt alcohol, and the goblet glowing among the coals.
Aerion inhaled. Held it. Let it out through his nose with quiet precision.
A beat of silence from the corridor.
Then Ser Steffon again, voice firmer. "My prince. If you do not answer, I will enter."
Aerion's throat tightened, the last scraps of rawness shoved down hard.
"Don't," Aerion said, voice even, carrying cleanly through the wood. "Do not come in. Everything is fine."
There was a pause, just long enough to be felt.
Silence.
Then, softer: "As you command, my prince."
Aerion waited another heartbeat, until the blood stopped racing in his ears.
When he turned back, his face had smoothed itself into something colder.
He stepped closer to the bed.
Aegon did not flinch away this time.
"Celebrate quietly," Aerion whispered, flat, and infinitely more dangerous than his shout. "Or don't celebrate at all. But if you ever insult the Crown's justice—my family's justice—with your cowardly absence again, I will find a way to have Sunfyre locked in the darkest pit beneath the Dragonmont, and you will spend every day of your miserable life listening to him scream for a sky he cannot see. Do you understand me?"
Aegon's throat worked. He nodded, a quick, jerky motion, his eyes huge.
Aerion sighed and took a step back.
"You didn't show," Aerion repeated, but the heat was gone from the accusation. "I will have your explanation now."
Aegon lowered his arms slowly. He looked from the smoldering brazier back to Aerion.
"I… couldn't," Aegon said, then. "I saw her. They were leading her away. She looked at me. And I… I just stood there." He swallowed, his gaze dropping to the wine-stained sheets. "He couldn't even look at me, you know. At the end. My own father."
Aerion's jaw tightened. He refused to feel pity. "Your father is the King. You are a Prince of the Blood. It's past time you started acting like one, and not a kitchen boy who's stumbled into the wrong hall."
Aegon's gaze sharpened, a flash of anger cutting through the haze. "Don't," he rasped. The warning had no force, but at least it had feeling.
"Why not?" Aerion pressed, relentless. "Luke is downstairs with half his face gone, your mother's praying herself into a stone box, your brother is a knife-wielding twat who's lost his dragon, and you're up here drowning. What exactly should I commend you for?"
Aegon flinched—and then, impossibly, his lips quirked. With a helpless, drunken sort of agreement. He had been irritated with Aemond since they were boys. He huffed a breath that was almost a laugh.
"He is a twat, isn't he?" Aegon mumbled, almost to himself. "A rigid, humorless, preening twat." Then his eyes, too bright and too wet, found Aerion's. "At least you're an interesting twat."
Aerion recoiled a fraction, thrown off balance by affection disguised as filth.
Aegon saw the recoil and softened.
He pushed himself up properly, swaying. "She's gone," he said, the words hollow.
Aerion's mouth went dry. He gave a single, curt nod.
Aegon let out a short breath. "Locked away with her prayers and her beads." He turned his head, his eyes finding Aerion's, wet."Do you know what it feels like," he asked, his voice pitching low, "when the thing that's been sitting on your shoulders, whispering in your ear, shaping your every breath for your entire life… just… steps off?"
Aerion's anger stalled.
Aegon's eyes flicked over Aerion's face, searching, unfocused.
Then it came out, clumsy and devastating.
"She wanted me to be you," Aegon said.
Aerion went very still.
Aegon huffed a soft, ugly laugh. "Or… not you you," he amended, waving a limp hand. "Don't get a bigger head. She wanted the… the idea of you. Fire. Purpose. Something sharp enough to cut through anything. You walk into a room and the air changes. People watch you. They get quiet. You look at them like you're deciding how they'd burn." He said it with a kind of drunken awe, stripped of malice.
Aerion's face stayed smooth.
"That's absurd," he said, his voice flat.
"It's true," Aegon insisted, and there was a strange, fierce certainty in the slur. "She'd look at me… like I was clay. Disappointing clay. Like if she just pressed hard enough, prayed loud enough, I'd finally take the shape she wanted. A king. A conqueror. A proper Targaryen." His throat worked. "And I just… didn't want to."
Aerion's voice was colder than the stone at their feet. "You wanted to drink. And fuck. And make fools laugh at your jokes."
Aegon's eyes flashed. "I wanted," he said, strong enough to surprise Aerion, "to be left alone."
For a moment, Aerion only heard the sea hissing faintly through the shutters.
Aegon's shoulders sagged. He slumped back against the pillows, suddenly exhausted by his own honesty. His fingers still clutched the flagon, knuckles pale.
"I wanted Sunfyre," he said, quieter. Almost tender, and that tenderness made Aerion's skin crawl because it sounded real. "I wanted to fly. To burn the sky and not have anyone tell me what it meant. Not duty, not legacy, not the realm. Just… wind and gold and the way he sings when he dives."
Aerion stared at him.
Aegon's throat bobbed. His eyes glimmered, stupidly bright. "He's… beautiful," he whispered, looking like a small boy. "Do you know how it feels to have something in your life that doesn't ask you to be better. It just… is."
Aerion's anger had nowhere to land. It circled, searching for a target and finding only a mess.
"You were in the hall," Aerion said finally, forcing his voice back to hardness. "You heard Aemond. You heard what he said before he did it."
Aegon flinched as if struck. "I heard."
"And you did nothing," Aerion pressed, digging the blade in, not knowing why he needed to. "You didn't stop him. You didn't stop your mother's whispering. You didn't stop your grandfather's plotting."
"From trying to make me king?" Aegon's laugh turned into another wet cough. He wiped his mouth again. "No. I didn't stop it. I can't do anything right. That's the whole song, isn't it?"
Aerion took a sharp breath, held it, let it out through his nose. His fists, which had been clenched, opened by force.
He swallowed, his eyelids growing heavy. "I thought about coming to find you. Yesterday. After." His gaze slid away, ashamed. "Thought you'd look at me the way you look at a rat in the kitchen. Deserving of a boot."
Aerion didn't answer. The silence stretched.
Aegon's gaze drifted back, and for a heartbeat there was something almost childlike in it—a confused, crooked need.
"Thank you," Aegon said then.
"For what?" Aerion asked, his voice strangely tight.
Aegon's brow furrowed, as if he'd lost the thread. "For being… you," he finally managed, then his face crumpled in a grimace of self-loathing. "Gods, that's maudlin. Ignore me."
He was slipping away, the lucidity draining from his eyes, leaving only the wreckage behind.
"She wanted fire," Aegon whispered to the ceiling, his voice thin as ash. "But I'm not fire. I'm just… smoke. I don't burn right."
Aerion stood over him, his own thoughts swirling confused in his head.
"Sunfyre will still take me," Aegon murmured. "Even if I'm wrong."
Aerion exhaled. A flicker of pity tried to kindle in his chest.
"Get up," Aerion commanded.
Aegon's eyes fluttered shut. "No."
Aerion leaned down until his face was inches away; the composure almost cracked again, a glimpse of the thing that had thrown a goblet into fire.
"I said," Aerion whispered, "get up."
A ghost of defiance touched Aegon's mouth. "Make me, you vicious little gnat."
For a second, Aerion considered it—the satisfaction of hauling him up by his shirt, of dumping water on his head. But the image of Sunfyre, glorious and vain, surfaced in his mind.
He straightened. His voice, when he spoke, was cold and precise, each word chosen for maximum, petty impact.
"Fine. Lie there and marinate in your own filth," Aerion said, turning toward the door. "But when you finally stumble out to fly, do try to not to vomit all over Sunfyre's scales. He's far too beautiful to be stained with Dornish red." He paused at the door, hand on the latch, and delivered the final blow without looking back. "And clean yourself up before you're seen. You're a Prince of the Seven Kingdoms. Try, for once, not to look like the afterthought you so desperately wish to be."
He left, shutting the door softly on the silent room. Behind him, Aegon didn't move. But after a moment, a single, choked sound escaped him—a cough, a sob. It might have been a laugh. Or it could have been the shape of a name, swallowed whole before it could fully form.
He'd taken three paces when the sound of other boots, heavier and marching in unison, echoed from the intersecting corridor ahead.
Aemond and Ser Criston Cole were marching toward him from the opposite direction. Aemond's face was a mask of tight-lipped, self-righteous purpose, his healing nose giving him a permanently offended expression. The knight's expression was rigid.
They saw him at the same moment he saw them. All three stopped.
Torchlight flickered between them, brightening the narrow space into a small stage. The corridor felt tighter. Aerion's hand still carried the faint heat of the brazier, smoke in the skin. He tasted wine on the air behind him, stale and sour, and it sharpened something in his mouth into metal.
Ser Steffon took one silent step closer behind Aerion.
Aemond's eyes found Aerion, then flicked past him to the closed door. Understanding settled over his features, tightening the line of his mouth, which was perhaps too perfectly shaped for the bitterness it so often held. "You," he said, the word a flat accusation.
Ser Criston's hand rested on the pommel of his sword. A statement. I am still here. I am still armed.
Ser Steffon stared back blankly.
Aerion looked from one to the other, his expression one of mild, disdainful boredom. He tilted his head slightly, his eyes lingering on the livid mark on Aemond's cheek.
"Uncle," Aerion said at last, coldly. "Ser Criston."
Aemond's gaze flicked to Aerion's knuckles, as if expecting blood there. Then back to Aerion's face.
Aerion tilted his head a fraction, studying the bruises on Aemond's cheek.
Cole's gaze cut toward the white cloak behind Aerion and stayed there a fraction too long.
"Out for a walk?" Aerion added. "You've taken a wrong turn. The gardens are the other way."
Aemond took a sharp step forward, ignoring the jibe. "Is he in there?" he demanded, jerking his chin toward the door.
Aerion blinked, slow. "Who."
"Do not play games," Aemond snapped. "Aegon. He missed the King's breakfast. He is… unwell." The pause was filled with disgust. Drunk. "He needs to be seen to."
Ser Criston shifted his weight, his gaze boring into the side of Aerion's head. "It is not your concern, Prince Aerion."
Ser Steffon's stillness broke.
He stepped close enough that his white cloak brushed Aerion's shoulder. His voice came out low and edged. "Mind your tongue, ser," he said. "You speak to a prince. Choose your manner."
Cole's jaw tightened.
Aerion didn't look back. He let the moment breathe.
Then his lips curled into a sneer. He let his gaze travel over Aemond's stiff posture, over Cole's watchful glare, and back to the door. He made a small, dismissive sound in the back of his throat.
"It became my concern when his absence became a pointed insult to the Crown," Aerion said, looking only at Aemond. "And it has been handled."
Aemond's eye flickered with something—annoyance, suspicion. "Handled how? Did you offer him a bedtime story?" The scorn in his voice was palpable.
Aerion's sneer became meaner. "You can go in and fuss over him if you like. Mutter about duty. Try to polish him up. But the work is done. He won't be missing any more meals." He gave Aemond a slow, up-and-down look.
Then he turned his attention, briefly, to the knight, "You are relieved of your duty to fetch him, ser. You may return to your post."
Aerion's gaze dropped to the sword hand. "Or to your prayers."
Cole's face went stony, but a flush crept up his neck. He said nothing.
"You had no right—" Aemond began, taking a half-step forward.
"I had every right," Aerion cut him off, his voice becoming dangerously soft. "The King's justice today drew a new map. You are a ward here. A penitent. You do not give orders. You do not 'see to' princes. You will learn the tides and you will learn your place. It is below mine."
He let the words land, watching the fury turn Aemond's pale face blotchy red. Ser Criston's hand tightened on his sword, but the knight was trapped—Aerion was a prince, and his words, however vicious, were an echo of the King's own judgment.
Aerion gave Aemond one last, dismissive look, up and down, as if inspecting something unpleasant he'd found on his boot. Then, without another word, he stepped neatly around them—though the motion pulled at his thigh hard enough to make his teeth press together—and continued down the corridor, Ser Steffon moving with him like a white shadow.
He could feel Aemond's furious, helpless stare burning into his retreating back, a brand of impotent rage that was, for now, the sweetest victory of all.
Notes:
Whew. Okay. So.
Everyone needs therapy ASAP. (Aerion most of all, I fear).
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